Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening and welcome to the Wednesday, September 9th, 2026 meeting of the Arlington County Planning Commission. There is no recess meeting scheduled on Thursday, September 10th. I am Commissioner Nia Bagley, Chair. Tonight's discussion pertains to Site Plan 361 located at 1501 Langston Boulevard with the following elements. The GLUP, General Land Use Plan Amendment, Site Plan Amendment and Use Permit. A few pointers before we get started for participants. Presenters and speakers joining the meeting through Microsoft Teams, please keep your phones and other electronic devices muted until you are called upon by the clerk. Please turn off the sound to any devices around you to minimize interference and keep your cameras off until the clerk announces your name to speak. When called upon, you must unmute yourself by clicking on the microphone icon that is in the meeting command bar at the top of the screen. Neither the moderator nor the clerk have the opportunity to unmute your mic. Once you have spoken, please mute your mics and turn your cameras off. If you are dialing in by phone to join the meeting, please press star six to unmute. Public speakers will be called upon by the clerk at an assigned time. Pre-registration with email confirmation is required to speak at tonight's hearing. We cannot accommodate additional speakers. All speakers, virtual or hybrid, will receive two minutes to comment as an individual. Only representatives of a county board-appointed advisory group, committee, and or commission will receive three minutes to comment. A timer will be displayed on the screen if speaking virtually and speakers in person will follow the timer stationed on the podium. Audio for tonight's meeting is available via phone. If commissioners, presenters, or speakers lose internet connectivity, please reconnect by phone. However, if you are dialing in by phone and unable to see the screen, we will provide an audible 30-second warning to wrap up your comments. You will be muted when your time has expired. The meeting chat is active for presenters or commissioners who need technical assistance only. Please do not use the meeting chat for discussion, public comment, questions about agenda items, or requests for further information. All public comments must be shared verbally for the record during the assigned public testimony period. Tonight's meeting will be available for review through the YouTube platform. A link has been provided on the Planning Commission website 24 to 48 hours after the adjournment of the meeting. Although the meetings will no longer be a live broadcast, the meetings will be available for review with closed captioning on Comcast, Xfinity channels 25 and 1073, and Verizon Fios channels 39 and 40, 24 to 48 hours after the adjournment of the meeting. Lastly, this is a public forum. Tonight's meeting will be recorded and posted to the county website via a link to YouTube as stated. All information associated with tonight's meeting, whether written or spoken, is subject to the Virginia Freedom of Information Act requirements. Madam Clerk, please call the first item.

Thank you. Our first item is GP-374-26-1, the General Land Use Plan Amendment to change the use designation for 1501 Langston Boulevard and SPLA 25-00018 The site plan amendment for site plan 361. And there's also a use permit that goes with this project. We have Christine Wontesh to present this item this evening. Thank you.

Okay, good evening, members of the Planning Commission. Again, and for the record, I'm Chrissy Walentish with the Department of Community Planning, Housing, and Development, and I'm joined by Daniel Creed with the Department of Environmental Services, and we're here tonight to present to you the Air and Space Force Association Redevelopment Project. The AFA is located within the boundaries of the North Highlands Civic Association. It's found by Langston Boulevard and Interstate 66 to the south, North Oak Street and the Key Bridge Marriott site to the east, the Palisades Park Townhomes Complex to the north and west, and Park Georgetown Apartments to the west. The site is currently developed with a vacant four-story office building that was constructed in 1984 and was previously occupied by the Air and Space Force Association. Here's some views of the site's existing conditions. The Custis Bike and Pedestrian Trail runs along the site's southern frontage, parallel with Langston Boulevard. I'm going to keep going. Parking and loading access is from North Oak Street and there is a conservation easement in the southwest corner of the site that contains a wooded area. The area will remain upon the site's redevelopment. The AFA site is located within Area 5 East of the Langston Boulevard area plan, which was adopted by the County Board in December 2023. Area 5 East is envisioned to be the gateway to Langston Boulevard corridor and buildings along the Custis Trail are expected to create a welcoming environment. Development on the subject site should also step down gradually to the surrounding lower density residential communities. The subject items under review this evening include a correction to the general land use plan map to properly record the land use designation as low office apartment hotel, a site plan amendment to construct a mixed-use building with 88 residential units, a ground floor museum use in a below-grade parking garage, and also a use permit for a museum. Here's a closer look at the development proposal. The proposed density is 70 dwelling units per acre. The proposed residential parking ratio is 0.5 spaces per unit. The proposed building height is eight stories, and the applicant is proposing zoning ordinance modifications for lot coverage, setback, and density exclusions. Here's a closer look at the use permit requests for a museum. The applicant proposes a 1409 square foot museum on the ground floor of the for the AFA Heritage Gallery Museum. It will include meeting space and exhibitions as well as the relocated Doolittle Legacy Wall, which exists on the site today. The entrance to the museum is from the pedestrian Plaza along the Lansing Blvd frontage. For site design, the subject site contains atypical dimensions and is constrained by its close proximity to both the Palisades Park townhomes to the north and west, as well as to the Custis Trail and Langston Boulevard to the south. The conservation easement containing a wooded area is located to the southwest portion of the site. The applicant is proposing to retain the existing underground parking garage, so parking and loading access will remain from North Oak Street. The main entrance for the residential building is proposed from North Oak Street, and the museum entrance is proposed on the building's southwestern corner adjacent to the conservation area and the Custis Trail. A plaza walkway will connect the pedestrians from the main entrance to the museum entrance. The AFA site is an important vista termination and the proposed architecture incorporates special building elements and expressions that help to reinforce that vista from the east and west. The proposed building facade along Langston Boulevard provides recess and projecting planes It helped to create visual interest and architectural rhythm. The proposed design of the ground floor, Custis Trail, and public plaza, as well as the projection of the facade above the second floor, helped to create a pedestrian scale and inviting space for people walking and biking along Langston Boulevard. Looking at land use and zoning guidance, Stafford interprets the site's correct club designation as low office apartment hotel, and the site is zoned CO 1.5 mixed-use zoning district, which corresponds with the site's club designation. The existing GLUP map shows medium residential and public designations also on this site. As noted during SPRC, staff conducted extensive research on past county board actions for GLUP amendments and designations for this site and found that other designations were mapped in error over time from changes in rights of way of Langston Boulevard and I-66, as well as when the Palisades Park redevelopment was approved. In order to correct this error and to ensure the GLUP map depicts the accurate land use designation for the site, which is low office apartment hotel, a GLUP amendment is proposed alongside this site plan. We'll next review land use zoning and density. For land use, the proposed mixed use building is consistent with the Langston Boulevard Area Plan's land use guidance for the site, as you can see on the mixed use map to the left. A mix of uses is also supported by the site's zoning district and club designation. For density, the proposed density of 70 units per acre is within the permitted density of the CO 1.5 zoning district and is also consistent with the site's club designation of low office apartment hotel, both of which permit densities up to 72 units per acre. For building height, the area plan envisions that the building height be tapered in this location to provide a suitable transition to the townhomes and garden apartment buildings to the north and west. The plan recommends a maximum building height of seven stories along the Langston Boulevard and North Oak Street frontages, which then steps down to five stories as it nears the adjacent townhomes. In staff's review of the applicant's plans, there are two restrooms located on the mechanical mezzanine level, which count as occupiable gross floor area. The restrooms are required facilities for the lifeguards that will staff the rooftop pool. The presence of GFA on this level means that the floor must count as an additional story, therefore establishing the overall building height as eight stories. However, a mechanical penthouse in the CO 1.5 zoning district is permitted at a maximum height of 23 feet with which the proposal is consistent. Therefore, if the applicant were to remove the GFA within the mechanical penthouse, the overall building massing and height would remain the same. In addition, the rooftop design is supported in Section 4.3.2 of the plan, which encourages rooftop access for amenities and states that occupiable space for associated amenities should be located within the penthouse enclosure, which is what is being proposed for this building. For building form, the applicant proposes a building with a unique form, which is largely due to site constraints such as topography and the site's atypical shape. Based on the area plan's guidance on massing, the building should be tapered with the tallest building height and massing concentrated in the southeast corner along Langston Boulevard and North Oak Street, and then it should step down as it nears the townhomes to the north and west, as the proposed setbacks follow a similar pattern, although not directly tapered as recommended in the area plan. In regard to setbacks, the proposal exceeds the required setback on North Oak Street frontage. On Langston Boulevard, the setback is being met at grade, but the upper levels do encroach into the setback distance from the street center line due to the due to them cantilevering over the ground level. On the northern and western boundaries, the existing footprint of the underground garage currently extends to the property lines. However, at one story...

Apologies.

At one story above grade, both facades step back in order to meet the 10-foot setback recommendation, while the proposed building form does not conform directly with the area plan's guidance, it does achieve the overall intent of the plan to provide neighborhood transitions while also producing a building that provides visual interest and differentiation in massing.

One moment, I got kicked out of the meeting. Okay.

In the areas closest to the adjacent townhomes, the building heights are four stories and are also downhill, which will help offset any height difference between those portions of the building and the adjacent townhomes. Also, a courtyard is proposed to break up the building's massing and to create separation between the proposed building and the townhouses to the west that are closest to the site. For transportation, the applicant proposes to reuse the foundation of the existing garage. proposed parking there will be 44 spaces allocated for residential use three spaces for museum use and 102 spaces for flex use within the garage this revised parking ratio is a result of the change in the code of virginia law which now states that a locality shall not require minimum off-street parking exceeding 0.5 spaces per unit for sorry for residential multi-family or mixed-use developments located within a half mile of a transit station or facility While the applicant proposes and agrees to a residential parking ratio of 0.5 spaces per unit as part of the site plan approval, this rate establishes a minimum residential parking ratio and does not preclude the applicant from designating flex spaces for residential uses. Two loading spaces are proposed to be located internal to the garage accessible from North Oak Street. The applicant also proposes 37 class one bike parking spaces in a proposed bike room along the southern portion of the building. Direct bike room access is provided to the abutting segment of Custis Trail And for transportation improvements, the applicant proposes to remove a westbound lane, travel lane from Langston Boulevard, a segment of the existing sound wall, and to widen the Custis Trail along the Langston Boulevard frontage. In conformance with the Custis Trail needs assessment study that was conducted in 2024, the applicant proposes to widen the Custis Trail between 12 and 16 feet adjacent to the site for unconstrained or high volume segments. The applicant is also proposing a water fountain, lighting, a bicycle fix-it station, seating areas, and other trailside amenities, and a publicly accessible wayside that is adjacent to the trail, which is also in conformance with the needs study. For open space and landscaping, the westernmost portion of the property is in a conservation area, and it contains approximately 13,230 square feet of mature vegetation. It's subject to a conservation easement that was recorded by the property owner to the benefit of the Northern Virginia Conservation Trust. Staff and the applicant have worked diligently with NVCT to ensure the proposed redevelopment of the site would not negatively impact that conservation area. Enhancements to the conservation area are proposed, including the removal of invasive plant species and the construction of a mulch pathway that will serve as a passive recreation and allow the visitors to experience the conservation area and connect to the Custis Trail. The pedestrian plaza is proposed along Langston Boulevard, which will run parallel to the Custis Trail and provide access to the AFA Gallery and Museum entrance. The plaza will serve as a respite area for users of the Custis Trail. The project's proposed tree canopy coverage is 41.5%, which exceeds the area plan's recommendation of 35%. The area plan also recommends that mixed-use developments provide private open space covering at least 15% of the buildable area. The applicant's proposed private open space is 49.6%, which meets and exceeds that plan guidance. Here's a closer look at the proposed pedestrian plaza that will connect to the conservation area where a mulch path is proposed with additional connections to the Custis Trail. The area plan emphasizes stormwater mitigation, tree preservation, and tree canopy coverage targets as the main goals for sustainability and resilience along the corridor due to the area's tendency for flooding. The proposal achieves these goals by preserving existing trees on site and exceeding the recommended tree canopy coverage. For sustainable design, the applicant proposes LEED Gold Green Building certification and has committed to several sustainability measures outlined in the GVIP, although not participating in the GVIP. On this slide, you can see the project's evolution over the last two years. The applicant has been very receptive to staff and community input throughout the project's review process. The applicant first submitted a concept plan that was 10 stories in height and contained multiple area plan deviations, which you can see on the right, sorry, on the left. And they then came back in 2025 with a revised design of a building height of seven stories plus a mechanical penthouse, although it was later determined that the mechanical penthouse must technically count as an additional level due to the presence of bathrooms. In this version, the applicant reorganized the building's massing to better align with the area plan's guidance and to provide better separation from the adjacent townhomes. And on the left, you can see the building's current design, which is much more refined than the other two iterations and depicts a high quality and unique mixed-use building that will serve as a gateway feature to the Langston Boulevard corridor. For site plan features and improvements, these are standard for all site plans, but it will include new pavement, sidewalk, curb, and gutter on street frontages, street tape and landscape improvements to current county standards, affordable housing contribution, public art contribution, utility fund contribution, sustainable design elements implemented, TDM participation, and provision of in-building first responder network wireless. For proposed density, this is essentially what was outlined on the last slide, but it's put into buckets in this place so you can see that All of that is included under the site plan space density. They are not achieving any sort of additional density utilizing 1559. So neither the green building pathway nor affordable housing. So that gets them to 88 units, which is what is proposed. For equity analysis, the area plan itself evaluated existing conditions through an equity lens and found the corridor's current housing mix consists of primarily lower scale residential, including single detached homes, townhomes, and duplexes, There are connectivity gaps in areas with insufficient public spaces. The corridor lacks robust tree canopy coverage and other features that support sustainable development, and the existing transportation network is generally undesirable for walking or biking. As a result, the area plan seeks to address these inequities through the policies and recommendations previously mentioned. Staff finds the proposal advances the equity goals for housing since it provides a mid-rise apartment building to diversify the corridor's housing mix, new public spaces on site, a tree canopy coverage that exceeds the plan's recommended target, and improvements to the Langston Boulevard and Custis Trail that will enhance both vehicular and non-vehicular transportation and circulation throughout the corridor. The project underwent review by Site Plan Review Committee consisting of its standard seated representatives as well as from community representatives from the North Highlands Citizens Association, North Rawson Civic Association, and the Palisades Park Homeowners Association. SPRC discussion was generally supportive including on topics such as architecture, transportation improvements, and replacement of obsolete office building. Questions were raised and responded to by the applicant regarding building height and tapering. There was also discussion regarding the design of the trail throughout the conservation area and discussion of the motor court, among others. Following SPRC, the project was heard by the Transportation Commission last week, where it was approved unanimously 9-0. The project will next go to the County Board on September 19th. So looking at community responses, we have received a letter from the North Highlands Civic Association that is requesting revised construction hours and concerns regarding proposed building height, the building height which was addressed in this presentation and in the board report. And then we have received other letters with concerns over the Glup Amendment on the County Board Zone motion. Staff finds that the proposal generally conforms with the guidance of the Langston Boulevard Area Plan. It also replaces an obsolete office building with housing in a transit accessible location, provides new public space, provides a gateway architectural feature, provides transportation improvements, including removal of a portion of the sound barrier, narrowing of Langston Boulevard, both which are pending VDOT approval, and widening of a portion of the Custis Trail, and commits to achieving LEED Gold Green Building certification, as well as other sustainability commitments from the GOVIP. Generally, the project conforms to the guidance of the Langston Boulevard Area Plan, as noted on the last slide, and also staff finds it conforms with the zoning ordinance findings outlined in section 15 of the zoning ordinance, as they're outlined on this slide, And therefore, given this analysis and staff's findings, we recommend that the Planning Commission recommended the County Board to adopt the resolution to approve the General Land Use Plan Amendment to change the designation from low office apartment hotel, medium residential, and public to all low office apartment hotel, and to adopt an ordinance to permit construction of a mixed-use building with 88 residential units, ground floor museum use, and below-grade parking garage with modifications for proposed setbacks, lot coverage, density exclusions, and other modifications as necessary to achieve the development proposal. Thank you. Let me know if you have any questions.

Thank you, Ms. Valentich.

And now we'll hear from the applicant, Mr. Painter.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair, members of the Commission. Andrew Painter with the law firm of Walsh Colucci, and I too hope I don't get kicked out, but if so, I understand Ms. Valentich has my presentation and can advance the slides. speaking down on behalf of tycoon partners they are the applicants in the case um and i think we have our entire project team i think dare to say we have half of arlington county here tonight ready to answer any questions um i i do want to say that this project and it wasn't until miss wallace just threw up all three of the images to show how the project has evolved that it kind of uh dawned on me how far this project has come over the last two years from when the applicant in this case submitted the original site plan our conceptual site plan to where we are now I do want to express my appreciation to Ms. Walentich, Mr. Creed, and Ms. Alfonso-Ahmed, who is not here this evening. But, you know, with them, we've worked diligently with staff over the last, you know, year and a half on this case through several planning and design issues. We are very proud of the progress that we have made. And there are PC members here this evening who offered their insights during the SPRC process, even followed up with discussions on architecture and things like that. And I want to express my appreciation to them on that as well. Ms. Walentich provided a good overview, and I just wanted to highlight a few things. You know, when you look at the site, it's a building that is functionally obsolete. It's mostly vacant. It was constructed back in 1984 for the Air Force Association, which moved out of the site and into a new space in Pentagon City in 2024. We have neighbors. There's an established single-family attached community, the Palisades Park townhomes, that immediately abut us. I mean, could not be closer on the north and the west. There's the Park Georgetown community, which is immediately to the west as well. And so we have to be mindful of our neighbors and what's around us. This is also a property that features seven different property boundaries and a substantial 40-foot topographic drop between its northwestern corner and southeastern corner as well. When we got involved with the project, we started thinking about different design drivers, trying to be mindful of all the different goals and our neighbors and what we needed to do. And they're shown here. And every issue that we've come across, every request that has been made, we've kind of used this box as our North Star. We look at that, then we compute out the answer. And based upon that, the revised plan that we eventually came up with was, and this is the graphic illustrative that Ms. Walentich showed, is an 88-unit multifamily building. We are seeking to introduce for-sale housing opportunities in the Langston Boulevard corridor. And I do want to underscore that because, you know, condominiums have not been constructed, I mean, only very rarely across Northern Virginia in the last 20 years or so. But they do comprise an important element in the continuum of housing choices that are available to Arlington County residents. We are placing a large emphasis on larger or an emphasis on larger bedrooms. Approximately 75% or 72 of the 88 units will be two and three bedrooms. They will have much larger average unit size than we typically see with 4.1 site plans. And then from a design perspective, we are opening up the middle of the building rather than having to be a wrap or a box. It is basically an inverted C with a courtyard in the middle to be a little bit more mindful of the neighbors immediately to the west. And then we've also been moving the mechanical, outmoded mechanical systems from the northwestern quadrant of the site down towards Langston Boulevard. And then much of the building will be integrated into the adjacent hillside to take advantage of the site's topography and reduce the visual impact on our neighbors. Ms. Walensich noted the density at 70 dwelling units per acre, which is below the permitted density in the CO 1.5 zoning district. That usually goes against everything that we typically see with 4.1 site plans. But again, we're trying to be cognizant of the fact that This is a lower density residential area. So we have a lot of needles that we're trying to thread at having a context sensitive design. From an architectural perspective, my hat's off to WDG for figuring out how best to mesh the Langston Boulevard Area Plan's design principles and guidelines with the unique contours of the site. And we can talk about that in a second. One of the promises that the ownership made to the Air and Space Force Association when they left was that ownership would do what it could do to preserve the legacy of the association in any new building. So that is the reason why we have proposed an approximately 1400 square foot museum, and it would have meeting space, but also have exhibits highlighting the history of the Air and Space Force Association. We are preserving what's known as the Doolittle Legacy Wall in the project, and this will be open for meeting space to residents and also civic associations and nonprofits, including the Palisades Park Owners Association and the North Highlands Civic Association. We've made that commitment verbally to them. And this will have access directly onto the Custis Trail. We have worked diligently with the Northern Virginia Conservation Trust to improve the conservation area and transform it, which is currently closed off to the public, into a much ecologically healthier, publicly accessible wayside area adjacent to the trail. We are proposing to remove invasive species, reduce the potential for erosion, formalize some of the informal goat trails on the property, and install native supplemental biophilic plantings. But our hope is that this becomes the next great wayside that people experience on the Custis Trail when they're walking or jogging. And you can see it up and down the Custis Trail corridor as well. But it does accord with the spirit of the Custis Trail Needs Assessment and Priority Improvement Study. We appreciate the Conservation Trust efforts on that. We have a series of transportation improvements as well. Not going to go through all of them here, but there is a marked 71% reduction in the total number of trips. generated from this site versus the existing office building. We are introducing a transportation demand management program, which is something the office building does not currently have. We are proposing a port co-share with vehicle access for drop-offs and pickups. We acknowledge that that is not something that we typically see in 4.1 site plan projects, but we think given the community's concerns about backups and loading on North Oak Street, it is appropriate without sacrificing priority pedestrian prioritization and safety. Also, something else we heard from the community, not having trucks backing up onto North Oak Street. And so, again, one of the architectural moves that we have made is to have all of the loading, full truck turnarounds in the garage so there's no backing onto North Oak Street. We spent a significant amount of time studying what we heard, the very real lived experiences of the dangerous conditions of the Custis Trail as bikers in particular are coming down at a high rate of speed towards North Oak Street. So there are four moves we've made here. One is to move the footprint of the building back so it's at least 45 feet from Langston Boulevard to give a larger peripheral view as bikers come down. Second, we are proposing to remove one westbound lane along Langston Boulevard to recapture that space for a much more dignified pedestrian bicycle zone, including a wider 16 foot stretch of Custis Trail. In addition to having a pedestrian path that's accessible immediately adjacent to the building. And then we are also proposing to remove a portion of the sound wall to improve site visibility and introduce light and air to the trail into what today is a tunnel-like effect. And then the other thing that we heard too were on-trail, on-road improvements. This is directly taken from or taken directly from our plan set, but these are some of the trail improvements that we're proposing as well. We're very proud of our biophilic approach in our landscaping, which is inextricably linked to our architecture. Representatives from Land Design can walk you through this. But what's unique about it is that it's a very small, tight site, but there are four distinct landscaping zones across the site, each responding to different constituencies. So it's exciting in the way that we've been able to do that. Some of the architectural images, just in a little bit closer perspective. This is looking east along the Custis Trail with the AFA Heritage Gallery and the future revived conservation area in the foreground. This is looking directly at North Oak Street at the Port Cochere. And again, you can see how the Port Cochere relates to North Oak Street and to the building entrance, again, without sacrificing the safety or pedestrian prioritization of the wider North Oak Street sidewalk. I like this image perhaps the best of all because it shows the architectural changes that we, or the architectural style. It introduces a lot of glass, a lot of streamlined modern kind of features, but it also shows how we are banking this into the hillside so it reads as a lower building. And so this is taken from the northwest quadrant of the building looking towards the southeast. And this is a closeup of the North Oak Street Langston Boulevard intersection looking west with the removed sound wall. And again, you can see the hopefully more gracious, safer pedestrian and bicycle zones that we're proposing. And then, of course, the larger shot here, which shows how we are using terraces and some landscaping on the terraces. But rather than having a wedding cake type design along Langston Boulevard, we're introducing a cantilevered approach, which is totally different, but I think an elegant design solution that actually follows the contours of Langston Boulevard as people enter the Commonwealth of Virginia and this county and as they move west. In terms of environmental sustainability, I don't need to repeat this, but these are some of the commitments that we are making, including a 7,200 square foot green roof. And then when I step back, Madam Chair, and all this, I do want to express my appreciation to the neighbors for their input, to North Highland Civic Associations, the Langston Boulevard Alliance. Each of them have had, whether they know it or not, their thumbprint on this. They care deeply about it. And I think that's as it should be because this is an important site. It is immediately adjacent to these residents. So everything from construction management all the way through final delivery of the building and people who are going to live here is extremely important to them. And the conversation doesn't stop there. So with that, we're very proud of this project. Our entire team is happy to answer any questions. We appreciate your consideration. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Painter. Madam Clerk, do we have any public speakers?

We do have seven public speakers. Two of them are online. So if you can hear me, I will be calling your name and posting the timer as well. One moment. Please remember to turn your cameras on and speak clearly into your microphones. When your time is up, turn your camera off and your microphone as well. Thank you. Our first speaker online is Bernie Byrne, followed by David Yingling.

Hello, can you hear me?

Yes, we can. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. To its credit, the plant palette in this project's Our June 12th revised conceptual landscape plan contains common milkweed. It's nice to see this. However, other plants in the palette do not adequately conform to the County Board's 2016 Monarch Pledge or to the County's 2023 Forestry and Natural Resources Plan. These documents recommend plantings of native plants that support native pollinators. The pallet contains a species of Black-eyed Susan, Rudubecchia amplexocolis, that is not native to Arlington and its vicinity. As I already informed the applicant, but have received no response, the applicant should replace this plant with another species of Black-eyed Susan, Rudubecchia hirta, which is native to Arlington. There are many things that have the same common names, but the scientific names are different. The pallet contains tend cultivars that have no greater disease resistance than do their parents. Cultivars often have reduced nutritional benefits, modified flowers, or are toxic to insects. Native pollinators often can't recognize them or access their nectar, if any. Horticulturists select cultivars based on their attractiveness to people, not pollinators. Landscape architects often do the same, as they have in this case. The applicants should therefore replace each of the 10 cultivars with its parent or with another native species that has similar characteristics to the cultivar. The applicant should not retain any cultivar because it has a desirable height, shape, or color, as it may not feed pollinators or may be toxic. Most landscape aquacultures don't appreciate this, but we know some do. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Byrne. Our next speaker is David Yingling, followed by Jack Spilsbury.

Hello, my name is David Yingling.

I'm a resident of Palisades Park, 1709 22nd Court North. I presented documents to the clerk, hopefully the committee has seen those documents as of today i'd just like to re-emphasize some of the things that's been reviewed so far in the meeting first off i dispute that this is a eight-story building since they are using now in the current design an entranceway with amenities on the ground level garage floor area and it's not being used as a garage now choosing only for entrance amenities office space and everything else which should make it a nine-story building Again, the area transportation study, I don't see how it's a benefit to the community to take away a lane of Langston Boulevard, making it from a three lane to a two lane area adjacent to the property, which they're claiming that's an improvement. I don't know how that works as an improvement, And also the improvement to the Custis Trail doesn't do any good when you go from the split to 16 to 12 feet next to the building when you get to the top of the hill and you're back to the nine feet. So you've taken away a lane which packs of bikes use on the weekends to avoid the Custis Trail because it's so crowded. And now they can't do that. And you're going to run up the hill and run into a nine foot wide path again. They have several variants that they're asking for in the zoning. about how close they are to the roads and everything else. They only meet these requirements because they're taking part of the road. They're taking a lane out of Langston Boulevard and they're taking the area on North Oak Street, the seven feet of the area where all the equipment that usually parks, i.e. the maintenance trucks, the lawn care trucks, and there is no space for this stuff. The turnaround in the garage area only shows a 30-foot truck going in there. It does not show any movement or anything of that size. So I don't know how that's all supposed to work. Plus, I don't know how this is supposed to be constructed without isolating the neighborhood. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Jack Spielsbury.

Yes, hello. Can you hear me okay?

Yes. very good um good evening madam chair and commission members um i'm speaking on behalf of the arlington county civic civic federation and um as you may recall the civic federation had issued a resolution a resolution in june 2025 calling on the county for improvements in its site plan review process we have also been supporting the county auditor's efforts, including his call for greater public transparency and the negotiation and administration of community benefits. So we commend the hard work of the SPRC and its members on this 1501 Langston Boulevard project. But at the same time, we wanted to raise some concerns about the process that was followed for this project, particularly the lack of clarity about the current GLUP designations for this site. This matters because the current GLUP is the baseline for determining what GLUP changes are required for the proposed development, and in turn, what community benefits should be considered. As we've seen, there are three sections of the parcel, each with a different GLUP designation. And I think everyone has agreed that one third of the parcel already had a land use appropriate to the project, specifically low office apartment hotel. However, in the SPRC in the July presentation and discussion, staff indicated, stated, quote, although staff interprets existing land use as low OAH, two other designations appear to also apply. And this created a lot of confusion. In addition to the low OAH, it listed for segments of the site, medium residential and public co-op destinations. The problem is that they're essentially saying that the same square footage had more than one different co-op designations, which should not be the case, should not happen. And the staff has attributed this, quote, appearance of, quote, double bluffing to historical errors and inconsistencies. So before decisions are made about what changes may be required for this development, we first need to decide which of these competing bluff designations actually are, were correct. To do this, there needs to be agreement on the accurate GLUP for each section of the property in order to eliminate the GLUP debate before we can fairly assess the site plan proposal.

I'm being shown zero, but I thought I had five minutes.

Mr. Spilsbury? Yeah. Thank you for your comments.

Okay. Did I get five minutes? That's what I see.

You got the allotted time. Thank you for your comments. Our next speaker is John Musso, followed by Anne Bodine.

Good evening, Madam Chair, members of the Planning Commission, John Musa, Government Affairs Manager at the Arlington Chamber of Commerce. On behalf of the Chamber, I wish to express our strong support for this project and we urge you all to please recommend the adoption of this set of applications. As noted already, this project would create 88 units for sale, condominium units, along the length of Boulevard Corridor, a number of them being family sized, and that really advances the goals of not only our general housing initiatives and goals throughout the county, but also advances some of the goals in Langston Boulevard Area Plan, especially in the Area 5 where this is located. This provides additional public space improvements to widen Custis Trail, as noted, and really serves to elevate this space into a true gateway to Langston Boulevard, which is what the draft of the Area Plan really envisioned for this site and others around it. Additionally, it really advances the goals of the adaptive reuse policy, which I know virtually all of you strongly supported, as well as the county board. Removing an obsolete office building from the circulation of Roslyn and Arlington and developing a vibrant mixed-use development really greatly advances the goal, as well as also the fact that this retains the existing parking garage. So even if it's not a traditional adaptive reuse project in the way sometimes people think, this very much reuses some of the space that already exists. As noted, there's multiple site improvements that really kind of beautify and make this a really vibrant, engaging space. And we really look forward to its ultimate completion and its positive impact on both the Rosley neighborhood and Lexington Boulevard corridor. So we strongly urge you to please recommend this. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Anne Bodine, followed by Mitchell Jordstad.

Hello, can you hear me?

I have some slides. Madam Clerk, if you could help me with those. I need your glasses.

Bear with me while I put this up.

Okay, thank you Madam Chair, Commissioners, thank you. I'm Anne Bodine from Arlingtonians for Our Sustainable Future. On agenda item one, the various items to redevelop 1501 Langston Boulevard, we have critical concerns and requests for action. Although difficult to summarize what went wrong in our view, I will try, and we'll base the discussion on maps of this site, which we see here first, showing the county staff brief to the county board in July of this year. Let me back up, though, with the timeline from February to May. That was the time of the SPRC. The first problem was the staff claiming that the existing GLOP on the whole parcel, about 56,000 square feet, conformed to the proposed build-out. You have a one-page piece of paper from the March SPRC showing a GLOP conformity box with a checkmark. We go back to this, our first slide. I'm holding up a piece of paper to demonstrate how this paper is pink, and it's also red on the other side. For this slide in July, with no explanation and no reference back to the SPRC, staff began asserting what you see here. Redevelopment can't take place without a GLUP change. Yet staff did not abandon its assertion the entire site still had the proper GLUP that would allow the applicant's project to proceed. Unlike my paper, no parcel can be two things at once in GLUP terms. Next slide. This GLUP map in the booklet shows you the largest partial with three subsections that are different. As per the GLUP, a split GLUP as ASF and the developer agree with three categories next to one another. As noted, no subpart can be double GLUPed as staff keeps asserting even tonight. Nor can you seek a GLUP change if you really believe the GLUP is already low OAH. Switching horses mid-river or riding two horses across the river cannot happen with our site planning. Next slide. This slide shows what ASF believes to be the proper breakdown of this parcel and forms the basis of what should be a negotiated GLUP change as per the Langston Boulevard Area Plan stipulations that include substantial affordable housing components. To raise to the end of a longer story, which we have given you in the background paper, We ask that you consider that you cannot assert some part of the property needs a GLUP change, but really none of it does. You cannot say the SPRC was credible, then pull the rug out from under the GLUP status. Cannot argue GLUP maps contain.

Thank you, Ms. Burgund. Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Mitchell Joystad, followed by Erin Roberts.

Hi, my name is Mitch George said I'm just just a resident of the area. I live in courthouse. Yeah, I just wanted to speak in support of this really cool project. Seems really, really thoughtful to the context. I love that it's slimming down Langston Blvd. I actually didn't know about that part until today and that's great. Right now, Langston is a concrete hellscape and you know, cutting down a lane seems perfectly reasonable. I when I whenever I've driven down that segment, it's completely empty so. making it more comfortable to bike, walk and making it actually part of the neighborhood rather than just a highway frontage is a great move. And of course, Arlington always needs more housing. So super cool project. You know, would be really excited to see it built. Yeah. Thanks for your time.

Thank you.

Our last speaker is Aaron Roberts. Well, hi, I'm Aaron Roberts, Madam Commissioner, Commissioners.

Thank you for your time.

So I'm here on behalf of North Highland Civic Association. And I want to say first and foremost, we welcome new neighbors to our neighborhood. And we are excited about the vision of playing Langston Boulevard. I do, however, want to share three observations and questions with this group for you all to consider. The first. This is built along a fairly dense residential edge. And I think there's been a lot of design concessions, which are wonderful. But the American Pediatric Association recommends somewhere between 11 to 13 hours of sleep for young children under the age of five. And the standard site plan conditions don't really provide for that sort of contingency. The wonderful news here, and you don't have to take my word for it, you can ask the owner applicant, is that there seems to be agreement on this point that some change is in order. We'd just like to see it in writing. The second point. The Langston Boulevard area plan was inked in 2023, and there was about 10 years of grassroots organizing behind it. We're now roughly three years out, and the building is close to the vision, but it has additional GFA on the top floor that constitutes an additional story. And the step backs and setbacks are not quite what you would see in the plan. I'd love if this commission might consider talking a little bit about why that is and how we preserve public trust. If three years after an area plan is published, it's just a suggestion. And the third thing, and I'd like to make this as provocative as possible, Let's talk about how much each of these units will be sold for and what it's actually doing for affordability in Arlington County.

Thank you so much. Okay, thank you.

Madam Clerk, are there any commissions speaking tonight?

No.

Okay, then transportation.

Thank you. Yes, this was heard at the Transportation Commission's hearing last Thursday, September 3rd. The items we looked at, the questions about the parking, that there's 102 spaces, flex spaces, that was explained by staff that this is in response to the change in the law in Richmond regarding parking. that the building has the 0.5 ratio and then any parking above that, which is permitted, is then considered flex spaces. So condos usually need about 1.25 spaces per unit. So this is within what we traditionally look at for condominiums. We looked had questions about the sound wall that and that the staff does support the sound wall coming down and is as the developer is talking with VDOT about this since it's a VDOT. And of course, because it's by an interstate highway, that means the feds are involved, too. But we are getting the developers getting support from the county to take down most but not all of it. The western portion of the wall right by where the museum is, will remain in place in order to continue to give additional sound mitigation to the surrounding homes outside of the condo. Oak Street is being narrowed. It will also have a raised median in a small amount, and that is there to prevent traffic going off Langston onto Oak from making a left turn into the exit of the Port Cochere. that is to prevent cars from sort of having that. It simplifies that intersection right there with the Portco share. We had no concerns about the Portco share, even though generally they are discouraged. In this situation, we feel that the flexibility of having one is appropriate and the way it's being done here is fine. We did talk about the truck sizes and that we There probably will not be the need for tractor trailers to go into the building. Most moving vans for the size of these units will be the type of trucks that will be able to go in, turn around, and back out without having to tie up Oak Street. Let's see. That was pretty much it. We voted 9-0 to approve the GLUP change, the site plan, and to approve the use permit for the museum. And that was pretty much our our meeting. Overall, we were very, very happy with this project. Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Lantelli. Madam Clerk, we need to circle around, circle back.

Yes, I had a moment of, excuse me, Mr. Vincent, please, with C2E2.

Yes, I'm Kevin Vincent, the C2E2's representative for this project. We, as you know, actually have a score sheet that we use for projects now. In this project, we're very pleased to actually receive the highest score that we've achieved so far. So we had submitted a letter in support of the project, and we were very pleased with the cooperation of the applicant. and the building owners' receptiveness to our suggestions. So again, we sent in a letter already supporting the project, and I want to reiterate that. There are a couple points that, in the spirit of the fact that the applicant's been very good about listening to our suggestions, we think there are still additional things, how the project can be improved to enhance the environment and to limit the impact on climate change. I've harped on the electric vehicle charging. And again, I think you have the opportunity to add more charging in the garage and that will actually serve your future, not tenants, but the future owners living in the building if you increase the EV charging to the maximum that you can get in there. Because I think you can definitely get more than you proposed so far. And the other point just occurred to me tonight is, Bernie Burns actually making pretty good suggestion about using natives rather than cultivars in that open space. And so I think that you should take that suggestion to heart as well. And with that, again, I just want to say we were pleased with the project and we hope it goes forward. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Vinson. And kudos to the applicant. We don't hear that a lot. So thank you. All right. So now can we go to Commissioner Steinberger for her report? Thank you.

Sure. You all should have received that this morning. But sort of summarizing a bit, we had the two SPRCs dating back to March and May of this year. Good attendance at the meetings. Largely supportive. I think there was some feedback on the design and sort of massing that we've heard sort of alluded to this evening. I know you've got a supplemental report from Commissioner For us. So, you know, that, you know, in terms of some design features with the site. So hopefully you're able to take that into context. Commissioner Lantone made his report with regards to some of the transportation concerns with regards to the sound wall that occupied a fair amount of time. A lot of time was devoted. Probably the single biggest topic across both meetings was probably the Custis Trail and sort of the impact of sort of how to make that a, enjoyable safe experience for bikers and pedestrians, and that's sort of a difficult location there. So I think that's certainly something to continue to discuss. The staff's presentation did discuss the adjustment for the construction hours and sort of truck access for the site. That's another topic we should have for this evening as well. See if there's anything else that wanted to kind of specifically highlight. One thing that I wasn't clear on, and I'll ask a question about, I know we discussed shadow studies, but I wasn't sure where that had sort of gotten to. So I guess maybe I'll have that as a question as we discuss this. But I felt it was a productive SPRC process with good community engagement. And I really just want to highlight that this is a very prominent location and it's one that you see from a lot of angles and you see it as you enter the, you know, Langston Boulevard corridor. So the importance of sort of this being a design element, a building that people are going to sort of be, it's an impactful building that people are going to experience, you know, as they're driving into Arlington, as they're, you know, leaving the district, it becomes sort of a focal part of the Arlington built experience, you know, sort of by necessity of where it's located, but also by sort of the prominence of the design. I really liked the design. I think that there were good iterations on that. I think the applicant was very receptive to what the community wanted from that. And I'm pleased with where we have sort of evolved to. I'm sure there's some room for discussion and some folks may have feelings on that. So we'll talk through that. With that in mind, the topics I kind of laid out for tonight were design, Transportation. I sort of lumped the bike trail intersection and pedestrian safety under transportation there. I don't know if that's the best place for it or if that should be its own thing, but I'm going to let the chair make that call. Site construction. Again, we talked about construction hours, some of the sustainability. There's some good biophilia with the site. I don't know if I mean, to a point, as we heard from C2E2, the discussion of sustainability may be one of mostly like, hey, good job. But if people had questions on that, you know, that's for them. And I do think it merits potentially discussing. I didn't have a particular question on this, but the museum that's going to be on site is sort of, I think that's an interesting thing to sort of, you know, people might want to pull out a little bit. So that's what I had in terms of topics.

Thank you, Commissioner Steinberger for chairing and also Commissioner Torres for co-chairing. And I think we will follow Commissioner Steinberger's plan here. Are there any other topics that anyone would like to add before we open this up for discussion?

All righty. There. Construction hours, if that's not already on there. Construction hours.

It was. I listed that.

Sorry. Okay. Very good.

Did she have community benefits?

Yes. I do have that on my list. I put the museum as sort of under community benefits. But yes, community benefits is in the report. Yes.

Okay.

So we're all good, right? OK, good. Alright, so let's open it up for design, which would be topography, shadow studies, sound wall, anything along the design. Commissioner Torres.

Thank you everyone and thank you for the applicant because I actually think this was one of the best projects and examples of how receptive an applicant should be in listening to ideas, not just the community, the commissioners and trying to mold things with so many different ideas and so many different voices is very hard. So I think we've landed in a good medium for design in this project. I will say that for any future projects, I guess this is just for the record, if you request something like a shadow study the first time and then the second time, It's still not shown. It's funny because people that know about architecture, we got a letter today, know why I requested that. And it's important because it's not something that will change the project, but it at least identifies what will happen to people that live in the area in regards to the sun and how much sun they're going to get, whether their gardens are going to be different, things like this. So I would just say it was a great process, but for me, this should be the baseline and it could be better.

Would the applicant like to speak to that for a second?

Yes, certainly. We do have a shadow study in our plan set, and I'm happy to share that, and I appreciate the comments of Commissioner Torres. I think we had some good dialogue and agree that we got to a good spot, but we do have the shadow study, and the shadow study shows both the existing building, what a typical plan Langston Boulevard kind of form-based building would be, and then this building sort of all together. So that's contained in our plan set now.

Any, Commissioner Lynn, tell me.

Yeah, I assume this is partly design, but I just want to say that I do believe that this, first of all, I think it's a very good looking building. And it's a good, especially given that this is the entry to Arlington. So, you know, until the Marriott sites redevelop, this is the first thing somebody coming up Lancaster Boulevard is going to see. And I think this is a good building for that. I also believe that the building form, the height, the shape, is is substantially consistent with the Langston Boulevard area plans precepts. I've been involved with the LDAP since it was first initiated over 10 years ago and you know the it is a guideline. It is not a rigid. It must look like this. It does set back ideally how things can look, but it also gives flexibility so that as long as Basically, you're within the envelope of what is being described that the building will pass muster under the Langston Boulevard area plan. Here, the setbacks aren't exactly where they otherwise would be as the LBAP puts in, but there are setbacks in many spots that I think you sort of move things around a bit. So it's still there. The height is certainly totally within what is set out. Remember, it's both the number of stories and height. And even if we remove those bathrooms from that top level, which would technically make it down to seven stories, the height would be exactly the same. The massing would be exactly the same. There would be no change visually in what this building is. So I think that is something that we have to keep in mind. And that overall, I believe that the shape of this building is substantially consistent with what the Langston Boulevard area plan was envisioning for this site. Thank you.

Okay, any other comments in this section? Oh, Commissioner Amadeo.

I participated a little bit in the architecture conversation, so I was really happy to see some of the changes. I also hadn't noticed how water-like the site plan is, so I really appreciate the curves which I hadn't really focused on when we were talking about the terracing of the building. And I do appreciate how it's stepping back towards the neighborhood. So I think there's a lot there. And so I am surprised that you wouldn't immediately show your shadow studies because it seems to support what you're trying to do because I noticed the stepping and how you go down towards the neighborhood and you're creating kind of a buffer zone from Langston Boulevard to the back side of that area. So anyway, it's a good comment. And again, I appreciate the form and the way it's cited from Langston Boulevard to the neighborhood.

Thank you. I don't know if this is an appropriate moment to ask this question, but looking at the path that Commissioner Steinberger has laid out for us, this is to Ms. Walentich and staff. There have been questions about the GLUP and the process and everything. Can you just speak to that a little bit? I don't know that we'll get to that in another section. So I just am curious for the concerns that were raised this evening. Thank you.

Of course, happy to speak to that. So we followed standard process as much as it could have been done for this one. Mapping errors have happened. They have existed. There will probably be some in the future. The GLUP map errors are, they're there. And there happened to be two on this site and we went back and we did extensive research on this before the site plan was accepted and identified two separate mapping errors for this site. So there was never any sort of indication in our research that there was ever supposed to be a public designation or a medium residential designation for this site. And because of that, because we've now determined there's a mapping error, we can't then go ask the applicant apply for a glup amendment for this site because that would be inappropriate because we've determined there's a mapping error. Those two designations were never supposed to be on the glup map. So we hold the position that the site is zoned low OAH. We spoke to that at SPRC. I went back and checked the video today. I did point out the inconsistency with the existing glup map and that the site is low OAH. Let me know if you have any other questions.

Thank you, Commissioner Guevara.

Well, I understand there was obviously errors in the renderings and everything else. I do think it's really important to let community members know if there is that change. Surely, just if someone attended the SPRC, they could have gathered that. But I do think in the community, there's a bit of a sense there's a lack of transparency when it comes to that because if they're seeing, for example, in this project that there's inconsistencies or errors, right? When they see that perhaps happen again in other projects, it just seems like it sends a bit of mixed messaging because perhaps you could have addressed like you just did right now. But I think just having a clearer, more robust public engagement process would alleviate some of these questions that make community members really wonder and call for more transparency. Thank you. Understood. Thanks.

So, to follow up just for a second, if a project, when a project comes up in the future and there are GLUP considerations, we will be double checking for any mapping errors to make sure that that doesn't happen in the future, correct? I mean, typically, i see all the time staff adjusting whenever we get to any situation so i'm assuming that that is probably already on your radar correct that's what i thought okay thank you commissioner berkey thank you um i was not able to attend either meeting but i did watch the recording and i read the materials

And I guess I just I want to give my 10 seconds in defense of explanations and encouraging transparency. I think our staff has explained. I think Ms. Walentich, you explained what happened here. And I really appreciate that because we need to maintain a culture of transparency. when errors are identified and look, I work in government too. Things happen all the time. You pass something 20 years ago, you find something. It's not crazy. We all know this happens. What I don't appreciate is members of the public who are able to read staff reports and have understandings that the fact that errors were found and then to disingenuously suggest that there was malfeasance on behalf of staff So I do not appreciate those comments. I think those are not the types of comments that really merit consideration by this Commission as reasonable or in good faith. I think we had other speakers tonight, like Mr. Roberts, who certainly came up and had very good faith and reasonable concerns, and those are the types that we should be focusing on. Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Berkey.

Any other comments on this topic?

OK, moving on to the second topic, which is transportation, soundwall reduction, Oak Street narrowing to two lanes, Langston Blvd as well as biking Custis Trail Intersection interaction. How to improve safety of bikes and pedestrian interactions. Commissioner Lentell me.

Yeah, I want to follow up a little bit more on that. I also want to note that losing one lane of Langston Blvd by this building is actually a continuation of shrinking of Langton Boulevard that has been already accomplished east of this site. That was narrowed years ago, pre-COVID, while the Marriott site was still in full operation. It was narrowed down from three lanes to two, and it has not had any negative effect on traffic. So narrowing it a bit here is perfectly fine. And we get some trees out of it, and we get a wider bike and pedestrian trail. So all around, I think that is good. We also note that under the Langston Boulevard plan, Langston Boulevard from Roslyn to I-66 is to be studied with the eye toward narrowing it and turning it into a complete street rather than the highway that it is now when it was rebuilt in the 1970s. And this is something I raised at Transportation and I raised at SPRC, so I'm raising to staff again. We really do need to get that study going. I know it is in the work plan. It is something that is contemplated. be done. It's in the draft MTP, but that study of Langston Boulevard to make it a true complete street is necessary because it's going to take 10 to 20 years for it to actually happen. The bike trail itself, yeah, I agree with the changes that are needed here. I all too often do ride down that and probably faster than I should because it is downhill. I think many of us have already done that. So I think the various So mitigations along that will be useful to help make it a bit safe. And the neighborhood is absolutely, is totally, I agree with them that the Oak Street Langston intersection is a dangerous one. And it is something that does need study. And that's why we do need to move up the study. It has been raised by North Highlands, legitimately so, many times. And I am truly in accord with them on that. And that gives all the more reason why we need to get that study of Langston Boulevard a higher priority. So thank you.

Commissioner Peterson.

Thank you. So I just wanted to say very briefly first that I do think the building is very visually attractive. I appreciate the change in the color palette from the cool colors at the beginning of the process to now the warmer kind of more organic colors that I think complement the neighborhood and the surrounding trees. But on the topic of transportation, I also had comments, some light concern about the Custis Trail primarily because of the speed that people currently go down that hill. And if we're widening the trail, which I think is appropriate, it may encourage people to go even a little bit faster. And since this part of the trail will be shared between pedestrians and cyclists, can you just review quickly what are the mitigants that are going to be encouraging people who are going downhill in front of this residential area to like slow down a little bit? Are there rumble strips? Are there signs?

Commissioner Peterson, Mr. Creed, if you like, we can answer that too.

Yeah, Mr. Painter, I'm happy to have you answer.

And I'll just bring back up the slide I had before, Commissioner Peterson. And I will recognize Mike Minkoski with VICA Virginia. He's our transportation consultant on this. But this is from our plan set. And this just shows the trail specific changes. So not the sound wall, not the widening, not the moving the building back, but just what's happening physically on the trail. And I will say that we had multiple discussions with DES staff when we looked at this about, okay, can we do speed humps? What can we do to like get people to slow down as you approach this? There is already a pedestrian actuated signal right at North Oak Street. So there is a signal that should be adhered to. So no installation of that, but Mike.

Yeah, hello everyone. Starting, I guess, left to right, we are adding pavement markings to the trail in advance of it. There's a series of three striped markers, if you will. They're not rumble strips to create any kind of ice condition or anything, but they are painted. There's also painted crossing head signs. Additionally, we are striping stop bars at each approach in addition to having that pet actuated signal, as well as just additional signage along the trail as you're coming down the hill. There is a slight narrowing of the North Oak Street crossing as well as we rebuild the curb adjacent to the building in the corner. And as Andrew mentioned too, there's always the opening up that corridor, pulling back the sound wall, pulling back the building, allows for better sight lines for both the cyclists coming down the hill as well as the driver.

And Commissioner Peterson, if I also may too, removal of the sound wall, just picking up on something that one of the speakers, Mr. Yingling, had mentioned and building on what Commissioner Latemi mentioned, we did submit a operational analysis that demonstrates that all the study intersections, even with the narrowing of this, will continue to function at acceptable levels of service, even with the narrowing of this, and that it will improve the sight lines. And Mike, I don't know if you want to give an update as to where things stand with the removal of the sound wall. We are very appreciative of the county submitting a letter to VDOT in support of the sound wall removal.

Yeah, so we've submitted a sound study. It has been reviewed by both VDOT and Federal Highway. They've accepted that study and they're in the review process of making their final determination on the removal of it because it is a unique request. But the way that the building has been formed and to the point to where we've taken the sound wall down and then kept the remaining portion of it, essentially has non-degradation for the neighborhood.

Thank you. And if I can just follow up with staff. So it sounds like we're taking some proactive action to keep both our cyclists and our pedestrians safe. I love it. If a year after the project is built, we have people who are living in the building and people who are living in the neighborhood still finding that the speed of people who are using the trail is just not appropriate and not safe, what additional actions could be taken to put some extra mitigants there?

So thanks for the question, Commissioner Peterson. We have a complaint-based system, so a safety investigation could be opened by members of the community. I will say that there have been a lot of improvements at this intersection over the years, including the installation of a video activated crossing there for pedestrians. And we do think that increasing the width is going to give folks a little more room to accommodate different types of trail users. So we support the design and we do think that all the improvements will lead to great safety outcomes.

Thank you.

Commissioner Steinberger, did you want to say something?

Thank you. I was looking for an update on the status of the sound wall. So thank you. You answered that in the last question. But do we have any sense of when a decision will be made by VDOT and the highway peoples? Like how long does the process typically take? And it sounds like we're about halfway through it-ish.

Before you speak, can you pull your microphone a little closer to you?

So we got final determination on the sound study maybe 45 days ago at this point. Uh-huh. VDOT didn't indicate any time frame. Understanding that we have to go through the CEP process, and that does take some time as well. You know, probably six months maybe. I don't want to speculate, but, you know, they take their time, unfortunately. Sure.

Okay, and I believe during the SPRC we had said that there was – That the rest of the site, you know, design can move forward and such, you know, while this was sort of the decision played out with VDOT and such. Is that still the case? And hopefully we get a positive adjudication from VDOT. And that could, you know, sort of be caught up in the process at that point because it's, you know, we're moving a piece. There's no still on track.

Yeah, that would be correct. As Mr. Finkoski mentioned, we still have to go through approximately 12 months of civil engineering plans minimum, which is the ministerial site plan process after this. And so hopefully during that dependency of that, it'll all catch up.

Okay. I just wanted to confirm that was still true. Thank you.

Vice Chair Gouvar.

I just want to say I've visited the site quite a few times because there have been community members who have reached out to me. So I've taken the time to actually walk the site. I appreciate you guys trying to minimize when I was there. For example, there were bikers that were just flying through and it made really dangerous conditions. So I'm glad that you guys are trying to minimize that with removing the sound barrier. I also echo what the rest of my commissioners have said about that. This is quite a spectacular building looks wise and it is also, you know, it's in a slope. It's kind of a difficult topography for lack of a better term. Having said all that, what if VDOT and they come back and say, no, we can't remove it? Would that have any impact on sort of the building changes? Like, how are you going to mitigate, let's say, worst case scenario? Not to say we want that to happen, but I'm just curious.

Yeah, I mean, this entire site plan is predicated upon the ability to narrow Langston Boulevard and remove the sound wall. If that cannot occur, we will have to come back through for some sort of amendment, likely a major site plan amendment, because, you know, we're going to have to move the building back probably at that point in time.

Any other comments in this section? Oh, I'm sorry. That's right. Commissioner Striner.

Can I talk about the flex spaces here? This mean the flex spaces, the parking spaces? this may just be a comment on the law itself but if this is if you can just have these flex spaces to sort of work around the limit i i fail to see the purpose of of the law that limits uh parking spaces here at these uh sites near um metro stations are there any

characteristics of these flex spaces that make them unique from standard parking spaces in this sense i'm not i'm not familiar with the law itself thank you commissioner schreiner the law establishes a minimum parking ratio not a maximum so they can there's nothing preventing the applicant from over parking or parking beyond that that ratio so what the condition does is it it stays within the bounds of the new law by conditioning a minimum of 0.5, the applicant can still go beyond that and convert those flex spaces to residential uses. But that's kind of where the flex space comes in. We see it with adaptive reuses often when we have a large parking supply and it gives the applicant the flexibility to use those spaces for permitted uses. So in this case, museum and residential spaces.

I mean, is there any – I don't know. I might be a little ahead of myself asking this, but are there any other potential uses you all see for this other than residential spaces? I didn't think so.

No.

Storage units.

So we are using – we're reusing the garage footprint, which is a pretty big cavernous space. Not the garage, but the garage footprint. And a lot of that currently is underground. So a lot of the space that's currently dedicated to the garage will be repurposed for below-grade storage, fitness rooms, pool, that sort of thing. But if you had asked the question last week about how many spaces are dedicated to residential, I would have said that we would have had 99 of the 144 spaces dedicated to residential, three dedicated to the museum, and then 47 flex spaces. When the county attorney's office took a look at this in relation to SB 8088 or 888, which is passed, I think they came down and said, we really can only enforce up to a 0.5, just given the fact that this is a qualifying space. You're within half a mile of a transit facility. And so the number of spaces remains the same. It's just how it's being memorialized in the site plan conditions. So in this case, now that we have to go down to 0.5, that means there are 44 spaces now dedicated to residential and our flex space grows from 47 to 102 flex spaces. but the intention is for those to serve the community. And I'll say too, this is a slightly higher parking ratio, residential parking ratio than we've seen in other 4.1 site plans, but we think it's appropriate in this case. It's about a 1.125 space per unit ratio, but we think it's appropriate because it's in direct response to concerns we heard about preventing overflow parking supply on the streets that surround the neighborhood. We are just a little bit further afield from the Ross and Metrorail station. We're just beyond a half mile, but we're right around a half mile. But we do think it's also appropriate given the for sale nature of the project and that we want to hit market and be competitive.

Well, especially for the three bedrooms.

Thank you. Commissioner Garcia.

I almost forgot my name, too. So just kind of to follow up on those flex spaces, you just said there were two parking spaces for the kind of public space. Would it be possible then to, I guess, expand that amount? So I noted that in the presentation there was discussion of kind of use of civic associations and other community members who I imagine might want to drive. So would it be possible? Is there, I guess, consideration that you would have those flex spaces available to the public, vice dedicating them to residents?

Yeah, I mean, so that's the beauty of the flex spaces, that we can use them for whatever we want. And one of the speakers, I think it was Mr. Yingling, also brought up construction traffic and maintenance people and that sort of thing. That's an all-inclusive number within those residential spaces. So there should be plenty of space within the garage to accommodate those, to accommodate any of the visitors that we have. including to the museum. And as I think as the project builds out, we will be able to understand parking utilization a lot better. But the beauty of all this is that we do have these flex spaces built in that are not solely dedicated to residential, so we can allocate them as needed.

And so they, just sorry to keep belaboring this, so they would be like, like these are dedicated for ex-use. These are for, like they would actually be designated kind of in the parking structure for the community.

Well, at least for the minimum for the 44 residential spaces and the three for the museum space. And then you have all these other flex spaces that could be so allocated. Got it. Thanks.

All right. Moving on to site construction. North Highland Civic Association seeking changes to the standard construction hours, truck access, and anything else along the lines of site construction. Commissioner Streiner.

Yeah, so I've heard this, the tale of the construction hours, and I'm kind of, from my understanding, it sounds like the community is in favor of these reduced hours, even though it might take longer for the project to complete, the developer is also in more or less accord with that. If I'm understanding that correctly, but the county is choosing not to weigh in or not wanting to alter them in the site plan. Is there a reason why the site plan conditions aren't amended?

I feel like this is something we've done before amending the construction hours.

I'm not sure though. And then if not, what other alternatives could the community and the developer here pursue to sort of memorialize this sort of agreement?

Is there a workaround, for lack of a better word? Sure. So our standard site plan conditions 10b set out the onsite construction hours. And that condition, which is a standard condition that we typically don't modify, is based on chapter 15 of the arlington code the noise control ordinance and so for consistency across projects and ease of enforceability and just for to avoid the need for possible site plan amendments if those hours do change staff's position is to maintain the standard conditions and we do you know understand construction can be disruptive and we do encourage developers and the applicant or the applicant in the community to come to private agreements that are a little bit more flexible in terms of a private agreement between two private parties without the county and without the need that if those hours do change that we'd have to come back through for a site plan amendment or something like that

So you said typically they're not amended. Is there? Is there a scenario where they are amended for this sort of thing?

I'm just kind of there's some. Circumstances. I think the most recent one I saw was Hotel Pentagon, where there's a church directly next door and that there was some modifications to the Sunday hours there. But other than that, I haven't seen it too typically.

Yeah, there are, Matt Pfeiffer with the Planning Division for the record. There are some cases where they have been amended, but I think the point that we want to make is the standard site plan conditions are coordinated across departments of the county, including enforcement agencies. And so those are standardized. And when we start deviating from that standard, it becomes more difficult to enforce because we have to go out in a case by case basis and look at these things. For that reason, we would like to keep it as is, but we also understand that the Planning Commission, if you wanted something different, you could, you know, make that recommendation. We'll review it.

Okay, yeah, and so I guess on that thread, it just sounds like it's a consistency thing and it would be hard to enforce. So for the education of potentially members of the public who might be watching this, what routes, you all mentioned private agreements, what routes could they then pursue to make this more formal and less of a wink and a nod kind of thing.

I'm happy to step in here as well. So this was brought up during our discussions with representative with Mr. Roberts as a representative of the North Highland Civic Association. We made the commitment that we after speaking with our our construction manager to see what hours, what flexibility there could be to go from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. weekdays instead of seven to nine. and then on weekends from 8 a.m. to, or I think 8 a.m. to 9 p.m., if I'm not mistaken, on weekends. And we want to honor that commitment. We put that in writing to Mr. Roberts, and we're here to say that we will honor that. If we understand where staff's position is on that, we are open to having that memorialized in a recommendation to the county board. If Ultimately, the county board declines to amend the site plan conditions. It would just be noted that we are going to have to negotiate with the Palisades Park Owners Association that owns the common area that abut our property for things like temporary construction easements, tieback easements, and the like. And I would imagine that this would be a part of the commitments that we would make as part of the comprehensive development agreement with the owners association. Now, that doesn't give Mr. Roberts, the cover that I think he's looking for as far as memorializing it in the site plan conditions. But I just want to state for the record that that's a commitment that we intend to honor no matter what.

Yeah, I just want to, as a former civic association president, a very large civic association, this is the first time I've heard an applicant willing to work with the civic association on the sound hours at all. So consider yourself very fortunate because it usually does not happen and it is one of the first things we hear from anybody, any neighborhood where they've got things going on next door, they're complaining about the hours. So take what you can get. Commissioner Peterson.

Thank you. I imagine that we probably won't change the actual site plan, the site plan condition hours but I do hope that the commitment that is being made to you is being honored. Please reach out to us if it is not because that may mean that we do take a stronger position on the construction hours for future projects. I will say my children go to school near the Career Center building and when that construction was happening during their school year, we actually reached out to the liaison for the project and they committed to not doing construction on days when there was like standardized state testing. So there is flexibility, And I hope that you see this in this project and there's a continued partnership going forward.

And Commissioner Peterson, on that point too, I just wanted to clarify. It was the hours that we had discussed was 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on weekdays and 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. on weekends. I kind of had that in reverse. And our thought on this was, you know, these are our neighbors. We are immediately adjacent to them. And this is not like it's a high rise next to a high rise. These are townhomes that have been established there since, you know, for the last 25 years. If there's an opportunity for us to do that, this is the opportunity. The other thing that Mr. Roberts had written in the North Highland Civic Association letter was a request to have a community liaison with monthly meetings. We can make that commitment as well. We already have to do so through one of our development conditions. But, you know, we also pledge to have, you know, continual meetings with the HOA and with neighbors on an as-needed basis as the project builds. Thank you.

Yeah, I would just like to add to that, and I say this almost every time, the folks who are actually going to be doing the construction have not been to any of these meetings. They have not heard about any of this. They don't know anything, and they are under a time constraint about what they're supposed to produce in a certain amount of time. So I would hope that the liaison is well schooled in communicating and if the neighbors walk by and I don't think this was what we thought it was going to be that somebody jumps on that or at least they reach out to the appropriate party within the applicant to work on the communication there because the communication becomes extremely critical, especially since you're so close by. on their behalf, please, please make sure that happens. Thank you. Do we have any other comments on this topic? Oh, Commissioner Steinberger.

No, I was going to say that I appreciate the county staff's explanation of why we don't like to make sort of a case-by-case adjustment to those, you know, the standard site plan conditions when it comes to hours or what have you. I think we should see how this project plays out. I think that when we can have a developer, you know, making the kind of commitments that, you know, for this project that the developer is making here. Hopefully that's sufficient and it gives the HOA and the civic association a comfort level for what, you know, that we can have these sort of private agreements memorialized in a memo or what have you, even if they're not in the site plan conditions. But I do think that's something that we may want to revisit, you know, down the line. But it is helpful to understand sort of why we, you know, why that position is being taken. And it's not sort of an inflexibility for inflexibility's sake. But, you know, from a generalized enforcement perspective, I can see a lot of benefit to having a standardized set of hours. You know, I do, you know, just reiterate that the applicant's been really great about working with the HOA, with the Pacific Palisades, the townhomes, and with the Civic Association. So I'm cautiously optimistic that this will be just fine. Thank you.

Vice Chair Grover.

I also do want to say I really appreciate the applicant going above and beyond as our, sorry, it's been a long day. As Commissioner Bagley mentioned earlier, we rarely see any of these types of concessions. So it's, but I also want to make sure that we reward good behavior when we are seeing applicants going above and beyond. Sort of that extra credit, because I think that also helps build a precedent so that later on we can say and we can ask applicants to do similar types of action. So I'm really looking forward to you guys working with the community and maintaining those commitments, because I think this is an opportunity just to build upon this down the road and really sets a good stage moving forward. Thank you.

All right. Sustainability, including environmental impacts, biophilia, conservation easement. Comments? Commissioner Garcia.

Yeah, thank you. No, I just really want to commend the applicant again, and I think we had a number of speakers speak to the efforts that were made in order to meet the sustainability goals. And I especially appreciate that there's the EV-ready parking spots the tree canopy exceeding goals, and also that light pollution reduction. I think that's important, especially when you look at, obviously from an environmental perspective, but also kind of thinking of the community members nearby. I also, you know, want to kind of foot stomp that idea of, of course, having more EV charging available or making kind of a larger commitment to having those EV ready spaces. And of course, the native versus cultivars. So then now Commissioner Bagley doesn't have to chime in on that one. Although maybe you should, because it's one of your favorites. All right, thank you.

Commissioner Lin, tell me.

Yeah. Well, first off, reusing the garage is great. We're seeing more and more of that. And it's a wonderful thing that we're able to have more and more of our projects incorporate what was already there, rather than going right down to the bedrock. The conservation easement, I'm very happy to see that it's going to be given some love and the invasives go out and it's going to be turned into, I forget the exact term, an urban forest or something like that. But our Forestry and Natural Resources Commission representatives have often raised these pocket forests and where it's a whole movement that's happening and we have an opportunity here to have one. So I'm very excited that this is that it's there and that it's going to be, I hope, going forward, be maintained by this condominium because it's clearly an amenity for the people in that building and for the surrounding community all around. It's a win. So I'm very happy about that. Thank you.

Commissioner Torres.

I really did enjoy watching the sustainability aspect of this project evolve and change and be recreated within design. The only thing I would say, and it's just not for this project, is if the sound wall can't be moved, if that's the worst case scenario, then it's going to affect the front along Langston Boulevard a lot. I guess I would say for any future projects, I would say have at least two images for us to see of how, like the way you have it now is you have beautiful green trees, like seven green trees, which is amazing. And I think that's going to help the height of the building a lot and make it feel more like at home. But if that goes away, it's going to, it's going to change the site plan a lot. So that's my only concern is I don't know if it was, correct to apply for this before getting that approved and making sure that's removed? Or if we should have at least seen the variations of this is what happens if we do get a yes, and this is what happens if we don't get if we don't get the yes, this is really the reality. Because right now we're only just seeing one side of it. So.

Yeah, go ahead. Sorry, I just I wanted to speak to that. The sound wall, we can't take it down if we don't get the right to do the building because the building is essentially replacing the sound wall, so it wasn't. we couldn't do one before the other, so this was the only way to do it. Sorry.

And if I may also, and Mike, you can speak to this as well, because usually VDOT waivers, modifications, and things like that are not done at time of zoning approval. We're actually kind of ahead of the game on that, but I did want to share, if I may, my screen. This is from the SPRC number two slide, and I don't know if you remember talking about this, but this is the image that we had showed that showed kind of what it would look like with the sound wall remaining um and then of course the you know the the likes the boulevard not being narrowed to two but mike i don't know if you want to speak to process at all so i just want to be up front as far as like showing like because we did have sort of side by side with and without the sample no andrew's correct on the process it does take some more time typically than um you know our approval process here at the county i will just say that you know even with

just the change in the building form itself. Obviously, the goal is to remove the sound wall, but changing the building form, pulling away that huge staircase and opening up that corner will have benefits in itself.

And if I may go back to something that Commissioner Lantelme said, and Stephanie Pangowitz with Land Design might want to speak to this as well, about the efforts that we've made with the Northern Virginia Conservation Trust. One of the things that I am personally excited about, and it's kind of weird, We do hope to have commemorations, you know, signage on the property adjacent to the Custis Trail as part of this wayside that speaks to the history of the Custis Trail and how it came to be, because that was a very controversial decision that VDOT made in ramming through I-66 into the heart of Arlington County. And the Custis Trail was one of the concessions that the Virginia Department of Highways gave in order to get the highway through, along with the urban deck at Roslyn where Gateway Park is today. But Stephanie, I don't know if you want to speak to just the overall, like the discussions we've had with the Conservation Trust and some of the improvements that we're making there.

Yes, I'm Stephanie Panklertz with Land Design. I'm the landscape architect on the project along with my colleague Taylor Burgess. And yes, the Conservation Trust was very involved, including with site visits with the community and also meeting regularly with staff and the applicant to make sure that Everything we are doing there is consistent with the legal documents they have for the easement, which include actually the visual quality as well. So both the removal of invasives and how that will happen over a period of time to make sure the visual quality will not be impacted. There won't be erosion control issues. and what gets planted underneath being native plants, they have full approval of all of that as well. So there's been a really high commitment with them.

Following up on both C2E2's comment, and again, thank you, we don't always hear a complimentary report from C2E2, so when we get one, We want to make sure that we recognize that and hope that others watching or thinking about developing here will see that we like that. But they also echoed something that Dr. Byrne mentioned, and that is the use of cultivars. And I would just strongly request that you go back and revisit because cultivars are not well received by the community that believes that when we are planting things, it's in the best interest of the environment and the folks who are around it. So I would appreciate it if you could strongly revisit that. Cultivars are not the best. Thank you.

Absolutely. I understand the concern. I will note it is the trees we're using along Langston and Oak and in the terraces are all native species. And the one consideration about the very high urban area is with winter and salts and just the nature of lots of cars. We just really do have to make sure we're focused on the sustainability of the tree so that it thrives. And we've worked very closely with Arlington County Forest Conservation staff and the urban foresters to make sure the species that are shown on the site plan, we are confident are going to thrive in this urban condition and also be native species. But I do understand the cultivar comment and definitely something we can continue to make sure is like addressed in the plans.

Thank you. We and future generations would greatly appreciate that. Thank you. Uhm, next category community benefits and specifically the museum on site. Can't see somebody.

I just think it's an interesting and unusual community benefits you have, so I highlighted that in my notes for this meeting. Thank you. I don't have a question.

It is unusual, yes.

Do you have a question actually about that? I know the community asked to have access to the meeting space there. I heard earlier that you said they would have access now and nonprofits as well. Is that going to be free of use or it's just, will there be a charge, some sort of fee associated with it?

At this point in time, we, you know, at least the Palisades Park Civic Association, the North Highland Civic Association, we would not envision a charge, but there is a cost to providing these spaces. And this is not an event space. And so we're going to have to work that out. But insofar as the Civic Association and the Palisades Park Owners Association, presumably that would be free of charge.

And just to clarify, this is community benefits lowercase, because as a reminder, this project does not need to achieve any sort of additional density. Therefore, there are no community benefits capitalized, just so that's clear.

Thank you for clarifying that. Vice Chair Gervard?

Granted, they're not asking for more density or anything along those lines. I do have a question though. It does say that they're providing affordable housing contribution. Can you speak to that and how that differs from, let's say, apartments versus condos? As they mentioned as well, we don't have that many condos that do come before us. And so I wanna just understand a little bit about how the dynamic works. in terms of the contribution, are they providing that because they're not asking for density, they're providing that as like an added benefit or yeah, can you speak to that? Especially, I know some of the community members wrote in about significant feedback about affordability and how this is, obviously you've read all the documents, right?

Sure, happy to clarify. In our affordable housing condition, every special exception site plan that comes through the county has to provide a base affordable housing contribution, and they can do that in two ways. They can provide on-site committed affordable units, or they can provide a cash contribution to our AHIP fund. And that amount, if they go for the financial route, is based on the project's density. So the larger the project, the larger that contribution. But as we have it, as it goes through approval, they still have the option at this point to do either on-site CAFs or a financial contribution. It's not yet decided. It's the applicant's decision. And so because this is a condo project, it makes no difference for that condition language.

I see. Just I suppose out of curiosity, would there be a difference in tax sort of they're collecting because this is a condo, the county versus what it would be for an apartment building? I guess what essentially I'm wondering is there is no difference in terms of based on the density, but I wonder if you could ask for more because you'd eventually get more of a tax base. Not quite sure.

Sort of just entertain me here for a second. We cannot, the way the conditions written, it's based on density. So no, regardless of the sale price of these condominium units, the contribution remains the same because it's all based on density.

OK, thank you. Yeah, I understand that for now, but it's just something that I think would be interesting to explore, and I know that would require as many changes and all of that. But I wonder, you know, should we continue to have discussions about how do we evaluate this? And again, this is beyond the scope of this, but just something that I was sort of pondering. Thank you. Understood.

Commissioner Torres.

I will just completely agree with that and say The way that it is right now in Arlington County, it's designing a segregated county because what ends up happening is these beautiful buildings that are designed for high-end construction luxury, they don't end up having affordable housing. people that could potentially benefit from the amenities end up not benefiting from it. And then what ends up happening is we end up just having a big building in a less desirable area of Arlington that may or may not fit with the architecture. And we just say, oh, here's affordable housing. Thank you. So I understand what it's like, but the way it is right now, it is segregating the community, unfortunately.

Thank you.

Commissioner Berkey.

I'll be super quick. I'm going to plug the work that our colleagues Commissioner Peterson and Commissioner Streiner are undertaking and I'm sure we'll report on in a few moments. about an affordable housing subgroup they're on and these seem like very good comments to provide to them through that because they will be discussing the affordable housing ordinance which of course as staff has explained governs how much we can ask for uh in our community benefits discussions and so here because the applicant is only is not seeking bonus density and only only seeking you know we can only get a base contribution there's no discussion it's just they provide whatever the base is it's a formula through the ordinance so if you feel like that formula should be changed or there should be other considerations that requires an ordinance change so talk to commissioner streiner commissioner peterson i think that's a great venue for it thanks

Yes, thank you. We will be. That was the first thing I thought when that came up and we will be talking briefly about that in a little bit. Commissioner Garcia.

I just did have two quick comments for staff. I did want to commend like I appreciated in the report really the description of the affordable housing requirements and and what you would get on site off site nearby and then kind of further off site. I thought that was really useful when you know assessing kind of the project. I also, I didn't say this earlier, but I appreciate it as well in the presentation, seeing kind of the progression of the plan throughout the process. And it's something I've asked for before. I think it's really useful for the community members as well as us to be able to see the changes that were made by the applicant as part of the engagement process. And I encourage continuing to do that, not just visually, but also as we looked at the different aspects of the project that were improved. Yeah, I thought that was really a great presentation. So I wanted to give you guys some kudos.

Commissioner Amadeo, speaking of the presentation, Was it not available? Because I always look at it before I come. You're smiling. I'm touching on something.

Thank you, Commissioner Amadeo. I'm laughing because we are still grappling with the newly implemented ADA Title II law, which is severely limiting what we can and cannot post on our web pages. So we're still working on that.

I'll be curious to hear more about it. Okay, thank you.

There will be more to follow on that.

I do read them in some of the questions about the size of the path and, you know, for me, certainly would have been answered by looking at the plan and site plan and all of that. So anyway, I was just wanting to say, can I say something quickly about the museum? Quickly. Quickly, yes. Yes, ma'am. Museum is a big word. It's really a space for an exhibit.

what happens like is there a covenant will it be maintained like what like these spaces are so precious and it's right next to that park so anyway what's what's the deal so this is memorialized in the site plan in the drawings and then also in the use permit there are conditions of approval so um it goes into our density calcs and so um you know if there is an amendment to it we would have to come back before the county board to use that space for some other use other than the museum use. And you're right, museum is a big use, a big word, but it is the zoning administrator's determination that that is what this is. And that's the reason why it's a museum use. Okay.

Anyway, it's a, you know, hopefully it's a space that if it's something happens to it, it can still be part of the community and, you know, available.

Commissioner Peterson? Yes, I just had a quick friendly correction that it's not so much that the ADA Title II updates are severely limiting us, but rather they're challenging us to make sure all of our materials are accessible to all people. Thank you.

Correctly stated. Thank you, Commissioner Peterson. Are we ready for motions? Excellent. Commissioner Steinberger, do you need the motions?

All right. Sorry.

I move that the Planning Commission adopt the attached resolution to approve the General Land Use Plan Amendment GP 374-26-1 to change designation from low office, apartment, hotel, medium, residential, and public to all low office, apartment, hotel located at 1501 Langston Boulevard RPC number 16-005-001. We have a second? Second. Okay.

Commissioner Strainer, thank you. All right, alphabetic. Is there any, did you want two, Megan? No, thank you. Okay. We'll go alphabetically now. Commissioner Amadeo. Aye. Commissioner Berkey.

Aye.

Commissioner Garcia. Aye. Vice Chair Wavara. Aye. Commissioner Johnson. Aye. Commissioner Lantellami.

Aye.

Commissioner Peterson. Aye. Commissioner Robertson.

Aye.

Commissioner Steinberger. Aye. Aye. Commissioner Striner?

Aye.

Commissioner Torres?

Aye.

Commissioner Bagley, that's me. I'm an aye, so I have 12, correct? Great. Do you have another motion?

I believe I will have three motions total, so this is the second. So yes. I move that the Planning Commission adopt the attached ordinance to permit construction of a mixed-use building with 88 residential units, a ground floor museum use, and a below-grade parking garage with modifications for proposed setbacks, lot coverage, density exclusions, and other modifications as necessary to achieve the proposed development located at 1501 Langston Boulevard, RPC number 16-005-001. I'll second. Commissioner Lantelmi, thank you.

Okay, let's go alpha. Thank you. Okay. Commissioner Amadeo. Aye. Commissioner Berkey. Aye. Commissioner Garcia.

Aye.

Vice Chair Huarra. Aye. Commissioner Johnson. Aye. Commissioner Lantelli.

Aye.

Commissioner Peterson. Aye. Commissioner Robertson.

Aye.

Commissioner Steinberger. Aye. Commissioner Striner.

Aye.

Commissioner Torres. Aye. And Commissioner Bagley, that's me, and that's 12, right? Mr. Pfeiffer, we're all good. Thank you. Commissioner Steinberger, three for three.

I recommend that the Planning Commission approve the use permit UPER 25-00038 for an institutional use for a museum located at 1501 Langston Boulevard, RPC number 16-005-001, subject to the proposed conditions with a county board review in three years, i.e. September, 2029.

A second?

I'll second. Thank you, Commissioner.

Any discussion? Nope. Thank you. All right. Alphabetically, Commissioner Amadeo.

Aye.

Commissioner Berkey.

Aye.

Commissioner Garcia. Aye. Vice Chair Hovar. Aye. Commissioner Johnson. Aye. Commissioner Lentelmi. Aye. Commissioner Peterson. Aye. Commissioner Robertson.

Aye.

Commissioner Steinberger. Aye. Commissioner Striner.

Aye.

Commissioner Torres. Aye. Commissioner Bagley. That's me. And we have 12.

All in sync. The who?

First, I want to thank all the stakeholders who took their time out tonight and throughout the process to come and comment. I hope that you continue to do that. You can certainly send comments to staff up until the time that it goes to the county board. You can also speak at the county board meeting and submit comments. And as you can see, and even if you don't get everything you want out of the project, you can see how a project evolves in the process when A, you have an applicant who is willing to listen. We don't always get those. And the fact that you have the opportunity to make comments that can be considered. And generally speaking, most of that then turns into a better project than when we started. So I do appreciate staff, again, exemplary. effort on this and the applicant for being willing to listen to that feedback and make the adjustments. And I know that that will continue through the rest of this process. So thank you all very much for that. And we will now discuss PC business or planning commission business. Alrighty, we're going to try to make this a little quicker. All right, so first we need to approve. Can I ask for unanimous consent to approve the July 6th meeting minutes? So, yep, great. No, okay, fantastico. Staff updates, Mr. Pfeiffer?

We have no updates this month, thank you.

Thank you. LRPC report, I know you don't have any rosters. Commissioner Peterson?

Thank you. For this month, we have two LRPC meetings, an MTP update, Master Transportation Plan. Commissioner Streiner has been leading that effort as a representative for the Planning Commission, so he'll lead that meeting on Wednesday, September 23rd, 7 p.m. And then we also have a meeting for 1401 Langston Boulevard Special Glup Study on Wednesday, September 30th at 7 p.m.

Thank you. And I just want to also, on behalf of staff, make a plug that They really want as many of our hot little bodies at the meeting on the 23rd. They really need the weigh-in from us. So even if you can't get your hot little body there, if you could tune in virtually, it's super important. They've never asked me to make that special request. So anything that you can do on the 23rd, quite frankly, I have to be up at the crack of dawn the next morning. I will be there. I'll make the effort to go. So please, those of you who can get there, that would be great. SPRC report, I sent out a chair's report. I just want to bring to your attention and thank Vice Chair Havara and Commissioner Garcia for co-chairing the Bingham Center. Some of us who've been on the commission longer know that we've already had this come through once. It's now a major site plan amendment because it wasn't able to go through the way it was approved. So it's one to watch, so we appreciate that. We do have a roster. Madam Clerk, could you pull up the roster for Courthouse Place, which is being chaired by Commissioner Torres with the aid of Commissioner Peterson, correct? Oh, thank goodness. Okay. Can I ask for unanimous consent for this? Excellent. Thank you. Moving right along.

I did just want to ask Commissioner Striner, are you still waiting on comments on the transportation?

Yes. You all have until close of business tomorrow.

That's what I thought. I had him on the thing, so thank you for asking. That's fine. I'm going to zip through this so we can get to the last thing here. Excellent. Excellent. Okay. Zoko?

I should. kept my mic on. We have no ZOCO this month, but we'll be moving and we'll be doing a meeting in October with two agenda items, including the definition of a restaurant. It was one of the very riveting talks.

Definition of a restaurant?

That's correct. We're updating that definition in the zoning ordinance.

Maybe. I guess there's something I don't know about restaurants nowadays or something.

Okay.

Well, that sounds very interesting. Before I get to the last thing, which might take a few minutes, first I want to recognize Commissioner Amadeo for representing us so well at the July County Board meeting. Despite the accent. She kept apologizing for the accent. It was probably the best part of the day for them, you know. I mean, that's crazy. I always think people can't understand, especially online.

I know. I wish I had an accent like that.

Jeez. And also... Sorry, if they understand tackies, they understand me. Yeah. And Commissioner Torres, you will be representing us on September 19th. If you need tips or whatever, I did coach a little bit to... Commissioner Amadeo in her nervousness before that. So feel free to reach out. I'd be happy to help you with that.

And you should have a copy.

I created an SOP that goes over exactly what to do, but then also... Well, and also the biggest thing that... And when chair of the county board, DeFerranti, came in here, he said, I asked him, what do you want most from us? Keep it brief when you're in front of us. So that's the key thing. That's what... Yes, they will ask later.

They don't need a regurgitation of the report that we get, which we will send out in advance.

Okay, so moving now, I think, to the Disability Advisory Commission had come to me per my email to you last month asking if we would, they've gone to various commissions and they wanted the Planning Commission to Possibly, this is where we decide tonight, would we like to support and what they want from that support. And I guess I would work it out with staff, either I guess a letter that I would email saying that the planning commissioner met on it, discussed it, and will officially support it. It's their legislative priority number three. It is on the screen now. I also sent it out in advance so you could read it. So I do know, Commissioner Amadeo, you did have a comment after it was sent out. You were the only one I heard from at that time. And like I said, I did send this out. So I did ask staff before we started tonight, did they want me to read it so it would be on the record? That's not necessary, because this is not part of our normal meeting. I'll just open it up for, I have never been, of course, I've never been the chair before, but I don't remember us being approached by other commissions to ask for support for, but I will say that the chair of DAC this year is really very forthright and really wanting to elevate the mission of that commission, I think in more means than perhaps we've seen in the past. which is a great thing so. Any comments? Any questions?

Yeah, I actually have a question. So I'm very supportive of what they're trying to accomplish. I think it's great. We should have more accessibility. The only question I have, does this set some sort of precedent that other commissions could come to us and request for us to? I mean, this is great, but are there going to be controversial ones? And do we want to set that precedent if other commissions come to us to say, hey, you should support this or not?

I'll put it out there for everybody. I know that they didn't just approach us. They approached other commissions. Commissioner Torres?

So I've seen an uptick on designing condos and homes with accessibility requirements. And I think the reason why is because people are really living longer. They don't really want to move and for whatever reason. So this is actually great because 10 years ago, 15 years ago, 20 years ago, we normally did this maybe for foster homes and or like an office that wanted to have a fancy shower for their bikers kind of thing. But the past five years, I would say this is really important because It's not just for elderly. It's also for people that get injured and they don't realize that maybe the door is not wide enough or they can't lift their leg into a tub as opposed to going to a shower. So this is great. This is amazing.

Commissioner Lynn, tell me.

Yeah, I think the concerns are real. This is great. I have no objection to any of this. What I am wondering about is if other commissions start coming to us, especially if we have two commissions that take positions that are opposite each other, are we the tiebreaker? If we decline to do anything, does that mean we're taken as opposing it? That's what my concern is down the road, because again, this is great stuff. I have no objection to any of it, but it sets up what is our role? Is it appropriate for us to be second guessing, supporting, or saying no to another commission.

Right. I don't think that we'd ever be a tiebreaker per se. I agree with the concern, but we'd never be a tiebreaker because we're never going to be, this is only like, yes, we, you know, we support what they want in front of the, I mean, just sending a letter.

We say we decline to take a position. Is that taken as a no? And

You know, I don't like us being put in that sort of Well, I think if if tonight we decide not to take a position because of this particular concern, it could be stated to DAC as to why so it's not that we were not supporting. It's just the concern that you know, this would set us up in the future for being all commissions coming. Yes, exactly. Okay, hold on a second. Commissioner Berkey.

Yeah, I'll try to make this brief. As a former chair, not of this group, but of the Housing Commission, it's never a think probably folks would agree with this generally it's never a bad thing for advisory groups to try to seek to core coordinate collaborate uh uh maybe have more influence especially in their areas of expertise um i appreciate that they're not trying to go above the county board it's really to the county board for the county board's legislative priorities which are then to the delegation and there's like a lot of layers to this so i totally get commission land tommy's concerns i also think this is such a broad thing i don't think it's that big of a deal it's a study these types of things um it takes a lot of effort to put these together in the first place and then the other thing i want to mention and it's it's really procedural it's not the same thing but when i was chair of housing commission i think commissioner guerin chaired the planning commission i think commissioner lenton was the next year 21 in 2021 you know a bunch of us organized and got together and pushed the county to do the virtual meetings during covid Then we wrote a letter to the Virginia FOIA Council. And then not because of that, but we played a very small role in that legislation ultimately getting passed, which is why we have hybrid meetings now. So on all, I think we can do it. But if folks aren't comfortable, that's OK, too. But I think this is such a small ask of us. Thanks.

I just wanted I mean, I am not really familiar with the procedure, but is that something we would vote on or. somebody asks you and you speak for all of us? Like, how does that work?

Mr. Pfeiffer, do you want to weigh in? We've never been asked this before, so this is sort of a precedent for us.

I think, yeah, I think I'd be remiss to advise you on this one. Thank you.

Are we just being, signing on to their letter or does this become one of our legislative priorities?

It does not become our legislative, it's just they're asking for other commission's support of this particular recommendation.

And so when they submit it to the board?

They've already submitted, these were submitted back in July.

So then how are, we communicating to the board that we support it if it's already been submitted?

That we would just submit, you know, an email or a letter or something on our letterhead saying that, you know, the commission was asked by DAC to support after discussing it. The commission decided that they would support this recommendation, you know, to the county board, period, end of report. Love you. See you. Okay. That's what I, that's the way I read it. That's the way staff has

yes okay hold on commissioner streiner and then commissioner steinberger and then vice chair so i'm i'm kind of as we're discussing this i'm kind of leaning more towards jim's camp of this but the substance of it i agree with 100 i don't know if this is something that's in the scope of what we do you know as far as what we're statutorily charged with doing and then i also as he was saying, I don't want to become the arbiter of what is good or what is not good. I ultimately, if something like this were to happen, I think this would ultimately push us in the direction of a sort of commissions-wide legislative proposal situation, and I don't, this would be years down the line, obviously, but I don't, I don't know, I don't really want to take a stance on that, you know, so I'm, I'm, comfortable saying in this conversation that i support the substance of this but i'm not comfortable saying that i think we should be signing on to other people's i mean proposals i wouldn't mind commission there's an order sorry commissioner steinberger it's a good thing the room is mostly sorry sorry um

I kind of have the same reaction as Commissioner Striner. I like this in principle, but I'm a little confused as to what our role is actually to be here. I'm almost wondering if there's a policy angle or we need to ask the county attorney, is this our role to do this? I'd like a little more guidance before we just signed off on something.

I'd like that. Thank you.

Yeah, so...

I like that.

If we take it to the county attorney and get some sort of clarity, but I agree. I don't want this to become like, well, it's a planning commission. Every commission's policy needs to go to them and they'll bless it. I don't want to be blessing everything.

This is why I told the DAC chair that I would bring it up this way because just emailing it, first of all, sometimes people don't even look at emails. So I just thought it was better for us to

talk about it i wouldn't mind if you as chair simply did an email saying we discussed this at our meeting individually we as individuals we think this is a good thing to do as a body we feel this is beyond our our jurisdiction vice chair hold on a second hold on hold on um

I concur with my colleagues here, Commissioner Lentelmi, Commissioner Streiner, Commissioner Steinberger. I do feel it's sort of outside of scope and would like to have guidance, both from the county attorney and also, again, just echoing what everyone else is saying. I do think, and I appreciate Commissioner Berkey saying, you know, they sort of, he was involved in efforts where other commissions sort of came together. However, I do think there's a big, a bit of a difference between other commissions in this one. You know, we are required by law. We have sort of a strict statutory requirement and about what we can and can't do. And so this, again, love the effort. I think it's fantastic, but I do think it's, I wouldn't feel comfortable signing on to that as a body.

Did you have something?

Yeah, I'd just like to add, I mean, maybe there's something where we can say if it's a life safety issue, we should weigh in. And I understand that maybe this isn't a life safety issue for a lot of people, but if it's something about whether trees should be a certain height, I don't think it's our say, but I think that I would rather be on the right side of history and say, let's make sure that Arlington is pushing forward towards accessibility in any way possible. Because the way it is now, it's okay. You know, we're a lot better than many other parts of the world, but it could be so much better. And this isn't really even telling people what to do. It still has to go through designers and a bunch of other things, but it's sort of asking us, you know, do we want to support this? And I don't see why that would be a negative thing in that we want to be more inclusive as a county. So, yeah.

So, would it be fair for me to approach the county attorney and say we discussed this while we felt most of the comments were very supportive, but we weren't really sure what our role was in this, and could there be some clarification? Is that just by nodding?

I don't. It seems kind of like out of nowhere. We've never really been asked to do this before. I don't want to break new ground on what our role as a commission is without at least asking the question, hey, attorney, can we do this thing?

Well, and on top of that, we were all asked as commissions to submit three legislative priorities from which they, the board, you know, picks and chooses that may not even be one of theirs at this point. I don't know. I don't know why we weren't asked about one or two before I before I call on Commissioner Garcia. I saw a little troubled look on your face where I said, is that okay with everybody? Do you have any? You're okay with that?

I mean, I don't agree, but I think this is one of those conversations where reasonable people can disagree. And if the majority of my colleagues feel like that's the best approach, then go forward.

Thank you. Commissioner Garcia.

Yeah, I was just going to say I support that approach, right?

We're not making a decision. We're just understanding.

getting more information in order to make a decision. That's what I'm hearing. And then I also did want to ask, and maybe it would be worth the conversation with the county attorney and amongst ourselves, you know, if this is important to us, then how do we potentially integrate kind of improved access to people with disabilities into kind of our engagements with developers and through the SPRC? And so I think that would then be kind of not necessarily us just signing on to support something, but if this is important to us, then how do we kind of encompass, how do we take that vision and carry it forward? I guess that would be my other thoughts.

Well, I guess I, Mr. Pfeiffer, how does that jive with sort of what we're doing now, that last part about the SPRCs?

I'm sorry, can you repeat what the

Yeah, I guess what I was saying is, you know, it sounds like this is important to everyone. If indeed this is an important topic of improving kind of access for people with disabilities and making sure that kind of, you know, residents have access across, certainly within our purview, is this something then that we would incorporate further into our work and to the SPRCs and to kind of discussions here? I guess just kind of food for thought, like how could you take

this and then translate it into kind of our purview and our scope of our you know commission right yeah i mean there there is uh there have been ongoing questions and discussions uh from dac and also commission on aging directed to staff about how accessibility can be incorporated more into site plans and site plan conditions something we're studying uh it's something we also know that uh has been our radar for a long time and is um There are potential challenges with how it's incorporated into the building code, but I think it's definitely a worthwhile topic that we can continue to look at and continue to have conversations about. And to the extent that you may get involved in pushing for a specific policy change, then I think that's appropriate.

Yeah. And I would also say that for the most part, DAC is included on the rosters. Now, whether they can get there or not, because of course there are limited numbers at the moment per the chair of folks who are available to go to these meetings. But I guess I would look to them first to make these kinds of things and then have those of us who are at the table, if we choose to support or not, push the topic then. I'm not sure that with all the topics we'd like to push right now, how would we just define one with the county attorney?

Yeah, and I don't mean to belabor this and keep our meeting longer. I just was adding kind of food for thought as you talk with the county attorney and as we think of kind of things that we can do within the scope of our connection.

Seeing no other stuff, I'll go ahead. I'm sorry. Commissioner Peterson.

I wanted to say that I actually do think this is within our purview because our job is to advise the county board on issues of land use. And this is just we are advising the county board if we agree that this is something that they should pursue as their legislative agenda. So I don't personally think that we need to consult the county attorney on whether or not we suggest to the county board this is a good idea. But I do think that we have a long precedent that when we are voting on something, usually we have a presentation from the person seeking us to do something for them and then have the ability to get a presentation and maybe the ability to answer questions from staff experts. And so if we are setting a precedent where we would endorse other commissions, legislative requests or other things, I do think there should be like a three-minute presentation from the person asking us to endorse this, as well as a member of staff, the DAC staff liaison, perhaps, who could just answer questions if we didn't understand something in the request because the commission's deal more in the kind of deeper issues than we often get into. And so I don't want to necessarily be approving things that I may have questions about.

Thank you. Commissioner, Vice Chair Guevara.

Thanks, Chair Bagley. I swear, we really do not like getting out of here on time. Yeah, just kidding. I understand what you're saying, Commissioner Peterson. I think my concern is obviously, this is something we all support. It's very innocuous. It's very, but what about when there's things that are more controversial? And again, bringing it back to, we do become an arbiter, I think. I think there could be something that if we're really strongly about, but feel strongly about this in our personal capacity, we can write to the county board and say, hey, this commission is trying to push this forward, but I don't think As a general body, it's really our place to say, because, for example, you know, right now we're saying we disagree, but let's say Commissioner Berkey or someone else, when we sign off on as a planning commission, that means that we're, in a sense, providing unanimous consent to whatever they're asking for, for us to sign off on. So I don't know. I just think it puts us in a sort of dangerous position.

So I'm going to proceed with what I said before, if that's okay with everyone. One last thing, because DAC is really trying to build the commission back to where they believe it needs to be. They are asking for a planning commission rep to join a meeting with them on either November 2nd or November 16th from 7 to 9. Oh, excellent. Commissioner Torres, I will hook you up accordingly offline. Okay. So assuming we have nothing else. Oh, wait. Yes. You go ahead with that, Commissioner Peterson.

Just a quick update on the Affordable Housing Ordinance Working Group that I emailed you all about a week or two weeks ago. So the County Board established a working group made up of commissioners, including Commissioner Striner and myself, who's chairing, and developer industry professionals to discuss a potential process to update the affordable housing ordinances formula for calculating on-site affordable housing. We are not going to be talking about the formula itself. We're just going to be discussing what consensus can we find on what a potential process would be to then in the future make updates to the formula. So we've had one meeting so far. We have another meeting on Monday, September 14th. It is not a planning commission meeting. It's a separate working group. But you all are very welcome to attend or watch virtually. We had a handful of public speakers at our first meeting. And we anticipate a couple of meetings in October and then a report to the county board in November.

Excellent. Yes, go ahead.

I do have a question. I think some of us here are really advocates about affordable housing. Given that this working group was created, I just want to understand in terms of transparency, I'm so happy that we have two commissioners from our commission there, but how were these folks selected? How do we make sure that the representation of folks, of others that are beyond the commission, I know you mentioned that it was... sorry, you mentioned that it was commissioners and who else industry?

Yeah, industry.

And then what about the actual community members? What about the folks that are really being affected by these? And I think it's great that there's some initiative that's being put forward. But if they are, if the county board is coming to the planning commission and sort of cherry picking for lack of better term, how who gets to have a voice and be represented, especially for some of these issues. I would just think like just more transparency in the process because I think there are a lot of stakeholders who have an interest in this. This is more for the county board, not you.

I can answer that it's not a planning commission group, so I don't think they came to the planning commission and chose. I think they decided that they wanted a working group and decided they wanted it to be commissioners and members of the developer industry, and then thought, okay, well, we think, you know, a couple people from the Planning Commission, they would make sense, a couple people from the Housing Commission, that would make sense. Maureen Coffey is our liaison for the working group, so she may be able to answer additional questions about how the group was formed.

I can add, too, to what Commissioner Berkey said earlier. know commissioner peterson and i we are the we are the mouthpiece of the commission for this group so if you have anything you want to add let us know and we will we will raise it because that's that's our you know we're representing all of you so that's and we want to do justice to what the commission thinks on this this is not just something where you know it's our opinions and they're going to go forward we want to make sure that this is reflective of you all and then the broader community so i know we've received I don't know if everybody's received the documents that we all got, the briefing. We can pass that along if we haven't already, so that way everybody can read it and send comments.

I think we only received introductory things, your initial email.

Okay, well, we can pass it along and any comments.

Yeah, I would just say to kind of keep everybody informed. Some people aren't going to read them, but the ones that are most interested... I think will, so I think that would be much better.

Absolutely, yeah. We just we want everybody up to speed and on the same page what we're doing and so because.

OK, so it didn't go as quickly as I thought. We spent more time on the first item than we kind of thought when we met as a group with staff, but I think in the end everybody who was here for that felt that they had a very thoughtful discussion on all of their concerns and every aspect. Well, sometimes it's, no, we didn't get out by nine, but I think those who came at least felt that their voices were heard, which I think is the end what we're supposed to be doing. So I appreciate everybody's time this evening and we are adjourned until October.

Thank you. My goodness. Oh, it's my stuff.