Planning Commission - public_hearing

Commissioner Manor is participating remotely for personal travel. He's joining us from Mexico City. Before we begin, I have a few announcements about participating in tonight's meeting. If you wish to speak on a docket item and have not already signed up to do so, please fill out a speaker form online by following the sign up to speak hyperlink on the cover page of this evening's public hearing docket, or in person by filling out a hard copy speaker form, which can be found on the tables located immediately outside the chambers, and providing it to Ms. Jacobs, who has her hand raised. Please note, comments from the public are limited to three minutes per speaker, except for applicants and their representation. To make your public comment through the Zoom application, please click on the Raise Hand button located on the Zoom taskbar once you hear your name called to let staff know you need to be unmuted. If you are dialing into tonight's meeting via phone, please press star nine to execute the Raise Hand function once you hear your name called upon to make your statement, followed by star six to toggle the unmute function. For those here in person, please step up to the podium located at the front of chambers when your name is called upon and identify yourself by first and last name. The city encourages and welcomes public comments from all residents on planning commission matters. In keeping with that principle and with the principle of inclusiveness, this is a reminder of the shared expectation that the content and tenor of public comments always be civil and respectful. Thank you for honoring those principles. A reminder to all, including commissioners, staff, and speakers in the chambers, please speak directly into the microphone to ensure all can hear you clearly. And with that, do we have any changes to tonight's docket?

Yes, Madam Chair, we have a change for docket item number four has been there's a deferral request by the applicant. Okay.

All right, I'll take a motion for deferral.

Move to defer docket item number four.

I'll second. I have a motion by Vice Chair Koenig and a second by Commissioner Ramirez to defer docket item number four. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries 6-0. Yep. All right. No other changes to the docket.

Except the consent calendar. We'll get there. Yeah, no other changes.

Okay, that brings us to the consent calendar Are there any commissioners wishing to pull an item from consent tonight? Or are there any public members of the public pulling an item from consent?

Yes We have a member of the public who wants to pull docket item number two, which is the subdivision at 1 14 East Raymond Avenue Okay, and any other changes by commissioners I

Hearing none, I'll take a motion to approve consent calendar item three.

Move to approve consent calendar item number three.

Second.

All right, I have a motion by Vice Chair Kanigan, a second by Commissioner Ramirez to approve consent calendar item three. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Did I hear Jody on that one? Oh, you're muted, but I see your mouth moving.

All right, that's a six six zero approving document three that brings us to docket item two on the consent calendar Docket item number two zone subdivision 20 26 0 0 0 0 5 1 14 East Raymond Avenue public hearing and consideration of a request for a subdivision to resubdivide an Existing lot into two lots the property is owned are two five residential single-family The applicant is Timothy Moran

Good evening commissioners Katie McDonald with planning and zoning. As Mr. Jacob said this is a subdivision request for 114 East Raymond Avenue. There we go. They are requesting to resubdivide a single lot into two new lots. Both of the lots comply with the zone regulations for two-unit semi-detached dwellings. And the new lots are consistent with other lots on this block and in the area of comparison. This is in the r25 residential zone It's currently occupied a single by a single unit dwelling the immediate surrounding uses are residential, but there is a commercial right down the street as well The original lot is a little over 5,000 square feet, as you can see here. And what they are proposing is to divide it in half in order to redevelop it with a semi-detached two-unit dwelling. Staff is recommending approval as it fits with the surrounding block face. There's six other lots on this block of East Raymond that are developed with semi-detached units and so have very similar lot characteristics. And there, I believe, are 10 total in the original subdivision. So it's very in character with the surrounding lots. And I can take any questions.

Thank you. Are there any questions for staff from commissioners?

Let's go to our public hearing our first and only speaker is Barbara Fox

I see a timer here, right? Okay. So my name is Barbara Fox, and I want to first thank you all for listening to my concerns tonight. I wanted to share with you why I think a duplex at 114 is not appropriate for the neighborhood. I have two basic reasons. One is that the home shouldn't be demolished in the first place, and the second is that a duplex in this location would adversely impact neighbors on the block. I am the next-door neighbor. As we know, Bluestone builders bought this property. What I know about Bluestone is that they have done work in the neighborhood, specifically helping with foundations and digging out basements and things like that. I understand that my neighbors who have worked with them in the past have been very happy with their work. I also understand that Bluestone intends to raise the house and build a duplex on this single lot. I oppose this for two reasons. The first is that this is a classic Delray home, a Dutch colonial, and should not be torn down at all. The house is a very well-built 1920s home. Homes built in this era are solid. They're made from strong construction materials like old growth lumber. They have thick plaster walls and are cool in the summer and warm in the winter. They also provide natural soundproofing, which is particularly important since the airport is right out our back door. It would be an enormous waste to simply trash those great qualities. Further, this house has loads of potential if it were simply updated and expanded. There are two other identical Dutch Colonials across the street that have been preserved and have had beautiful, spacious additions to accommodate what we now consider to be what we want to buy. Keeping the front facade and renovating the interior would keep that great character and the curb appeal that Del Rey is known for. I might add that a renovated single-family home may garner the same price as two units combined, as is evidenced by a single-family home just a couple doors down. The second reason that I oppose building a duplex is because it would adversely impact neighbors on the block as follows. Two new homes in place of one would greatly impact parking on Raymond Avenue. Two additional curb cuts means two fewer parking spots for existing residents. Already the parking on Raymond is abysmal. Most homes on East Raymond have multiple cars, but not all homes have driveways. With a very successful restaurant a block away, there's no chance of getting a parking spot if you return any time after 4.30. Also, our neighborhood is built on a high water table and Delray is notorious for having basements flood. To add more paving to 114, which is what I expect will be new driveways, may cause further water problems and I would be concerned that it would impact our property. I'm also concerned about the aesthetics of a modern duplex fitting into the Delray style. While I don't have insight to Bluestone's plans, many of the teardowns being replaced with duplexes in the neighborhood don't have that Delray curb appeal. People moved to Delray for a reason, for its uniqueness and early 20th century charm. That it? Yeah. All right. Thank you.

Thank you very much. That's the end of our public speakers. Okay. I'll take a motion to close the public hearing.

Move to close the public hearing.

I'll second that. I have a motion by Vice Chair Koenig and a second by Commissioner Ramirez. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries 6-0. And that brings us to commissioner discussion. Who'd like to kick off?

In terms of what response they might be able to share with us especially in terms of this first concern about that the existing home shouldn't be demolished. Is there any existing mechanism by which the community can affect kind of a preservation requirement on this?

Currently, there's no locally regulated historic district in this area. I know it's been talked about for a long time. Therefore, we don't have any legal mechanism as staff to require or suggest, recommend that the home be preserved because there's nothing in our ordinance that protects it. in terms of What the community could do they have to it has to be community-led if they do want to create a historic district I don't know the complete process but I do know it has to be come from the community itself to put that historic district in place and get it voted upon by council and

I think it seems to me that it's also not inherently germane, even if there was historic protection, to an actual subdivision application.

Correct. We're just looking at the actual lot dimensions and if it fits with the character of the other lots in the area. Um, we mentioned that they want to develop it with a semi-detached just because we have different zone requirements for single unit versus semi-detached in this zone. There are different law requirements. Um, but the actual development that is put on there is not, um, something that is considered with the subdivision.

Well, thank you for that response. I think it does also strike me that it's a very interesting question in terms of even if it's not specifically germane to this application, it raises the question for the evolution of the neighborhood that, and I don't think I had ever focused on this before, that obviously if we take a single lot It's all compliant with the zone. This is what R25 was originally designed to do back in the 20s, and that's the way half of the neighborhood was built. But when we apply that to a site that has a house that's been on there for 50 or 100 years, it becomes clear that the practical effect of the subdivision is to lay out a path where redevelopment can only occur by virtue of demolishing the existing house. from staff's perspective and in terms of planning and zoning interactions with Board of Architectural Review. And with all due respect for the fact that it needs to be a citizen-led process to change the rules in any way, the sort of underlying planning and observation of the evolution of the neighborhood, there's something happening here that's not an intended consequence. And the observations that are made by our citizen testifying tonight are a clear indication of the fact that that's not an insignificant impact on the neighborhood and whether there's some way that that gets evaluated or wound into long-term thinking about how Delray should evolve. Thank you.

Any other commissioner comments? Holly, I see your mic on, but I don't know if that's you asking to talk. All right. Thank you, Vice Chair Koenig. Yeah, I'm in support of the application on its strict merits as a subdivision application. And I think it's just important. There are multiple kinds of decision that we see that sometimes are conflated with other things that are ramifications of the decision. And we don't have a means to evaluate neighborhood fit in that way in a subdivision approval. But I really appreciate your observations that there are potentially things that neighborhoods can do together as in concert with one another to change the rule book so to speak about what what happens as things as the community ages frankly and Things like this become more possible as each of the buildings age and new new owners Come into the neighborhood of maybe have different a different set of priorities or values and And yeah, so I don't have any objections on the merits of the subdivision itself.

Madam Chair, I'd be willing to move approval of subdivision 2026-00005 for 114 East Raymond Avenue.

All right. I have a motion to approve the subdivision. Do I have a second? Second. All right. I have a second by Commissioner Ramirez. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries 6-0. All right.

And that brings us to docket item five. Docket item number five, special use permit 2026-00019, 1010 and 1020 Princess Street and 331 North Henry Street. Public hearing and consideration of a request for a special use permit for the conversion of a non-complying structure for commercial to residential use with yard and open space modifications. Property is zoned CL, commercial low. The applicant is Old Creek Homes LLC, represented by Duncan Blair, attorney.

Good evening. Sam Shelby here, Planning and Zoning. As Kendra said, this is property 1020 Princess Street. It's actually assemblage of parcels with different addresses. And it's a request basically to convert an existing office building to a residential building. And it needs reductions from the yard and open space requirements because of where the building is built. And because when the building was built as a commercial building, it wasn't subject to these requirements. So converting it requires relief from these specific requirements. We are in support of this application because it reactivates an underutilized office building. and that the yard and open space reductions requested would not create offsite impacts. So this is in the Braddock Road Metro neighborhood. It's zoned commercial low, and it's surrounded by a variety of uses, residential and office and retail. And there's a place of worship on Route 1 nearby, too. The building was built in the late 1980s, and it's a primarily vacant office building today. And again, the request is a special use permit request to convert an existing building. The applicant proposes a four-unit multi-unit dwelling. Previously, the applicant had proposed an 11-unit dwelling, and that has been reduced to four. They would be sort of arranged like townhouses and divided vertically into four units. As I mentioned, the applicant has requested reductions from the yard and open space requirements because the building is basically built to the lot lines. There was no requirement for it to provide setbacks when it was built. And the zoning ordinance doesn't have requirements like that for commercial buildings today. So only residential buildings really are subject to setbacks. And only residential uses are subject to open space requirements. So again, to convert the building, And to keep it the way it is, it needs these reductions from those requirements. The applicant proposes rooftop open space. Each unit would have access to a terrace that's about 230 square feet each. Other than that, there aren't a bunch of changes to the exterior of the building, just mainly some facade refinements and changes to the roof to accommodate this rooftop open space. So generally, there's no change to the building height or footprint. And I will mention this is in the Parker Gray Historic District. And because of the extent of the changes proposed, this would require BAR approval. And so you're seeing a little bit less or maybe a slightly more drafty version of the elevations than you ordinarily would, that because this is going through another city board for final review and approval, the application materials include kind of an idea of what it's going to look like, but final design and decisions are up to the BAR here. The applicant would provide or the site does provide currently for off street parking spaces that are accessed by the alley that's perpendicular to Princess Street and those would be maintained for the use of residents of future residents. We found that this is consistent with the small area plan which has goals that essentially prescribe a kind of an active but lower density mixed use neighborhood in this immediate area. There would be no impact under the neighborhood feel because the building is basically staying kind of as is. It would look very similar to the way it does now. The side yard and open space reductions are both necessary because otherwise, essentially to meet these requirements, the building would have to be demolished. In order to meet the setback requirement, On the south side, the building would have to be demolished to meet that requirement. And with the proposal of providing rooftop open space, and given the number of units provided, we feel that the open space is reasonably met. It's infeasible to meet the requirement And the space that's provided on the rooftop is sufficient outdoor open space for each of the future residents that would live there. Because of these things, there would be minimal offsite impacts to infrastructure or parks or other public facilities given the low number of units that are proposed. Because this is a special use permit enabled conversion per the Office of Residential Conversion Policy, The applicant will make a $12,000 voluntary contribution to the housing trust fund. And as with many of our conversion special use permits, these buildings were designed for office users 40 years ago, which have different expectations and needs than residents in 2026. And so they're conditions concluded by our Office of Environmental Quality to ensure that a noise study is conducted to make sure that especially because this building is right on Route 1, which is busy, and trucks are prohibited from being on the GW Parkway, that future residents are protected from unnecessary vibration or noise. And so changes to the building, like windows or insulation or that kind of thing, may be needed to make sure that the residents are not unduly impacted. We are recommending approval, and I'm here to answer any questions anybody has.

Thank you. I have a question. So you noted in your description that the applicant started with a design that had 11 units and then changed it to four. Can you describe why?

So we met with the applicant and discussed. Originally, the 11 units were proposed. The zone has no restriction on the total number of units there. So it's going to be a partial answer from, I can give the city's perspective on why that changed, but the applicant probably could fill in a little bit there too. But we were identifying a threshold sort of concern with the number of units and the amount of open space that was available. That if there were this many units and only this amount of rooftop open space available for the site kind of generally, that it might make more sense to have fewer units here.

Is there an open space? requirement expectation associated with our office to residential conversions beyond just try your best? Because we're clearly giving an open space reduction approval here if we recommend that.

The way the policy is written is that the entirety of the special use permit considerations can apply. So it's basically weighing out offsite impacts. But the primary way to get even through the door is that the applicant has to demonstrate that it's infeasible to meet the baseline requirement. So we didn't exempt conversion applications from open space requirements, but they do have to demonstrate that it's not possible.

Right. And in this case, it's virtually impossible with 11 units, but some open space is providable with four, and staff are more comfortable with that package. Is it your sense that... How did staff weigh the value of having more units that were smaller units in this area to the value of each unit having open space in the design that ended up coming forward?

I'm not sure I can say with confidence that that was a specific consideration. It was just there's not enough open space maybe for, I don't know if there was a formula or a specific thought process of 11 units with no open space versus four. If you can bring the proposal closer to complying, it's usually better that having some open space is better than zero. It's not a very satisfying answer.

Well, it's not, but it's interesting because it points at how influential our expectations are even when we set parameters for waiving them and we have maybe conflicting policies across the city that are telling us to do different things and you're charged with somehow figuring out the right balance. Thank you for that. Any other questions for staff? All right. Do we have public speakers?

We do.

Excuse me. I had my hand raised. Oh, sorry. Sorry, Jody. It's OK. No problem. No problem. Sam, the four parking spaces, is that kind of normal with four units of this type in this area?

The zoning ordinance doesn't require any off-street parking for multi-units with four or fewer units. But it does end up, if there were a parking requirement, this would meet the parking. Well, it wouldn't technically meet the parking requirement because the spaces are compact. So it's a little bit of a mixed bag here. The parking's not required. If it were required, it wouldn't comply. But the number of spaces compared to the number of units works out.

OK. and hard to believe that an office building was constructed with only four parking spaces. Thanks very much.

Our single speaker is Dino Drudi, and that will be followed by the applicant's representative. He will be followed by Duncan Blair. Dino? Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm the president of West Old Town Citizens Association. This particular application has required an extensive amount of due diligence on the Citizens Association's part. We met with staff Thursday and after the meeting out came that memo revising and correcting the number of units we only got this afternoon at four o'clock an answer from staff to our second question this has greatly impacted our ability to for the West Old Town board to decide how to put this in front of whether we can decide it on our own or does that go to the membership you know blast it out through social media etc Certainly four rather than 11 has made us the Citizens Association much more predisposed toward this project. And the applicants attorney has been very open and very open with us and very accommodating. Regrettably, staff's decision earlier this year to no longer give special briefings to the Federation of Civic Associations, which would have given us considerably more lead time, has forced us to rush these due diligence questions so close and has complicated the deliberations. I want to make clear that the due diligence, although it is extensive, does not imply that the Citizens Association in any way opposes this project. The Board is still looking at it. I did notice when I looked through the materials that the question on alcoholic beverages was answered. I don't know what that's all about. And that many of the questions about construction were not answered, which is another due diligence question. But I wanted to reassure the Planning Commission that the extensive due diligence that this has required is not a negative reflection on the project itself or the four units which simplify the due diligence and make the Citizens Association more amenable to this particular project. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Good evening, Duncan Blair, representing Oak Creek Homes on this application. I appreciate Mr. Drudy's complimenting me on reaching out to him and talking to him on numerous occasions, provided as much information as I could. This project is a good project. Sorry to see this business focused at a solution, realizing it did not need the space. They were our tech firm. They are surviving. They are moving. So this is a good adaptive reuse to put four townhouses into a residential neighborhood. Four townhouses as opposed to 11 units. As the Old Creek Home began to define and look at very closely. You know, 11 units more is not always better. And there was so much infrastructure that needed to go and the units just got smaller. And so then it went back and re-looked at what was potentially on the original premise was four townhouses. And while we haven't found the site plan, this was originally built to be for townhouse offices. So it's really going back to the townhouse form. The BAR will look at all the exterior architectural features. And as part of the urban environment, we think that providing open space, which was also a driver of this change, creates an urban living environment that will be enjoyed by the residents and hopefully Be good neighbors to the community glad to answer any questions Thank you very much.

Are there any questions for the applicant? Thank you, it doesn't look like there any questions All right, do I have a motion to close the public hearing move to close the public hearing I I have a motion by Vice Chair Koenig and a second by Commissioner Dubé to close the public hearing. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries 6-0, and that brings us to Commissioner discussion. Yeah, Commissioner Dubé.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just have a question for staff. Can you comment on what Dino was talking about with the briefings that you no longer do? Is that a different format for that, or is that...

Yeah, so we used to brief the Alexandria Federation of Civic Associations, and we've pivoted to a more encompassing and a wider audience regular standing meeting where we go over all the cases that are coming up before a public hearing. That's my understanding. I don't know if Director Stoddard wants to kind of add to that a little bit.

Yeah, that's correct. I'm happy to build on Sam's point. So one of the things we learned more recently in some of our smaller planning efforts is that broader based engagement approaches got us to a wider variety of viewpoints and allowed more people to engage in the conversation. So as we've done in the director's report, we've highlighted our ongoing planning and zoning bimonthly meeting series. OF COURSE WE ALWAYS ADVERTISE THE MOST RECENT MEETING AS WELL AS THE NEXT UPCOMING MEETING DATE IN OUR PLANNING DIRECTOR'S REPORT. AND ALL OF THE PAST RECORDINGS ARE AVAILABLE ON THE PLANNING AND ZONING WEBSITE. AND SO WITH THAT NOW BEING A PRACTICE THAT WE HAVE NOW GOING FOR ABOUT A YEAR, WE MADE THE DECISION EARLIER THIS YEAR TO STAND DOWN THOSE RECURRING BRIEFINGS SPECIFICALLY TO THE CIVIC FEDERATION AND PUT MORE OF OUR EFFORT INTO THOSE BROADER BASED APPROACHES WITH THE BIMONTHLY COMMUNITY MEETING SERIES.

Absent anyone else's commentary, I'll just offer that I'm in support of the application. I think it is just fine as a project like this in this location. My questions around the number of units was not, I just want to be clear, it's not a direct critique in the sense that I have any Any confidence that an 11 unit project would be better here and I can appreciate that fitting 11 units with all of the things that they have to duplicate and the nature of that that existing structure could be a lot more challenging. It's more this question of the priorities like what are evaluation criteria are how staff have to look at the project and the things you're trying to fit into a project And having recently adopted our 2040 housing master plan and thinking about what targets we might anticipate coming forward through a public process. So we can see as a community where we're headed in terms of housing production and affordable housing production. In particular, it all it strikes me as an interesting question how we handle office to residential conversions generally, and when we are asked to weigh certain the provision of certain things on a site over others, more units or more open space, potentially, in this case, open space and parking that better matches the unit number but wouldn't have matched as well if it had come forward as an 11-unit project. But an 11-unit project provides smaller, potentially more affordable units for a different price point and a different type of resident. So it poses an interesting question, not one that causes me any concern in approving this reuse. And it's always fun to see how we can be creative about our existing structures, make the most of them, and bring new life into the corners of our neighborhoods. Yes. Commissioner Ramirez.

Just wanted to express as well my support for the project. I think, honestly, looking at it and thinking about the contrast between 11 units versus four units, part of me thinks about the conversions that we have for office to residential And where I probably get my biggest heart palpitations are thinking about the existing structure that was originally proposed for an office use, a commercial use, versus what I know as kind of Swiss cheese that comes with the structure that's needed for supporting all the infrastructure for residential use. I don't think that this conversion also is out of line with the area. We see these row houses all throughout Old Town, all through Um, the Parker gray district, um, it, it feels like it, it's gonna, it's gonna fall right in there, you know, and it's just moving a couple of door locations where, you know, a little bit of the, um, window rhythm. Um, but otherwise, um, the, uh, the typology, um, doesn't stray very far. So excited to see another conversion going on in old town.

Madam Chair. Yes, Vice Chair Koenig. I am also in support of the project, and I move to recommend that council approve special use permit 202600019 for 1010 and 1020 Princess Street and 331 North Henry Street.

I'll second. All right. I have a motion by Vice Chair Koenig and a second by Commissioner Ramirez to recommend approval of this special use permit. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries, 6-0. Thank you. All right that brings us to docket item 6 special use permit 2026.

Item number 6 special use permit 2026 00018 5601 and 5603 Courtney Avenue and 727 30 and 750 South Van Dorn Street public hearing and consideration of a request for a special use permit for a 5 year extension to continue operations of an asphalt plant amending sup 2017 97 property is owned I, industrial. The applicant is Virginia Paving Company, represented by Ken Wire, attorney. Hello.

Good evening. My name is Rachel Drescher, Department of Planning and Zoning. So this is a request to extend a sunset date for an asphalt plant, SUP, from January 1, 2027 to January 1, 2032. The property is located at 5601 Courtney Avenue and zoned I Industrial. It's surrounded by a mix of residential, commercial, and industrial uses and is located in the floodplain. Some brief background on the SUP. So an asphalt plant has been operating at this location since 1960 with an SUP. In the early 2000s, the SUP was brought back to city council in response to a request to have trucks operating at night. And this was a result of complaints that the city had received. At this point, city council did approve the SUP, but they added extensive conditions related to noise, odor, air quality, stormwater, and landscaping. An additional condition was also added to bring the SUP back for review once the Eisenhower West small area plan was adopted. In 2015, this plan was adopted, and in 2019, City Council rereviewed the SUP, found that the use was incompatible with the Eisenhower West small area plan, and they set a sunset date for closure on January 1, 2027. So in evaluating this request, staff looked at four different considerations. So staff reviewed the small area plan, redevelopment in the area, compliance history since the prior approval, and the public benefit. In terms of the Eisenhower West small area plan, a heavy industrial asphalt plant continues to be inconsistent with the long-term vision of the plan. The plan envisions this area to be mixed-use district with residential and commercial uses The second factor that staff reviewed was the current area redevelopment and the site specific challenges The site is located in the floodplain and any redevelopment would require considerable environmental remediation The property is currently zoned industrial. So closing the business does open the site up to other industrial uses. I In terms of area redevelopment, our current market trends, construction costs, and raising interest rates have slowed development activity overall. So while currently the surrounding uses do remain relatively unchanged since the 2019 approval, there are expected to be some land use shifts, most notably the Lennar mixed use development within the next few years. And there still are residential uses in the area. As the ongoing projects are developed, the character of the area will change the context of this site. Staff also looked at the compliance history since the 2019 approval. The city does conduct an annual inspection every year, and there have been no violations of the SUP in the last seven years. And finally, with public benefit, this is an employer in the city, and the business does support local and regional paving needs. So if the extension is approved, staff is recommending the following revised conditions. So condition number one, It's a reduction in the asphalt production caps from 980,000 tons annually to 600,000 tons annually, and this is based on their past production and expected future production. Condition number nine, it's no asphalt production where air quality is code red or worse. Condition 60 is related to the South Van Dorn Street Bridge, which this property is abutting. It's planned to be expanded, and we are recommending the condition for them to maintain the landscape buffer between the street and the operations, along with removing invasive trees. Condition 67 is the sunset date condition. And staff is recommending to add language requiring a closure plan two years prior to the sunset date. Condition 70, it's recommended Courtney Avenue improvements for general public. This is also related to the Lennar site. As we are expecting more pedestrian use, connecting that site with Courtney Avenue and adding sidewalks and landscape buffering. And then condition 71, installing doors on the asphalt loading facility. This was something that the applicant offered to do. So staff is recommending approval of the five-year extension with the recommended conditions We find the applicant does have a proven compliance history since 2019 and The requested extension does not alter the long-term land-use designation It allows for a continued interim use of the property under our highly regulated sup while market conditions improve and the adjacent site is redeveloped And we find that five years balances the current reality of the area with the future context of the surrounding development. And I'm happy to answer any questions at this point.

Thank you very much. Are there questions for staff?

Yes, Vice Chair Koenig. A question relative to the Condition 1 proposal about production caps. Just to make sure I'm understanding the information that we discussed a little bit in the briefing, this annual cap, how does it compare this newly proposed annual cap of 600,000 tons? How does that compare to the way production has actually been running over the last few years?

So they've been, from our annual reports, they've been operating around the 300 mark. And that can go up to 450. Depending on the size of a project, the applicant has explained to staff that this could be higher depending on VDOT projects and other city-related projects.

Okay, so would I be correct in understanding that the intent of the modification to the cap is to sort of acknowledge the reality of lower levels of production over recent years and still allow for the possibility that there would be a bit of a peak above that recent average, but to establish an overall cap that's lower than the 900 and some odd thousand before? That is correct. So it's not about attempting to generate any actual reduction of production. It's just about right-sizing the cap.

Are there other questions for staff? Yes, Commissioner Dubé.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The five-year, was that proposed? Was that something you guys negotiated or was it they came to you with five and that was, you didn't say how about one or two or?

So this was the applicant's request. I think staff is comfortable, and this was kind of the max that staff was comfortable with, with the improvements that are happening along the Van Doren Street Bridge and the Lennar site.

Okay.

Thank you.

Actually, Madam Chairman.

Yes. A process question. So if this extension were not to be approved, what happens on January 1, 2027? Okay.

They would be required to not no longer operate so between now and January 1st They most likely would we would need to see that they're shutting down There's some state permits that they will need to show that they're closing operation But, yep, they're no longer operating by January 1st.

Okay. So the site effectively becomes dormant. Does the property owner at that point have options for reanimating the property in some way that doesn't require an SUP?

So the site would be opened up to any of the industrial uses that are allowed by right. Um, so that would include, uh, go down uses, but any sort of storage, uh, manufacturing, um, some commercial uses are, are allowed in the industrial zone.

So in that sense, it would be like any other use that if someone came in with a proposal to modify their business license to accommodate a buy right use, as long as they were then actually going to operate completely within the constraints of the buy right limits and not cross into any threshold that requires another SEP, they could proceed on that basis.

Great, yeah, no land use here.

Could they actually come back with a proposed alternative use that is different but still requires an SUP?

Yes, yes. So they could come back with any of the industrial SUPs that are listed in the iZone.

And one last variation on that. If this owner or another came back to propose another use, what are the requirements and what is the expectation for the condition of the abandoned, no longer operational plant that's on the property?

Just to make sure I'm understanding just what happens to the SUP conditions?

No, I'm sorry. Do we have a sense of assuming that what actually happens on January 1, 2027 is that work just doesn't commence that day? From that point on, what's the physical reality of the plant and the architecture and the physical equipment that's on the site?

So it could just remain there. Yeah, it becomes a vacant site.

And somebody coming in to make a new operational use that is by right, they presumably would have some requirements to make sure that the site is safe, appropriate, and legal for its uses, which may or may not involve adjusting or modifying the equipment that's already there.

Yes. So most likely a building permit would be required. Any sort of changes to the site might require a site plan, which would

Trigger some stormwater requirements and other city requirements Thank you, I Have a question for council we got a one of the comment letters on this item was a community member expressing concern about the way that Planning Commission is interacts with applicants. I'm not sure if it goes beyond that, but it seemed to be a sort of procedural question on communications that we have on docket items. Are you familiar with that and can you give us some clarity?

Yes, I think the language used was ex parte communication between an applicant and members of the Planning Commission. There are no legal limits and there's no legal restriction on the ability of Planning Commission members to speak to applicants, to speak to

staff or to speak to any members of the public about a pending application okay okay um thank you for for clarifying that and and i i got the feeling sometimes it's what you feel in the writing i got the feeling that that the main concern was the transparency around it although using terms Ex parte sounds legal, which is why I'm asking you about it. And I can't wax eloquent on the legal stuff. But I can appreciate a concern for transparency. And we try very hard to make ourselves accessible. to applicants and community members on all the items that come before us. So staff are actually the way you reach us. And I just want to make that clear that on any item that we see before us, community members that were related to that item can reach us through staff to attempt to have us come out to see the site with them and have conversations and that kind of thing. Great. Let's move to public.

Commissioner Manner.

Great. Thank you. Commissioner Manner.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Rachel, you were very kind to answer some questions I had this afternoon. I just want to clarify that the applicant has received no viable offers to purchase the property. Is that correct?

That is what the applicant has informed staff, yes.

OK. All right. Thank you.

All right. We can open the public comment period. I have one final question. Our first speaker? Yeah, yeah.

Go for it. Last minute question. Again, to speak about the future of the site, if a buyer came and wanted to make it residential, there would be a rezoning process then?

Yes. Yeah, there'd be a rezoning process. Yeah, depending on what they wanted to do with the site, it might require other SUPs

Just wanted to note as part of the zoning for housing housing for all housing is permitted in industrial zones however, it is in the floodplain which Put some other challenges for residential uses so all of those things would need to be taken into account and that would also be true if an industrial use was moving in there and

All right. OK. Yep. Our first speaker is Richard Greenberg, followed by Martin Menes, followed by Hernando Garzon. Richard Greenberg. OK.

I'm going to go ahead and- Richard, can you speak? Yes, can you hear me? Yes, we've got you now.

Okay. Thank you all very much for your time this evening. My name is Rich Greenberg and I'm a principal with Greenhill Capital based out of Bethesda, Maryland. We are the owner of 23 acres, roughly 23 acres adjacent to this site. If you may or may not recall, back in 2018-2019, I sat in front of this commission and worked with staff towards the approval of two separate CDDs totaling 3.1 million square feet of mixed-use redevelopment. I can tell you that since that time, any and all interested parties, whether they were users, investors, partners, et cetera, have all raised concern with the current status of the plant, not just for its eyesore, but obviously air quality and other issues. Our site will not be moving forward or cannot move forward while the plant is in its current condition. AND I WOULD ALSO JUST LIKE TO RESPOND TO THE COMMENT OR THE QUESTION AND COMMENT THAT WAS JUST MADE ABOUT NO INTEREST IN THE PROPERTY. WHILE I AM AWARE OF SOME CURRENT INTEREST IN THE PROPERTY, I CAN TELL YOU THAT WE, GREENHILL, MADE AT LEAST ONE, AND I BELIEVE TWO, SEPARATE WRITTEN OFFERS OF INTEREST TO PURCHASE THE PROPERTY THROUGH OUR COUNCIL FROM EUROVIA, NEITHER OF WHICH WERE EVER RESPONDED TO. Um, but therefore we are in opposition of, um, you know, stretching this out for another five years. Um, and, um, we would like to see it, uh, clean shut down and cleaned up, you know, as soon as possible. Thank you again for your time. Appreciate it.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Martin minutes followed by Hernando Garzon, followed by Joyce Sullivan. Martin minutes.

Good evening, commissioners, and thank you for coming out on this stormy night to do the work of the business. I, however, am disappointed to be here tonight. And I tell you why. I think that the, well think about seven and seven. Seven years ago this SUP was renewed and over 90% of the time into this now, that is to say seven months left on that seven years, Here we are at the 11th hour talking about this. By the way, I just wanted to say also, even though I'm part of the Cameron Station Civic Association and had a hand in the correspondence that you've already seen, I'm speaking tonight as a homeowner of Cameron Station as an individual. Just wanted to make that clear. I and some of the other homeowners feel like we've sort of had the rug pulled out from under us and that there's a reluctance on the part of the cities, namely the staff, and you've seen the presentation, to abide by an agreement already made. In other words, we're letting Virginia paving off the hook. There's a commitment on the part of the city via this SUP from 2019 to the residents. for all the reasons that you've already seen in the correspondence. And I don't need to go into the incompatibility with the various documents and work that others have done in the Eisenhower West Small Area Plan, the Landmark Van Doren Corridor Plan, and, of course, the Eisenhower West Landmark Van Doren Implementation Advisory Group. had content that is incompatible, looking in the future, with the status quo. So not only do IN OUR VIEW, DOES THE CITY NOT NEED EXCLUSIVELY VIRGINIA PAVINGS ASPHALT? THERE ARE OTHER SUPPLIERS AVAILABLE. BUT ALSO, AS MR. GREENBERG HAS JUST MENTIONED, THERE ARE OTHER OUTFITS THAT WANT TO USE THIS PROPERTY. IT'S NOT LIKE IT'S NOT WANTED OR WOULD LIE FALLOW. We think this is a lack of advocacy on the part of the city for the citizenry versus the economic gain of Virginia paving. And I just did some back of the envelope tax calculations of the 1,800 or so residences in Cameron Station, although everyone is not as fortunate to have a townhouse like mine. And we're talking about $15 million worth of taxes. that we we in Cameron station contribute to the city and finally I'll just say that if the city still goes ahead with this we would recommend that not be 5 years, but rather a one-year maximum extension.

Thank you and they need to get get going and it's because Fernando Garzon followed by Joyce Sullivan followed by Mindy Lyle. It's on. If you could unmute, Fernando. You'll need to unmute your mic. Are you able to unmute him, Ted? OK, we'll come back. We'll circle back. Our next speaker. Let me see. Now is better? Oh, there you go.

We got you. OK, thank you. OK. OK, a few points in here. I'm a little bit surprised with the analysis that has been done as of now to sort of extend the SUP that has been extended so many times. And then I'm an economist, and I look at this from an economics point of view. I don't think there is not any city in the world where you talk to the drivers and say, well, we are going to sign an agreement that you don't cross red lights. No, that's not done. They say if you cross a yellow line, a red line, it's going to cost you X. And that means enforcement of the terms of an agreement. Because I have no idea exactly what does it cost to have an SUP. I have no idea how much does it cost to violate an SUP. So basically it seems to me that the system of incentives or disincentives are totally failing. There are no incentives for them to move out of that area and there are And the incentive for them is to stay there because, of course, the price of land is increasing constantly, not because of their efforts, but because of the population growth and the development of housing since the 1960s. In the 1960s, this plant was in the middle of nowhere. Why? Because that probably was the perfect location for a plant like this type. But then what happens? There was urban growth. There was population growth. There was housing development, commercial development, many other things. And then this plant ended up in the middle of residential and commercial areas in a place that is totally inadequate for this type of activity. So I'm not blaming the plant. I mean, this happens. Urban growth happens. Nobody should fall on that. But we would be at fault if we don't enforce adequate urban planning. So we have to look at the system of incentives and disincentives. Otherwise, we extend it for one year or five years. And then the same story is going to repeat. It's going to repeat. And why? Because there is no penalties. I mean, you could correct me on that. But I would like to know what are the penalties. THIS PLANT OBVIOUSLY IS CAUSING SOME NEGATIVE EXTERNALITIES IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD. AND IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD IS THE WAY IT IS. IT'S PARTICULARLY BECAUSE MANY ACTIVITIES, ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES DON'T WANT TO LOCATE NEAR THIS PLANT. SO MAYBE MECHANICS IN THEIR GARAGES PROBABLY THE ONES THAT WERE USING WE ARE THE NEIGHBORS OF THIS AREA. THEY ARE WILLING TO PUT UP WITH THAT. AND NOW WHEN I HEAR ABOUT that the owner is going to leave the plant, and that this is going to be abandoned, and it's going to be an obstacle, that immediately lacks some kind of economic analysis. There is an opportunity cost for an owner.

MS. Mr. Garzon, yes, your time is up tonight.

Okay. Thank you. Well, thank you for listening.

Thank you so much.

Our next speaker is Joyce Sullivan, followed by Mindy Lyle, followed by Dale Pepper.

Good evening, everyone. I own a condo at 400 Cameron Station Boulevard, and we bought the condo with the understanding that Virginia Paving was going to be closing. I'm not able to open my windows in the morning because of the smell, the noxious smell of asphalt. And although I would love, I have a little balcony and I would love to have coffee out there, but I'm not able to do that. because I would have to be smelling asphalt, which is very unpleasant. And it really does impact the quiet enjoyment of my property. And I'm just really perplexed why five years more would make any difference. I had actually contacted the mayor because I noticed that nothing seemed to be happening with their transitioning and closing their operation. But I just don't have any faith that another five years will help them to get ready, because I'm not sure that their intention is to ever leave. And we're about... My building is right next to Tucker, which is about a football field away from the asphalt plant. And it is just so difficult to have to smell that smell when I'm trying to go for a walk or just have the quiet enjoyment of my house. Something that we haven't mentioned is the traffic from the very slow moving trucks is also very hard on Van Dorn, especially going up that street to 495. And there are a lot of trucks that come and go. So I think that giving Virginia paving more time, I just have no faith that it's going to result in any kind of movement forward with the closure. So thank you.

Thank you very much.

Our next speaker is Mindy Lyle, followed by Del Pepper. Thank you.

Hi, I'm Mindy Lyle. I'm a resident of Cameron Station. My involvement in the Eisenhower West began with the 2009 Industrial Use Study. It continued because I was chair of the Eisenhower West Small Area Plan Advisory Group. We made a huge mistake with the small area plan. That was the first plan that we did not rezone properties in the area. All other plans up to that point, we did a rezoning with approval of the small area plan. Had we done that, we would probably not have been here in 2019 or tonight. Right now we're seeing significant progress in the Eisenhower West area. There are multiple sites on Eisenhower West under control, under construction and development. We have Vulcan that will probably begin construction within 10 months. Right now it's in the compaction stage. There are two Marriott hotels along with homes going into that site. I know you saw the email from the owners. And even in the broader West End, we're seeing a lot of progress, even though everyone says this is a difficult economic time. It's a place where people want to go to. Not to... say that Virginia Paving has been a community partner. They've been a good community partner since we did the SUP and got rid of most of the violations early on. But in less than a year when construction starts on this Vulcan site, We're going to have more construction traffic combined with, as someone just said, truck traffic from Virginia paving that's constant and has been a constant during paving season. One of the issues is we've said it's been said by staff that they're in total compliance with their SUP but actually they're not because the SUP called for closing plans to begin two years ago. No closing plans have been submitted to date. It also required that they Notify the city of any letters of interest on the property that never was done So they're actually in violation of a couple of minor conditions But here's my suggestion. I don't believe that they can close by January 1st. I think they've pushed this to the limit and It isn't going to happen. I think a one-year extension is fair which keeps them in compliance with their sup and It allows them to close. Can I have one more second? But I'd also ask that you do a rezoning at another condition and rezone the property immediately upon closing to a mixed use zone of some sort so that we don't end up with a by right industrial use on that site. Thank you. Thank you.

Our final speaker before the applicant's representation is Del Pepper.

Okay, now I'll be as fast as I can, because I know you want to move on. I don't know how much time I have, so I'll be quick. Let me begin by saying that the docket item that the Planning Commission put together was really excellent. I felt that it was well and that it was a real effort to be as fair as you possibly could. Anyway, I appreciate it. And I'm not sure everybody else did, but I did. Anyway, let me begin. I was part of that city council that voted to give Virginia Paving a five-year extension. We never meant for them to come back and ask for another extension. That was it. Five years, final, no more. Amen. And I have to say, I do understand what the planning department has said, that they're thinking that the economy is going to be so bad. And therefore, we need to have something in place so we have some kind of an income. And so we might as well keep Virginia paving. Well. As long as they are occupying this present location, they make it less attractive for developers to make bids. They don't know what they can count on if they keep getting, the developers don't know what they can count on if we're constantly giving these extensions. If this extension is granted, we will be in the same situation as we are in right now. only we will have lost five years. Maybe I'm an optimist here, but I think the economy is going to improve within the next few years. Even so, look at all the development that's happening right now. Look across the street from Virginia Paving. And you've got Balcombe, which is just blossoming. It's truly taking off with a good bit of development. And look at the development in other parts around the hospital and on the present hospital grounds. Look at the plans for the roadways and the bridges, all those improvements. Well, I have lived in Alexandria for 58 years. Can anyone top that? This is a revolution. I smell it. Anyway, I want to thank, I didn't know how much time I'd have, so I wanted to thank Virginia Paving for trying to be a good neighbor, but an industrial use is not in this city's best interest, and neither is the five-year extension that they have asked for tonight. Enough is enough. That's it.

Thank you very much.

You said it right to the point.

Right on time.

Gail, I'm sorry. I've got 66 years. I'm in front of you. Oh, dear.

That concludes our public speakers. Ken Weyer.

All right.

So good evening. Good evening. Madam Chair, members of the Planning Commission, I'm Ken Weyer with the law firm WeyerGill representing Virginia Paving. I first have to appreciate Ms. Pepper and Ms. Lyle showing up. I first met them in 2009, and they're nothing but staunch advocates for the West End. I sat on those planning commissions with them, and there's no doubt that this area is planned for something different. There's no debate here. Virginia Paving doesn't debate it. We understand the community wants to see something different. In fact, in all the entitlements I've done in the corridor, the number one question is, when is something else coming? In fact, I can't think of a case when something was proposed where people opposed development. The question is, is this the right time and for what? Could staff go back to the arrow, if you don't mind, on page three? I just want to give a very, very brief summary. I do want to appreciate staff's analysis. In 1960, this use first came to town. And obviously, the use today, just to summarize what's happening on the site, because it's important to remind everybody, aggregate comes to the site on train cars. So we're bringing train cars to the site. We deliver the gravel. We actually made a ring around the property to help shield the sound from Cameron Station. It's not 100% working, but if you go back there, it's actually relatively quiet compared to the other side of the pile where the heavy industrial work and the asphalt loading and mixing begins. We've spent time in the past extensions working on the green buffer that rings the site. And in the past years, we've employed up to 70 residents. I mean, 70 total employees depending upon the season. And as of March, 16 of those were Alexandrians. As staff noted in 2017, in 2019, there was a discussion about the correct extension. In 2015, I sat on the committee. We all had the plans that showed this is an office building and three different pads rung by residential and retail. The small area plan is no stranger to this inflection point of the changeover. On page 13, it talks about the small area plan shall be responsive to changing economic conditions, and there was an expectation in 2015 that the industrial uses will relocate to cheaper locations. And there's also a statement about trying to coexist as long as you could with the surrounding residential and the future development that was planned, which is anything but industrial. Obviously, no one here needs a lecture from me about the 2019 approval and the seven-year set date. But SUPs, you can come ask for an extension. No one's barred from asking extension. I can't bar someone from speaking. They can't ask me to not have an extension. I would argue it's not a flaw in our system. It's the very point. In 2019, you're out in 20 years unless something changes. staff had a staff report that was very clear, talking about it was set on an expectation of a changing environment. On the right-hand side up there, staff, and correct me if I'm wrong, I don't know every site, that picture is not one property different from when it was in 2019. It's the same environment. As a business owner, we hope it changes. We hope there's high rises around us. Virginia Paving did not object to the master plan. We knew we were being phased out. But as Ms. Lyle always does, she's very to the point. She acknowledged we did not do a rezoning at that time. That wasn't a mistake. That was the understanding. We had operating industrial uses there. We were not trying to run them out of town. As your analysis goes forward tonight, there's a distinctive difference between a non-conforming use, which by definition is supposed to end as soon as possible, is different than a SUP under existing zoning. Those are fundamental different parameters. When you review your decision tonight, section 11504B of the zoning ordinance lays out your parameters. And unfortunately, it's just time is not one of those parameters. It's compatibility. Virginia Paving is not naive. We knew coming up here asking for an indefinite approval or 20-year approval would be met with more scoring than we're getting tonight. We proposed the five-year because we knew we were coming back and asking for extension. In round numbers, there's a roughly $2 million set of improvements we're doing. Staff is no stranger to what's happening in the community. We're setting back further from Van Dorn Street as that expands to allow for the Van Dorn widening. The Courtney Avenue that loops around the 720, 730, and 750, we're doing improvements there to turn that into a real road. When you drive over there today, it looks like it's part of the plan. It's actually public right-of-way. So Virginia Paving, the one thing they do do, they build roads. So our discussion with staff is to make that loop around that portion of the aggregate pile there a city standard street with improvements and gating and, frankly, whatever the city wants to see in that right-of-way. There's also improvements to how the doors operate. When a truck loads in and asphalt comes down, right now there's a negative pressure system, but the doors are open. So it's effective, but it's not as effective as it could be if these rubber doors come down very quickly. It won't get rid of the smell, but it will drastically reduce it, and more modern plants are doing that. The biggest improvement we're proposing is to rebuild the bag filter and repaint the plant to make it look better. So the five years was a balance we had between $2 million worth of improvements to try to mitigate the very concerns the community raised. Is it one-to-one? We'll have different agreements, but that's the basis of it. So you all should know why we proposed it and the underlying thought behind that. It's also important to note that the multi-modal bridge was gone. That was this 2019. We weren't sure where that was going to go. I sat in the Eisenhower West plans, and there were five different alignments zigzagging all over the Virginia paving site. Staff can correct me if I'm wrong, but now that's been removed. It was a very expensive thing, and Van Dorn widening is the plan to try to address traffic along Van Dorn. Let's see here. The other thing is the floodplain. I've done a lot of work in the city. Floodplains are no trifle things. There's a current ordinance right now underway to review it, to raise it from one foot above the floodplain to two feet above. That is a very complicated, expensive thing to work out. This is a big flat site. The issue is, if you've been out there, Backlick Run is channelized. When Cameron Station was built, it's channelized with concrete walls. So if you filled those nine acres of floodplain, you'd have to prove, and Mr. Mains can correct me if I'm wrong, that you don't impact the floodplain by more than one-tenth of a foot upstream or downstream. You can do that on the Potomac River. That's very difficult to do that here. I haven't done it. We've talked to some civil engineers. We haven't planned it, but it's a complicated thing to do. Let me see. So a couple of the other questions about the reason we came down from 980 tons down to 600 tons, it is certainly above our current production of around 300 to 400 tons. The city and VDOT are our biggest customer. Most of us got here driving on a road paved at Virginia Paving. There's no doubt there's an additional vision for this area to transform it into something else. But we hope when you look at section 11501, you understand that we're not against the repositioning of this neighborhood. It should be repositioned. We're supportive of the Eisenhower West Plan. The question is, what is fundamentally different now than in 2019? And is the set of SUP conditions we proposed offsetting enough to allow us to have another five-year look? We hope buildings are around us. We hope Marriott's built. We hope Mr. Greenberg has DSUPs coming forward. But they're not there today. So I'll stop. I know there's a lot we can talk about, but I want to give you the background. Virginia paving should also be noted, no violations in the past seven years. We did have a stormwater drain that got a little clogged after a flood, but we fixed that. And no complaints in the past couple years. We take seriously our community involvement. We know the community would like us to leave town, but right now, the environment's still the same, and we hope these SUP conditions, when you consider them, help mitigate our extension request. So with that, Madam Chair, I'll pause. I'm happy to answer any questions from you or fellow commissioners.

Thank you very much. Are there questions for the applicant?

Yes, Commissioner Dubé.

Thank you, Mr. Weier, for that. So seven months before the expiration of this SUP, why did you wait till now to start this process? Or is that?

So I've done a little bit of work in the city in the past 20 years. And if I came in three years ahead, you know, get out the back door. It could have been three months before, sure. My advice to clients generally is you want to come up within a year. You don't want to come up in December. You want to give enough time that should you defer us tonight for more conversation, we have some time. So we filed earlier this year, my colleague, Mary, former colleague, Mary Catherine Gibbs filed, I think, a couple months ago. After working through staff, that's what it worked out to be. So it could always be sooner, but I found that coming in ridiculously early sort of makes you look a little foolish. So we waited to start this discussion for the first quarter of 2026. Thank you.

Any other questions for the applicant?

Thank you again for your time. We're happy to answer any technical questions you may have and look forward to the discussion this evening.

Thank you very much. I'll take a motion to close the public hearing.

Move to close the public hearing.

Second.

I have a motion by Vice Chair Koenig and a second by Commissioner Ramirez to close the public hearing. All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Motion carries 6-0. And that brings us to Commissioner discussion.

All right, let's go Commissioner Dube I just have a couple things one comment from miss Lyles Can you come in on the what what she was talking about? Was there a closure plan that was required two years ago and if so Or if not Where is it?

so in the past conditions there was a a condition that annually they needed to report on their relocation and any sort of interest in the property, specifically a closure plan. I do not see that in any of the conditions. It's a new amendment to the current.

That was it for now. Go ahead.

Vice Chair Koenig. Madam Chairman, just to follow up with another question to staff. Also referencing something that Ms. Lyle said. She floated a very intriguing proposition that I'd like to get your perspective on, which is that this property could potentially be rezoned through the mechanism of a modified condition to this SUP. Is that actually something that's possible?

So I believe like city council or planning commission has to initiate rezonings or the applicant has to initiate?

I can answer that question if you'd like. So Rachel is correct. There is the ability for a rezoning to be initiated by city council or by the planning commission. That is a separate process and a separate approval, so that would require its own separate public hearing. So if, for instance, you all wanted to initiate something like that, it would have to come back for public hearing after notice and those sorts of things.

Right. So the mechanism to initiate that is not functionally doable with a modified condition in an SUP?

It would have to be a separate action. It wouldn't necessarily be part of the SUP. It's a separate action. It's a separate approval, if you will.

But there's nothing that would prevent the Planning Commission from determining it wanted to do that tonight if it chose to? That's correct. Okay. So in terms of for Planning Commission to initiate a rezoning, it doesn't take any preparatory steps in advance of us moving and voting to initiate?

That's correct, but it would be something that would subsequently have to come back for public hearing.

At that moment it becomes a separate entity than whatever the fate of this SUP is, is different from whatever the fate of that insurance is.

They are separate approvals, yes.

Well, thank you, because I fully confess that I wasn't aware that that was even a theoretical, let alone an operational possibility for us to do. Typically that's... Its conventionality factor is low.

Correct.

Thank you.

All right. I have some thoughts. So I'm not persuaded by staff's assessment that a five-year extension is appropriate in this case for this use. We heard a lot of different reasons from community members tonight. And I agree with them. I think that the commitment in the small area plan, the commitment the SUP sunset date that was discussed prior and in my my recollection from I don't remember this stuff because it's all in my head I remember it from reading things that when Planning Commission saw this it was we supported staffs recommendation at the time for something like a three or four year SUP and then when it went to council that was when they tacked on those additional years so even then staff and planning commission's recommendation was not as long as they've gotten to have in this period of time. And when you have that use permit discussed in the context of the small area plan and the intended redevelopment of the community, I really think it's the business operators obligation to take that seriously as a process that they have to make adjustments for. Um, so similar to what I'm hearing from others tonight, it's disappointing to, I know it's seven months and I know there's different, um, I also entirely agree with Mr. Wire that it's not unusual to get extensions for things. We see extensions a lot, for approved development that's exactly what we want in the community. They just can't make it pencil yet. So we approve or recommend approval of an extension because we want to see it happen. This is the opposite of that. This is an extension request for a thing we don't want to see. And we would have preferred to have closed years ago in terms of its alignment with the small area plan. So everyone is allowed to come for an extension. Everyone is totally welcome to bring their business case to Planning Commission and Council to argue why it's too soon and why they need more time. But the commitment that there is a chicken and egg thing happening here. And I believe that the presence and operation of this paving industrial use is negatively impacting the possibilities for redevelopment and the changes that the immediate neighboring parcels are supposed to be seeing. We heard from one of them tonight, Greenhill, just we see it actually we see one of the Greenhill parcels right north of the site on this on this aerial. These commitments and all the things that all the pieces that we're putting together rely on this commitment that happened in the past that we are going to see the end of operations of a paving service. And yes, these services are important and necessary. We do have to maintain our roads. But Alexandria has made the decision that we do not have to maintain a paving plant here in this neighborhood. So we have to source our pavement from somewhere else. And this is a practicality that even the city, not to mention all the other customers of this paving operation, But the city is going to have to grapple with. I expect the city has not made all of its plans yet. So I also, in terms of thinking about what the appropriate course of action is, I think it's important to acknowledge that five years is too long and that there isn't an extension of the sunset date is entirely inconsistent with the planning principles that we reviewed in the past. And that the community is relying on change here to support change over time. I think that we need to discuss, I'd like to discuss what we think is reasonable, given that the months between now and the expiration of this SUP may not be enough time for even, and again, because operations don't seem to have changed, it's not clear that existing clients of this operation have any idea that it's going to close and that they might need to be sourcing in a different location and if the transportation costs or time is going to change. So there's folks who need to know what is going to happen here and need to make their plans as well. So I'd like to, I'm interested in hearing my colleagues' opinions and hopefully a discussion of what is a reasonable extension that is as short as it can possibly be while acknowledging that that a closing plan is necessary operational responsibility for the site and for the things that will keep this site from being an environmental contaminant and whatever you have to do to close down responsibly a facility like this that all there's time for all of that while also acknowledging that the sooner we get it to stop operating the sooner other things can happen in this neighborhood Um. Is there some way for me to know who clicked first?

Commissioner Ramirez. Yes, go for it. I just wanted to express that I am in agreement with the points that you just raised, Madam Chair. One of the things that I took a quick look at was back in 2019 with the approval for this extension and observing and understanding as well that it has been seven years. So if you can't get your plan together as to exactly what you're going to be doing with the property in the course of seven years. I'm not sure exactly what another five-year extension is really going to do. That's one point. In 2019, the presentation of this first extension request was met with a city staff recommendation of sunsetting it shorter than the seven years into November of 2022, three years. So let's keep that metric right there in mind for just a second, because at that point, city staff said, no, we want you to pull it back. We want you to end your operations much earlier. Okay. That in contrast with what we're looking to do now, I think is is a 180 I Look at that and I worry a little bit about for example our recent adoption of the updated green building policy the Focus that we have on on things like indoor air quality focus on electrifying versus using natural gas and We're looking at all of these kinds of improvements that we're trusting of all of these developers, and yet we're going to take a look at this property that's 11 acres, allowing a particulate matter size of 2.5, measurable to things like, say, smoke, incense, like any of those kind of little particulate matters that can hang out in the air for a long time and allow it to to allow that exposure to happen over 11.3 acres of land in Alexandria, it baffles me. So thinking about the prior approval and the original perspective that we had to shorten that timeline versus what we're doing right now to push that timeline forward, the adoption and progression of our perspective to a greener, more environmentally friendly approach in the city in contrast to what this business's work does. um these two major points to me tell me that you know and and not just that but the seven years that this business had has had to think about this one site and it has six sites it has six sites through northern virginia Six sites total. This would reduce it to five, but it has six sites. This is not its only site. If we were to oppose this extension, if we were to oppose this application, it doesn't mean that this business by itself dies altogether. It has other sites. In thinking about all these parts put together, I'm not convinced of this application.

Okay, Vice Chair Koenig, and then I see Commissioner Manner online has a stand up.

So you'll be next. Thank you, Chair. So I'm still convinced by the logic of the Planning Commission's 2019 support, sorry, 2019 vote in support of the staff's recommended 2023 deadline. which council at that point actually stretched to 2027. Council affirmed then that a defined end date was appropriate to ensure alignment with the small area plan and to provide a clear expectation that the site would transition to planned uses over time. And over time in that case meant over the next eight years at least in terms of terminating this specific use. A clear expectation was formally established then, and I think the past eight years has afforded the property owner a reasonable timeframe within which to prepare to conclude operations. To me, the rate at which redevelopment is evolving, especially the Greenhill and Vulcan sites, argues against an extension rather than for it. So I do not support the staff's recommendation for an extension to 2032. To your point, Chair, about what we might want to consider as a commission in terms of things on the spectrum between simply recommending denial of the extension and considering an extension that may have a shorter time frame than full five years. I'm very open to that discussion as well. And a couple of observations I would make just about what we've heard tonight. In response to the questions about what happens if this is not extended, it sounded to me like simply one day the plan is operational and the next day it is not. People simply don't show up to work. I didn't hear about decommissioning buildings. I didn't hear about demolition. I didn't hear about remediation. And it sounded like it would just sit there as it is until someone comes in and decides to do some other by right use that may potentially be allowable without touching any of that now derelict or at least deeply dormant equipment. So I have a big question about whether that's actually what the physical practical reality is going forward. And for instance, if a one-year extension meant that instead of just locking the gate and not showing up the next day, there was actually something like a planned conclusion of operations that left a site that was not simply the remnant of a plant that's no longer functional, I would be very open to a one-year extension if we had some sense that something useful was actually going on. Right now, I'm not persuaded that an extension of any sort is necessary if literally the only thing that's going to happen is that one day the plan is operational and the next day it's not. It doesn't seem to me there's any required extension required, necessary, or appropriate for that. So if there's something meaningful that can happen in that year, and there is actually going to be a coordinated, organized shutdown plan that requires the applicant some reasonable amount of time to prepare that, And we could potentially consider something like on January 1, 2027, instead of locking the door, they present an actual plan for decommissioning over that year of extension that would follow with perhaps a six-year point of actually updating the fact that they're on target to meet that. And that's just one scenario. I'm open to many others. But it seems to me something along those lines would be something that I would be willing to support if that's the sense of the commission.

Commissioner Manner. COMMISSIONER MANNER.

Thank you. I like Ms. Lyle's proposal for a one-year extension with the idea of rezoning at the end. It just helps move things along, and I think that just is a logical way to bring this to a close and know what's going to happen next. So just putting that out there for discussion.

Commissioner Linehan? Yeah, I have a question about what requirements we can place on the owner if we're allowed to say they are required to decommission. Because that could essentially require them to grade expenditure, which they may not be required to do under the current SUP. So when we start asking questions about what those conditions could be, I don't exactly understand the extent to which we can demand certain things.

So the application before you is a special use permit. And so any conditions would be attached to mitigating the impacts of that, in this case, the use of the paving facility. And then the conditions have to be sort of have a rational nexus and a sort of a balance of values about the THE IMPACT AGAINST THE COST OF REMEDIATING, I THINK WE PROBABLY NEED TO DO A LITTLE BIT MORE ANALYSIS ON WHAT THAT EXPECTED COST WOULD BE AND WHETHER THAT'S IN SORT OF RELATION TO THE IMPACT BEING GENERATED. SO I THINK THE SHORT ANSWER IS WE WOULD NEED SOME MORE STAFF ANALYSIS BUT I THINK IF THE DIRECTION FROM THE PLANNING COMMISSION WERE FOR THE STAFF TO FURTHER EXPLORE THAT AND WHAT OPTIONS MIGHT BE AVAILABLE BEFORE IT GETS TO COUNCIL.

I'M CURIOUS, MR. WIRE, IF YOU COULD ASK YOUR CLIENT IF ANYTHING WE'VE SAID IS SOMETHING THAT THEY WOULD, WE'RE NOW SORT OF BARGAINING HERE IN A WAY. WE CAN EITHER SAY NO EXTENSION, YOU CLOSE ON JANUARY 1ST OR WE SAY THERE'S A POTENTIAL FOR A YEAR AND WHAT DOES THAT YEAR LOOK LIKE?

Commissioner we request your vote and whatever means it comes so we're not going to negotiate on the fly here what it means So you all made your position clear. I don't think there's any point for the discussion from our end. Thank you

There's a lot of uncertainty I think like one of my my questions which relates to staff staff's whole report is based on improvements that the SUP applicant has proposed to make given that they would they would recoup a sort of investment value over the five-year period and it might be that None of those are worthwhile making if we only gave them one year. Even though the way that the timing is and the condition, it would be like within nine months you have to do X, Y, Z kind of thing.

Understood. That's why I keep probing this sort of uncertainty about when we start talking about altering the conditions from the bench, it gets complicated.

Right. And so it sounds like... We could send staff with the recommendation that everything stays as a package and it has a different date at the end. Or a recommendation of denial is that we don't agree with anything in the package and we think that the SUP needs to conclude. My I don't know that it's I don't know that it's an appropriate consideration for an extension like this. But one of the one of the things that's in my mind is the the financial impact to which which might occur to any customers of this um of this facility if their services are relocated to one of those other facilities and if they haven't been made aware of that now it's the expenses over the next fiscal year are already budgeted and so whether that's the city or whether that's any other agency that might be sourcing material here it doesn't seem like any information has been shared that it's going to close as a facility and then that those prices might change.

But if there's a contract to buy the asphalt, you would expect that that additional cost might be borne by the company, given that they've already agreed to provide it. So if it had to come from a different place, it might be.

Maybe.

But again, these are a lot of unknowns that we're not really in a position to talk about.

Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Yep, commissioner to Bay and then commissioner and vice checking.

Thank you madam chair. I read over this quite a bit. There's a lot here and you start back with the economic conditions and and when the smaller plan was adopted obviously that's changed the flood plain is obviously increased with the new maps. So all of that's changed but yet you just have to look around the city whether it's landmark or Lennar or Green Hill Maybe the economics aren't changing as much as we think because there's a lot of things going up. And where I'm at on this, I think that I really like the idea of us initiating a rezoning, how we do that from the dais. We'll go with what our council tells us how to do. I would certainly be in favor of that. I think five years is just kicking the can five more years. Ms. Pepper's quote five years or seven years ago now, don't come back to us in five years asking again. And here we are. I would be in favor of a one-year extension with a closure plan within six months. And the conditions are the problem. What do we do about the proposed conditions? If we do a one-year, does that mean the conditions go away altogether? Regardless, I think the end result is we need to close the plan and just move on.

Thank you Vice-chair Kinney Thank You madam chairman. So this is This is certainly no less complicated than we had anticipated I just like to try to make sure I'm understanding a couple of points that just raised I think your Your point or the whole issue about if we turn a extension request that was designed to be a five-year extension request and has, as we've identified and the staff has presented, a series of representations that the applicants are making that they're going to make an investment, then very clearly that it's only reasonable to assume that the five-year term of that is integral to the negotiation of what those conditions are. So that concerns me a lot. I don't want to be in a position where we're sending forward a one-year extension, but I also don't think we're – unless we're here going into a much greater level of detail, which I'm not sure would be productive, going to want to go through all those conditions and try to determine exactly which ones are no longer reasonable to impose or no longer willing to be proffered by the applicant. So I'm concerned about that. I'm concerned about the flip side of it also being very difficult to do, which is This question of how if we were to extend it for a year and it was explicitly to provide a year to help make an orderly transition, and it was also explicitly to make that transition more functional than simply leaving rusting equipment sitting on the landscape for the next two or ten years with the owner no longer taking any responsibility for operating it or maintaining it. But we also don't seem to be able to negotiate conditions for how to do better than that on the fly here either. So that's a lot of blather that hasn't magically gotten me to a solution other than to think that potentially the two options are some sort of a deferral. Well, I guess there are three options. One is following the suggestion maybe that the director made this that we do what we normally do, which is we explicitly change a couple of conditions And then we give some direction for some additional condition refinement that will magically happen between our recommendation and council's consideration. Again, I'm very worried about making that at this point, it seems to me that would be asking staff and the applicant to go back into the conditions that have been proposed and pull out the ones that don't work if it's one year. and magically put in all the ones that give us a better result at the end than just locking the gate and asking that to happen between tonight and council's hearing. So it seems to me that offers then another couple of opportunities. One is to defer. and ask that kind of reconsideration of things to be brought into play before it would come back and we would vote on it. I'm not really, it doesn't appeal to me very much. The other option is literally to do something extremely clean and say that this Application extension is essentially something that we are not supporting and just cleanly say that we do not recommend approving this application for extension and then Council act on as as it may either to direct it back to us or defer it or re-examine it or take our recommendation at that point but I think at this point the balance of I'm not interested in trying to understand which small items they might do that would parse out and pencil out for them over the next five years. That's of no interest to me. I'm sure it's clearly of no interest to Mr. Weier, and I think justifiably so, to try to figure out what other conditions might work tonight. So I guess I would leave it at the point that if it was the sense of the commission, I'd be happy to move. I have a question for council Just looping back because we heard some interest in the initiation of a zoning change here and

Is that something where we could just direct to staff in a future upcoming month that we would like to initiate? Normally, we receive these as a proposed thoughtful staffer actually looking at the zones. You're looking at what we need to do here. And there's a staff report that comes along with an initiation. And I feel like that's missing from something that we would do that people have proposed potentially doing more on the fly can you just Explain to me like is there anything other than the informal? Suggestion at the end of what we do on this SUP item that we would do with regard to Expressing interest in rezoning Discussion that's separate from the SUP.

So there are The official action that you could take to signal that you want this to come back for you for public hearing is to take the vote on the initiation. But it would be a staff application because it's unlikely at this point that there would be an applicant-driven application. And so you could ask staff to bring it back with the direction to bring it back if you express an intention to initiate a rezoning at a later point, but you want to have that information in front of you at the time you consider doing it or not, but you could take the action to initiate. Now, that being said, once you initiate it, it would be scheduled for public hearing. So you are setting a course of action.

Right. And we would have to have selected a zone to initiate a specific specific zone right not just like we want to make a zoning change so that's the other piece that we if we wanted whenever whatever time is that we would like something to be initiated there has to be a specific selection that's made you could also direct staff to investigate appropriate zoning for this property that you all could consider at a future point and if you decided to initiate at that point once you saw the staff analysis that could be

another step you could take.

I'm inclined to acknowledge that it would be nice to proactively look at the zoning for this location at this point in time to open it up and then hopefully come to a place where we can do a formal initiation and a public hearing and perhaps a rezoning even before other things have transpired on the site.

In order to continue to push this along, but I don't think we have the tools to do that tonight other than to respectfully ask staff to Yes, just a comment that I think you're right on that last point you made is right on but it's also something that the staff could bring it the retreat and we can have an in-depth discussion of the whole process because that's that's new to most of us I think and and then initiate it for September

Yes, Director Stoddard. If I may, Madam Chair.

Thank you for the time. Just one thing to throw out. I think it would be important to be in step with council on whether that's a step that they wanted to take as well. IT WOULD BE A FAIRLY SIGNIFICANT INVESTMENT OF STAFF RESOURCES TO FOLLOW THROUGH ON THAT REQUEST. SO ONE THING THAT YOU MAY DO, IN ADDITION TO MAKING YOUR REQUEST ON THE SPECIFIC APPLICATION THAT'S IN FRONT OF YOU, YOU COULD SUGGEST AS PART OF THAT MOTION SAYING WE WOULD SUGGEST THAT COUNCIL DIRECT STAFF TO TAKE ON THAT WORK. THAT WOULD GIVE US THE DIRECTION TO UNDERSTAND IF THAT'S SOMETHING THAT COUNCIL WANTED US TO TAKE ON, MAYBE PUSH SOMETHING OFF THE WORK PLAN TO MAKE ROOM FOR IT.

And then also the timing by which they would like to see a response or reaction to that Thank you for that recommendation other thoughts from commissioners Commissioner Linehan

I'M JUST GOING TO SAY I THINK IN MY SAUSAGE MAKING WAY OF ASKING QUESTIONS, I WAS POINTING TO THE COMPLEXITY OF SETTING FORTH SOME CONDITIONS OF A YEAR IF THAT'S WHAT WE THOUGHT WE WANTED TO DO AND IT DID NOT SEEM THAT WE COULD SORT OUT HOW TO DO THAT GIVEN A LOT OF LACK OF UNDERSTANDING AND A LOT OF INABILITY TO JUDGE WHETHER OR NOT WHAT WE WERE OUR CONDITIONS ACTUALLY MADE SENSE. SO I APPRECIATE THE DIRECTNESS OF COMMISSIONER KAENIG'S NOTION OF MAKING THE MOTION.

Great. Any last comments before Vice Chair Koenig makes a proposed motion on the table?

Not hearing anything, go for it. Actually, before that guy makes a motion, I wanted to just try to make sure that we do indeed have a consensus here and that I'm understanding the logic. the the discussion about the rezoning i think if we can treat that as a further discussion item after we draw a conclusion here for this applicant for their uh for their request that we figure out how to do that but that we do not we're not taking any formal action on that tonight but it has been revealed as a very interesting issue and i think we should find a way to follow it up separate from this and then back to our action here i mean i came in here tonight fully prepared to support the idea of a single year extension because I thought that we would find that there were levels of complexity on the applicant's point of view that would be unreasonable to compress, leaving aside the fact that we're this close to the finish line and that the fact that they may have a lot left to do is partially a function of them waiting to this point to make their request for an extension. Leaving that aside for a moment, if the reality was that they would actually be forced into things that would be extremely difficult or physically not possible, then that would grant an extension. But I think now the reality that a simple extension like that is not just adjusting the numbers. So for instance, when council added four years before, it didn't change really anything that we had sent forward as a recommendation. For us to turn five years into one changes everything from the applicant's point of view. And I don't think we can fix that. And I think adding the extra year seems to me to be something that we're potentially offering and that it comes with some concern on our part. And we can't satisfy our own concern about what would actually be happening during that year. So that doesn't really look plausible, which is just another long way of saying either the two other options seem to me worse than simply sending forward an explicit recommendation to council that the planning commission does not support this extension period. And if you're ready to entertain that, I will do that.

I am ready.

So I move to recommend to council that they disapprove Special Use Permit 2600018-5601 and 5603 Courtney Avenue and 720, 730, and 750 South Van Dorn Street based upon the public testimony this evening, including the applicant's testimony and the commission's discussion at the hearing.

All right. I have a motion on the table by Vice Chair Koenig to disapprove the SUP based on the discussion. Do I have a second?

Second.

I have a second by commissioner Ramirez. Any final discussion or clarifications from commissioners about the motion on the table? Hearing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries 6-0.

So Madam Chair, do we want to hold our consideration of what we wanted to do next until we get to commissioners comments and reports or should we Now that we've concluded that specific piece of business. We're there.

We're there on the agenda. We are at Commissioner's reports, comments. Oh, look at that.

Well, there you go. Ironically enough. That was all part of my plan, I guess.

Yep. So we did not choose to do what Director Stoddard offered that we could have done, which is putting it as a formal suggestion for council. However... they're welcome to consider the record of our discussion. And they might well be considering it themselves. They might hear it from community members. It's part of the record at this point that there's this idea that a rezoning might accelerate what needs to happen on this site. So the question would be, do we want to do, I guess I would posit that we probably don't need to do anything definitive with staff on this until council. it and weighs in and if they make a direction one way or the other on that particular item then that's helpful to us and if they don't even touch upon it then we can ask staff and maybe it is first in something Commissioner Newbay like an item that we discussed in our in our retreat about what what is the what is the labor of love that goes into City initiated effort to rezone when normally we sit back and we wait for applicants to want to do it because then they're ready and the markets ready and so on and so forth, but we appreciate director starters points about Reallocating precious staff resources to something that we think is is urgent based on this application that was before us today But may not be as urgent as other things that staff are also working on

So I agree with that completely, and I just reinforce two things. One is I think it's really important, obviously, now that council undertake this issue, address our recommendation, make their own decision, and then we have a new reality, whatever it is. And I agree there's absolutely nothing else for us to do other than the work we've done tonight. But I do want to just weigh in. out of sequence for a query that I'm sure the director is going to send us sometime soon after we pick a date for a retreat going, hey, what kind of things would you like to talk about at the retreat? And so I would like to reinforce the idea that something that doesn't take getting on the work plan, a level of consideration of how this might be approached that's appropriate for preparation of an item for the retreat would be something I'd be willing to put on that list.

One thing that I did think was fascinating, because I said, wait a minute, this is industrial. Housing comes along, and you say housing is allowable under the industrial use. But that seems strange to me, actually. I mean, I'm not a zoning planner. But it does feel as though if the small area plan expected mixed use to leave it industrial, I mean, maybe you all think that that makes perfect sense. But it seems like a strange thing to not have had that somehow modified along the way. OR AT LEAST SUGGESTED BY THE SMALL AREA PLAN THAT ULTIMATELY THE ZONING WOULD BE SOMETHING DIFFERENT TO THE UNDERLYING STRUCTURE OF THE PLAN.

THERE ARE CERTAINLY MULTIPLE APPROACHES TO IT, RIGHT? WHEN THERE ARE OPERATING USES LEAVING THE EXISTING ZONING IN PLACE CAN LEAVE A LEVEL FIELD. uh, maybe burden existing users, um, uh, sort of, uh, sort of a proactive zoning approach can also have its benefits. I think, uh, just looking at the plan that, um, the proposed densities, uh, that the specifics of the street layout, that those may need to happen under a CDD, a coordinated development district, uh, anyway. And so it's not, you know, we could do some further analysis, but just a straight rezoning to one of the city's existing zoning districts may not by itself be enough to actually get into the vision of the plan.

I'm learning.

Yeah, and it's usually our plans get all the way through detailed land use designations on parcels and on properties owned by one entity. So the plan certainly has all of that. It's just the zoning part doesn't get changed. often until property owners are ready to do something. And then they pick the zone. There might be information about it in the plan, but it is not necessarily done by the plan.

And that's what happened across the street with the fall?

Yep. We see them in our DSUP packages frequently, the rezoning in that laundry list at the top. It's like four DSUPs and a rezoning and a subdivision and a SUP for something, something, and they're all in there together.

Guess I hadn't seen what the I hadn't really Processed it what the underlying zoning was versus what it was becoming.

Yeah, so I'm sure that was true at Potomac Yard It was very different clarification when the public storage site on the north side of Backlick run came forward that was a coordinated development district and it is the same coordinated development district that the Vulcan site is and And that is because there are road connections. And in this instance, there's a pedestrian bridge because coordinated development districts often look at coordination for transportation and access. And because that Vulcan site is pretty isolated, the pedestrian bridge connecting to the public storage site, the seven acres of open space that's being dedicated to the city on the Vulcan site with the pedestrian bridge connects to the three acres that were dedicated to the city with the public storage site. And so this coordinated development district allowed that to tie together. And because of the nature of the sites in Eisenhower West, coordinated development districts were the recommendation at that point.

Madam Chair, if I could just one more, because I think this is a rather unexpected additional dimension to that consideration, but still a fascinating point. I appreciate Ms. Lyle putting that in play. So it seems to me that there's every chance that we've gotten two-thirds of the way here to the answer tonight, which is us picking a zone off the wheel of zones and initiating a change to it. probably doesn't have much merit to it because it may want to be a CDD or it may want to turn out to be the zone next to the one that we pick on the wheel. And I think part of it, if I, that the original suggestion was at least partly as a defense mechanism about having a follow-on use activated on that site that's still in industrial use, just happens to be one that's by right and can squeak in and start up again. And maybe it's not quite as noxious as the paving, but it's still an active business. We have the same thing. I've got employees. I'm paying taxes. I've been here for three years now doing this by right. I invested $100,000 to make my warehouse to hold my stuff and store my trucks. But that being said, it seems to me that rezoning isn't a particularly surgical tool to prevent that. So it leads me back to my other suggestion or corollary to my suggestion for a retreat item is I think it takes us out of planning and zoning, but it takes us into the world of presume for a moment that council agrees with what we did. And on January 1, 2027, they just don't come to work the next day, and they also don't demount and remediate their site in the next six months. And also things do move, but it's one or two or five or eight years before somebody actually buys that site, although now they could actually do it because it doesn't have an active paving company on it. What are they looking at then? Is the typical scenario that that stuff just sits in rusts and then the buyer of the property takes on the amelioration and the deconstruction? Isn't that what happened with our power plants? So should we just cut to the chase and say that's the reality that we're confronted with? Or is there a way to at least examine, again, outside of planning and zoning perhaps, whether there are ways to hold property owners accountable responsible for the environmental condition of their abandoned, I mean, isn't there some sort of abandoned structure? I mean, you can't move it out of your house and fail to sell it and simply let it dissolve in the rain over 20 years, right? There's some sort of rules and regulations preventing you from doing that. Don't we have something even moderately similar to that for these kinds of properties? Or if we don't, how worried about it, you know, should we be? And or is there some way we can start to do something other than let them sit and rust for the decade until somebody else buys it?

I mean, honestly, I feel like you're bringing up a really good point, right? And this was something that I started thinking about that, you know, we do talk about land use relative to the codes in Alexandria. And the small area plan is a master plan. But there is also land use, lower case, right? And the consideration of the kind of businesses that situate themselves. Like who would have thought, who would have thunk the power plant when it first started in 1949 that it was providing a service, right? It was providing a service to Alexandria residents, but the impact of its operations seeps so deeply into the soils that it becomes another generation, future generation's problems. So how do we take a look and understand land use then with the city? I'm thinking about just this site, for example, that the person who comes after them has got miles of work ahead of them before they can really say that that land is good to use, unless they end up doing something and having a similar business. But then it just keeps seeping into the soil. So how do we then hold, in a way, how do we hold businesses responsible for how they use our land and land use, lowercase, when it does affect then future land use

Some sort of stewardship responsibility along the way, perhaps. Right.

I mean, we talk about, like, the green building policy, and that's, you know, something that's in place. But how do we know, then, that the, you know, and understanding the requirements for electrification, what that longer-term impact might be? Hybrid cars. Let's talk something different, right? Hybrid cars. Hybrid cars came out. People were excited about it. Driving hybrid cars, fantastic. My issue is those batteries. What's going to happen with all those batteries coming to term and having half-lives that are indescribable, insurmountable, but it has a direct land impact. So what happens at that point? And how do we then take that kind of idea and look at our little city of Alexandria microcosm and nurture our land so that it can be used by future residents generations down the road?

um so my impression is that there are um staff's work to evolve sup conditions take some of this into account like we've seen storm water remediation conditions and the kinds of requirements that we have for building permits they they change over time with best practice it does not i don't think anything properly addresses major Lulu's like this so these land uses that are so big so toxic but but also necessary like power plants I mean we still use power so we have to figure out what what kind of power we're gonna generate and what kind of plants we're gonna build but we have we've got all these things that we have to that we require to be a society and I don't think our typical practice is gonna it's not like a way to prepare for handling stuff like that. But then again, I also feel like we're in the process of removing those from the community, not building new ones. So what actually came to mind for me in this discussion was that this is not the last SUP of, we've seen several SUPs for extensions for automobile businesses. yeah and mechanic shops and things like that in these locations where they're coming for an extension of their sup and we're doing an assessment is it okay for them to keep operating and most of the time we're actually saying it's okay these are little um maybe they're not as prolonged i don't remember what a typical term of these extensions is but um they're much much smaller and less impactful parcels um but we this this request will not be the end of what we see when it comes to that because all of those land uses that are that are speckled throughout this small area plan are continued to continue to be speckled throughout and they're going to come back and they're going to ask for extensions unless we get lucky and they just sell their property to a development you know a a real estate development firm that's like comfortable with redeveloping a gas station or redeveloping an automobile shop and they assemble parcels and stuff. So we could get lucky and it gets done for us through this proactive market process or we could end up with a continued sprinkling of docket items where we're asked to weigh whether we think it's still okay for them to be operating that business there. So that's my bigger concern is that we don't have a good answer for this a lot of the time. I felt very good about what we did tonight with Virginia paving because of the magnitude of its impact on the neighborhood and its potential impact on really the market environment and the community environment there. But I don't know that I have a good answer for how to make that decision on a gas station by gas station basis or an auto shop by auto shop basis.

We will see more of it. Yeah, actually, I mean, I think that's a really good point. That was a central point of contention here. The staff made their analysis and they came forward and they explicitly came down on one side of this. I mean, they did their analysis. It was thorough and comprehensive as ever. And their judgment was that the overall rate of development is such that The balance leans toward extending this use because it's not actually inhibiting anything. I guess I didn't in the end agree with that, but it's an indication of how complex it is. To me, the fact that Vulcan is where it is and that the owner of Greenhill is willing to come forward and say, look, we just We were in front of you guys two or five years ago, and we entitled our 3 million square feet, and one of our properties is directly adjacent to this. I know, by the way, we've made offers for this property without getting our calls returned, and it's affecting our decision when we talk to potential investors about whether and when we're going to be able to move on our CDD. So I think it's all a judgment call, right? It's all the Vulcan people and the Green Hill people could all just be going – Actually, this wouldn't stop us from going forward, but we don't like it, so we want it to go away. Just like the applicants can say, we're not really bothering anybody. Just let us keep going. And you have to make a judgment call. And I think in this case, it's because that was big enough that it's either doing the one thing or not. And if it's doing what we were worried about, it means something. And it means five years of slowdown for momentum that we're actually kind of getting to. Back to your point about the smaller pieces, though, I think a lot of those, if we look at, for instance, Green Hill's parcel over there, I think there's some light industrial use, so there's mechanic shops or something over there. They can come forward and we can keep approving them because the decision is going to be bigger about when they do or don't decide to move. It's not going to be about, oh, you know, we got... 90% of this is ready to go, but we can't get a loan because that guy's still doing single oil changes a day with this one-lift garage. So I think there's a threshold where we don't have to worry about it too much, and this one is clearly over that threshold where a big part of the judgment that we were called on to make is whether it is or is not affecting the rate of evolution out there.

Yes, Director Stoddard.

Madam Chair, if I may, I think it's a good point. I think to your point about sort of new uses versus existing uses, I think that's a good sort of pointer or maybe a sort of a lens to look at this. Obviously, when a new use comes in, we obviously use the conditions to mitigate the anticipated impacts that would come with it. This one is an interesting one in the sense that there was an existing use and its continued operation can have impacts on the neighborhood. But even its historical use has some sort of impacts. And I think, maybe not to this one specifically, the vote's been cast, but, you know, it could be the case that for other industrial uses, you know, part of that SUP extension consideration could be can somehow the continuing use of that site pay into or somehow support the eventual redevelopment or the remediation of it, I think. To some extent, it is mitigating the impact of the use. And so long as it's maybe a small set aside on an annual basis, and so it escalates over time. And so at some point, one of the challenges we have with industrial sites is often that the land cost can be negative. That the revenue that comes from the site, when you take away the construction costs, you'd have to get a negative value on the land in order to make it worthwhile. if somehow continuing operations are supporting the eventual redevelopment in some way. And obviously we have to connect it to the application in front of us to be valid. But if somehow you were starting to tip the scales, And over time, right, you're putting sort of value into a bucket, and at some point that bucket tips the scales.

So, Paul, I think that's a great point. Could I just make a hypothetical on that? If you just use this exact case, because I think when I looked back I had forgotten that the staff recommended four years, Planning Commission sent that recommendation forward, and Council, I get the impression from Councilwoman Pepper tonight, basically just said, I'm going to add four more years and then I never want to see you again. So wouldn't that have been the strategic point at which They could have had a package that said, okay, we're going to make our building better and we're going to paint it and put better doors on it and plant some trees. And that is worth doing for four more years. And if you say, well, what if you get another four years? Can you put together a million-dollar remediation fund that you leave in the bank when you walk away? And then instead of us chasing you around trying to get you to demount your building, which you'll never do, we can immediately engage somebody to take those buildings down and maybe not remediate the whole site, but get it so it's one step closer to being available and the threshold is that much lower for the person who's coming and trying to find, you know, and not looking at the kind of headwind on PRGS or on this site that I've got to factor into my acquisition cost here that the moment I buy this land, I've got to spend $10 million to fix it. But it seems to me that's the perfect scenario where Council's literally willing to say, We just did this plan and we think 10 or 15 years before we're going to be looking at things like Vulcan happening. And so let's make a deal and let's go ahead and actually get a level of value out of there beyond what I think the city usually gets. I mean, it seems to me that that kind of operational, that those eight years were probably perfectly functional and amenable for Virginia paving. And I think that's evident by the fact that their production went down every year and they're still perfectly happy to be there. So they weren't like, incurring costs or anything, they had some level of surplus they could have been paying into some fund in all probability. But I think it goes back to the point that it seems to me that does exactly what you're saying is the nexus is right there. You're paying in now with the money you're making to be able to fix the mess that you're going to walk away from when you walk away. We're not asking to put it in a fund. And fix that dirty creek out on another person's property. And the nexus is 90% of the place where things always get gnarled up, right? We're pushing too far and we're asking for money that just isn't directly coordinated in some way. And this would be a way to put it right in the critical mass.

Yeah, and I don't know if there's... Again, votes been taken, right? And so that the advice up to the council at this point is a very sort of stark sort of no, we don't recommend approval of the five-year extension. I don't know if there would be an interest in reconsidering and sort of tempering that a little bit and saying, no, we don't think a straight five-year makes sense unless there's something attached to it that sort of walks us closer to the vision somehow. Now, exactly what that is, we haven't had time to figure it out. but I don't know if there's interest in tempering that a little bit or maybe sort of opening a door.

I'm comfortable with the vote that we took tonight. I'm hearing Stephen saying that five years ago, no, seven years ago, there was an opportunity that wasn't taken, but we're further along in the life cycle of the small area plan and the community expectations and other things, so It's more of when the community and the community was pretty much on board with that extension when it happened. So that's when the package should have been a little more forward looking on the resources that would be needed and maybe the hurdles that would be encountered to get to that point at the end of that period of time. And maybe it was just naive to think that that would be a long enough extension. At the time, staff's recommendation was shorter and then council tacked on years. So maybe nobody really anticipated how long it would take to really get this site ready to be something new. But it's clear that things are changing. And so, yeah, my long way around is just to say I'm quite comfortable with the vote that I took tonight. And it's not so much that there's an opportunity on this site today as there is It is an example of a kind of thing that we might see again in the future somewhere else in town. And depending on that runway that we're looking at, if we're looking at a longer-term SUP for something that has a longer runway, we might want to be thinking about what conditions we can tie to it that can reflect the commitment the community wants to see to transition actually happening in the future.

Commissioner Linehan. So I think some of the questions I asked this evening were... They point somewhat to this, the potential or the jurisdictional power to make conditions and how they get resolved. So I would like that. I would appreciate that being a topic for our retreat. So we've just listed new ways to sort of put conditions that have a financial impact. And you do this sausage making all the time. And so you probably have a better understanding of what the applicant would say, I can't do that, or that's possible. But there must be some understanding of what you can request in terms of sort of financial burden to each SUP condition, right?

Yeah, I think that's probably a good topic for a retreat. I think we, right. a little guilty of it myself here, but sort of rehashing an item that was on the docket tonight versus maybe abstracting it to another conversation. And I think certainly for a retreat topic, that's a good one. I know it was a couple months ago now, but there is the planning commissioner training that's run through, I think it's VCU, and they run a planning commissioner training. I think it's probably twice a year. And they would cover those kinds of topics as well, and I'm happy to recirculate that and of course The city would cover the cost for planning commission training Long story short Colleen needs more training. Oh, no, I Whenever I've worked with commissioners in the past even if they come From the industry they've always expressed value in having attended as well as being able to make connections with commissioners and other jurisdictions and just that opportunity to network can always be helpful to see how other folks tackle the same issues.

Paul, did I hear you say that that training is run by VCU now?

I think so. I think it transitioned.

It's not the Virginia Tech Extension Service anymore?

No. So it shifted. It's an ancient guy.

Well, I would throw in the fact that I enjoyed planning commissioner training a lot and thought it was really very worthwhile and would go again if I wasn't leaving so soon. But I certainly – I thought it was – A very effective thing for the reasons that you mentioned. But I do think that this is specific enough to the things we have going on that building upon the example that we've got here. And if it's not, actually if it's not too far out of line, I'd like to ask another question of staff. Because I notice that Maya and Rachel are still sitting here suffering through, although the docket item as far as I can tell is officially over. So I'm going to indulge that and just go. Of this discussion that we've had tonight, are there things on your mind or observations that you would make for us to keep in mind as we go forward from this?

the conversation was really helpful to listen to and kind of seeing where you all were at, um, especially in regards to the Eisenhower West plan and wanting that to continue to charge forward. Um, yeah, just for staff that was good to listen to. Um, I will add, you know, there are other sites. Around this site to the point of their industrial sites That you might be seen in the future So the list we're not done with making these decisions Or at least making the recommendations on these decisions.

Thank you

Any other Commissioner reports comments or questions before we move into the directors report tonight?

Yes, Commissioner Dube briefly the our all work group. They did meet last week Unfortunately had a transportation emergency that did not allow me to get there in time But I do have I will get out a written report Actually, since this is our last meeting You'll have to wait till September I But just so you know, there is another interim director there. The previous interim director resigned. So they're on their third in the last year. They are advertising for a permanent director. And that's about it for that. I did have the chance to attend the Alexandria Police Department's Public Safety Summit on the 18th. I don't know. None of you guys were there? Because I was told that a member of every or the chair of every board and commission was invited. I was invited as part of the LEPC that I'm on, but I didn't see you guys.

I don't remember getting invited to that.

That's what I was told. But anyway, there was a couple of hundred people there.

Was this the one on Holland Lane?

No, it was at the seminary.

Oh, right, the special invitation. I did get the news that there was a special invited guest list, but I don't think that was on that list.

Yeah, my understanding is that the chairs of each board and commission were invited. I had nothing to do with it other than I got one. But it was a very interesting discussion. It was most of the day and a lot of different people there. And we broke into small groups and talked about public safety issues that we were worried about in the city. So it was good. Does it?

CHRISTIE WOODARD- Excellent. Hey, Commissioner Manner, go for it.

CHRISTIE WOODARD- Let me unmute myself. OK, so Waterfront Commission, which continues to fight for its life, There's a lot going on, and I'll be brief because it's getting late, and I'll send a written report out. But just some highlights. We had an excellent presentation by Vice Chair Robbins about access to the waterfront by non-motorized watercraft. And you all may be surprised to know that we advertise ourselves as a port city, and yet there is almost no place to tie up as a transient voter. There are the spaces around Barca, but that's it. I mean, it's absurd. And so I'll send the presentation out that Mr. Robbins made, because it was excellent. There's the Waterfront Commission Walk coming up. I believe it's this Saturday. I'm waiting for details to come back about that, which I will also send out if there's interest in that. And it's kind of interesting to tour along there given all the changes. We had a report from Jack Brown from RPCA about the wreck of the piers there in Orinoco Bay near the boathouse. They're going to be removed before the end of June, and the pilings that are in the seabed will remain so we don't have to get into any environmental aspect of that. We sent a letter to the SISI manager asking for additional public restrooms. I also had a one-on-one with the mayor and said that there aren't sufficient restrooms, but there are many facilities along the waterfront that are essentially hidden and not marked, like the ones in the torpedo factory, like the ones behind Blackwall Hitch, like the ones on the land side of Barca. And people don't know they're there. And if we could have just improved the signage, that would be an inexpensive way to let our important visitors know that there are facilities available to them. And lastly, and this is something I will get some more detail out on, we had a presentation from Matt Landis, who is Chief of Project Implementation about the latest go-round of flood mitigation. And that's, of course, very detailed, so I'll send that out specifically. And lastly, we got something we're seriously considering the Point Lumley parking lot. And you might recall that the original waterfront plan called for that to go away. And the commission still believes that is the right way to do but the city has now come back and said it's going to be a staging area for whatever happens with the flood mitigation and i know for a fact that restaurants along the waterfront are fighting very hard to keep that parking lot because particularly because the market square parking lot is closed for the next three years and there's a big concern that that will be very disruptive to business down there And that's really it. As I said, I'll send out more detailed information that people can digest over the summer.

Great. Thank you very much. Of course. Any other commissioner updates? If not, Director Stoddard, do you want to give your director's report?

I'm happy to. Thank you, Madam Chair. So included, it's a relatively short planning director's report this evening. There we go. Sorry about that. So as was actually discussed earlier today, I of course want to give an update on our next installment of the bi-monthly community meeting series. Of course, this is how we get information out broadly to the general community about applications that are coming up or expected to come up in upcoming hearings. All of the past recordings, presentations, Q&A are posted and available for view on the city's website. Our last meeting was held on May 19th, and I apologize for this. There's a typo in my report. Instead of Friday, July 17th, which is a terrible day of the week for a public meeting, it's actually going to be on Tuesday, the 21st, with the expectation that we'll get better numbers and attendance on that night. Then also included, again, in the Department of Make No Surprises is the docket look ahead, which takes us to the other side of the summer recess with the expected cases for the September hearing. But that concludes my report, and I'm happy to take any questions.

Can you remind me what time of night the virtual community updates are?

I sure can.

If you give me a minute to search for the time, I think it's 6 o'clock comes to mind, but I'm going to double check it. Yep, 6 to 7. And so we answer questions live at the end of the presentation. And then anything, we've always been able to answer every question asked in the timeframe. But of course, anything that runs over, we want to be considerate of folks' time. And of course, we'll post the answer in the Q&A.

Great. Our look ahead is very sparse.

It is limited. So it is.

We're too far ahead.

No, we are seeing sort of limited interest or somewhat diminishing interest in some of the applications that we're seeing some folks still come in and express interest in maybe some longer term plans. Otherwise, we're generally seeing people step down in density. I think we continue to put out and we have an upcoming bus tour with AEDP and NAOP to talk about catalyst sites that are available throughout the community and of course we're stepping up our efforts to be more proactive in reaching out to property owners and potential developers so that when they do come in with applications they're coming in with things that already look like the small area plans and that's common when applications are a little bit slower we put a little more effort into getting out the word about what the community wants to see.

Thank you very much for this write-up. These are always nice to have give us a sense of the flow Last item is our minutes Does anyone have questions, comments, edits, or a motion to approve the minutes from June 2?

I'll make a motion to approve the minutes from June 2.

I'll second.

All right. I have a motion by Commissioner Lanahan and a second by Commissioner Ramirez to approve the minutes from June 2. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Is that an aye, Jody? Aye. OK. Awesome. Motion carries 6-0. Motion to adjourn?

Motion to adjourn.

Second. All right. A motion to adjourn by Commissioner Linehan, seconded by Commissioner Ramirez. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries 6-0. Thank you, everybody. It's 9.33.