County Board - Regular Meeting

Hi, welcome to the Arlington County Board meeting. We're so glad you've joined us. Before the meeting gets started, here are a couple of things you can expect. The Arlington County Board meets monthly with the exception of August. Meetings are typically held in two sessions, Saturday regular meeting and a Tuesday recess meeting. These meetings are where the board makes decisions, hears updates, and receives public input on community issues. Today's regular board meeting includes three parts, public comment, consent agenda, and regular agenda. Public comment is for new business. These are items that are not already on the agenda, items that have not already been heard, and items that do not already have a future scheduled hearing. Public comment begins at 9.30 a.m. Speakers are limited to two minutes with one speaker per topic. Opposing viewpoints are considered separate topics. Following public comment is the consent agenda. These are non-controversial items voted on as a group, such as board minutes, grant applications, use permits, or advertising future hearings. There is no public hearing for these items. If you'd like to speak on a consent agenda item, please notify county board staff as soon as possible. They will be located outside the boardroom and are happy to assist you. Hi guys. Some items may be removed at the request of a resident, while others require board approval. Removed items are scheduled for the Tuesday's recess board meeting. Regular agenda includes staff presentations, public hearings, and a full discussion from the county board before a vote. If you are signed up to speak, please note your speaking category. Individuals may speak for two or three minutes, and representatives of civic organizations may speak for two, three minutes, or five minutes. Remain seated until your name is called. The clerk will call the current and next speaker. When called, come to the podium and use the button on the right to adjust the height. You can also adjust the microphone. A timer will be visible on the podium. Please stay within your allotted time so that everyone has an equal opportunity to be heard. For virtual speakers, keep your camera and microphone off until your name is called. When acknowledged, turn on your camera and unmute. Your title will appear in the team's meeting and will begin once you are recognized. If you need a reasonable accommodation, please speak to county staff outside the boardroom or the clerk at the dais. If you have any questions, staff are happy to assist you. Thank you for being here and sharing your voice with the county board. Have a great meeting.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

It's like skipping a sentence.

Thank you for settling. We did not all get to listen to the video that was the pre-video. We are waiting on our clerk in just a minute. We'll be with you so you can continue your conversations for sure.

yes

Let's get it.

That's all right. Good morning. Welcome to the September 19th, 2026 County Board Meeting. I am Board Chair Matt DeFerranti with my colleagues, Vice Chair Martin Coffey, members Susan Cunningham, JD Spain, Sure. With my colleagues, Vice Chair Morin-Coffee, members Susan Cunningham, J.D. Spain, Senior, and Takis Karantonis. The procedures for the meeting were run through a little bit in the video. You guys were having good conversations, and so I'm not sure you heard every bit of it. But I will share with you that the way we like to proceed and I always like to highlight is that once we get, we'll have public comment and we ask that if you support someone who is speaking, you either use the hand sign, the sign language sign for applause, or you stand in support of them. I particularly think that standing in support of someone you agree with is a powerful way to express your support. We do that so that we can be, can listen and engage on all public speakers and be fair to everyone so that we hear everyone. Before we begin, I'd like to take a moment per our custom over this last year to highlight resources for our federal workers and our immigrants. Mr. Kushner, the Clerk, to please pull up that slide, if you would.

I'll have to forgive me, Mr. Chair, the computer is being slow this morning. No problem.

Our residents who are under one get a slight exception for any noise. I'm glad you brought your son or daughter.

More than two minutes.

So many of us in this room, several in this room retired as federal workers and others, almost every family in Arlington knows someone who is a federal worker who is still in federal service or is retired from federal service. We have been making a persistent effort to provide resources for our federal workers as they either continue in the job or pivot. to new chapters in their life and career. If you Google federal work Arlington County federal workers, this link will come up. Please share it. There are copies, I believe, out front if on the way out you wish to collect it. Immigrant resources, our immigrant families, all of us except those who are Native Americans are derived from immigrants and we stand with our immigrant community now and steadily and steadfastly over the past a year and a half as we seek to stay true to Arlington values in contradiction to the current federal administration. If you need resources, please share that or pick up a copy of it on the way out, or if you know someone who needs them, please share it. We all need to pull together in this difficult moment. Thank you. I'll now turn to public comment and we will start, Mr. Kushner, if you could begin with our first speaker.

Certainly, just a moment please. Our first speaker this morning is Dixie Duncan followed by Will. Ms. Duncan.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for your time. I'm here to talk about the most dangerous road in Arlington County. And I'll just let everyone know, because we have the support in this county that's amazing. So we've had three children that have gotten run over on this road in the last 18 months. We had someone's house that got run into a month ago. We had an accident two weeks ago. Although we don't have deaths on this road and our statistics may not be as high as other roads with incidences, this road is the most important because we have 2,000 students coming to these three schools within six tenths of a mile. I appreciate what you've done because you've established a committee to study the road, but we need it now. School has started and I've been up watching the road and it's still so dangerous and we just need signs. I don't think signs are that expensive, I really don't know, but I've given you a recommendation of where the signs should be. We don't have those little pedestrian cross signs on 7th, 5th, 3rd, or 1st, and those are all areas where students cross. So if you could put up pedestrian crossing signs, that would be of great benefit to the community. I would also request that we do a 20 minute, 20 minute, a 20 mile an hour speed limit in front of every school in Arlington County. That's sort of a nationwide consensus and we need that. And not only should the 20 mile an hour speed limit be for the school hours, it should be for the entire time. Because as you know, our schools are used for various things, church activities, after school programs, many, many things. So 20 should be the rule in front of every school. And I also think that we need a public safety month for Arlington County because the recent two deaths we've had on the highways. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Ms. Duncan. Thank you, everyone. Next, Will on ways to improve public safety.

Good morning, Chair DeFerranti, Vice Chair Coffey, and members of the County Board. My name is Will, and I'm an Arlington resident. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today.

Will, can you just hang on? You're a little taller than the podium at the moment, so there's a button on the right side near your right hand that will enable you to pull it up so that we can hear you a little bit better, and when you've got it at the right level. Thank you, Chair.

The podium has been elevated. Perfect. All right. All right, now that that is settled, can I have my full time, please? Thank you. Sure. All right. My principal request is straightforward. The county must act now to prevent escalating violence, public disorder, and open air drug activity around this government center. These conditions will become normalized without your immediate action. Only seconds from this government center, there are open air drug markets, rampant homelessness, and increasing crime. And just last weekend, there were gunshots right outside this building. Every day, individuals gather here to exchange needles, pills, drink openly, and shout violent threats at neighborhood residents. And if you take a stroll to the nearby CVS, you will often be greeted by homeless encampments. Individuals there, unfortunately, they defecate openly, brandish knives, shout violent threats, and expose themselves, all while children and families walk by. These conditions undermine community safety, burden local businesses with theft, and place an unfair strain on county employees and police officers. The police data suggests this is a structural problem. Crimes against persons have increased every year since 2020, and Group B adult arrests, such as disorderly conduct and loitering, jumped 20% last year. Arlington's homeless population, meanwhile, has increased nearly 60% since 2021. We all recognize that compassion for homeless individuals and the maintenance of safe public spaces are not mutually exclusive. Accordingly, I request the Board to adopt two common sense measures. First, expand 24-7 police foot patrols around the courthouse neighborhood. Second, establish an ordinance restricting overnight encampments here while streamlining access to shelters and services. And third, certainly don't set up a surveillance state to do any of this. The most basic function of any government is to protect its citizens from violence and to ensure orderly liberty. I urge the board to take decisive action that delivers both safety and compassionate solutions for our community. Thank you. Thank you, Will. Next speaker.

Next speaker this morning is Mr. Kenneth Rosenberg, followed by Eric Lotke.

Mr. Rosenberg.

Good morning. Good morning. I've asked to speak to you this morning about a problem that might not seem that weighty to you, but I feel compelled to speak about it, which is the cancellation of the independent study woodshop classes at the TJ Community Center. And this is the problem that I'm talking about. This is twice weekly that these are held. And last June 24th, there was a fully enrolled class which was canceled. The reason was given lack of instructor. July 25th was the final woodshop class before the August closing. That was also canceled for lack of an instructor. We were told that the woodshop would reopen on September 9th. and we've received word that the wood shop is not going to open until september 23rd so that is more more than two month closure instead of for the annual august closure it's been closed two months There the policy of the wood shop is that the person who's the supervisor of the independent classes has to also teach a wood working class, and I think that's the problem why these classes are being cancelled there's no reason why. An instructor cannot go through the vetting and safety procedures to supervise only that independent woodshop class without teaching another class. So I wrote to the people in charge of this and proposed this, and I even volunteered to be a fill-in supervisor. I feel that I have the experience and qualifications to do this. Thank you. And they told me no. Thank you, Mr. Rosenberg. So I'm asking to change the policy.

Sure. Thank you very much. You may not know. Others will know. We will respond to each speaker once all the speakers have. So your suggestion, I'll respond to it briefly and we'll all do so. Thank you very much. Thank you for your consideration. Sure. Next speaker.

Next speaker this morning is Eric Locke. Excuse me. Eric Locke, followed by Becky Mears. Mr. Locke.

Hi there, I'm Eric Lockie, and I'm talking about Flock, and I want to say three things. Number one, thank you, well done. Flock was problematic, and you ended the contract. That was good, smart, responsive government. Thank you for doing the right thing. Number two, so now you're halfway there. The concern is that next year when the noise settles down, you'll go right back to it, quietly hire a different vendor, and carry on unchanged, just as quietly and without public comment as you entered the Flock contract. So the next step is a long-term ban on ALPR technology. Harrisonburg and other Virginia cities are doing that, and you can too. Number three, what's wrong with ALPRs, automatic license plate readers? To be clear, the problem is not single-purpose cameras like red light violators or speed cameras in school zones. Those are fine. The problem is the creepy, all-purpose, Big Brother scanners that are simply watching you and recording 24-7. They watch where your car is, where it's been, where it's going. They can read your bumper stickers and watch you turn into the hospital, the bookstore, or the protest. We hear stories of abuses by ICE and stalker cop ex-boyfriends. Now you might think that you can control access to the data and delete it quickly. History shows that data tends to escape and surveillance only grows. A free society simply does not surveillance people and fighting crime is an excuse for a long history of misdeeds and bad ideas. So thank you for ending the flaw contract. Commit right now that you won't bring back the same function under a different vendor and do it while we're watching so we can thank you for it.

Thank you, Mr. Latke.

Next speaker. Our next speaker is Becky Mears followed by Joseph Keyes.

Ms. Myers. Good morning. Hello, and thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. My name is Becky Myers, and I am one of the founding co-directors of Radio Arlington. I'm here to introduce you to Radio Arlington, to share why we're here, and to ask for your help. Longtime Arlington resident Ted Schneider and I co-founded Radio Arlington in March of this year. I am an experienced community broadcaster who has helped build and support many radio stations across the United States. I bring super strong managerial, operational, and fundraising expertise to this project. I volunteer my time for this to help restore the hyperlocal radio that Arlington lost when WERA went off the air. WERA came back on the air, though, in July 28. And we have the mission to empower and inspire our listening communities, building a local space for quality creative expression and credible information sharing. We are all volunteer. We are grassroots. We aspire to bring people together to make radio that serves the public good. We are focused on sustainability and welcome collaboration as tactics to maximize our very limited resources. And eventually, we hope to work in trust and coalition with the county, and we know that that will take time to build. But we're not here today to ask for financial consideration, nor are we here to ask for any extraordinary favors. We stand before the board today with a simple request. Please urge the county staff to open the door for us. Completing our transmission chain will be critical for fulfilling our mission, for serving our educational purpose, and for building our fundraising base. We ask permission to repurpose an existing antenna on the top of 2300 Clarendon and to access the radio room as outlined in the one pager that we have provided you. You have my respect and appreciation. Thank you so much for your time today.

Thank you, Ms. Myers. Next speaker. Our next speaker this morning is Mr. Joseph Keys, Jr., followed by Diane Opperman. Mr. Keys.

Good morning. I've been an Arlington resident and homeowner since 1968, and I deeply treasure the benefits of being a citizen of Arlington. But I'm also troubled by the fact that many of the people who provide affordable services for us cannot afford to live in Arlington. I'm here today to urge the county to implement the new state faith and housing legislation in the most generous way. This act aims to tackle state housing shortage by removing barriers to prevent faith institutions from building affordable housing on their land, like the barriers that Clarendon Presbyterian faced. I'm particularly concerned about the needs of our growing senior population, especially those at 30% or below the area median income. A recent webinar at Mason, the school of policy and government on affordable housing and seniors pointed out that in 10 years, seniors will outnumber the number of children. Arlington has already witnessed 48% surge in its senior population. Arlington's path forward reports an average age of its clients is now 54. 12 million seniors in the United States are housing cost burdened. The face and housing bill presents an opportunity to both increase the supply of housing and to lower the cost of production of a unit of affordable housing, which now is about $500,000 per unit. Faith institutions own their land. Therefore, there is a potential to reduce the cost of producing a unit. A low production cost means that low income households at 30% in AIR and below can have more units directed toward them. This board, and we often talk about including and caring for the most vulnerable, here is an opportunity, an opportunity without a hit on the budget. Let's make the most of this. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Keyes. Next speaker. Our next speaker is Diane Opperman followed by Wilson Bender. Ms. Opperman.

I hope I'm not booming my voice. Good morning Chair and members of the County Board. I'm here today because I believe Arlington should require elementary and middle school children to complete basic e-bike and electric scooter safety training and receive a certificate before they are permitted to operate these devices. This is not about taking e-bikes or scooters away from children. It is about making sure they know how to operate them safely. These are motorized vehicles. Some e-bikes can legally travel 20 miles per hour, and Class III e-bikes can go 28 miles per hour. Yet a child can get on one without demonstrating that he or she understands traffic signals, stop signs, right of way, pedestrians, bike lanes, or how to safely cross an intersection. The statistics should concern all of us. A 2026 national study found that pediatric e-scooter injuries increased every year from 2020 through 2024. Children ages 11 to 14, essentially our middle school population, accounted for the largest group of injuries at 38%. Another recent children's hospital study found a 268% increase in e-bike and e-scooter injuries from 2021 to 2024. Other communities are beginning to recognize this problem. In Carlsbad, California, students who ride bikes or e-bikes to school must obtain a permit and complete approved safety instruction. But not every community, including our community. Instead of waiting until more children are injured and then reacting, Arlington could be the most proactive of communities in taking an educational approach to this safety concern. Imagine being able to say that Arlington recognized this problem early and created a youth safety program

Thank you, Ms. Opperman. My apologies. We try to be consistent. Thank you.

And we will respond. Next speaker. Our next speaker this morning is Wilson Bender, followed by Alan Calabari. Mr. Bender.

Hey, so I wanted to talk today about utilizing artificially generated whatever AI slot, basically. It was like I'm not actually sure this community learning newsletter is actually AI, it's just some old ladies, but the last previous three have been AI slop on the front of it. Also too, AI has been kind of pushed into APS. Some teachers have shared some ridiculous stuff after feeding it into some type of, AI generated, LLM, whatever. My biggest problem with it is the creativity part of it. Using AI breeds mediocrity. I did find out about the flock cameras, their AI facial recognition had 11.2 million data points on a person. That's 11.2 million characteristics. I don't even know that about my own child. But it's be able to use whatever data processing to fine tune it to breed mediocrity. That's my biggest problem with it. But I couldn't figure out why in Arlington it kept being pushed, like on APS or in the community learning newsletter. Also, some people, I mean, you guys have seen it, it just gets pushed on a newsletter here and there. And I kind of figured it out, it was whenever Oracle was adopted as a vendor for the job site, that's when the AI stuff started getting pushed, at least to my investigation into it. I think you should mark this as evergreen. So as Oracle is probably a not good vendor, in my opinion, especially because of they've pushed the AI generated slop, I guess you can call it. That's all my time. I'll yield.

See you all. Thank you, Mr. Bender. You have 25 more seconds, but sounds like you're there. So our next speaker, please. Is Alan Calabari, followed by Terry Armao. Mr. Calabari.

Good morning, Mr. Chairman, members of the board. Mr. Calipari? Yes, sir.

As I got pointed out, just a little closer to the mic. Thank you.

Okay. I'm here again to follow up on my complaint against my neighbor, VFW, for violating zoning ordinance 14.3.3.E, the 10-foot buffer between properties. I've provided more detail in my August 7 email to Chairman DeFronti and the County Attorney, among others, and a copy of the email to you all for this meeting. Zoning has enforced the 10-foot buffer on the east side of my property, but refuses to enforce it on the west side. The violations are numerous and indisputable. On June 10th, 2026, zoning approved an administrative change to the VFW use permit to reflect the existing landscape and parking layout. It is unclear what this means. I would appreciate a definitive response to these four questions. One, Why did zoning take this action? Two, what is the meaning implication of this action by zoning? That means the administrative change. Does this administrative change make the existing parking and landscape compliant with the ordinance? And four, what happens to the enforcement of 14.3.3.E? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Calabari. Next speaker, for those who are joining, there is a beep at 30 seconds left. That does not mean your time is up. Next speaker, go ahead. Next speaker is Terri Armao, followed by Shane Ray Martin. Ms. Armao. And on the right side, in case, like me, you sometimes need to pull down the podium a touch. There you go.

Yep. Hey, y'all. Haven't been here in a while. Didn't want to really come today, but I was supporting my friend about the e-bikes. And also, I wanted to speak on that issue, but it was apparently too adjacent, so I had to switch. So I'm winging it. Engagement. It doesn't happen in this county anymore, unfortunately. I get Inside Arlington. I get the county newsletters. I see it on my Facebook page. And I recently tried to take the lot coverage study engagement and honestly it's so skewed if you look at the first three options I fit nowhere in there so how can I do the survey so I wouldn't be counted so this is true whether it's a park a road a school, whatever, the engagement process is deeply flawed now. Maybe AI is helping, I don't know, but it's going in the wrong direction. If you truly want to hear what citizens think, which I would hope you would, this has to be reformed and it has to be done soon. So the issues that you're trying to gather information for affect us. We live in these neighborhoods, these communities, and yet we are guided towards a certain outcome that staff seems to want. or maybe the board wants it and staff's driving it. I don't know which way that's going, how that circle works. I don't care. I just think if you want truthful input, you have to write a survey that is not biased, and that is not happening, and I really encourage you to look into it and to correct this flawed process.

Thank you, Ms. Armao. Next speaker. Our next speaker is Mr. Shane Ray Martin, followed by Mr. Brian Markeen. Mr. Martin.

We've built an economic engine in Arlington. Six companies made $1.27 million in just 12 weeks, and I personally brought investors representing over $3 billion in fund size into our county. Here's our challenge now, is that if we don't scale this, other cities will take our founders, our jobs, and our potential tax base with them. Good morning, Chair DeFarinetti, Vice Chair Coffey, Member Cunningham, Caritonis, and Spain. Mr. JD Spain, specifically, you opened our July 30th event with more energy than 10 CEOs combined. Thank you so much for showing up. You're awesome. I'm Shane. I'm an investor and founder of the Peace Tech Accelerator. Peace Tech is simply just safe technology to stop violent conflict in our cities and in our world. Our 12-week program here in Arlington is taking founders and helping them connect to mentors, advisors, and investors. Ideally, this means that there will be new companies, new jobs, and new tax revenue here in Arlington. Funded almost entirely on my own, our companies have generated over a million dollars. And of that, 500,000 has stayed here in Virginia, if not more now. One Arlington founder won a $25,000 investment. Another got picked from Techstars out of 2,000 companies and will now pitch in Silicon Valley, representing you and I on the world stage, which is incredible. Our success is honestly creating new problems. There are 100 CEOs who are asking to work with us. I don't have the capacity or funding to say yes to all of them here in Arlington. Meanwhile, San Francisco, New York are recruiting our best founders from the city and pulling them away from Arlington because they can offer more investment than I can on my own. So today I'm asking the board for advice and introductions to government funding decision makers to help us solidify the long-term impact of this so that one million can turn into two, four, 10, and maybe even more than 100 one day in positive impact for the county that we call home.

Thank you, Mr. Martin. Next speaker. Our next speaker is Mr. Brian Marroquin followed by Mr. Amanda Villalpando. Mr. Marroquin.

Good morning. So I'm here today on behalf of the Arlington Community Foundation to call attention to the early findings of the Great Gateways for Growth initiative. It's a research partnership with the county, with county staff, focused on increasing immigrant inclusion. Staff from the constituent services office, from the race office, and many more have advocated for this initiative. The full report's available on our website, but I'd like to elevate just one headline, given our limited time. And that's what you see on the screen, that immigrants are a major driver of Arlington's economic productivity, consumer spending, and tax base. If you can go to the next slide. Immigrants make up 22% of Arlington's population. And in their data, an immigrant is defined as any foreign-born person of any immigration status. So yes, that does include undocumented persons. Immigrants of all immigration statuses worked and earned $3.2 billion in income, resulting in $670 million paid in federal taxes and $306 million paid in state and local taxes. Now, this is often a source of confusion for passive observers because they assume that people that are undocumented do not pay taxes. That is untrue. The IRS is in the business of collecting taxes from all people engaged in taxable activities. That's a nice way to say it. To facilitate this, they can issue an individual taxpayer identification number, an ITIN, to anyone, regardless of their immigration status. And so people often view this actually as an opportunity to fulfill their civic duty as immigrants. And the issue is, or the interesting part, is that many of those immigrants that are paying Social Security and Medicare taxes will actually never be eligible to collect those taxes. Instead, their contributions are a net positive to the system and to the rest of us. Arlington's immigrants fill both ends of the labor market, from highly skilled professionals to essential workers. And at the Community Foundation, we believe that economic mobility requires more than improving someone's finances. It requires creating a sense of belonging. So we thank you for the efforts you take to create a sense of belonging for our immigrant community. The next phase of Gateways for Growth will issue some recommendations on how to improve immigrant inclusion, and we look forward to sharing those with you in the spring. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Marroquin.

Our next speaker is Ms. Amanda Villalpando followed by Audrey Clement.

Ms. Villalpando.

My name is Amanda Villapando, and I'm here on behalf of Integration Station. I'm a college graduate, and I had a successful career in business before choosing to become a stay-at-home mom. I'm a wife to that handsome man over there, and we have three beautiful children. And I was a special needs nonverbal preschool student with an IEP. And because my county and my family believed in me, I was able to learn how to speak at age five. Today, I'm using that voice to speak for special needs toddlers. For the past two years, our community has endured a painful, exhausting cycle. Two years ago, the school board attempted to shut down this vital program, and after intense pushback, they formed the Early Childhood Working Group to evaluate its future. What we learned this past April is deeply disturbing. SIFAC staff revealed in writing that the true purpose of the working group was always to close the school, which they intentionally withheld from the volunteer community members on that panel. Through a FOIA request, we obtained an APS memo stating that the working group's actual recommendation was to keep the school open and expand it to a second location to create an early childhood center. A member of this board heard firsthand in that working group the importance of IS. But the school board ignored those findings and shut down enrollment in May. And they only reversed course after community outcry in June. Last week on 9-11, the school board blindsided us again, announcing that it will close the program. And it is clear that the decision was made again without community input. This has entirely broken our trust in the school board's leadership, and we are disheartened as we have another 12 to 15 years as APS families. Decisions impacting our most vulnerable children are being made behind closed doors, completely ignoring constituents. But despite our heartbreak and anger, we still want to rebuild trust with APS leadership. My ask to the county board today is to urge your colleagues on the school board to fulfill their duty to their constituents. Please ask them to stop the backroom decision-making that targets toddlers. Open a transparent dialogue with our families at the administration at IS and TCS and commit to a collaborative and honest process. This is the Arlington way.

Thank you, Ms. Villalpando.

Our next speaker is Audrey Clement followed by Asim.

Ms. Clement.

Welcome members of the board and the county manager. I'm Audrey Clement, running for county board. Neighbors for Neighborhoods, NFN, which is leading the charge against missing middle upzoning in Arlington County, reported on July 29th that defendants in a missing middle lawsuit on appeal to the state Supreme Court failed to submit a brief arguing their case by the legal deadline. The defendants, Arlington County and Wilson Ventures, were appealing the decision of an Arlington Circuit Court judge to deny Wilson Ventures the right to intervene in the case after he had already ruled on the matter. A state appellate court overruled the circuit judge, and the state Supreme Court agreed to hear the case on appeal by the original plaintiffs. From this remarkable turn of events, NFN speculated that Wilson Ventures only, quote, sought to have EHO reinstated so it could finish its own multi-unit projects that were then in limbo. This diversionary tactic worked. Wilson Ventures appears to have achieved its goals, end of quote. This may explain why Wilson Ventures abandoned its appeal, but not why the county, which is surely not satisfied with the few multiplexes constructed so far, also dropped out. I think the county knows it can get the densification it seeks by other means, namely a rewrite of the county's comprehensive plan, including its general land use plan, or CLUP. To do this, the county can undertake the same process used to adopt the EHO ordinance in 2023. Invoking statutory language requiring a comprehensive plan update every five years, I suspect that the County will scrap the 2023 EHO ordinance and rezone single family home neighborhoods adjacent to and beyond Metro corridors for mixed use or transitional development. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Clement. Next speaker. Yes, our next speaker is Asim followed by Sam. Asim.

Got slides, I'll wait for that. All right, so this is a photo from earlier this week of a child going to rescue his brother's dead corpse. They were both killed in a double-tap strike with a bomb developed by Israel Aerospace Industries, dropped from a drone, manufactured by Elbit Systems, two companies we know Arlington has done business with. It reminds me of Matt's response to us last week after more than nine months of deliberating on an ethics policy we submitted for consideration. But what about the jobs? Next slide. In fact, Matt told us that what we presented over the past couple years were not actually collaborations. What's an acceptable term for all of this, Matt? Next slide. Matt told us the county doesn't do foreign policy, essentially that we have no choice but to facilitate the business of murdering children. Next slide. Our campaign is also about deprioritizing surveillance and we're happy you ended our contract with Flock. However, does it make sense to stop there? What does it mean to end Flock contracts and at the same time prioritize companies that make Flock surveillance possible? Next slide. And believe me, Arlington prioritizes companies that make Flock surveillance possible. They openly say it on Arlington Economic Development's website. This is a screenshot of an interview with a rep from one of those companies. Next slide. It makes me wonder where exactly Matt draws the line, and because he brought up the safety of Arlington residents, it made me think of this quote from Martin Luther King that I keep coming back to. It makes clear Matt draws the line at maintaining a privileged order rather than pursuing any true semblance of justice. To put this into perspective, let's ask ourselves, where would Matt... Where would Matt stand on something like Arlington desegregating our schools back in the day? Where would he stand on this? Next slide. And as he is now, I think it's very clear he would have stood on the very wrong side of history. Next slide. So my question to the other board members, does Matt really represent where you stand on this? And to everyone else in the room, we're on the same team. We can't stop at ending flawed contracts or tech surveillance. Thank you, Asim. Next speaker.

And our next and I believe, nope, our next speaker is Sam followed by Naomi Verdugo. Sam.

Good morning. Durante más de 100 años, pero especialmente desde el 7 de octubre de 2023, el mundo ha sido testigo de una limpieza étnica y otros crímenes de guerras cometidas contra el pueblo palestino. Se estima que Israel ha matado a más de 100,000 palestinos con una variedad de tácticas como, por ejemplo, bombas, hambruna y agua contaminada. Los periodistas palestinos han estado documentando su propio genocidio y muchas organizaciones de derechos humanos también han documentado la enorme lista de crímenes de guerra y violaciones de derechos humanos de Israel. Bueno, ¿por qué estoy hablando de este tópico en frente de la Junta del Condado de Arlington, Virginia? Porque hay un departamento específico del condado, el Desarrollo Económico de Arlington, o AED, que prioriza y facilita la presencia local de muchas empresas e industrias, incluidas empresas de armas y tecnología y vigilancia, que obtienen ganancias de violaciones de derechos humanos contra el pueblo palestino. Asimismo, el AED colabora estrechamente con la Junta Asesora de Virginia Israel , una agencia que contribuye a lavar la imagen de Israel al canalizar millones de dólares de fondos locales, estatales y federales cada año para establecer empresas israelíes en Virginia. Por eso, exijo un nuevo modelo de desarrollo económico en Arlington que priorice las necesidades comunitarias y reduzca el daño causado por nuestros recursos públicos. Específicamente, exijo una política de ética pública que ponga fin a toda colaboración entre Arlington y entidades cómplices de crímenes de guerra, la limpieza étnica, el racismo sistémico, Thank you, Sam. Next speaker. Our next speaker is Naomi Verdugo, followed by Stephen Ward.

Hello, I'm here to thank the board for the grants you recently gave to Thrive and SEEK, Shirlington Employment and Education Center. ICE has impacted so many of the families in our area, leaving in its wake destruction and trauma. Your grants have helped exactly these families. There are two words I hear most often in the community, miedo, fear, and sufrir, suffering. Fear for just going about their daily lives and suffering because their ability to pay for their food, for rent, for utilities, and for their loved ones, legal representation is... Almost impossible. So the grants you provided to Thrive and to SEEK made a difference. And they made a difference yesterday. And I wanted to let you know how they made a difference in one family's life yesterday. An Arlington man who has been at Farmville for 90 days was, for the first time, able to buy fresh water. He was able to buy healthier or safer food. And he was able to make phone calls to his family. for the first time his wife was able to have a little money in her bank account so she could buy food for her U.S. citizen daughter and buy a pair of shoes for her daughter. And her daughter, who has suffered from depression with her father being detained, saw a little bit of light at the end of this tunnel. That all happened yesterday because of the grants you provided to seek and to thrive. And I thank you so much. It may sound like a little difference, but it's really a big difference for that family and for families every day who benefit. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Verdugo. Next speaker. Our next and final speaker this morning is Stephen Ward.

Mr. Ward. Good morning. Good morning. So I'm Stephen Ward, a nearly 40-year resident of Arlington County. I speak today about the use of flock cameras on private and commercial properties, but I do want to note thanks to the county board for its decision on flock cameras and the county's use of it. Please stay focused on commercial properties. I am. Thank you.

Yeah.

I want to make sure you knew we appreciated it. In my neighborhood, flock or flock-like cameras recently have been placed in three entry and exit points in the shopping center at Langston Harris and owned by Dwoskin Associates and Company. The cameras are placed where vehicles enter and exit, but also right at the edge of the sidewalk where crowds of kids pass on a daily pilgrimage from Yorktown and Williamsburg high schools. I'm not comfortable with my vehicle movements being tracked without my permission, but I'm also deeply concerned over the possibility that images of children are being captured every day without their or their parents' knowledge or consent. While Flock claims their technology is used exclusively to track vehicles, security analyses have revealed that the camera firmware includes underlying image capture and person detection capability. We've all seen the reports of grok AI chatbots manipulating images of children. We should all be concerned about this capture. Additionally, this technology behind the capture of adult facial recognition is used to identify criminal suspects, and that has been empirically demonstrated to have flaws in the analysis of the features of persons with darker skin that has led to false identification in far too many cases. So that leads to an important question. Does the county have any authority to regulate the use of these cameras on commercial property? and over the use and protection of data. If the county does not, can it establish such authority? If not, then I want to take this opportunity to spread the word to the broader Arlington community about these cameras, which I assume are not limited to my shopping center, and to encourage Arlingtonians to contact both the Dwoskin Company and the shop owners in their shopping centers that they object to the use of flock cameras without their consent. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Ward. There are no further speakers.

There are no further speakers. So now I will provide brief comments, and then I'll share it with colleagues to add their thoughts. Ms. Duncan, thank you for coming in and highlighting. I think you're still here, yes. Thank you for coming in and highlighting your asks. You sent an email, I believe, on Thursday. Thank you, Mr. Lockheed. If you could just pull that all the way down so that folks can see and we can see you. You sent an email on Thursday. I think it tracked with the signs request you on Monday. I got to see you at open door and it's helpful. So on Monday, I'll be having a phone call with the deputy county manager about your email and your requests. And we will seek to get to the specifics. You've mentioned a public safety campaign, 20 miles per hour, the signs on 7th, 5th, 3rd and 1st. I appreciate you sharing that we have done quite a bit. We are keenly aware that we cannot prevent every accident in Arlington, but we can reduce the chances of accidents. And so we are continuing we are continuing to work on this. But I would say that the immediate step is that 30-minute conversation I have with the deputy county manager. I don't want to overcommit as to what we can do in the short term, but we are working on it with urgency. And I believe the date is the 21st of September when the corridor study, I'm not 100% sure, I don't know. The online engagement for the corridor study on Carlin Springs, I believe starts on September 21st. and the vice chair is on it more than I am. The in-person is October 6th. So we're taking it seriously. We're working with urgency. Please stay involved. All of us have been out and we're concerned. One of the two deaths was just outside Arlington County boundaries that you mentioned, but one was inside Arlington and every person's safety is important in Arlington, is important to us. Will, thank you for your thoughtful comments Homelessness in Arlington is up. Two or three years ago it was 221 individuals on the point in time count and it has increased. I am concerned and I think we are concerned both overall and the capacity of Path Forward to house individuals has sometimes been stretched over the past year and a half. To some of your concerns focusing on courthouse, We have had vacancies in our police department and that does have an impact. We have sought to invest in our police department to address those vacancies. You also asked for an overnight ordinance. I'm not sure that I am there, but I do think patrols and community policing is an old concept that certainly is new-ish with former Governor Martin O'Malley having focused quite a bit on it. So I don't know if the manager, you have anything to share with respect to thoughts on the courthouse area. We have had a couple of other requests and concerns and it is deeply concerning to us and I know 221 and I know the increase because I think about it at least weekly to see what we can do to address it. Anything that you wanna add, Mr. Schwartz?

The only thing I would add is that here in the courthouse area as in any other place, if people are experiencing something that they find troubling, they should go ahead and give a call and I've also had similar comments from staff over the past week. You know, I wish I could say there was some magic wand I could wave to make the problem, and I'm not even stating I agree with the scope of the problem, but there have been specific cases that have come up, but just to call us and we'll respond as we can.

Thank you, Mr. Schwartz. We put together, I think it was a month and a half ago, our police brought in someone at the corner of Barton Street and Columbia Pike who got services, who previous to that had refused services. And that was deeply satisfying to me on a Friday night to read that email. It's our staff that are doing the work. would say that out of that we produced a six or seven page guide for what to do we can share that with you if you like on a follow-up and I'll ask mr. Kushner if you could share his email with us that is different ways to approach addressing things along the lines of what mr. Schwartz mentioned I'll leave it there mr. Rosenberg This is one, we had an extended, I think you're still here, Mr. Rosenberg. No, I'll just say briefly, we had an extended discussion of the workshop, the woodshop program in our budget. We kept the program. The question of staffing and whether a supervisor and whether someone can volunteer is certainly something that we will follow up on. I guess that's one I'll start and also take in addition. Mr. Lockey. I'm grateful for you saying thank you. We don't always get thank you in this room. But we appreciate it when you do. Your concern, I think, is fair and well placed. I think that going first on Tuesday, we will have a discussion, September 22nd, sometime between three and six o'clock, we'll have a discussion about all of the concerns. You mentioned single use cameras such as school zones, not a source of concern. It is the case that there are other companies that provide ALPR services, and I'll just lump in the last speaker, commercial property. I do not believe that we have the legal, currently we have the legal ability to, on private property, shut down flock cameras. If the county attorney knows differently, let me know. But I do not believe we currently have that authority. As I think you and others in the room will know, there was state progress on state law, I believe in the last legislative session or 2025, but we would have to ask for additional authority. From my part, I'm certainly open to that authority with respect to commercial property. I think the national evidence and discussion on FLOC has been overwhelming, but there are other concerns. We take them seriously. The conversation on that really needs, in my view, to focus on Tuesday. I do, at least for my part, I'll take some responsibility. It was two plus years ago, but I did not force a public discussion of this issue when it was approved, so I'll take some responsibility. I believe that was a mistake on my part, and I'll own my mistakes as long as I serve on this dais. So hopefully that's helpful. I would hope that you and the other Welfistas and the others in the room would watch a little bit of the discussion on the 22nd. It won't be our last discussion, but it will be an important first discussion as we have a transparent process. Ms. Myers, thank you for coming in on Radio Free Arlington. This is one where I believe the appropriate step for me to do is say less and suggest that engaging with our staff as I believe you've been doing is the right approach and that would mean that the County Manager's Office with the possible advice of the County Attorney's Office. I think that's sometimes saying less is the best way forward. Mr. Keyes, Thank you for coming in. I think you are still here. Yes, and there are certainly others of your team, of the voice team that are still here. It is painful regularly to accept the reality that many of our staff cannot afford to live here. That's not the Arlington that was a federal workforce home. It's not the Arlington that we would wish for. Faith in housing engendered quite a bit of discussion. And what I would say is the cost of land is an enormous cost for affordable housing. It is also the case, as I said at a recent regional forum, local funding is almost always essential to make an affordable housing project work. So there is discretion that we have as to where we share and where we invest. There's a NOFA process sometimes, and sometimes we invest directly in projects. I would say that I believe that the The concern about process on faith and housing is to me over-caffeinated because we will always have to invest local funds in order for a faith and housing or any project to move forward. I guess what I'd say on the point of senior housing, I don't want to over-promise or get in too much detail, but there have been conversations with the county manager and several of us on the board about the urgency of the challenge of baby boomers becoming homeless. And so there is some hope with respect to a specific project that could move forward, but we are not at a stage yet where we know that that will happen. And I like to not get too much further. I think that's... Mr. Schwartz, you can give me the correction if I've gone too far, but does that describe it fairly? Okay. And colleagues, if I've gone too far, you get a turn to correct me as well. Next. Ms. Opperman, Vice Chair Coffey and I, Ms. Opperman, are you here? Yes, thank you. There were three others who, as Ms. Armao mentioned, who wanted to talk about the broad topic of e-bikes. This is an area that Ms. Coffey and I were just on a phone call yesterday and the subject of training came up. Our school board is certainly very concerned about it. I guess I would just say that there's different types of bikes and we have to understand state law and local authority. But as I said, I think two weeks ago, more regulation in this area is a, for me, a pressing safety concern. And I think for the entire board. So I guess what I'd say is over the coming weeks and month, I hope that we would have more concretely to share with you. And I'll leave to Vice Chair Coffey and Ms. Cunningham who have been leading on this to follow up with you via email should they want to regarding some specifics on that, if that's okay. We have more work to do. It's not just a training issue in my view. There are also some times where folks are flying by my three-year-old and one-year-old and me as we walk that I think merits at least consideration of both parents' responsibility in addition to training and also, I believe, enforcement in some instances. We have to find our legal authority in that area. Mr. Bender, I don't know if you are still here, so I'll keep it brief. I think not. I love that you're focusing on creativity. I share concerns regarding AI. I don't know the answers to each of the individual items that are before you. Thank you for coming in. Mr. Calakbari, as I shared with you when we talked briefly via phone this morning, Thank you for coming in. You asked four questions. We are going to follow up with both the final plan that was administratively approved and what and what occurred, there is separately a process where a zoning department would follow up to see if there's any violations of that plan that was approved. We'll leave it there and we'll follow up on Monday or as soon as legally consistent under FOIA with that piece as well as others. So with the plan as well as others. Ms. Armao, thank you for coming in regarding engagement. I have not looked at the lot coverage survey. I believe that you may have fair concerns. I will say that as far as community engagement as a whole, we will be holding a town hall in the coming weeks, I believe in October, wherein there's a separate occasion to engage with us. I think it's a broader conversation, but I think it starts with lot coverage. Mr. Martin. regarding peace tech. I think you're still here, yes. Thank you for coming in and the opportunity that is there. Technology can be used for ill and it certainly can be used for good too. I appreciate it. I think that you raise economic development opportunity questions. I don't quite know as to a next step, but certainly you might follow up with an email. As we do with economic development opportunities of all kinds, we can share it with Arlington Economic Development and see from there where it goes as to next steps. Certainly, we want to focus on opportunity in addition to the areas that were not perfect. Mr. Marroquin, thank you for coming in on the economic benefits of our immigrant community. It is so important, I believe, to hear the positive in addition to all of the stereotyping and negative stories we now hear from this administration. and frankly from some slivers of the broader Virginia and national community on our immigrant families. Thank you for making the point that there's a net economic benefit, which is a fairly researched and clear, I think some would say it's not a fact, but the research seems fairly overwhelming that it is the case. And we need to understand that Certainly, if you think about the broad community in Arlington, Arlington's fabric is deeply intertwined with our immigrant community with 21% of us foreign born. and many of our immigrant community, but not all, that are threatened Latino. And our Latino community, we have the only Latino superintendent of schools, the only Latino sheriff in the state of Virginia. We are very proud of that. Ms. Villalpando, thank you for coming in. I suspect Vice Chair Coffey will have more to share on this. Thank you for sharing your personal story of your route to living the American dream with a differing learning style from zero to five. And thank you for shouting out your husband is quite handsome, I will say. That's just because I've been talking a while. So I will say simultaneously, the process that you identified with respect to the working group, I had not been aware of. I'll leave that to others to touch on. The school division has ownership of a process. I'm not one who believes, I believe sort of in an approach that is we engage as you asked us to do, but we also, I do not believe that we should be telling other elected officials what to do. in some ways I think an implicit paternalism that we have to guard against. The school division ultimately owns the decision. But I do think it's reasonable to ask questions. There are several different steps that we've taken. They sent a letter, the chair of the school board, owning part of the responsibility on the process, which I suspect that you saw. There are a couple of other details. I'll leave that to perhaps Vice Chair Coffey to expound on or others. Ms. Clement, thank you for coming in with your comments. I can only say succinctly it is absolutely not my intention and I don't believe anyone on the board's intention to revise the expanded housing options ordinance through the comprehensive plan. That is not what we would pursue. The appeal process I think is separately and we did not, we just noted that there was an appeal by Wilson Ventures. We did not get deeply involved in that. A scene. Thank you for sharing your thoughts. Arlington, on the ethics policy itself, I believe that the three pieces to the policy, and I do not see him, but I'll share anyway. I believe that the pieces to the policy are, probably not legal under federal and state law. I've engaged on that. That's the specifics of the policy proposed. With respect to the critique of my position and my character, I respectfully disagree, but I fully believe in your ability to share, consistent with our one speaker per topic rules, your views. I'll leave it there. Sam, thank you for sharing. My Spanish is not perfect, but I think I caught pieces of it. Thank you for sharing your thoughts. Ms. Verdugo, thank you very much for adding your thanks for the $50,000. As you said, I think she's still here, yes. As you said, it is not a sum of money at 2,000 being the limit per family. It is not a sum of money that will fix all problems, but it is an indication that I think all of us on the board believe in, that we stand with our immigrant families and we will not stop standing with them. Mr. Ward, I think I touched on it. I've said plenty. I hope now to share it with colleagues so that you can share any thoughts that you may have. And I'll leave it there. Vice Chair Coffey.

All right, thank you. And bear with me, I'm a little sick. Ms. Duncan, it's good to see you again. I'll see you on October 6th. I do appreciate that you continue to bring us concrete suggestions. I think that this is gonna be an ongoing discussion. I think a lot of what you're talking about is doable through the corridor study itself. And so I think it's about figuring out how quickly can we get to the end of this. I think some of the other parts around the school zone speed limits and timing of that, I would just highlight we are restricted by Virginia code about how we can set school zones in terms of the geographic area as well as the hours. And so we are looking at, we have discussed our most creative ways to apply that in this situation, but I think we're pretty concluded we're at our maximum. On homelessness and public safety, I think I just want to highlight what Mr. DeFerranti said around our resources have been stretched so thin at this point, and thinking about what is the most compassionate options for so many people in our community when our shelters are at full capacity. I am not personally in favor of ever criminalizing or penalizing people for poverty. I think especially so much of what was shared was also around substance use and mental health, and I also don't think that the right place for someone who's struggling economically or with substance use and mental health is in a criminal justice system. And I would highlight, because we have so many lovely people who have come out this morning, that we are also in the process of working through a site plan for the first in Arlington County behavioral health facility that would add significant capacity for treatment for people with substance use and mental health issues. This is an ongoing process. There are certainly a lot of land use related things that need to be worked out, transportation related things. But if those of you who are in the room are passionate about making sure that the people who need help can get help, so much of what happens in Northern Virginia and the DC area overall right now is not that we don't want to help, but there are literally not beds and we are driving people to Bristol, Virginia on the Tennessee border because that's the closest place that they can receive help. We want to be able to help them here, and this facility is a part of that process. And so I invite you, if you look up VHC Carlin Springs, engage in that process. Think about what that could mean for us. And as it relates back to public safety and homelessness, getting people the treatment that they need is the way that we should be helping these people, not by just blanket kicking them off certain spaces or land because where else are they going to go? I appreciate that. I'm not going to speak to all almost 20 speakers because we will be here forever. On Flock, we are going to have an extensive conversation. I think that one thing that is important to me, honestly, is I think we need to develop a framework for how we think about privacy, and then we need to figure out what technology and how can or might fit into that. And the answer might be it doesn't. But without the framework of how we're thinking about privacy in our community, I'm not sure we know what we are trying to answer or compare to. And so I think creating that policy baseline is going to let us not just answer the question on flock versus photo speed, photo red, which I do think are qualitatively different things. But it will help us as more technology keeps being introduced. If you watch our Department of Technology Services work session from this past budget, you will know I am not a fan of AI. And I think I went on about a 10-minute monologue about why I think it's bad for our community. Nonetheless, it's here. More technology is coming. We need to have that policy baseline in order to know as each thing comes out if it's right for our community. E-bikes and scooters. Oh, boy. This has been... The uptick this summer in terms, I handle transportation constituent issues for the board, which means I have had the glory of responding to I truly cannot count how many emails about e-bikes, scooters. And I think I just want to share a handful of things that I don't think most people in the public know. An e-bike that goes over 20 miles per hour is a Class 3 e-bike. People under the age of 14 are not allowed to ride a Class 3 e-bike. An e-moto, which goes over 28 miles per hour up to even 65 or 70 miles per hour, requires a Class M motorcycle license to operate. We are behind the eight ball. Everyone is. I've talked to our colleagues across the region in Alexandria and Falls Church and Fairfax. The technology has proliferated much faster this summer than any other time. And so the regulatory regime is probably not there to really figure out how to do this. We were on with the leadership of the school system just yesterday afternoon, and I made a big push that I think that they should have mandatory training for both the parents and the students because it is going to be both sides of that. And I don't think we can enforce. I don't really want our police officers pulling over 15 year olds for riding their bikes. But I do agree that a lot of the behavior is unsafe. And we need to get the education to the point where people understand that a lot of the devices they're buying their kids are actually not legal for those kids to be riding, in addition to the actual behavior while they're on that. The state did do a working group over the summer that's going to have some recommendations for legislation. So I'm following that very closely. And we will be back for more with that. Let's see. Again, there was a lot. Economic contributions of immigrants. If you all are not familiar with Brian Marroquin and the Arlington Community Foundation, I highly recommend getting connected with them. They are one of the best organizations in our community. They are doing great work. They deserve your support. And I think... I will leave that there. Integration station, I think the folks, Ms. Villalpando has left. We had a conversation with schools leadership yesterday. I'm meeting with the SEPTA, the special education PTA, in the next couple of weeks. So I will continue to engage on that issue. EHO and comprehensive plan. It wouldn't be a public comment, I feel like, if we weren't talking about EHO in some form or fashion. I think it's really important to note that the appeal that has gone to the Supreme Court has nothing to do with us or our appeal. an issue between a third party and process of whether they filed an intervention on time. We chose not to file anything because we really have no dog in that fight. That is between them and the courts. And so we look forward to being able to resume the conversation on the merits of the policy on our central conversation as soon as possible. But that is also up to the courts. And with that, I think I've said more than my fair share.

Thank you, Vice Chair Coffey. Mr. Karantonis.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good to see everybody here. We missed you two months is too long. So a couple of things I want to start with Mr. Marroquin's testimony. There is something troubling if somebody has to come up and say that members of this community contribute to this community. having to say that as if it's not obvious. The reason why Mr. Marroquin and the Community Foundation is saying that is because among the things that we're experiencing right now is the complete dehumanization of our neighbors with immigrant background. So as you remember the person who is right now in the White House, characterized millions of Americans as garbage that needs to be taken out. He even rode a garbage truck to illustrate the point. And the result of that is dire. This is not just an appeal to our community or collective morals. The monthly, Deportation rate right now in the United States of America is more than 50,000 people, 50,000 people. To give you an idea how much more this is, the average before Mr. Trump, even during the first Trump administration, never, never went up above 20,000. This was including all these close to border exchanges, et cetera. Ms. Verdugo referred to Farmville. There are 200,000 children, infants, that are under a deportation order right now. There are 1,800 kids right now in federal custody, which is, as you know, completely abusive. So think about the extreme impact of this ideology that immigrants are lesser people. So I hear Mr. Marroquin, I mean, and I know your personal story, sir. Just yesterday, the Washington Post ran an editorial. They don't run editorials against the White House very often, but they were informing us that the administration has completed their collective lawsuits against all states that are helping, that are accepting in-state tuition for people who have finished high school here and live here and go to college here. So this is an ongoing fight, and I call you to really pay attention. This is not just politics. It affects people every day. And Ms. Verdugo, you said miedo, miedo and sufrir, as in fear. No, it's not exactly miedo. It is terror. We are terrorized. There is no other way to describe it. So a couple of things. Ms. Opperman, thank you for bringing it up. This is extremely important. I am very encouraged to hear our vice chair having brought it up with her colleagues in the school board. Yes, bike culture, if it only mirrors car culture, which is what we have, it's going to be very problematic to manage. So I really think that we need to do a lot more to educate and to make it fun to ride a bike and to be a thoughtful pedestrian participant in circulation. This requires a collective shift in our mentality. We need to pay more attention to bicyclists to build We will have this conversation about Vision Zero today and about creating all the civic infrastructure that allows, that makes it meaningful to ride a bike and to ride the bike properly and safely. Mrs. Myers, you forgot in your testimony the most important think, which is 96.7. That's the frequency. For those who still remember, we still have FM radios around. Maybe you have still one in your car or so. But local media is extremely important. I applaud you. You prove the... the expectation, the fact that radio people are unflappable. Unfortunately, there are many technical problems with the way we can at least not be an obstacle in what you are trying to be. We have tried our very best to be a supporter of independent media, but this didn't go very well. And I'm sorry about that. And we are not responsible for that. But I think that this is something that you need to pick up with staff. It's a little bit unfortunate that your transmitter isn't in the same radio room that this public safety equipment. So that needs to be separated. On the unhoused people, Will, who testified here, I have a problem when we consider unhoused people as a public safety issue. It is a public responsibility and social responsibility issue like our Vice Chair very well said. I know for a fact dozens of volunteers and professionals are doing their very best and sometimes beyond that to serve, to accompany, to make sure that everybody who needs help gets help, which is increasingly more difficult as we go, but we are still doing our very best to do.

to do that.

On ALPR, I hear you. The testimony in private opens the discussion about, you know, it's not the cameras, it's what runs on this footage, and where this footage, and sometimes this footage, and today we're in a society where this footage can be processed outside of our jurisdiction, local, state, or even federal. So that is a growing discussion. We will have it again. on Tuesday. Finally, Mr. Martin, So in Arlington, we excel, as of lately, in one thing. And I think that this is the product of deliberate policy steering to help startups and scale-ups. And not only that, to make this a place where venture capital, so the real money, finds its best takers. We are the only jurisdiction in Northern Virginia and probably the only in DMV that in the last 18 months have seen an increase in venture capital transactions. I think this is very important, and that is only to say that the professionals with higher economic development probably will be very well positioned to work with you and with your entrepreneurial endeavors from here. They have a track record of being able to actually succeed. So thank you for coming and testifying here. This is an important part of our work. of community living here. And I always repeat the fact that 96% of our business licenses in Arlington is for companies that employ less than 50 employees. And yours is one of that. Finally, Ms. Duncan. Just a note, in the District of Columbia, the speed limit in front of schools is 15 miles an hour. So maybe we want to discuss that as well. As of the last two years, the European Union adopted universally for all residential areas, all cities, et cetera, the standard limit is 18 miles an hour. So we have to have more conversations about how to manage the speed here. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Karatounis, Ms. Cunningham.

All right. I'll just sit on four areas. The first one I really want to emphasize is civility. And it always warms my heart to be in community with all of you on a Saturday morning when there's a lot of other things going on. But it just gives me inspiration that at the local level in Arlington, Virginia, democracy is alive and well. And we can hold different opinions. We can interact with one another. We can support each other even though we came for something else. And so thank you all for being here. I've been thinking a lot about community and sort of that citizenship thing this month. You may not know because it got pounded out of me living in Pennsylvania as a kid, but I was born in Kentucky and started out there and then in Tennessee and have a lot of deep roots there in Appalachia. And so losing Wendell Berry and Dolly Parton in the same week was actually kind of a big deal for me. And I was reading about how both of them, in very different ways, they were about as different people as you could have, But they both were really, really committed to helping each human be fully themselves and to live in community and to come back to living in community every time we get it wrong. And so I've been sitting with that this month quite extensively. And remembering through many of these conversations we're we're all very imperfect up here and out there and all around and we're living in very very trying times and we need to give each other a little bit of grace for that whether we're elected appointed to a commission or commenting here or out in the community We all have to work hard to make space for that dialogue, to listen to each other, to deliberate, to disagree peacefully, so that we can continue to build a better community. And as Mr. Moraquin mentioned, it's all about creating and sustaining a sense of belonging in our community, And each of us is part of that every day. So I'll just leave it with personal attacks and disparaging character of any of our neighbors or dehumanizing any of our neighbors is just not helpful. So we need to resist that and continue to to do better. And finally, when we do stumble, which we will, we need to remember to reflect and to make amends the best that we can. Whereas Chair DeForente said earlier, you know, owning our mistakes and moving forward from them. So to that end, I wanted to share that in our last board meeting before the summer break, I mentioned a conversation with a beloved community member as a reminder to myself to lead with courage. While I was tapping into that caring encouragement of a mentor very genuinely, I know now that some in our community were very much hurt by this mention, and for that, I am deeply sorry. moving on on flock we've said a lot and I Will just add to encourage folks to watch the community oversight boards Wednesday night meeting They did a very nice job of bringing some deep research. They had been doing and coordinating with us and with Mr. Spain and myself as liaisons to bring thoughts and balance to the conversation about the use of technology and public safety and So that starts at about 37 minutes in. I think it's about a half hour discussion. Strongly encourage you to watch that as well as next Tuesday when we'll do a deep dive with the county manager on potential frameworks for privacy, et cetera. Third, on housing, I very much appreciate the concern about housing. I think there is a unifying voice in Arlington that everyone should be able to live here, that we need housing at all different levels, and senior housing in particular has a big gap. We'll be talking a little bit later about consent agenda and then again on Tuesday about just a thrilling philanthropic investment that one of our longtime community members families are making. And we all think about this every single day. I will just share that on faith and housing in particular, there was lots of dialog. And I'm happy to have more dialogue with folks. But there was, in the rush of the General Assembly doing, what was it, 1,000-plus bills this year, sometimes the spirit of the bill and the details of what gets written down are in conflict with one another. And Senator Favola and I in particular raised for the governor a concern about the 500 foot height restriction commentary in the initial bill and how that may actually have unintended consequences for Arlington. So many of you know that Arlington has grown rapidly And we've done that peacefully and artfully using incentive-based zoning along the corridors. That has actually given us much more affordable housing and protected affordable housing. And there was a possibility there of some unintended consequences. Again, happy to go through that more in the future. And then finally, on e-bike and e-scooter safety, Vice Chair Coffey shared it very clearly. It is a huge, huge concern for us. It has grown rapidly. It's number two only to federal impacts of all kinds in the concerns that we hear from our community members this summer. So please know that we're taking it seriously. We're working with the state to figure out what we can do and what each of you can do. I think the manager had the idea of a kind of trail patrol volunteer trail patrol or something like that. If folks are interested in that, we're open to any and all ideas. I'll leave it there. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Cunningham. Mr. Spain.

Well, Mr. Chair, it's almost 11 o'clock and I know that it is 11 and I'm going to try to be brief here. Again, welcome back everyone from our August recess and A lot of what I want to talk about, there's 20 some odd folks that came here and voiced their concerns, and I'm not going to go down each of those areas, but there are a few areas that are central to my beliefs, my values that I believe I need to articulate a position on so we can be perfectly clear. All right. But also, I want to thank former board member, school board member and former member of the County Board, Tanya Tolento, for being with us today. And thank you, Brian, and to the entire Janet and everyone who came here to talk about the work we've done as a group to put money into a program to thrive, to help our most vulnerable community. you should know that not only myself, but we remain committed here on the board, and I think we should do more in due time to help those that are in need. I've said before that this moment that we're in, this is not typical. This is not your everyday, this is how it was five years ago. I've often said this is our civil rights moment. And it is not business as usual folks. So we're gonna have to do extraordinary things and get in people's face and fight back because right now the people across the Potomac, they don't give a rat's tail about us. Those are the facts. So business as usual does not work for me. And you have a commitment to fight, fight, fight until we get those people out of here. Secondly, While I was on vacation with my wife, and folks know I'm a social butterfly and I try to take a little vacation, I did, I got a call, got a message dealing with public safety. And it's from that vantage point, I'm not gonna go into all the nuance of public safety, but I'm gonna talk about flock. So I wasn't here when that was approved. Yes, that technology may have helped, but right now what we find is that our community and many other communities across the Commonwealth and this nation are up in arms about the control mechanisms of AI and digital technology. I'm not in a position myself to replace Flock with any other technology or surveillance by a different name. to what our Vice Chair and many others have talked about, we're gonna need to have a robust discussion about all the technology that we have here in Arlington, the pros and cons, and what our community expects of us. And the question I'd ask a lot of folks is, okay, what were we doing before FLOC? What were we doing before FLOP? We need to get more of our public safety officials, not just ACPD, we can get neighborhoods, to get out on the beat and get out in the community and meet with the folks. And a lot of that can serve as a deterrence to some of this unnecessary mayhem that we may have going on. Right now, our community, I would say, and I'm out there a good bit, a lot of folks don't trust the surveillance, this mass surveillance that is going on. And that is just where it is, folks. Make no mistake about it. I want to also talk a little bit just briefly about housing. I know my colleagues have mentioned a little bit about faith and housing. I'm gonna be perfectly clear with that one. I'm all in for faith and housing. And I often say that yeah, there's nuance to all policy shaping. The devil's always in the details. But make no mistake about it, I see faith in housing as another tool in a toolbox for localities to work to get and yield more housing. And to be quite honest, I also feel that there's folks out there that want to undermine that bill by hook and crook right now. and it's gonna be my position for that not to happen. I'm just one person, but I'm just telling you like it is. The next thing is community engagement, and Terry stepped out of Austin and said that effective communication is the key to success. If you don't communicate effectively, and you don't get out and about, you can't lead by email, the community's not gonna know what's going on. And I do wanna applaud our staff, because we have done some robust work. in the past year or so. I've known, I've followed a few programs and County Manager, I gave you some kudos the other day about the interfaith partnership that we had going and has grown to about 90 some organizations in just over a year. So yes, we have a lot of work to do and we're gonna continue to work hard to be out in the community and not just lead by surveys. Trust me, we're on it. The last thing I will mention, and we talked a little bit about, and thank you, Shane, for coming in today. It's great to see you again. Actually, there's one more thing after that. As the liaison to Arlington Economic Development, There's so much potential for business here in Arlington, right? And I would encourage you, and you've heard this from our chair, that we wanna put you in the right places to meet with the right folks. We have a new director over at AAD and others. I know exactly what you're talking about. There are many, I will say there's many bad actors out there when it comes to some businesses. But you and I have talked, and I believe that what you bring to the table, many others could be a benefactor here at Arlington. So I want you to know that we're here to work with you, at least I am right now as their liaison, to see what we can do to figure out what right is. Lastly, I'm going to talk about the ethics policy. I want to thank everyone who has over the year or so been coming to this boardroom talking, voicing their concerns. And I'm going to tell you again that I believe there's more work for us to do. Why do I say that? Because I know that from a federal and state side, there are restrictions, sure. But there's also laws that we need to ensure that people are following and that we follow when it comes to bad actors who are doing business in Arlington. Make no mistake, other communities across this nation has done that, have done that, and I think we need to do a closer look into that area. And I've had conversation, I know our county attorney's here, I think there is more that we can do. Saying just no is not the option. The door doesn't close there. But ultimately, we work on a committee that takes three. And we're trying to work, it's been a while, but we will continue to push to the extent we can to see what more we can do. And this is just not, I want people to know, this is not about politics. This is not about trying to gain favor. This is the right thing to do. People are in arms right now and are hurting and people are dying on both sides, right? And there's a direct correlation between where our taxpayer dollars are going and how it's contributing to that. And we need to identify it and make sure our community, you know as taxpayers, where your money is going at the end of the day. That's it. Share the information. Don't tell people, hey, go look on a website. We have to showcase that by leadership. With that being said, Mr. Chair, I look forward to today. Green Valley Civic Association is having a party from 12 to 5. I hope everybody get down there and enjoy that part of the community. With that being said, thank you, Mr. Chair and colleagues on the board.

Thank you, Mr. Spain. So now we will have a transition. You are welcome to stay, but you do not have to. This has been, as September often is, a robust example of democratic and civic participation. And so thank you all for coming very much. We will follow up in the ways identified. And as we do, we will now move to our consent agenda. Mr. Kushner, have any items been pulled from our consent agenda?

Yes, two items have been pulled. Item number 13, which is the use permit amendment for live entertainment and dancing at Clarendon Ballroom. It's at 3185 Wilson. And to number 15 is the use permit amendment to increase hours of operation for live entertainment at Buena Vida, located at 2900 Wilson Boulevard.

Thank you, Mr. Kushner. I just want to make sure we're thorough, and I think you covered it. It was one email, and you followed up. It's only the two items.

That is correct. It is only these two items being covered. Okay.

So on Agenda Item 47, while I do not believe I have a personal interest in this transaction, I have an immediate family member who has done work for the donor unrelated to this donation, and I am able to participate in consideration of this item fairly objectively and in the public interest. With that, I will move the consent agenda with items 13 and 15 pulled. Is there a second?

Second.

Moved and seconded. All those in favor of the consent agenda minus those two and the motion made, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Consent agenda passes 5-0. We will hold a public hearing on anything pulled from this consent agenda by the public or the board during the evening segment of our recess board meeting on Tuesday, September 22nd. The public hearing will begin no earlier than 6.30 p.m. If you want to speak on one or more of those items pulled from today's consent agenda, you can register on the county board's website starting today or call our office 703-228-3130 on monday the board just voted to approve the consent agenda which includes minor site plan amendments use permit requests ordinance amendments requests to advertise and more These items were put on the consent agenda because they were considered non-controversial, but that does not mean they were not important. So they are not important. So I wanna take just a few minutes to highlight several items briefly. Item 19, and we'll pull up this next slide. Item 19 is childcare centers. Certainly childcare remains a very important priority for us, and there's Building Kids, which is a childcare center that we're allowing extended hours and increased enrollment. Next, item 27A and B, which is the Ballston Metro Rail Station west entrance. Approved contract documents regarding the construction of the second entrance at the Ballston Marymount University Metro Rail Station. There's security benefits to this, access and egress, and this is a milestone, I think, as we go from make the 30%, if I'm not mistaken, milestone of design. And we will next look into this over the coming days. 60%. I like to just keep you guys on your toes so that you correct me at least once.

First project labor agreement as well, if I recall correctly.

Yes, I believe that is...

Not on the design, but it was bid with.

On the construction, I believe the one focus is on a project labor agreement, not on the design. The next item is item 29, Arlington Commission for the Arts Grant Awards. We approved, we've done work on this. Several liaisons, I believe Ms. Cunningham was liaison, may still be this year. And all of us are working on this, maybe Mr. Karantonis. Four awards to individual artists, 14 awards to organizations. Thank you to county staff and the Arts Commission for the annual work. Next item, item 31, resident resilience and well-being grant agreements. signed grant agreements with the Community Foundation, Arlington Free Clinic, and the Offender Aid and Restoration for one-time humanitarian assistance totaling $350,000. This is a follow-up to action to the board supplemental guidance for the adopted fiscal year 2027 budget. This is us living, serving our most vulnerable with one-time funding. Next is an MOA with Arlington Sister Cities Association. We approved a memorandum of agreement between the county and the association. We have had an agreement that provides for an annual grant. This is a renewal for the next five years. Next, item 46 concerns home ownership, which we all have talked about. It's a difficult issue to make progress. These are a series of technical amendments, some of which have can have significant impact increasing the allowance for the maximum purchase price and some of the other items that you can see listed. This is very important to all of us. We have continued work to do in the area of home ownership. Item 47, annual contributions from Ken Achenbach and Melody Melin, I believe actually. The board has approved a donation acceptance agreement to enable the initial donors to help. Other future donors may make contributions A final distribution will occur upon their passing.

Mr. Chair, just because you're on this, there is a mistaken photo here. The male person. Yes.

That is not Ken Achenbach. We will correct that. That is Mr. Castile, which is great. but ken akenbach we will correct that on tuesday we will recognize mr akenbach and miss meline thank you very much for pointing that out and getting us on point our apologies we will seek to to thank you properly on tuesday i want to say on behalf of the board and the county staff thank you very much uh from the bottom of our hearts it's super important item 48 uh barcroft apartments loan documents we've approved several loan documents for 21.5 million in ahif loan between the board and 1100 south thomas street almost every month we have additional efforts as we made the decision to invest $150 million to help preserve 1,300 affordable units. This is putting that into action. So there will be unit mixes, and we all care very deeply about that. That, I believe, is the last consent item that I wanted to highlight. We'll now turn to Mr. Kushner to call our first regular agenda item.

Certainly. Our first item today is item number 50, which is the Air and Space Force Association site redevelopment of 1501 Langston. It's a three-parter. The first part of this item is the general land use plan amendment. It changes the land use designation from low office apartment hotel, medium residential, and public to all low office apartment hotel. Second is the site plan amendment for site plan number 361 to construct a mixed-use building with a number of Residential units ground floor museum use and below grade parking garage with associated modifications again located in 1501 Langston and Part C is a use permit for an institutional use for a museum again located at 1501 Langston

Thank you, sorry, to Mr. Mayor. That's fine.

Staff presentation. Mr. Chair and members of the board, I'm gonna turn it over to Chrissy Walentish from CPHD. She's also joined by Daniel Creed from DES. And then of course we have Anthony Fusarelli with us. And I'm gonna turn it over to Ms. Walentish who will start our presentation. Ms. Walentish.

Okay, thank you. Okay, here we go. All right, so good morning, Chair DeFerranti and members of the board. Again, and for the record, I'm Chrissy Walentish with the Department of Community Planning, Housing and Development, and we are bringing forward today the Air and Space Force Association Redevelopment Project. The AFA site is located within the boundaries of the North Highlands Citizens Association. It's bound by Langston Boulevard and Interstate 66 to the south, North Oak Street and Key Bridge Marriott site to the east, Palisades Park Townhome 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 previously occupied by the Air and Space Force Association. Here's some views of the existing conditions. The Custis Bike and Pedestrian Trail runs along the site's southern frontage, parallel with Langston Boulevard. Parking and loading access is from North Oak Street, and there's a conservation easement in the southwest corner of the site that contains a wooded area. This area will remain upon the site's redevelopment. Subject items under review this evening include a general land use plan amendment 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, and a below grade parking garage, and a use permit for a museum. Looking at land use and zoning guidance, staff interprets the site's correct GLUP designation as low office apartment hotel. Site is zoned CO 1.5 mixed use, which corresponds with the site's GLUP designation. So focusing a little more on the GLUP amendment, during the preliminary review of the site plan last year, staff identified an error on the current GLUP map that incorrectly showed portions of the parcel designated as medium residential as well as public. Through extensive research of past county board actions and previous iterations of the GLUP map, which you can see here on the left, the site's accurate land use designation is low office apartment hotel. Therefore, we bring forward a GLUP amendment on the county board's own motion to correct this mapping error. Here are, again, more considerations in regard to your decision on the GLUP amendment. It is intended to address longstanding inconsistencies among the GLUP zoning site plans, parcel boundaries, and prior county board actions. It resolves inconsistencies from differing mapping methods over time. Historically, the area shown as public is related to right of way being assembled to support I-66 construction, which we've seen on other sites adjacent. Board resolution for rezoning for CO 1.5 with the 2002 site plan approval for the site found it consistent with the GLUP, which was low OAH, and this amendment establishes greater alignment among various board actions over time and does not grant increases in density beyond what's generally permitted per existing zoning and past approvals. 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 1,409 square foot museum on the ground floor 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 Langston Boulevard frontage. Site is located within area five east of the Langston Boulevard area plan. This area and the site in particular is envisioned to be the gateway to the 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 site contains atypical dimensions and is constrained by close proximity to both the Palisades Park townhomes to the north and south as well as to the Custis Trail and Langston Boulevard to the south. The conservation easement containing a wooded area is located on 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 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 pedestrians from the main entrance to the museum entrance. The applicant also proposes a motor court or portico share that is located on the North Oak Street frontage, which will be used for pickup and drop-off activities as well as deliveries. You can also see on the bottom of the plan in red the section of the sound barrier that is proposed to be removed in conjunction with the site plan. For building design, the proposed architecture incorporates building elements and expressions that help to reinforce the building's presence as a gateway feature. The proposed building facade along Langston Boulevard provides recess and projecting planes that help to create visual interest. And the proposed design on the ground floor, the Custis Trail, and the public plaza, as well as the projection of the facade above the second floor, create a pedestrian scale and inviting space for people walking and biking along Langston Boulevard. Moving on for land use, the proposed mixed use building is consistent with the Langston Boulevard Area Plan's guidance for land use for the site, as you can see on the mixed use map on the left. The mix of uses is also supported by the site's zoning district and GLUP 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 GLUP designation of low office apartment hotel, both of which permit densities up to 72 units per acre. 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 according to building code 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 this 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 432 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. 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 southwest corner, sorry, southeast corner, along Langston Boulevard and North Oak, and then it should step down as it nears the townhomes to the north and west. The proposed step backs follow a similar pattern, although not directly tapered as recommended in the area plan. In regard to setbacks, the proposal exceeds the required setbacks on the North Oak Street frontage. On Langston Boulevard, the setback is being met at grade. On the northern and western boundaries, the existing footprint of the underground garage currently extends to the property lines. However, at one story above grade, both facades step back in order to meet the 10-foot setback requirement or 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 in differentiation and massing. Also, a courtyard and landscape buffer are 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. Turning to transportation, we wanted to call out two of the transportation improvements this project will deliver, and those include the removal of the westbound travel lane from Langston Boulevard, as well as a segment of the existing sound wall barrier adjacent to the proposed building, both of which are subject to VDOT approval. For proposed parking, there will be 44 spaces allocated for residential use, three spaces for the museum use, and 102 spaces allocated for flex use within the garage. The revised parking ratio is a result of a change in the Code of Virginia law, which now states that locality shall not require a minimum off-street parking exceeding 0.5 parking spaces per unit for residential, multifamily, 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 use. Two loading spaces are proposed to be located internal to the garage, accessible from North Oak Street, and the applicant proposes 37 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. Then a third transportation improvement comes in the form of improvements to the Custis Trail. In conformance with the Custis Trail needs assessment study approved in 2024, the applicant proposes to widen the Custis Trail adjacent to the site for unconstrained or high volume segments. The applicant also proposes to install a water fountain, lighting, a bike fix station, seating areas, and other trail side amenities, and a publicly accessible wayside adjacent to the trail. The conservation area 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, or NVCT. Staff and the applicant have worked diligently with NVCT to ensure the proposed redevelopment of the site would not negatively impact the conservation area. Enhancements to the conservation area are proposed, including the removal of invasive plant species and construction of a mulch pathway. A pedestrian plaza is proposed along Langston Boulevard, which will run parallel to the Custis Trail and provide access to the AFA Gallery Museum entrance. And the proposed project's tree canopy coverage is 41.5%, which exceeds the area plan's recommendation of 35%. The area plan also recommends the mixed-use developments provide private open areas covering at least 15% of the buildable area. The applicant's proposed private open space is 49.6%, which meets and exceeds the plan's guidance. Here's a closer look at the proposed pedestrian plaza that will connect to the conservation area where a small pathway is proposed with additional connections to the trail. The area plan emphasizes stormwater mitigation, tree preservation, and tree canopy coverage targets as the main goals for sustainability and resiliency 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, I do want to point out that the applicant is not participating in the Green Building Incentive Program because they don't need to achieve any additional density. However, despite that, they've agreed to achieve LEED Gold Green Building certification, and they've also committed to several sustainability measures outlined in the GBIP, which we've added to the conditions. On this slide, you can see the project's evolution over the last two years. The applicant has been 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. They then came back in 2025 with a revised design and a building height of seven stories plus mechanical penthouse, although it was later determined that the mechanical penthouse must technically count as an additional level due to the presence of those bathrooms. In this version, the applicant reorganized the building's massing to better align with the area plan's guidance and also provide better separation from the adjacent townhomes. And on the left, you can see the building's current design, which is 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 Langston Boulevard. Here you can see the proposed density. The base density for this site is 90 units, so you can see they are under at 88 units plus the 1,409 square feet for the museum. Okay, for our equity analysis, this slide contains the area plan's existing conditions and findings. Staff finds the proposal advances the equity goals for housing since it provides a mid-rise apartment building to diversify the quarter'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 transport through the corridor. The project underwent review by a site plan review committee consisting of its standard seated representatives as well as representatives from the community from North Highlands Citizens Association, North Roslyn Civic Association, and the Palisades Park Owners Association. Following SPRC, the project was heard by the Transportation Commission where it was approved unanimously, then by the Planning Commission where it was also approved unanimously. Regarding community input, the board has received a letter from the NHCA requesting revised construction hours and noting concerns regarding the project's conformance with the area plan. In response, staff continues to support the standard construction hours outlined in condition 10 for several reasons. We do recognize the applicant's willingness to adjust the hours as requested by NHCA. In total, staff finds the project generally conforms with the guidance of the Langston Boulevard area plan. We know you've also received letters regarding the Glup Amendment, and I hope through my presentation I've been able to provide more clarification on that. I'd be happy to answer any other questions. Staff finds 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 several key transportation improvements that will better serve the community, and commits to achieving LEED Gold Green Building certification as well as other sustainability commitments from the GBIP. We also find the project meets the zoning ordinance findings required to approve a special exception site plan that are outlined on this slide. Given this analysis and staff's findings, the county manager's recommendation to the county board is 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. To adopt an ordinance to permit construction of a mixed use building with 88 residential units, a ground floor museum, 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. and approve the use permit for an institutional use for 1,409-square-foot museum. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Walentich. That is now to the applicant for your presentation.

Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone. My name is Andrew Painter, speaking on behalf with Walsh Colucci, speaking on behalf of Tycoon Partners. We have our entire project team here and then some. We're happy to answer any questions. And before I go in, Ms. Walentich did a good job of summarizing the application, but I did want to express my appreciation to her, to Mr. Creed. Mr. Fuscarelli, and then someone who's not in the room, and that's Natasha Alfonso-Ahmed, who is really an expert when it comes to the design of the Langston Boulevard area plan. We have worked with these seasoned professional staff members over the past several months working through several thorny design issues. I also want to express my appreciation to members of the Planning Commission and boards and commissions and neighbors that sat on the SPRC. It was a very good dialogue, a healthy dialogue, and a couple of members of the Planning Commission made sure that we crossed our T's and dotted our I's in terms of the design and what was being represented. So we appreciated that process. Just to provide a little bit more background context, this is the existing building. It's the Air Force Association building that was constructed back in 1984. It is under, you know, Understandably, it is functionally obsolete. It is mostly vacant. And it was built as a matter of right for the Air Force Association. Many of you all know that the Air Force Association, now the Air Force and Space Force Association, moved to new headquarters in Pentagon City back in 2024 when they then conveyed the building to Tycoon. As part of the building, there was something called the Doolittle Legacy Wall, which is a collection of commemorative bricks at the entrance that honors the legacy of those that contributed to the association. And I'll come back to that in just a second. I said this at the planning commission, and I think it's true. Until Ms. Walentish put up on the screen how the project has evolved since the conceptual development plan was first filed back in July of 2024, over two years ago, it really is remarkable to see the evolution. When our firm got involved and we worked with the design team, we started looking around the site at our neighbors. We are immediately adjacent to a relatively low density community, the Palisades Park townhomes, to the west and to the north. There are obviously neighbors at the Keybridge Marriott site to the east, and we have the Custis Trail to the south. And together as a team, we put together these design drivers that are on the screen. I'm not going to go through them. They're there for your edification. But I will say that this has kind of been the North Star about how we've responded to every challenge and every request that's been made of this application. And as a result, when we step back and look at the site and the challenges and the opportunities, and Ms. Walentich mentioned the strange sort of design of the site. There are seven different property boundaries on the site. there is a substantial 40-foot topographic drop between the northwestern portion of the site and the southeastern portion of the site. This presents challenges, but it also presents opportunities. And I think we've risen to those challenges with the design that's in front of you. And we've also recognized this as a gateway location. So here's the illustrative site plan. As Ms. Walensher said, this is not This is not just a box shape. It's not a Texas donut. It's an inverted C shape where we've opened up the center of the building to provide additional light and air, both between the wings of the building, but also to be more respective of our neighbors. What is being proposed is a multifamily residential building of 88 units. This project will introduce for sale housing opportunities in the Langston Boulevard quarter. And looking back about the last 19 years or so, there have been very few condominium projects that have been built across Northern Virginia. But condominiums do comprise an important element in the continuum of housing choices that are available to Arlington County residents. We are skewing larger, substantially larger than most of our peer buildings. The average unit size is approximately 2,500 square feet and about 75 percent of the total number of units will be two and three bedroom units. We are moving the mechanical systems that are very noisy and outmoded from the northwestern quadrant of the site down to Route 29. We have worked, and my hat's off to our project architect at WDG, for working with the hillside to integrate much of the building, to take advantage of the topography that also lessens the visual impact of the building on our neighbors. And then, as I mentioned before, we're opening up the building with the courtyard as well. We have worked diligently with the Northern Virginia Conservation Trust to find a way to improve this conservation area. You go out there today, there are many invasives. There is erosion. There are goat paths. What can we do to formalize the space and then open up what is currently a private space to the public and make it a much more ecologically healthier situation? When you jog or walk or bike along the Custis Trail, you know that there are these little wayside moments that have popped up since its construction back in the early 1980s. This is the next great wayside, at least that's the way I view it. This is the next great wayside for the Custis Trail as you enter Arlington County. So we're excited about that. One of the things that we will be doing, including formalizing a trail down by the Custis Trail and opening that up to the public, is having bench seating and then commemorative markers honoring the history of the Custis Trail, how it came to be, and then also the conservation mission of the Northern Virginia Conservation Trust. We have a series of transportation improvements that are listed here. Ms. Walentish highlights them in her staff report. She did mention the Portco share. That's something you don't typically see in most of the new multifamily projects that are being built in Arlington, but we thought that it was appropriate contextually here because of what we heard from the community. North Oak Street is recommended to be narrowed, per the Langston Boulevard Area Plan, and we are delivering that with this project. There is no on-street parking adjacent to the building. And so finding a way to get Uber, Lyft, drop-offs, rideshare off of North Oak Street we thought was appropriate, as long as it did not have a negative effect on the pedestrian prioritization of North Oak Street. Ms. Walensky-Shawshank mentioned the loading access. And again, this is a kudos to WDG, our architect. They found a way to have full truck turnaround movement within the existing garage. So there will be no trucks backing out onto North Oak Street and blocking North Oak Street. We spent a lot of time talking about the concerns that people have and the very real lived experiences of the Custis Trail in this section. If you come down the Custis Trail, especially if you're on a bike right now, there is kind of a tunnel-like effect with the sound wall on one side and the building right up next to the trail on the other side. It diminishes your peripheral vision. It creates safety concerns. There is a pedestrian actuated signal at North Oak Street, but it's often ignored. And it makes it very difficult for people to see where the pedestrians and the cars are coming. So we're responding to this in a couple of different ways. The first is we are moving the building back approximately 45 feet from the Langston Boulevard area curb. Ms. Walentich also mentioned that we are proposing to get rid of one westbound lane along Langston Boulevard. And our operation analysis shows that that will not have a deleterious effect on traffic conditions in the area. We are also proposing to widen Langston Boulevard to the Custis Trail to 16 feet for our portion of it. And then we're also proposing to remove the sound wall as well. And so together, hopefully those things increase the peripheral vision, increase light and safety, and the visual safety for everybody here. Coupled with that, and this is shown in our 4.1 site plan, we have a series of measures on the trail itself to increase the awareness that you are approaching an intersection, signage, rumble strips, and the like. Our landscape designers are here with land design. They can talk through sort of the biophilic elements of this, but I will just say that it's a very small site, but somehow they have been able to come up with four distinct landscapes around the property, including on the building itself, that respond to different constituencies. And so we're happy to walk through that if there's a desire, but we're excited about the way that the landscape interacts with the architecture. And here's the architecture. We're proposing high quality building materials. It's a different kind of building. It's a different looking building than what we've seen before. This is shown on North Oak Street with the Port Cochere. I wanted to highlight this because it shows the wider Oak Street sidewalk that we are delivering and the better pedestrian realm, but also the way that the Port Cochere responds to the street and the building entrance itself. This is an image close up of the intersection of North Oak Street and Langston Boulevard, and you can see the wider trail. The building moved back, because right now you have the chamfered stairs that come right up to the trail. So moving the building back and then recapturing that lane area for landscaping in the wider trail and the removal of the sound wall. And then this is the last architectural image that I think we're all familiar with now, sort of the zoomed out version. What I wanted to focus on here is that instead of the wedding cake kind of design that we see in most of the buildings that are built now, we're actually using a unique approach in addition to the hillside to have sort of a cantilevered approach. And it flows with Langston Boulevard as it sort of traverses in the southwesterly direction as you go up the hill. So it kind of goes with the landscape. One thing I wanted to mention, Ms. Walentich talked about the museum use. We are proposing a 1,400 square foot AFA heritage gallery that will include exhibits and memorabilia, including the relocated Doolittle Legacy Wall. And that was a promise that ownership made to the Air Force Association when they vacated the site. So we're excited about that. This is, you know, Ms. Walensich mentioned our building sustainability measures and the things that we're doing here. Those are displayed on the screen. And then my last comment, Mr. Chairman, I would just say I want to express my appreciation again to everyone that's participating in this process. It has not been easy. We still have a long way to go negotiating with our neighbors and the Palisades Park Owners Association. But I do want to express my appreciation to them, to the North Highland Citizens Association and the Langston Boulevard Alliance. they too have had a hand in the molding of this piece of clay, whether they recognize it or not. And it's important to them because they're immediately adjacent. And so from construction management through delivery of the building and then hopefully new neighbors, this is the beginning of the conversation. So with that, I'm going to yield the floor. Our team is happy to answer any questions, and we really appreciate your consideration. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Painter. So we'll now turn to our, we have, let's see, advisory groups, and I believe we have our planning commission here. Ms. Torres-Cejas. You could also sit, but you can sit at one of those, whichever you like. and there will not be, as a representative in planning, there will not be a clock, although you don't have to take 10 minutes.

For Ms. Torres, Mr. Chair, this is her inaugural presentation of her project, so thank you so much for working on this.

Thank you, Mr. Karantonis and Ms. Torres-Cejas. Go ahead.

Good morning, Mr. Chair, members of the County Board. For the record, I'm Adriana Torres representing the Planning Commission. This project, which includes for sale units, was generally well received. The applicant was praised for responding to feedback throughout the SPRC process and for continued neighborhood outreach. Commissioner Steinberg and myself served as co-chairs for this project. Regarding the architecture, many commissioners recognized the site's prominent location along the Langston Boulevard corridor and found the project's thoughtful, developed architecture appropriate, attractive, and responsive to its surroundings. Following the SPRC process, the applicant also requested an additional meeting with Commissioner Amadeo and myself, or me, to further discuss the project's architecture design and concept. The level of engagement went beyond what is typically expected during the process. On the subject of mapping errors, staff addressed concerns raised during the SPRC process and public comment regarding inaccuracies to the general land use plan. Commissioners acknowledged the errors that occurred and I recognize that in any organization expressed support to the staff efforts to address the issue. Staff also confirmed that in the future, any identifiers will be communicated more clearly at an earlier stage. In regards to transportation, most of the discussion focused on pedestrian safety and the proposed removal of the sound wall. The applicants described several mitigation measures supported by staff intended to slow cyclists and reduce potential conflicts with pedestrians. The applicant expressed confidence that VDOT will approve the soundbar removal and outlined the process that would follow if approval is not granted. Commissioners also discussed the proposed parking ratio, which the applicant stated is appropriate for the for sale residential building. With regards to flexible construction hours, commissioners asked why staff could not support the flexible construction hours requested by neighbors. Staff explained that the proposed hours are a standard site plan condition consistent of the county noise control ordinance. Due to enforcement and coordination concerns, staff could not recommend modifying the construction hours for this site. However, commissioners praised the applicant's willingness to remain flexible and work with the community. In reference to sustainable design, the applicant was commended for the project's sustainable design and favorable C2E2 score. Commissioners supported the proposed mini-urban forest within the conservation easement and its long-term maintenance plan. They requested additional EV-ready parking spaces and strongly recommended, or I'm sorry, encouraged the applicant to replace the proposed cultivars with native plants whenever possible. Concerning the on-site museum, commissioners were enthusiastic about the proposed museum, recognized it as an unusual and valuable feature to the redevelopment project. They also asked whether the space could be made available to neighborhood or civic association meetings. Staff clarified that the museum is not considered a community benefit in the traditional sense because the applicant is not proposing in exchange for additional density. Pertaining to affordable housing, because the units will be sold at market rate, commissioners also raised broader concern about affordable housing and equitable access to luxury amenities throughout the county. The applicant is meeting the base affordable housing requirements. Staff was asked whether those requirements should differ between for sale and rental projects, and it was noted that this issue may be considered by the Affordable Housing Ordinance Working Group. Ultimately, the Planning Commission voted unanimously to recommend approval of the proposal, the related gulp amendment, and the museum use permit. I'm available for any questions, thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Torres. Next, I believe that is our sole commission, and so we'll turn to our public speakers. Mr. Kushner, will you call our public speakers on this item?

Certainly. Our first public speaker on this item, speaking for three minutes, is John Musso followed by Bernie Byrne. Mr. Musso.

Good morning, Mr. Chair, members of the County Board, John Musa, Government Affairs Manager at the Honors and Chamber of Commerce. On behalf of the Chamber, I wish to express our support for this project, and we strongly urge you to please adopt the Club Amendment Ordinance and Use Permit associated with it. As mentioned in the presentation, this project would replace a mostly vacant, functionally obsolete office building with 88 new four-seller residential units, 70 of which being two bedrooms or more, which advances the goals of members of the county staff and County Board in terms of providing Arlington particularly Arlington families with more options in a wide range of housing options throughout Arlington additionally the various improvements made to both the site and the area along the Custis trail and Langston Boulevard greatly advanced the goals of Langston Boulevard area plan especially the subsection on area 5 East in terms of creating a engaging vibrant gateway to Langston Boulevard, as noted with the proposals for narrowing the roadway, removing the sound wall, a wider, safer, more pleasant Custis Trail, all really contribute to the vision of Langston Boulevard as a green main street with this vibrant gateway. We also do believe this advances the goals of the adaptive reuse policy with the preservation of the garage footprint that Even if it's not a conventional adaptive reuse policy, it does very much advance the goals and reuse vital space there. We believe that the project overall is a very thoughtful and welcome addition to the length of Boulevard Corridor and the rest of the neighborhood, and we really look forward to its ultimate implementation. So we strongly urge the adoption of this project. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Musso. Next speaker.

Our next speaker is Bernie Byrne, followed by Gary Shinners. Mr. Byrne.

Yes, hello. Can you hear me?

We can. Go ahead.

Thank you. I'm speaking about the plant palette. To its credit, the plant palette in this project's revised conceptual landscape plan contains common milkweed. 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 that is not native to Allington County and its vicinity. As I have already informed the applicant but have received absolutely no response, the applicant should replace this plant with another species of Black-Eyed Susan which is native to Allington. So remember this applicant has not responded to the community all the time. The applicant includes 10 cultivars with greater disease resistance than 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. A University of Maryland Extension publication has reported that a cultivar bred for increased vigor now establishes quickly and completely takes over natural areas. Other native meadow grasses and flowers and all the insects and birds that depend upon them lose out. Horticulturists do select cultivars based on their attractiveness to people, not to pollinators. Landscape architects often do the same, as they appear to have done here. Note that the Planning Commission recommended getting rid of the cultivars. Please, therefore, ask the applicant to replace each of the 10 cultivars with its parents or with another native species with similar characteristics. The applicant should not retain any cultivar because it has a desirable height, shape, or color, as it may not feed pollinators, may be toxic, or may be invasive. Please question the applicant about this. The Planning Commission did make that suggestion. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Byrne. Next speaker.

And our next speaker is Gary Shinners followed by five-minute speakers beginning with Dr. Aaron Robertson.

Mr. Shinners.

All right. Thank you and good morning. I guess it's still morning for a few more minutes. The Park and Rec Commission, because of administrative glitch, didn't send to you guys our letter on the site plan until yesterday, so I assume you probably haven't had a chance to read it, and I apologize for that. So let me start off by saying something our letter states, which is this is one of the best plans we've ever had the pleasure to review, especially in terms of biophilia. I don't think we've ever seen a plan that emphasizes it more than this plan does. In fact, in our opinion, this is a model site plan in terms of biophilia and our hope is that others down the road will follow this model because it's an outstanding one. Our letter goes into some detail about all the specific parts of this plan that support biophilia. And we also talk about some of the non-biophilic community benefits that are very important that this plan provides as well. And particularly, you know, the widening of the Custis Trail. I think that's really going to be helpful in avoiding biker-pedestrian conflicts. So two of the components that we're very pleased to see is the plan to remove all the non-native invasives on the property, which unfortunately this property is basically consumed by non-native invasives in the natural areas. And in addition to that, there is a plan to maintain the property going forward. initial part of the plan is to remove the non-native vases, replace them immediately with natives, which is great, and then to maintain the site so that the non-native invasives don't jump back in. We have a problem with just one part of the non-native invasive removal, and that is the plan mentions that the removal of the Tree of Heaven is going to be given a low priority, and we think that that should be changed. That should be the very first non-native invasive that should be removed. And we can certainly work with the applicant on how that can be done in a way that would prevent any stormwater runoff problems through the disturbance of soil, things of that sort. We can definitely make sure that doesn't happen. And the plan calls for removing all the non-native invasives, so we're not asking for something different that's already in, it's what's already in the plan.

Okay, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Shinners. Very much appreciate your review and your comments. We may have questions, not sure. Next speaker.

Our next speaker for five minutes is Dr. Aaron Roberts followed by Ms. Ann Bodine. Mr. Roberts.

We had some materials. How's that, are we? Right. Okay. Well, Chairman, esteemed board members, I'd like to thank you all for your time today. I'm Aaron Roberts, and I'm here for the North Highlands Civic Association. And regardless of whatever decision you may make today, I'd like to thank you for your leadership and for listening. So to be very clear, we support inviting new neighbors, and we support the vision of Langston Boulevard. We're here before you today to ask for a couple of tiny modifications to the standard site plan conditions. They're on the screen right now. I won't read all of them, but they amount to largely asking for different construction hours, specifically for demolition and exterior noise, the access to responsible, competent, and trained construction professionals for the community to engage with on a periodic basis, and for reasonable, defined access for the community to the site, specifically for the museum. Now the wonderful thing, and you probably haven't heard this frequently in this room, the community and the applicant have reached an understanding and agreement on these terms. So the good news is that this should not impose undue expense on this particular project. Next slide, please. Now you're probably already wondering, well, if there's agreement, why are we even talking about this subject? It's a good question. So first, the question of why it's reasonable to amend site plan conditions. The first, well, it's a matter of fairness. The applicant, as they've already noted, are asking for exceptions to recently settled policy just three years ago, and some board members had voted on this. There were defined parameters for height, density, setbacks, and stepbacks. This project's very close, but they're asking for exceptions. The community is asking for that same grace. Second, the county already does this. The most recent example I'm familiar with of amended hours for construction in a site plan condition is Hotel Pentagon from 2025. This is just the most recent one that I'm familiar with. Third, this particular site plan that governs the site already is chock full of all sorts of bespoke conditions. Random examples include access to the parking facility outside of enumerated hours for any member of the civic association and other requests that were granted by Arlington County staff a mere two decades ago. Now, finally, let's talk a little bit about why private agreements are not the most appropriate mechanism here, why they don't suffice. And the first point, item four, it's the question of board governance. The board speaks to the public and governs sites through site plan conditions. It's not through hoping or wanting private agreements to materialize. The fifth point, the rate environment, as we all know, is changing rapidly. This applicant has the legal entitlement to sell this property whenever he may wish. He might. He might not do that. But the important point is these conditions, they carry with the land. Private agreements do not carry with the land. The sixth point, these conditions stay on public record. They're not a matter of... Anyone can access them when they're applied to the site plan conditions. You don't have to tune into YouTube videos. You don't have to show up at town halls. You don't have to have access to private inboxes. The entire public knows what conditions apply to this particular site. And then finally, and this is perhaps the most important thing, Enforcement is an essential county government mandate. This should not be enforcement of these conditions, private agreement, public agreement. It should not be a matter for the courts. This is an essential county government mandate. Now, again, regardless of whatever you may decide, thank you for listening and thank you for hearing.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Roberts. Next speaker.

Yes, a moment. I'm not sure. Our next speaker is Ms. Anne Bodine, followed by Nick Giacobbe. Ms. Bodine, are you there virtually?

Yes, I am. Can you hear me?

We can. Go ahead.

Great. Mr. Chair, members of the board, my name is Anne Bodine from Arlingtonians for Our Sustainable Future. I'm speaking about the 1501 Langston Boulevard, currently occupied by the Air Force Association, to be developed by Tycoon LLC. So ASF has serious concerns that range from SPRC handling. I don't see my slides, Mr. Chair. Are those able to be displayed?

The clerk is working on them, I believe.

OK, well, I'll speak to the first slide. ASF has serious concerns that range from SPRC handling contradictory land use claims, unexplained legal authorities, and excusing a developer of luxury housing from required affordable housing contributions. If we were able to get the slides up, we would go to slide two, please. I'll just keep speaking.

We'll pause the time and give you.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much, sir.

Sure.

There we go to my apologies. They're up.

I appreciate correct. Thank you. I'm not seeing it on my screen.

We have January to June SBRC review rests on myth of low OAH land use.

No, there should be slide one.

Okay, I don't want to delay the board meeting.

No, I'm sorry. That's not slide one. I'm just going to move on. I'm very sorry for that error. The second point, I'd like to say any special exception process must be reviewed by the for appropriate land use, but that did not happen here. Staff did not tell us there was a need for a glop amendment, asserting instead that the site already had the appropriate glop. We've heard that as well today, namely low office, apartment, hotel, or low age. The glop is a foundational element of any project. You have to get it right from the beginning. uh next point the first ever public airing of the problem was in july with the board or to the board so the public process contained no review of alternate outcomes only those based on the wrong assertion that the parcel really had the proper land use to allow the tycoon site plan to proceed slide four i will put my slides on my on the asf website if anyone wants to follow along Staff in July says that the board could change the GLUP on its own motion, thus absolving the developer of seeking the GLUP change. But this brief did not provide the public or the board with the details of the decisive board votes in 1987 and 93, which are the foundation for understanding GLUP errors cited by staff. ASF got those sources, and here's what we found. Unfortunately, you don't have my slide. It depicts a slide showing three separate subparcels. which have three separate GLOPs, not low AH. Staff is still asserting that the whole site has low OH glup arriving from 1987. The board reports from those eras show only the top two subparcels became low OH. The southern subparcel remained public, public glup. This language is very clear and all glup maps showed as public for over 60 years. In our next slide it depicts staff telling the board about bleed over issues of map coloration when the county went digital and that And that they said that medium residential GLUP assigned for Palisades development in 1993 mistakenly affected the Air Force Association site. ASF says there are a few questions from the reading the board report, but our read is that medium residential land use was adopted for the northwest corner of today's site. Again, our next slide showed the current GLUP status, which is low OAH, medium residential, and public land use. That is the correct GLUP, and it is not the result of map errors as this process asserts. Therefore, ASF asserts the board cannot amend the GLUP on its own motion, and it is up to the developer, as he signaled from the outset, a willingness to do, to seek any GLUP change to the low OAH. This process forfeits critically needed affordable units required by the zoning code and Langston Area Plan for concierge condos going for $1,000 per square foot. ASF agrees with Planning Commissioner upon review of this project who noted the potential for this site to contribute to desegregation. ASF says let's fight desegregation. Let's do this right and get that affordable housing. For re-glubbing the public glub parcel alone, ASF calculates Arlington should get compensation of 15 new affordable units. Several potential negative precedents are shown in our slide that would come with premature approval today. ASF asks you to defer your review, direct a new GLEP review, and reopen the SPRC. We hope the county works to maximize the benefits that come with awarding public land to this applicant. Let me just conclude by saying I applaud the hard work of every board member, the manager, and staff. staff has clearly put in a lot of hard work most recently to include accommodating my remarks here today i made strong claims here of bad process but i am not alleging lying conspiracy or illegal acts i am alleging closed mines closed archives and closed doors i was a public servant most of my work involved land use including between israel and her neighbors i kept my door and phone open to the public especially those who disagreed with u.s policy but here It was too difficult to get answers to our questions and key data. Thank you, Mr. Spain, for making that happen. That shouldn't be necessary. No public person ever had to go to Secretary Clinton or Secretary Powell to get me in the room with them. I hope you take that in the spirit it was intended and the board review here today considers the full substance of these slides or slides you hadn't seen in ASS paper. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bodine. Next speaker.

Actually moment apologies are next speaker again. Speaking for five minutes is Nicholas Giacobe, Mr. Giacobe. Are you there remotely?

I'm there. Can you hear me?

We can go ahead. Good little little soft. So wherever the microphone is, if you could cozy up toys will speak up great good good afternoon.

Chair different honorable members of the County Board Mr Schwartz. I'm Nick Giacobe, the president of the Arlington County Civics Federation. And I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you this morning on the redevelopment of the Air and Space Force Association site at 1501 Langston Boulevard. It's good to see another empty office building removed from the inventory and replaced with a LEED Gold project. You've already received lots of written material and heard testimony on the general land use plan and the zoning for this site. We want to be sure that the procedures for this project are reliable, that there's full transparency, and that there are no inaccuracies in either the GLUP or the zoning designations. We're concerned that the current process may be supporting an uncompensated GLUP change that was omitted from the SPRC review and potentially establishing negative precedence and calling into question the transparency and the regularity of the process. Therefore, the Civic Federation respectfully makes two requests of you today. First, CFED asks you to defer the discussion of this agenda item and refer the matter to the county attorney to resolve in conjunction with the county staff. We ask that they be tasked to consider the conflicting versions of previous board decisions and determine which is the determinative glup for each portion of the parcel. The report should include recommendations for any board action that may be required as a result of this review. Second, once the county attorney and land use experts have reviewed the legal and technical issues definitively and determined any any legally appropriate actions for the board that may be needed we ask that an additional sprc session be convened to review those findings with the applicant and with the community and determine how they impact the site plan we believe that an expedited review will not only improve transparency but also increase confidence in the reliability of the process and ultimately produce a better outcome for all parties. Thank you very much for your consideration.

Thank you, Mr. Giacobbe. I believe that is, Mr. Kushner, that is our last speaker. Is that correct?

That's correct. Our final speaker on this item.

Got it. So conversation is now with the board. I want to move quickly to a motion. We will have fulsome discussion. There are construction hours, I know, is a question. And then there's the glup that was mentioned by the last several speakers. I will just start with a couple of questions and then see if Mr. Karantonis, you can get us off with a motion. Ms. Walentish? and I'll also ask the county attorney, can you speak a little bit to the GLUP designation and the map error piece and sort of how that was sort of discovered in the process that led to that and if you can touch a little bit on prior GLUP designations, that would be great too. Of course.

So as I mentioned in my presentation, this was first discovered when the preliminary site plan was first submitted to the county. So that was in 2025. At that point, we have ample time and staff to do ample research. And we look into sites and their histories and the previous zoning, sorry, county board approvals at that point. And that was when it was determined that there was a map error for this site. So again, we've done extensive research and history back, you know, 60 years and can pretty conclusively determine that this was a map error. We have seen these before. They're very similar. to other instances, so we know what to look for in these cases, and it's pretty clear in our review that this is both, again, from a vestige of when I-66 was developed, which is where that public designation bled up north onto this parcel inadvertently, and then that medium residential bled east from the approval of the Palisades Park townhouse development. So it is, again, clear in our review and analysis that this is a GLPMAP error. There is no county board approval that indicates that these designations were approved. So, and if you look at the 2002 board report for the Air and Space Force Association office building, it only indicates that the GLUP is low office, apartment, hotel. There's no reference to any other GLUP designation. So therefore we've concluded the GLUP map errors.

Thank you, Mr. County Attorney. Is there, the analysis is Mr. Both, just wanna briefly check with you In a map error situation like this, there's a request for a further analysis. Do you align with the county manager's office staff? Do you have anything that you can add for us regarding the process and the question of uncompensated if there were not a map error?

So without the need to go into closed session, without getting to issues of waiver of privilege, I can say that you have the legal authority to amend the GLUP today. You also have the legal authority to say, no, we don't want to or defer. You have those options.

Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Are there questions on this particular subject? I want to just be thorough, and then we'll go to Mr. Karantonis for a motion. I see Vice Chair Coffey.

Yeah, I guess one additional question for our attorney. Your office reviews all site plans and related recommendations from staff definitively before they are brought to the board, correct?

Correct.

Great. And then this GLUP change, is the applicant asking us to change the GLUP?

No, not in this instance. It's on the county board's own motion because we've determined there's an error in the existing map. Great.

So they are, I guess, to the applicant, you all are agnostic technically to what we do on this. Though we believe it is our best practice to make sure the glup is cleaned up. But you all are not coming to us because this is a need for your project. Is that correct?

That's correct, Ms. Coffey.

Thank you.

Thank you, Vice Chair Coffey. Okay, we'll turn to Mr. Karantonis. Mr.

Chair, I have a follow-up question on this. I mean, I have to say, this is a place where the maximum width of Langston, westbound, eastbound, and I-66, almost 13 lanes. This is an enormous traffic, sorry. I see that this way. So it is not surprising to me that there will be remnants and mistakes and, you know, past liabilities, et cetera. What do we do, and that's for Ms. Valentich or for her colleagues, what do we do to scrub the maps to find this kind of mistakes and errors regularly? Do we do that as a matter of general hygiene and maintenance, or is it something that comes up with a major planning effort?

Yeah, no, thank you for the question. Anthony Cuscarelli with the Planning Division for the record. As part of our regular course of business, our team does periodically review largely technical updates to the general land use plan where we comprehensively do a review and where we identify opportunities for corrections or updates to address some of these inconsistencies. We will incorporate them as our resources permit. I will say that we are not able to identify and capture and address every single inconsistency or an accuracy in one time. But incrementally, we are addressing that over time. The second point would be that we often, and I would just turn back to the board's approval earlier this spring, where with the Walgreens site redevelopment, very similar situation where there was public designation land as a vestige of the assemblage for I-66 that in our historical review, we believed was not accurately reflecting the board's action. We do it periodically, sort of on a comprehensive basis. We also will address those with specific sites, typically in association with the site plan application that's coming before the board.

Thank you, Mr. Mussarelli. I also know from experience, for example, where I live along Columbia Pike, where your staff has corrected maps quite often in successive reviews. So it's not surprising that this happens in other places as well. Thank you. Mr.

Chair, back to you. Thank you. I think we're ready for it. Go ahead. Let's do a motion. Get it on the table.

So I will offer a motion so that discussion can follow. I move that the county board adopt a resolution attached to the staff report to approve the general land use plan amendment. That's G.P. to change the designation from low office apartment hotel, medium residential, and public to all low office apartment hotel, located on 1501 Langston Boulevard, that's RPC number 16-005-001. And secondly, I move that the County Board Adopt the ordinance attached to the staff report 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, load coverage, density exclusions, and other modifications as necessary to achieve the proposed development located at 1501 Langston Boulevard. That's RPC number 16-005-001. And third, I move that the County Board approve the use permit that's UPR 25-00038 for an institutional use for a museum located on 1501 Langston Boulevard, that's RPC number 16-005-001, subject to the proposed conditions with a county board review in three years. That's in September, 2029.

Motion's been made. Is there a second? Second. Made and seconded. Now the discussion is on the amendment. Colleagues, as far as, motion's been made and seconded. The motion is on the table. Now the question, the main question that has been put before us, there are perhaps one or two other issues, but I propose we address construction hours first. Mr. Spang, to you.

Sure. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Get my stuff together because we've heard, at least I have, a lot of input on construction hours, and I want to make sure that I'm getting this right. So first question is to the applicant, and I think this is a great project. Thank you for moving forward on it. But you reached out and you met with me on September 15th this week. And it was in that conversation that we spoke and I inquired and asked about construction hours. And if you're amenable by private agreement with the community, if those hours that they asked for were okay. And your reply and your answer to us and which is in your letter was what?

Yes, we would be amenable to the hours that I think Mr. Roberts had up on the screen, but yes.

Great. And so to the county attorney, I have a question. Those hours through this private agreement between applicant and community, what does that leave the county? It's non-binding on the part of the county. There's nothing we could do with this private agreement. Can you talk a little bit about that?

That's correct. The county wouldn't be able to be involved in enforcing those hours.

The other question I would have, Mr. County Attorney, and maybe to CPHD and the staff, is are we establishing a precedent by setting construction hours or changing construction hours?

Due to the unique nature of this particular application, I would say if you agree to change the hours, it would be specific just to this property.

Just to this property, but we have changed, correct me if I'm wrong, construction hours on a number of projects going back many years.

I would have to defer to CPHD, but my understanding is- CPHD, you wanna answer that?

Yeah, I'm happy to take that. We did sort of historical research over the past 10 to, PLUS YEARS. THE ONE INSTANCE WHERE WE WERE ABLE TO FIND AN EXCEPTION THAT WAS MADE WAS WITH THE BOARD'S APPROVAL OF 2480 SOUTH GLEBE LAST YEAR, WHICH MODIFIED THE CONSTRUCTION HOURS ON SITE AND IN THE RIGHT-OF-WAY DURING SUNDAYS. SO THIS IS THE HOTEL PENTAGON SITE, ALSO KNOWN AS, AND SO THERE WAS AN INTEREST THERE TO AMEND THE CONSTRUCTION HOURS TO any of the scheduled activities for the abutting church services in that instance we are not able to we haven't done an extensive or comprehensive review but we are not quickly recalling instances where they have been modified in response to residential uses nearby okay

In my brief, and county attorney I did, I think I shared it with all the staff, maybe, maybe not. In my quick inquiry back in 2017, there were some changes to construction hours. Perhaps things were a little bit different, Mr. Andrew, but what I'm getting at is, you know, we talk a lot about, and I say the board, and we heard about this earlier today, about accommodating and listening to the community, right? That's what we say. And so to the representatives who have come and engaged with us, I see this as really low-hanging fruit. I think it's doable. We should figure out a way to get there. but I'm a bit concerned right now because of how we are shaping the rationale behind saying perhaps even no to it, right? And the unique concerns that each person have, because what some will go and do is get down into the weeds and it's quite, you know, it can be kind of confusing, but I think This is an opportunity where the applicant and the community have agreed. And we, as the board, quite honestly, can do our due diligence and come alongside them and kind of help. Because if something happens, the community's left out there flapping in the wind. And there's nothing that binds anyone to these hours. So that's my concern because and all good graces to the applicant. I, you know, I think this is the first time you're building here. Right. Um, and so, uh, we would hope that things work out. I believe that, but, uh, I appreciate the agreement you have with the community. There's someone don't know what happens in a year. Right. And we need to get something in writing. Cause I'll come from a train of thought. If it's not in writing, if it's not from the governing body like us, then it's up to the community to fight that battle should things change. And I just don't feel right about that. Um, so we've heard it from staff. I just, I think I want to hear again, the rationale we have, and this has come from CPHD for leaving the construction hours as is. And I hear your statement that we have not done this before, but except in the hotel Pentagon, but I need to be for the record, why we're not doing this and that this, this will be established in precedence.

Andrew? So a couple of points that I think just emerged in our consideration is consistency to the greatest extent possible. Consistency across all projects is not only helpful from sort of just a sort of equal treatment, matter with each and every site plan that will be before the board, but from an enforcement perspective, once we start having different conditions with respect to hours in terms of when noise can begin, when it has to end, for our colleagues who are out in the field enforcing those conditions and also enforcing the noise ordinance, one of the considerations was the general consistency between the hours and the standard site plan conditions aligned with, certainly during the week, fully aligned with the hours of noise permitted by the noise ordinance. And so that was sort of at our forefront for consideration. The other points really, and maybe the applicant may be better positioned to speak to this, would be the the project is going to take the number of hours it will take to build. And so the question is, is the construction period perhaps longer each day, but shorter by months? And because there are other impacts to the right of way to the general public trying to traverse through the area that, you know, also plan certainly, you know, the wherever the board falls on this decision, if they incorporate it into the conditions, that is what staff will enforce going forward with this project.

Do you want the applicant, you want... Anything to add to that?

Mr. Fuscarelli had brought up just the time duration. We talked about that actually on the line, even though I don't think he needs to speak, but I'll recognize him anyway. Jeff King is with Clark Construction. They are our general contractor. So working with him and his professional team, we were able to calculate that the anticipated build time would be approximately a little over 10,000 hours. And so if... If there was no restriction other than what's in condition 10b, you would be looking at approximately 24 months of anticipated build time. With the modified hours that is reflected in our letter from September 17th, you would be increasing that from 24 months to 27 and a half months. So just wanted to give you the straight line projection, not making an opinion one way or the other.

Okay, Mr. Chair, I think I'm done. We're always gonna have the argument when it comes to whether it's noise or site plans, we're short of staff and enforcement anyway. So that's gonna be challenging until we decide to lift that up.

Anyway, I'll come back later. So I have a question actually that follows up, which is, I think in conversations this week as we were discussing this, there's an indication that there's some easements that have to be determined and there's a whole bunch of work that would have, that could result in shifts to where, to the timing that would be most advantageous for construction and the various subcontractors and contractors who would be involved. And so, you know, that could be, after we approve this site plan, if we put the hours in in this way, either way, there could be some shifts Does that concern you? And it might be that you would then have to come back to the board for some of these changes. And that could be additional process that has the possibility of slowing down the project as a whole. Can you talk a little bit about the likelihood that with the easements and the other work that has to be done on the project, there might be changes to the hours that are necessary or would be the best fit for CAR and its subcontractors?

Certainly. Yeah. The hours that we discussed were with representatives of the North Highland Civic Association. Our immediate abutting neighbors is the Palisades Park townhome community and the immediate property owner is the Palisades Park Owners Association, the PPOA. So during, you know, following entitlement, if the project gets approved, we then move immediately towards the civil engineering plan process, which is about a year. During that civil engineering plan process, we will be negotiating with them things like temporary construction easements, tieback easements, crane swing easements, those types of things. We need letters from them related to any trees that are on the common property boundary and more. I would imagine, if passed as prologue, that there will eventually be a development agreement that we would propose in front of them, but it will take negotiation. And it may be that They do request modified hours that are greater than what we have or shifted in some other way. If and again, not making a judgment one way or the other, but if it was outside the bounds of, you know, what we've proposed here, which is 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on weekdays and 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. on weekends, then technically we would need to come back before. the county board for it would probably be a minor site plan amendment but we would also try to be creative with our contractor to see what we can do to stage things appropriately so that we don't violate it and have to come back but thank you so I just have a question mr. County Attorney help refresh maybe I should know this after seven plus years but minor site plan no RTA just comes right to us is that correct or would there need to be an RTA

Got it. And so process wise is I think better to ask you, you know, lots of attorneys here, but better to ask you, is that a heavy lift in your estimation to come back for that change or no?

It is, it's about a, I don't know, I can't remember, about $24,000 in application fees to come back before. It's about a three to four month process from application submission to a vote by the county board. But, you know, my hope would be substantially, it would not, as long as you're working within the confines of 10B, it would not be a heavy lift from a review perspective and might just reflect what the applicant is negotiating with the PPOA and any other, anyone else who has a vested interest in it that we need easements from.

Got it. Thank you. I appreciate you working through that. Vice Chair Coffey.

I'm not sure if Mr. Cantones had his light first.

Go ahead, Vice Chair. And then Mr. Cantones.

Okay, getting my mind organized. For staff, how often do adjacent neighbors ask us for changes to construction hours? I can think of at least three site plans in the last two years where I recall people requesting changes that we did not grant.

I think it does come up in request. It is common that it is requested throughout the site plan process, but again, through our history of whether the hours are actually amended through the site plan condition, we are very reluctant to amend the conditions. But the request is, yeah, pretty common.

Very common, yeah. I think about also an unrelated use permit issue that we're going to take up on Tuesday involving noise and hours around our live entertainment use permits in which we have a bunch of use permits that all have different misaligned hours. And we are actually having to go through a quite cumbersome process now as each use permit comes to the board to realign those hours because our enforcement staff have been I don't want to say unable, but challenged to enforce what appears to be the same type of requirement, but that has super inconsistent hours across the board. And it makes neighbors crazy because they're calling in things that they think are violations that are not violations. And it makes our staff crazy because they have to go back and check each individual site-specific legal document to make sure they know, well, the terms for this is this one thing, and the terms for that is a completely different thing. And so I'm pretty reluctant, I think, to look at this as not a big deal. In addition, because I think I've had the glory of dealing with a number of neighbors in an active development situation right now, who before the site plan was approved, did request a mitigation to the construction hours, was not granted, and they have had months of demolition directly next to their home. And I think from a how we, agree to treat people in development perspective, I'm a little challenged as to why I personally would justify this in this case when I said no to them in 3033 Wilson, I said no in Riverhouse. And I guess to turn to the developer or to the applicant in this case, So you are going to have to seek other legal agreements with the adjacent property owners, that's correct?

That is correct.

Okay, and then if, I don't actually know who this question is for, it might be for you. If in that agreement you come to different, times than what are in the site plan conditions. Who is that enforceable by? Because it is still a legally binding agreement and presumably as part of your civil engineering submissions to us, we will need to have records of those agreements. Does the county still have a role in enforcing the agreement that you've made at that point?

I guess two things. One, the agreement would not be of record likely in the land use records of Arlington County, but it would be a private development agreement between two private property owners. And they could be enforced by either owner at law or at equity. But I will say that if our project requires signatures to be granted on the easements in order to construct the property or to receive civil engineering plan approval, presumably those signatures would not be

granted unless there was an agreement between the developer and you know the party you know you know must must consent to the easement right yeah um and i think another reason sort of to mr deferranti's question around if the hours change or the requests change i would just highlight that we've received at least two different hours request from the North Highland Civic Association thus far, a 730 to 730 and then eight to eight. I'm a little ambiguous in terms of which is the preferred one. And that is another reason why I'm a little hesitant to put that in our writing. I think you all can have a deeper conversation with the actual adjacent property owners to figure out what are within the normal noise ordinance hours, the appropriate ones and come to an agreement on that, that doesn't include us.

And Ms. Coffey, I would just say, You know, we were anticipating this type of a conversation today. We anticipated it in front of the Planning Commission. We issued our letter to the president of the Citizens Association this week because we made representations and we wanna stand by them. And however this board elects to incorporate them, we're agnostic, but we wanna honor what we said, so.

Great, thank you. I'll pass along for now.

Ms. Cunningham.

I just had a question for staff. about our standard site conditions. So we've had this set 7 a.m. to say what the North Standard conditions are and how long we've had them, whether they've changed over time.

team that shares Daniel Creed Department environmental services I believe the hours have evolved over time I believe they were more restrictive and in response to concerns about completion of projects and things like that the hours were expanded I don't know the exact and we know roughly last time we would have looked at them and I can't say

And then do we know whether our hours are different than surrounding jurisdictions, like more generous or less generous? Or is that something we can maybe follow up? I can follow up with you. Okay. Because I think one of the allegations or one of the concerns raised was whether we are... across all projects, potentially making sure that we are supporting safety and well-being for our young people, which is always top of mind for us. So I guess I would like to propose that we might want to look at that outside of this process just to make sure we understand the trade-offs that we're making. It's obviously we want to be able to get projects done and have less traffic around them and have sort of the environmental benefits as well as the affordability benefits of being able to get through things. But we also want to always balance that with health and it just keeps changing over time. So we can take that as a follow-up question. I also wanted to ask Ms. Torres-Isaias whether the Planning Commission had discussion of construction hours here or whether you have anything to bring to us from the Planning Commission's deliberations.

We did discuss it extensively. We wish that we could do something so that we can put it in writing. However, it was, we're having the same discussion that you're having today. So our experience with the applicant is that they are very flexible, that they will work with the community, but that's the extent.

Ms. Cunningham, I'm just curious specifically on that. Did the three and a half additional months come up in the Planning Commission?

No, we didn't discuss that. That's new information for me.

Got it. Thank you. Sorry to interrupt.

Yeah, and I will say, I know a lot of us have been deliberating this quite a bit throughout. And I am just delighted that the applicant has not only the model project. I mean, you checked off all the boxes, like you're going to be the poster child. If Planning Commission says you're a model project and Park Commission says, and C2ETA writes you a favorable letter, it's like the triumphant win. So congratulations. I think where I am landing here is that the applicant and the community are going to work well together. They have multiple touches. And that offer of a private agreement suffices here so that we can make sure everyone's OK here and that we can go back and have the bigger conversation about maybe we want to slightly change it, or maybe there's times of year, school year or not, or something else that we want to look at comprehensively and consistently across all projects, making sure that we're taking the latest science in mind. So that's where I'm depending on this one.

Thank you, Ms. Cunningham. Mr. Karantonis.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Ms. Cunningham, for what it's worth, I have some insight on the comparable construction, standard construction hours. Alexandria is 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. The district, I believe, is 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., let's just say. But What I wanted to ask is a different thing. So when we discuss standard construction hours, we're not only guided by the immediate impact of the construction, but also by other things like the length of the construction, et cetera, and also the cost of the construction. Length equals cost. One of the reasons why in the past, and I've looked back, I mean, I I thought we were a little bit more generous with construction hours, but no, I couldn't find so many instances. One of the reasons was that we had, time and again, stumbled upon, okay, the construction will be more expensive, therefore, there will be a trade-off with other deliverables of the building, et cetera, so it's a difficult thing. However, And especially during the pandemic where something happened that was very important, a lot of people now were working at home. And if you remember, HQ2 was built right at this point, so it was extremely loud for people who were living and working without any alternative from their homes. So we began to be a little bit more sophisticated, a little bit more sensitive on how to manage noise in the construction place. So one of the questions, a question that I have for you, did we learn, I mean are we, when we talk with, With developers, are we asking them if they are applying best practices? I'll give you an example. So the backup alarm that most trucks have, that it's extremely penetrating, there are alternatives to that, like, for example, to use white noise instead of... the standard. So do we have these conversations with them? I know that in certain places here in Clarendon, when we had construction for repairs in the middle of, you know, built environment, we had, you know, conversations about that, how to mitigate noise, how to put... I mean, one of the... Lessons that we are learning here is that maybe we have to be more sophisticated in doing that because we now know when it's more loud, when it's less loud, what can be done to mitigate the impact while not compromising the business model of building a home. The question is, do we talk with developers about that?

Not in that level of detail. The main conversation is around the standard site plan condition 10, and that which is also based on Chapter 15, the Arlington Code, the noise ordinance, which that gets into more detail about decibel levels, what defines noise, and that sort of thing is contained in Chapter 15.

Okay. I think we, in general, we have to improve on this. We have to think, you know, just sharing best practices, et cetera. It's best for everybody. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Cantones. Mr. Spain.

Mr. Chair, I was right on the tip of my tongue thinking about putting forward this site plan, an amendment. But I just want to be clear that, you know, we heard, at least I heard today, and there was a letter, of course, that came out a couple days ago. When we met, to the applicant, if I recall, when we met, I was not made aware at that time of the length of time, if we change hours, that it would tackle an additional three months. Of course, I've been made aware of that in the past 48 hours. And I also understand that there may be additional costs. There will be additional costs incurred. The problem I have is, you know, I've heard us talk a little earlier about, you know, equitable treatment across the board. and timings everything because this was not brought up to what we just heard to the Planning Commission as far as the extension of three months if you decide to go with different hours. And then my question is, did you convey that to the community that if you move these hours that you will incur significant costs, you conveyed that to the community as well?

Ms. Walters may want to ask, but this was a request from staff and we calculated that upon the request.

So staff went to you and asked for that. That's correct.

Yes. And I'm happy to interject. This was a result of our briefing earlier this week with board member, Karen Tonis, who had asked us to gather that information from the applicant. So I believe your briefing remember Spain was prior to remember Karen Tonis is. So we, we did ask the applicant that question mid this week after the request from. Time is everything.

Yes. Um, so. That being said, I hear you applicant about the representations made to the community and I'm listening to my colleagues here on the board. I hope you stand by that. I really do, as long as I'm here. Because I take you for your word that you're gonna work with the community and do that. Staff has strong recommendations, of course, with construction hours, and we've heard about establishing of a precedence with this particular case, which I need to run down that rabbit hole a little bit because I don't believe this is the first time of precedence here. But this is not the time nor place for that. That being said, Mr. Chair, I'm not going to put forward an amendment on this. We're going to hold and watch what happens here in the community and to the folks in the community that are here. Just know that we're here to help aid and assist along the way. But this is how you build and earn community trust as well. Don't go into an agreement only to change the agreement and figure out ways to get out of it. Because for me, I take highly what the community says and what they're looking for, even though every site is different. Every location is different. How people are affected are different. So we just can't. Yeah, we must have standards. But there's a reason that we are here as the policymakers to make accommodations from time to time where it may need where it may be needed. And I heard some of this in the planning commission. I went back and read it where it was some concerns about children and youth and families in the build out. So I got it. But let's see what happens. So no amendment from me on this today and we'll move forward.

Thank you, Mr. Spain that to my mind, we'll finish up on construction hours. And then I think there's one more question about the glove, but I think vice chair coffee, you may have on construction hours.

Yeah, I'll just add, you know, I think, um, Mr. Painter, you and your practice have a number of items that come before this board. I know Tycoon, this is your first building here, but us and staff, we have long memories and reputation matters. And so I think I would just convey that you've made representations in writing and to us. And so, I think we are we are willing to trust you have been very cooperative. I think that it we hear the commitments that you're making. I think we will hear if they are not maintained. And so I think I just also highlight that for us, for staff, for the community that, you know, we we will take note if if things are not if things do not play out how they have been represented. That doesn't mean we need a site plan condition, but I think You know, we see the same characters again and again, and we remember the things that have happened before.

Thank you, Vice Chair Coffey. And I think it's also reflective. We do see folks again and again. I believe I'm not sure this may be tycoon your first project here. And it's not lost on me that you were earnest to try and make this commitment and work with the community. And so we just appreciate that while also the motion being not done as Mr. Spain said. And so we'll work forward going there and I trust that you'll both have the integrity and also the As things evolve, work with the community going forward, all the parts of the community. So I think we're almost there. Ms. Cunningham on the GLUP.

Actually, before we turn to GLUP, I was hoping we could just run through the community requests. There were five pieces that were requested. I think we just had a very thorough conversation about the first one. I don't know, Mr. Clerk, if you can get that first page of Mr. Roberts' presentation up. Great. I think this can be either to staff or applicant, but of two through five, are any of those problematic? Are they already documented in site plan conditions? And do you wanna just speak to them on the record?

Thank you for the question. Condition 13 until community outreach during construction requires a community liaison be identified by the developer, and that includes a name, email address and telephone number in writing to the North Highland Civics Association. And then there's also the community meeting prior to the beginning of the clearing and grading. So that's not the exact You know, request on the screen here, but it is, you know, a lot of those are covered in condition 13.

So number two is pretty completely covered, I think. Number three, an on-site contact is usually posted at the building. Is that in our standard site plan conditions or does that also perhaps belong on the list of things to look at?

I think that might be in the building permits.

Yeah, the question was whether the person is required to be on site.

I think the community liaison is not required to be on site. Do we have provisions that address number three, either partially or fully?

There is a requirement that the name, email address, and telephone number of the individual. I don't believe it specifies that the person is on site or that... It doesn't go into that level of detail.

I know we're looking at standard site plan condition revisions later this year. I think this is one that does come up for most communities of like, when there's something happening on site, who do I call? Generally, there's something posted, but maybe adding the communication of it would be helpful.

Correction. The condition does require that that person identified be on site.

Okay. Mr. Painter also.

And condition 13 does say that the name, email address, and phone number be provided in writing to the residents and to the zoning minister and be posted at the entrance to the project.

Okay, great. And then number four, we don't have a monthly requirement, but it's at certain time points of the project that there is a community meeting.

Correct, at the beginning of construction.

OK. And then number five, the heritage gallery access. What do we and don't we have here? Usually that would be a community benefit, and there's not per se one here. So how does that get dealt with?

So the county doesn't have any interest ourselves in any sort of access to that space. Therefore, we don't we wouldn't get into any sort of agreement or writing a condition to permit community access because we ourselves don't have a stake there. So we would again encourage that via private agreement, which it sounds like they have done.

and and if i may um this is the first time that we had seen an actual request for a number of times um but i will just say we we made the commitment that we will allow um the north highland citizens association and the palisade park owners association to use the space free of charge we were thinking quarterly but that subject negotiation as well but i will just say that there are um issues associated with that, you know, cleaning, security, there's other types of things that we have to accommodate with this group. But that was the first time that we'd seen it be six times a year for both. We did have a discussion with Mr. Roberts about the monthly Zoom call. That might be warranted. It may not. That cadence may not be. But what we did pledge was we will figure that out and we will, I mean, obviously have multiple communications with the community about this. So whether it's monthly or every six weeks or every month, you know, it It remains to be determined.

Okay, great.

I think that's all I have on these.

Got it. Yes, Vice Chair Coffey.

Yeah, I think I would just highlight on the gallery access, public access. One of the recommendations from our independent county auditors audit of community benefits is that squishy community benefits like civic association access to spaces is really, really hard for us to track and enforce and you know, I think there was an open question within the audit committee about whether we should move away from those types of community benefits altogether just because they are very hard for us to manage as they are really agreements that the county is not a party to except for in the conditions of a site plan. And so I think I just mostly share that to say that like this is a broader conversation. And in this case, we're not even in a community benefits negotiation and that gives us even less leverage here than we would have in other cases um but the community the community benefits audit itself really found that even in the cases where we have conditioned that um we have it's it's completely opaque to the county whether those things are being implemented and and i'm hesitant to ever really go go down that path again based on the findings from our county auditor thank you vice chair coffee mr spain no i vestige miss cunningham

I'm ready to go to the next one.

I'm ready to go to a vote. Go ahead.

OK. I think the two other areas that are not completely resolved, one's very quick, so let's do that one. The question from the Park Commission about invasives, would the applicant like to speak to that?

Yeah, and I'd like to recognize Stephanie Pankiewicz with land design, but I will say we did do a walkthrough of the site. There is a lot of tree of heaven throughout there. We recognize that it does need to be removed. It is counting towards the canopy, the overall canopy coverage of that area. Ultimately, though, we are not able to touch anything until the civil engineering plan is approved. And as part of that is the final landscape plan. And then also I would just mention that this site is under a conservation easement with the Northern Virginia Conservation Trust. And so anything that we do on site, irrespective of what the county approvals are, must be blessed by the Northern Virginia Conservation Trust. And so we have to have that conversation. We've had very good relationships with them, but we need to have that conversation with them. And, you know, In terms of how it gets removed, it's not like we can just go in there and just rip it all out tomorrow. There is some serious stabilization and erosion control that we have to monitor. So once we're ready to roll, it is a multi-year process to remove it. But Stephanie, I don't know if you want to speak to that at all.

Good afternoon, I'm Stephanie Pinkwicks with Land Design. We're the landscape architects on the project. And yes, as Andrew just stated, it is everyone's goal to remove all the invasives, but it does have to be managed very carefully because Although the Tree of Heaven are not counting toward any canopy credit or other, they do factor into the actual easement and the visual quality of it. And so with the Northern Virginia Conservation Trust, we've committed to really be thoughtful to remove them and make sure when they're replaced, they get replaced with native understory trees that are native to this region and specific to this region. And just because of the other issues of erosion control and the nature of just invasive removals, you can't just go in one time. I mean, it will take years to ensure that both they and other things like the English ivy and other invasives are removed, but that's the commitment that has been made.

Great, so I think we're all on the same page here, which is as soon as it's safe to do so in terms of not inviting additional invasives, making sure that conservation trust is okay, making sure that planning department or the permits office knows what you're doing and doesn't put a, bad sticker on the project, that the goal is to get in there as quickly as possible, especially with Tree of Heaven, given how toxic it is and how fast it spreads. Mr. Shiners and several on the parks mission contribute thousands and thousands of hours to hand-pull a lot of those invasives in many of our parks. So they are your partners, and we want you to continue to be absolute model citizens in this. So as soon as you can get to it in all those ways, that would be great.

Great. So I think you've got at least one other topic, and then Mr. Carrington will come back for you.

Is it on this one? No, it's not on this one. Go ahead. So it's something different. So first of all, it's an architectural discussion here. So the building has a southwestern facade, southern southwestern facade. It's mostly glass. So it has an enormous... amount of solar gain there. On your eastern facade, eastern frontage, the frontage looks at with the modifications that you did with the balconies, et cetera, you mitigate some of the solar gain. Bravo. But what are you thinking about the southwestern facade?

And I'd like to recommend CD with WTG Architects.

Good afternoon. My name is Siti Abdul Rahman. It's on the southwest facade.

Can you speak a little bit closer to your mic?

Okay, the southwest facade, I mean, the building is not really flat. It has a bit more expression. You know, we have some articulation to it, and that really helps in terms of the solar shading device. It's projecting roughly a bit more than about a foot.

Right.

So that helps. And in terms of glazing, we are using a low-E glazing, and that really also helps. I mean, the technology of glazing is so superior now that allows you to really help with the solar gate access.

Okay, thank you. I still think that part of our job is to promote good practices, and one of that is to really pay attention to solar gain and reduce the energy intensity of buildings. The second thing that I have to ask is more of a conceptual thing. So we have the museum at the back of the building, so, you know, walking westwards. What happens in between? So between Oak and the museum, the grade, the ground level, there is the entrance. on oak but there is the there is a long uh you know part of the front edge of the building how is that going to present is that going to be activated in any way lit up art i see that there is a bicycle storage there so one of the things that we want to see in buildings especially of the quality and you know ambition that your building has is to activate the edges so the building needs to answer the street. Now, I understand that the street as it is today, the westbound Langston is not a great street for walking. Not yet, though. So what is your concept there?

And I don't know if Stephanie or Taylor wants to... talk about this, but there's a couple of things. Number one, we're widening out the trail. It's a heavily used trail, as we all know. So there's people going there all the time. And then we have a new public access easement, which will run right along the front of the building that we're granting to the public that will have watering stations. It'll have seating areas. It'll have a bike fixed station as well. We have a portion of the lobby that you will be able to see from from the trail. So there's sort of a not a retail equivalent, but some kind of interior exterior porosity seeing into the building. We located the bikes or the bike access room with direct access onto the trail. And then the rest of the real estate in the building along that frontage will be taken up by the AFA Heritage Gallery.

Okay, thank you. Studying your building and the whole design process to that revealed to me that we have an issue that we need to visit at some point. At this point, I-66 westbound and eastbound Langston is 13 lanes wide. And not only that, the noise wall is after Langston. So right in front of you, which you removed. And thank you for VDOT and for the work that you did. But it's actually very awkward that this is, so it's literally a mistake. This is an invitation to all of us to think a little bit better since Rosslyn is, this is walkable distance, crawlable distance almost to the Gateway Park. So there are a lot of improvements in the public right of way that we need to think about that. the continuing like it is, I think it's not any more contemporary, so thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Karantonis. Mr. Spain.

I think we're about to go to vote, Mr. Chair, but are these closing comments? We still have a lot to address.

You can do closing comments, I'll do closing comments, and Ms. Cunningham, you can ask additional questions.

Sure, so to the applicant, I read some information from planning about From VDOT, are you concerned about the sound wall in any stage at this point or anything as it relates to removal of that sound wall? Does it sound like we're good to go on that altogether? Have we got authority and all that from VDOT? Or do you foresee any issues with the sound wall?

So I recognize Mike Minkoski, who's our transportation consultant for MICA. but I will say that we have submitted multiple technical memos and operational analyses to VDOT. They have not had any comment whatsoever on the noise wall. Typically, that's good news from the Virginia Department of Transportation. We're also doing this earlier in the process than we normally do. We usually do this after the zoning entitlement process, but we're kind of getting ahead of it. So at this point in time, we don't have any indication that VDOT opposes it. Ultimately, this is an issue about ambient noise affecting homes. And the Federal Highway Administration defers to VDOT's judgment on this. So they're basically the federal actor here and going to make the decision. But I will say we only removed the sound wall to the point where it does not have a deleterious effect on the on the interior noise for the adjacent townhomes and the Park Georgetown apartments to the west.

um but you know mike yeah mike pinkowski with vika not much more to add i mean andrew pretty much hit on it we had submitted that sound study vdot has determined that accepted and acceptable findings of that study they need to make their final determination with federal highway administration and that's pending right now so we shouldn't expect any surprises on a

major site plan amendment down the road or anything as it relates to this site. At least we don't foresee that, right?

Fingers crossed. Mr. Spain, I mean, that's good for the zoning attorneys. But Mr. Spain, I will just say that the entirety of this project is predicated upon the narrowing of lengths of the boulevard. And if we cannot get it narrowed, we will have to come back for something. But I want to pick up on something, if I may, about Mr. Carantonis. The story of the, and I've said this, I said this to the Planning Commission, but I'm a local historian, I love it. The story of the Virginia Department of Highways ramming through Interstate 66 through Arlington galvanized DC, Maryland, and Virginia residents in the anti-highway movement. And we are now living with the legacy of that. DDOT had to agree to certain things. It had to agree to the installation of the Custis Trail. It had to agree to the rusticated brown signs. It had to agree to the urban deck at Roslyn. So these are all holdovers, and now we're coming back trying to retrofit a different era of planning to make it kind of much more pedestrian friendly and stuff. And so it's kind of a pleasure taking back some of the mistakes that were made.

Thank you. Mr. Sping, go ahead. I can finish up. Yeah, so to the county manager, I do want to send a shout out to one of our staff members, Natasha. who did some really good work in reaching out to some folks in our community as it relates to this particular project. And I'm very appreciative of that. I mean, five of us on the board, we can't do it all as much as we try, but it is a partnership. And I heard back that that was well received. And lastly, I guess back to the applicant, there's some concerns. I saw this also in the planning report about, additional EV ready spaces. You have any thoughts outside of what you stated at the meeting with planning on this particular project?

No, Mr. Spann, I think we're comfortable with the 4% EV chargers day one and the additional 15% EV ready.

Okay, right. So lastly, as I close and the next thing out here for me is an I. Look, I came into this meeting today really thinking about what I've heard, there's been a lot of things changing. I will say in the past week, some things I did not know, some things I found out. There's a lot of movement, especially when it comes to construction hours, Mr. Roberts. And thank you for all the calls and the text messages. We try to keep this connection. But when I weigh, right, the revelations of what additional three months does, with excess of $1.5 million against the backdrop of an agreement that you have, and we're gonna monitor that, I feel comfortable in moving forward in this project, which is gonna yield some more housing in our community, which is greatly needed. And with that, Mr. Chair, I'm done with my comments until we get to vote. Thank you, Mr. Spain, Ms. Cunningham.

Thank you. If my colleagues can indulge me just for a minute. I feel like we skipped over the GLUP conversation a little faster than I thought we were going to. So just a couple of quick questions. I think for staff, we heard from a number of community members that concerns about the clarity around the GLUP existence, non-existence, kind of the red page, purple or pink page. Can it be two things? Are there lessons learned from this project and maybe from Walgreens as well about how we can better articulate to the community, to the planning commission, to the SPRC throughout the process what does need to be done if there's any cleanup that may be needed? And just if you could share a little bit of thoughts about that both in general and then it sure sounds like a long Langston given that 100% of the projects we've considered so far that are adjacent to Langston have had this public designation problem, that we're going to have it pretty regularly for a bit here.

Yeah, no, appreciate the question. And I think before responding to it directly, I would just, or in part of the response, right, I think one of the ongoing challenges that we will continue to face with administering and communicating, you know, our view of the General Land Use Plan The first word, general, right? When it was first established in 1961, up until really 2011, the general land use plan was mapped and drawn many, many years by hand. And then in the early 2000s, moving to digital tools and techniques. But it wasn't until 2011 where we were shifting to geographic information systems, which then allowed the overlaying of parcel level data with the GLUP designations. And so something that we are mindful of over time is for the first 50 years of GLUP administration, it was general in many ways. I think in, so I think that was just an important point to note because we will, it's really part of that history in terms of how the GLUP has evolved over time using different mapping methods. that I think, you know, came to the forefront in this instance. And we'll continue to see it, you know, again, hopefully not in every, and certainly not in every situation. I think a lesson learned here is just, you know, if there's more that we can do in terms of getting ahead of that earlier in the process, you know, especially for a project that is submitting a conceptual site plan, which this applicant thankfully did. you know, taking advantage of some of that lead time to do so I think would help with the overall understanding and communications.

Great, thank you. And I know, kind of carry over from budget conversations, we've been really starving both the attorney's office and the planning team a little bit for resources. So I think as we come out of that, thinking about how do we invest in additional communication resources, additional cleanup resources. I know you guys are just trying to do everything within a very small team, but we hear that from the community, and I think it will make everyone's lives easier if we can get to resourcing that. I will just add that looking at that glup issue on this particular parcel, the fact that the existing building already well encroaches on the public kind of makes it less of a concern here. I think there are other places where it might be more compelling than cart before the horse, so we'll get back to that. Final question is Civ Fed and ASF have both raised concerns on a specific project and asked for additional conversation before and how we'll manage situations in the future. I think that conversation is worthy and I think this is for the attorney. Could we have that further community discussion and understanding and then come back to make further changes to the GLEP even with a vote on this project today?

You could. Okay.

then I think that is all I have in terms of questions and closing comments. I will be saying aye next.

Got it. The question is on the motion made by Mr. Carantonis, seconded by Mr. Spain. My closing comment is I'm glad to move forward. Thanks, everyone. The question is on the motion. All in favor say aye. Aye. All those abstaining? All those nays? Motion passes 5-0. We're on to the next. The lunch is here and so what I'd suggest is that we try to do one, I don't know if there's many in the audience, the grand audience that is not on this item that are actually here on Vision Zero. There may be a couple, there are two. 15 minutes, 1.25 folks. Thank you, we're recessed for lunch. Thanks everybody.

Yeah, jammed my finger real good there. Ow. Yep, right there. No, I think we're good. Certainly. Our next item is item number 51, the Vision Zero Action Plan Update.

Over to the manager for the staff presentation.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. With me this afternoon is Christine Baker, assisted by Dan Nabors from the Department of Environmental Services. So over to you, Ms. Baker.

All right. Good morning. Thank you so much for having us today. On behalf of all the departments and partners who have worked on this effort, I'm very happy to be here. Half of the team is actually at Green Valley Day right now, sharing information about e-device safety and passing out Vision Zero t-shirts. So they were sorry to miss today, but also really glad to have them out in the community. And yeah, this has been seven years in the making, getting to this milestone in our transportation safety journey. So very excited to walk through it with you today. We will talk about Vision Zero in Arlington, the community input that we got throughout this process as we updated our action plan. We'll cover what's new in the action plan and give you some action item highlights and then also talking about, you know, 2030 and beyond. So Vision Zero, it focuses on eliminating deaths and serious injuries. Vision Zero uses the safe systems approach, which is defined by national safety experts, and it's a holistic approach to transportation safety. So it looks at safe road users, safe vehicles, safe speeds, safe roads, and post-crash care. And the metaphor that made safe systems really click for me was the Swiss cheese model. So it's essentially... various safety net layers to reduce crashes. So essentially, you have a network of safety nets that helps to prevent crashes through different ways. And that's through these different perspectives in different disciplines. There's no one stop shop, no magic bullet to improving our safety issues. We have to put all these pieces together to help create these different nets that help prevent crashes. And I'm gonna reference this metaphor as we go to because it helps really bring to life what we're trying to do here in Arlington. So we've been proud to be a Vision Zero community since 2019, starting with the community resolution. Then we worked to develop our first action plan, which we adopted in 2021. And no, we're not the only community doing Vision Zero. It's an international strategy. Over 70 communities in the United States are doing it. And it really helps to create a community that's all working towards this practice. You know, our first action plan gave us what we needed to get started, and it laid out initiatives and how the program's going to work. So that kind of built the foundation for Vision Zero in Arlington. Looking at the crashes themselves, overall they've declined since 2016. And you can see severe and fatal crashes have been relatively stable. But the factors behind those are changing. Speed and alcohol remain some of the top factors for us. Pedestrian and bike crashes also are disproportionately shown in the severe and fatal crashes, mainly due to physics. They don't have a barrier around themselves as they travel like people in cars do. And we continue to investigate trends that kind of create or that have been contributing towards crash factors. So looking by mode, over time, you can see pedestrian crashes have gone down a lot. So have overall crashes. Bike, motorcycle, and scooter crashes have fluctuated. And you can see scooter crashes have been going up as well, which we'll talk about in a little bit. So we are tracking by mode and trying to see what's happening. Another thing I really want to point out here is that COVID happened. And that shows that huge dip in the middle of the 10-year span. And since COVID volumes have gotten back up to pretty much where they were before COVID. And we've seen bike and pedestrian activity going up, maybe even at a higher rate. So when we put this all relative, we have seen this downward trend overall. And we are kind of back up to volumes where they had been prior. Looking at behaviors, we've seen a reduction in distraction, but I will caveat that it's hard for police to confirm that to put it in the crash report. So that's a bit of a noisy factor in our data. Impairment has been relatively stable, but the thing that really persists has been speeding. And you can see that that's increasing. The crashes involving speeding are going up while overall crashes are going down. So we're seeing even higher proportionate of crashes involving speeding, which makes that a big factor for us. as we look at solutions to reduce crashes. What's improving safety on our roads? We're tracking from the crash perspective, but we also are tracking these other indicators that help us to understand risk factors, The things like speed safety cameras and red light safety cameras have shown big reductions in crashes, reductions in speeding. Flashing beacons have helped to improve driver yield rates. Turn hardening has been really effective in lowering speeds as people turn both left and right, depending on where we place that in the intersection. It's a great way to slow down vehicles as they approach other vehicles or people crossing the street. and intersections. Quick build projects have shown about a 38% reduction in crashes and tactical speed humps that program helped to reduce speeding by about 67%. So these are things that we can see are working. It might not always be reflected in the crash data overall, but when we zoom in, we can really understand where impact is. And each of these, again, is a different layer in that Swiss cheese model of helping reduce crashes. And over our first five years in the program, we've received national safety recognition. So we're really excited to be recognized. Dan Neighbors, our Division of Transportation Director, received a National Safety Council Distinguished Service to Safety Award. We were awarded the Vision Zero Youth Leadership Award in 2024 and the Virginia Association of Counties Achievement Award. We've also been recognized through other national programs. For example, I spoke at a webinar with over 250 practitioners on behalf of the Vision Zero Network and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety as a Vision Zero safe system success story. So we're really excited to be sharing what we're learning and also in these communities of practice. I meet monthly with different Vision Zero and safety leaders within the region, and we're actively involved in the MWCOG Safety Subcommittee. So we're really trying to expand our knowledge beyond just what's happening in Arlington. We're trying to be involved on a national basis. Overall, the action plan update in 2026, we identified 2025, 26 is the year where we wanted to update the action plan in the 2021 action plan. And once we got to this point, we wanted to focus in on what's working, what can we improve, and what will it take to get to Vision Zero by 2030? So that was kind of the focus. And the idea is to create another five-year action plan that will get us to that 2030 goal of eliminating severe and fatal crashes in Arlington. Because we know we can't keep doing the same thing over and over again and expect to get different results. So in August last year, we began doing background work, assessing our program. We had a third party do an assessment as well to kind of show us where our strengths and opportunities were. We had two public engagement checkpoints throughout the process, and we worked with our external stakeholders group as well as our interdepartmental stakeholders group to get feedback and answer those questions. What's working? What do we want to double down on? What can we maybe streamline or make more aggressive? And now we're here in September. So throughout that process, I mentioned we had two community input checkpoints. In phase one, we asked, what will it take to get to zero by 2030? In phase two, we had the plan ready for review by the community. And in each of the checkpoints, we did a lot of pop-up engagement because we know we're not reaching everybody when we do an online feedback form. So we really try to be out in the community, go to events where people are, reach the hard-to-reach people. And we had over 1,800 in-person interactions over the course of the whole plan. We had feedback form responses, 300 in the first round, about 130 in the second. And then we had an open house the first round, a walking tour the second. So really tried to create other ways for people to interact beyond just the online feedback form to get our feedback and engage with the community on the plan. In phase one, when we asked what will it take, we had three key questions asking people, we shared our crash data. Here's what we see. But what do you see? What do you experience every day? And the top things we heard in that question were distracted driving, speeding and aggressive driving, and also location-specific issues. Everyone wants to tell you about what's happening within their block. But when we kind of look at that at a high level, it's more speeding, driver-pedestrian conflicts, other roadway design components. We also asked people, you know, what are we doing that you found to be effective? What have you seen? And the things that came to the top were quick build projects. Those are our small scale construction or tactical temporary material projects that help to get improvements out really quickly on our streets. Also the school zone updates and improvements and automated safety enforcement. One of the things that people didn't really know as much about were our behavior change campaigns. So that showed us an area where we could really grow in the future. And we also asked people, you know, Point blank, what will it take to reach zero? And things that we heard were prevent distracted driving, more enforcement and managing speeds. Then in phase two, we brought draft action items and a plan to the community. And overwhelming, we saw a lot of support. Over 80% of people said, I support this to each of the action items. And then where they felt like it needed work, they were able to provide feedback. And things that we heard were, again, more on distracted driving, speed, expedited quick builds, school zone safety, and enforcement. So what's new in this action plan? The 2026 action plan kind of builds on the 2021 foundation that we created. And 2021 was really a bureaucratic plan. We had over, you know, 87 or we had 87 action items, 75 pages. It was it was a lot where we were trying to figure out where our program was going to go in 2026. It was like we knew ourselves. We wanted to streamline it. It's a shorter plan. We have fewer action items, but they're really focused in on some of the things that we have seen over the past five years that we really want to adjust and improve. And it also gave us an opportunity to kind of assess our progress and formalize our program structure. So the program cycle here People have asked, what is Vision Zero? Can you explain it quickly? Can you show it in one place? And this was our attempt to do that, showing this cycle where we identify problem areas, we address them, we track the progress, and then we also engage throughout that entire cycle. And you can see our identify section where we really identify safety issues, that lead to projects and we're transitioning from a reactive program to a more proactive program. You know, we're not just looking at crash data anymore. We're using asset inventory. We're using risk factor information to help us really become more proactive in our safety work and make sure that we are doing, you know, work equitably throughout the entire county and our projects you know, are spanning from anything really small to large scale, making sure that we have interim solutions if we are, you know, on a longer project pipeline to get an improvement in and our tracking. You know, we have things from dashboards that you can look at on a regular basis that are updated frequently to monthly newsletters to annual reports that really have the full detail on everything that we are doing because we found that transparency and accountability really are the cornerstones to the program. It's what's helped us really build support for the program in the community and we just want to make sure all that information, all that we're doing is available and easy for people to find. The action items that we identified in the plan all stemmed from the data that we assess, our crash data, our safety data, as well as the community input. So this was the things that popped outside of that program cycle, the things that are already happening, this all builds on top of it. And some of these are engineering action items. Some of them really focus in on engagement. Some are plan and policy related and others rely more on the behavior change. And we did not have a behavior change category in our last plan. It was something that we continued to see and hear about and wanted to highlight as part of this action plan to show that there are lots of things we can do to address behavior change. And again, it's going to be a lot of different layers because there's no one way to address that. So another add on to this action item, and this was actually taking a note from Arlington Transportation Future, the comprehensive transportation plan, was to not only have progress measures, but also outcome measures. Because our progress measures are going to help us understand what we're doing for each action item, and then the outcomes measure how it's making a difference in safety. So the progress metrics are specific to each action item and the outcome metrics are more broad and they look at crashes and progress overall in Arlington. So this gives us, again, another layer of transparency and accountability. People know what we're working on and how it's impacting safety as we report out on the program. So I wanted to highlight a couple of things, examples. What is this going to look like in practice? And I think something we've heard a lot about today is e-device safety. And again, these are different layers. Each of the different action items we have is going to address this in a different way. So we have an educate e-device user action item. We have an action item to improve the tracking. Because right now, there's no category in the police crash reports to say this is a scooter or an e-bike. we have somebody manually doing that every week. So we want to improve that crash tracking, because that'll give us more information about how to solve the problem. We also have hosting year-round outreach campaigns, which is going to include campaigns around e-devices. We're setting safety policies for new technologies, which this would include, and using data to drive enforcement. So kind of an example of how this is already in progress, we, like I said, do weekly reviews of reported crashes to track trends and needs. We're going through with a fine-tooth comb because we want to have the information at our fingertips when people ask. And when we, you know, ourselves are asking, hey, what did the trend really look like? We also are coordinating with police to do coordinated campaigns. We've got resource pages now. We're working on flyers. We're doing pop-up events. Like I said, we're out at Green Valley Day today talking about this. We're also coordinating with the shared mobility vendors because that's a great place to start. They can have an influence over the ridership. And we're also working with APS and PTAs to get education out. This week we are trying to set up, you know, assemblies with every single middle school to help get on the radar of the students and then as well with the PTAs at their meetings to talk about this, begin a community conversation so people know what they're buying and what's age appropriate. And then we're also trying to coordinate with the Virginia Statewide E-Device Working Group. We're discussing potential county code changes. Each of these different layers is going to make a great impact on this really multifaceted issue. And there's more to come. Another key highlight is speed management. One of the action items is manage speeds and that's through a countywide speed management policy where we will look at what treatments are appropriate for which roadway typologies and what features on roads. And then we're gonna come up with a way to address that systemically throughout the county. Because again, Vision Zero is not about responding to just crashes or speeds, it's looking at risk factors holistically and trying to address that. So that'll be a big top priority coming out of the action plan adoption. We're also looking at reducing speeding and aggressive driving through behavior change campaigns, using data to drive enforcement, helping that inform ACPD's efforts, and then bolstering that partnership with VDOT because VDOT owns a lot of our big arterials that have the highest speeds and volumes in the county. Another focus is student safety. Part of that is formalizing a Safe Routes to School program. We've done Safe Routes to School before. It's just creating this formal group that will continue to increase the transparency, accountability, and voice of Safe Routes to School. And within the first five years of the action plan, or the first five years of Vision Zero, You know, we updated all the school zones in the county, and now we're going to keep layering on improving those through things like speed humps and with the photo speed program. We're also educating young travelers. Like I mentioned, we're in schools, we're working with PTAs. And another goal was to build traffic gardens. So create a space for young people to learn how to, you know, use the rule or operate vehicles, you know, learn the rules of the road in a safe space with their scooters and bikes. And then the last highlight I have is quicker quick builds. That was a huge thing we heard. Let's just get them out sooner. So we're going to try to expedite safety project installation, provide those interim solutions where we have a larger scale project but we want to do something in the short term. We're trying to standardize that proactive safety using different risk models. And we're going to do more before after studies too to communicate how these quick builds are really having an impact. And again, bolstering that VDOT partnership will help us to expedite projects as well on our VDOT-owned roadways. so yeah going forward we have a lot of work to do and we have a lot of ways that we're going to be communicating this and the work spans you know from everything from you know weekly reviews to our annual reports that we'll be doing we're doing projects year-round addressing those safety issues and our engagement will also be year-round a couple things i'll highlight in the engagement section are we are going to be changing the external stakeholder group to more of an ambassador group And that's because the external stakeholder group to this point has really been community organizations, county committees and commissions with representatives. And we've gotten a lot of questions from people over time that's like, how do I get involved? What can I do? And there's no reason. anyone in the community should be able to be a Vision Zero ambassador. So that's why we changed that format. And we'll be using that going forward as our kind of community group that helps to inform the Vision Zero program. And we're also changing our annual feedback program to be focused on our Hindry network. So that way, when we go out to do our Hindry network audits, we have really intentional feedback on each quarter that we're auditing. And that just helps give the community another way to be directly involved with the Vision Zero program. And so yeah, we'll be following this model over the next five years. And then once we get to 2030, we'll reassess. And we will, you know, figure out what we envision Vision Zero to look like going forward. So I'll end on this busy slide, and it's a busy slide because we're very busy people and we got a lot going on. And you can see we've got crews out, you know, at 2 a.m. creating, you know, tactical projects for us. We've got our external stakeholders group who have been wonderful champions throughout this. We've got police out educating the community. We are out doing hydry network audits. We're working with APS, helping them improve school zones. Lots of community outreach events. We're always tabling. And you can see even the littlest change, something like a signal modification requires our crew to be out there. You can see the signal head coming down. No change is an easy change, and a lot of people are involved every single step of the way. You can see us out there with VDOT. You can see us out there with the bike buses. The community's doing a lot of work on this, too. So we recognize that this is a huge effort. We are here for it, and we've got all hands on deck ready to cover the next five years.

Thank you, Ms. Baker, for all the work. And I like that, busy slide, busy people. Lots of work. I appreciate that. It is now over to our public speakers. Mr. Kushner.

Certainly our first public speaker is Audrey Clement, followed by Christopher Conception.

Ms. Clement.

Welcome, members of the board. The county manager, I'm Audrey Clement, running for county board. According to the Vision Zero action plan update, quote, Vision Zero in Arlington County has deployed projects, programs, and strategies to reduce and eliminate fatal and serious roadway crashes, end of quote. There is no mention of bike or shared-use trail crashes, evidently because Vision Zero is not monitoring them. Likewise, Vision Zero's crash analysis dashboard shows a dramatic increase in severe bicycle crashes in 2025, but there is no breakdown of crashes on county bike trails. While micromobility devices are promoted throughout the 2026 draft multimodal transportation plan, there is no discussion of their hazards. This is most concerning since Arlington bike trails are now all but overrun with micro-mobility devices traveling up to 20 miles per hour that represent a hazard to other bikers and pedestrians. Another even more concerning development is the appearance on the trails of e-motos that typically weigh 150 pounds. Google AI reports that, quote, an impact from a 150-pound bike going 20 miles per hour on a pedestrian delivers a highly dangerous amount of kinetic energy capable of causing severe trauma, broken bones, and potentially life-threatening injuries, end of quote. People don't need to walk, run, or bike in fear of their lives on the local bike trail. I have no objection to e-bikes and infrastructure on city streets. I object to the hazards they present on recreational use trails. If Vision Zero were serious about reducing critical bike crashes, it would recommend a reduction in the 20 mile per hour speed limit for micro mobility devices on county bike trails. This is a non-starter with county transportation walks, and as a result, your life is at risk.

Thank you, Ms. Clement. Next speaker. Speaking virtually is Christopher Concepcion. Mr. Concepcion, are you there?

I do not see him in the meeting. We'll give him just a moment.

Going once, going twice. Conversation is now with the board. On this one, turn to Vice Chair Coffey. We'll get a motion on the table and then we will discuss as needed.

Absolutely. I am happy to move that the County Board adopt the Vision Zero Action Plan update 2026 to 2030, attachment A of the staff report.

A second. Thank you. Discussion. I will have just very brief comments and they'll be opening and concluding in one. I like that the report is shorter and that the action items have evolved. I really appreciate that. Certainly we have worked on a number of different sites and you may or may not have heard that the Aurora Highlands Fern Street down south is a piece of concern that in the last few days I've engaged on, but you get so many requests, appreciate both how you have been able to try to field those requests, Everybody feels that the intersection that they care about is the most important, and we have hot spots, but broadly, grateful for the work, eager to continue. My biggest policy insight that I'm always thinking about is the balance between the severity of the crashes and the traffic count, which both factors have to be involved, at least that's my impression, and should be involved. But thank you very much for the work. Look forward to continuing it. I do think it's important to note that the Impair driving is a big drive a big factor here as I think back to the one of the spaces and then I think it's also important that we continue to be ready to invest and so Thank you for the work and I'll yield to colleagues I suppose I went out of order you guys could speak miss coffee and then to your motion Yeah, thank you

I'm gonna try not to say all of my thoughts, but I really, the Vision Zero team has been such a great asset to this county. And I think it's seen because you all are sought out by our community members, which I would say is not a shared experience of every staff division in the county. I think people really want you to come disrupt their street. And I think that this movement, especially adding not just the outputs, but the outcomes into the action plan, I'm really grateful for that. One of the questions I've had continuously and I've raised in budget as well is just do we have the resources? I think 2030 is soon as far as our work plan and our resources and time goes. I think we've laid out an ambitious and rightfully so plan here for us on Vision Zero. do we feel that we are resourced in a way that will allow us to actually tackle all of these goals between now and 2030 successfully?

I'll go ahead and start with answering that question. So, that's a good question. You know, we just went through an extended CIP process and budget. We're going to be coming up on another budget process here very soon.

Every year.

Right. So, for right now, yes, we have the resources we need. If we need more, you'll hear that in the next budget process, the next CIP process. And again, recognizing what you said is that we have a difficult task ahead of us. The plan, the team are ready. We're excited to be involved with that. We're excited to work with the county board members and appreciate your support through the inception of this plan and working with the community as well to reach the goals of Vision Zero by 2030. So yes, for now. You may hear more in the future from us if we think we need some more resources.

Absolutely. And as one board member, I encourage you to tell us in the future when you need more and tell the manager as well when you need more. Because I think that I think it's really important. I think that there are some of this that's easier to do. And there's some of this that's really, really hard. And so which kind of brings me into kind of the next, you know, when we talk about the different interacting layers of what Vision Zero is from the engineering side, but then there's that pesky human behavior side. I'm thinking about, in particular, e-bikes, e-mobility. I do think that this is really the burgeoning area of risk that we're seeing. It shows on the crash data that scooters are rising. It's definitely shown in the correspondence that we receive in terms of the concerns from the community. I feel limited, though, in terms of how we get the information out there. And I just wonder how much more It's great to hear that you've all reached out to APS about doing assemblies and getting in schools. I think that that is a necessary step. But how do we get to parents? And I think even learning that the Emotos require a Class M motorcycle license is news to so many people who don't even really know that they're buying a motorcycle when they buy one. So I think it's a pondering, maybe a semi-rhetorical question, but I really wonder what more we can do because this technology is escalating in what feels like an exponential way, especially this summer.

Yeah, absolutely. And when we have looked at it, the personal device usage has gone up a lot. And we you know, we're not alone. Like this is a regional problem. It's a it's national, national. Yeah. So I think we are looking at what's happened in other places that's been successful. Some people have actually worked, you know, with retailers to make sure that like we're only offering or people are only able to purchase vehicles that are legit. And then, like I said, we're going to be going to PTAs to help get to the parents because that's a really big part of the the whole equation, right? Like they need to understand what they're buying. And, you know, some might not even have any idea that you need that Class M license. So that's going to be the focus of our October campaign that's coming out. And we do run, you know, paid ads as well as like through county communication channels. So we try to do as much as we can to make our campaigns tangible. Like I said, we go out to places, you know, to offer that information and We're going to work with the service providers as well, because we know that while people are buying personal devices, where it really started was these shared devices. So making sure that we're doing everything we can from that standpoint to make sure that people who are using it are of the required age for each device. So it's going to take all these little prongs to tackle it in different ways. And like I said, we're tracking it very closely with ACPD as well, trying to get beyond just what we're getting in the crash reports. Because, you know, they're experiencing it every single day and know a lot about, you know, how to respond. I think some officers were mentioning, you know, they're able to connect individuals with schools and then be able to, like, go and talk to the school and say, you know, we caught these kids. You know, it's not like... It's a way to educate, right? It's a way to bring it up, have the discussion, and ensure that kids understand we just want them to be safe. That's the bottom line.

Yeah, great. Thank you. Dan, did you want to add?

I'll add one point. you know obviously we got to work with the people that are writing the parents everybody involved in that part of the system we also have to work with partner agencies so we've you know worked with parks and rec and have some future plans with parks and rec and nova parks for education on trails we're obviously working with the shared mobility device vendors too on what things that they can do what things they can do to curtail the behaviors that we want to discourage so it really is we understand a comprehensive approach from all these different angles that's needed to really start to make an impact great thank you um well thank you for all you do and recognizing the time of day i will pass along even though i think we could talk about this for the rest of today

Thank you, Vice Chair Coffey. We'll just go down the line, Mr. Spain, and then we'll come to you, Ms. Cunningham and Mr. Carrington. I think your lights were probably on. Yeah.

Different. Again, just echoing everything that our chair, our vice chair has stated. I'm just going to focus briefly on the area within the public safety. So are there any... corridors that you believe based on this report within the next two years that we need perhaps some additional enforcement on and prioritize as we move towards 2030 any at this moment kind of stand out our hindry network so the hindry network will update every three years and we you know use new information to update those corridors but that's where we focus um so i think um

I don't want to highlight any corridors without kind of doing a deeper analysis, I think, at this point. But I will say our VDOT corridors are an area where we are going to continue to focus because that's where a lot of the low-hanging fruit that we would normally have taken care of on our end might not be addressed due to kind of like longer timelines. We're working through the permitting processes. So those are areas where I think we want to kind of you know, expand what we're doing. Yeah.

Yeah. If you have anything that you don't want to you don't want to put a name, you don't want to prioritize the high risk corridors in any order at this time.

Yes, I think I'd need to do a little bit of a little more analysis. But like I said, I think the VDOT corridors usually are standout, you know, like Glebe Road, Langston Boulevard. Those are areas where we want to, you know, progress more aggressively in the near future.

Yeah, no, I think that hopefully, Mr. Spain, that answers your question. But I will add one thing is that we understand that that coordination and that collaboration with VDOT is really critical. And we hope to see some movement and some communication, you know, with VDOT on some of these efforts. And VDOT has expressed an interest to talk to your leadership. Talk to our county manager. And so hopefully we'll be making some inroads to advance discussions and look at opportunities where we can collaborate and tackle some of these difficult issues together. Yeah.

You know, I was a few weeks ago, I was up in my wife and I were up in New York visiting my daughter, our daughter. And, you know, they have a very robust Vision Zero program and it's advertised quite well. And I know we're doing some some marketing. So this question is probably some low hanging fruit. Is there any restrictions with our kind of like our art buses to kind of kind of overlay and advertise and put information about Vision Zero with QR codes and stuff on those county manager? Any restrictions there?

There are not restrictions, and I know that we've used them in the past, and we'll take a look at using those vehicles more often.

Yeah, I think, you know, so when I'm out in the community, and I applaud you again for all your work, You know, we look at a lot of things through our equity lens and, you know, trying to help staff be successful on how do we ensure at every level of our community that folks kind of, as you started at the beginning, Vision Zero is robust, it's very nuanced. A lot of people are like, give me the quick elevator pitch on what Vision Zero is. I wanna know how can I do a better job of taking the message to the community because all of us benefit when folks understand this vision zero. I will tell you, there's probably parts of our community that have no idea what's going on, right? And so I see that as a challenge, not only for me, especially as a board member to really lift it up. And I wanna work as a partner to the extent I can, but wanna stay on message as well. So as we look at performance metrics, right, in the next, six months, 12 months, what should we as a board, what indicators should we perhaps look at to be able to ascertain, hey, things are moving in the right direction? Aside from what you just mentioned about e-bikes and having to go in and do manual things, what are some indicators that we should be looking at specifically, maybe one or two, to see that the needle's being moved in the right direction? Outside of word of mouth.

Yeah, I think I mean, we have our crash data dashboard that's available online and that helps it. There is a tab that shows the trend lines. So I think maybe we can do a little work to revamp that to kind of make it more apparent to to, you know, give you those highlights of, you know, how how are pedestrian crashes trending? Because you also do need to like a plate. apply some filters on it. So like we as staff use it, you know, all the time. And I think it's a great indicator. But I think what you've just highlighted for me is like maybe we can do a better job of making that really easy for the public to do and to have that at your fingertips.

So, yeah, again, I cannot try to create more work. I just with all the policy shaping that we we we do here. Anyway, you can go a mile deep or you can do surface and give me the bottom line up front or give folks a bottom line up front of what we're trying to do here. And I'm just trying to be, you know, helpful to the extent I can to the 243,000 people we have here who, again, you have some folks who are in strong opposition about this program. I don't concur with their approach, but this is a good thing. And, you know, look at cities around the Eastern seaboard and others that, have implemented this DC and doing really good work. And so as we continue to get denser, right, we're gonna need to ensure that folks are informed and know what this means and where to go and not to have to drill down through several landing pages to find the data, right? How can we get it to them swiftly and quickly, the good news and the bad news. E-bikes on our trails and things like that, that's an issue that we're gonna need to address. Just something we talked about earlier, I will tell you, I was at the fair and Mark, y'all did a good, a really good job. You and the team, there was folks with e-bikes all over the place. And I know that's not social main, but they're out there on our parks and in our roads and in our trails. And we gotta get a grip on that because it is dangerous. And so whatever you can do to help in that regard and moving forward, I'm here to work alongside you. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Spain, Ms. Cunningham.

I would echo my colleagues' thanks to you all. You're very, very, very busy, and really grateful for all your work in the community as well. I had a question on page seven of your presentation, if we can pull that back up. I think it showed sort of bike and scooter data. Do we know how e-motos are getting, if there is a crash with an e-moto, is it likely described as a motorcycle or as a bike in that data?

It's typically coming in as a bike. It kind of depends on the vehicle, like how lightweight it is comparatively. But we are looking at all of them. And so we have started cleaning our database and doing these manual checks over the past year. So I have that data for more near term, but I don't have it for the 10-year trend line just because it would take a lot of work to go back and do that at this point. So we are doing that more immediately. But, yeah, I don't have the 10-year trend line.

Yeah, I think that makes sense. So as we go forward, we'll be able to separate motorcycle, bike, and e-moto, which I think is probably making the bikes look worse right here than they may be, but maybe not. OK, that's helpful. In terms of the education outreach, I know this has been in progress for over a year, and some of the campaigns have been out already. Glad to hear the school visits are planned. Could we also think about expanding that to the fifth grade, you know, maybe even at the middle school when they come for their orientation? But just because a lot of families are making plans for how kids get to school between fifth and sixth. And so before they purchase those devices over the summer to have had those conversations with the fifth graders reinforced by the elementary schools that know them might be really helpful. And then likewise, pediatricians, orthopedists, dentists. I remember my two-year-old gave up her pacifier when the dentist was like, you must. And we tried everything else. But we are having conversations. The kids are having those conversations with those providers. And perhaps they could also really re-emphasize, as we do with gun safety, to help support. And then last thing, one observation that I've had as school came back in particular is we have a lot of people that are so new at micromobility that they don't know that bike lanes are one way. And I don't know if we can just get an arrow or maybe even pilot it a little bit getting arrows down because it's usually the youngest users and or foreign travelers that are just confused because they are one way. And the last thing is legislation. I know you guys are working on it, but maybe can you give any thoughts about where the state role may fit and how we can encourage that and how we in particular can support that work because it's urgent.

Yeah, so I would add a little bit. Brian Esty's been monitoring the state group that's been doing the work on that. They've come up with some preliminary recommendations. I think that they're good. They're a start. They're missing some things, too. One of the things we just want to start taking a look at, and I'm not saying it'll be in our package, was this question about parental responsibility when it comes to kids. Because in many cases, I think that we have our staffing levels in the police department right now around 270 police officers. At any given time, we may have 20 out on the street. We have lots of parents. And they can be very effective if they're doing what we need them to do. So we want to encourage that responsibility.

Thank you, Ms. Cunningham. Mr. Karantonis.

Oh, thank you, Mr. Chair. So I'm very excited to see that come to us. And I've been following the outreach and everything. I will... This was a project that pretty much started when I ran for a first time for office. It was during the pandemic. And since then, three things have happened. Number one, we found out that we have a way more sensitive community to general traffic safety than we assumed. I still remember times when we would invite police officers to discuss safety and speeding, et cetera. I would say, oh, you shouldn't bike ever. You take your life in your hands. You shouldn't be doing that. I mean, even highly decorated members of the Arlington County Police Department would give this advice to people. That's today exactly the opposite. We have now police officers who actually take their service bike and show it to people. They show them how to bike safely. The second thing, and actually this finds a footprint here in our operation in the County Board Office. It used to be, Mr. Kushner, I don't think, between 40 and 50% of all questions, complaints, suggestions is about traffic safety. And this is a very big thing. I consider that, it's a pain for us because it's a lot, and for our staff, but on the other side it shows it is political capital or social capital that you have built over this time, and this is extremely important. The second thing is we never had a population in general, a community, that was so willing to give up to understand that we need a culture change. When I started my service here, the number of people, measured number of people who would respect a beacon was 41%. And as I understand it today, it's 75%. So that says something, right, about Vision Zero actually working. The third thing is nobody in 2020 We were, I mean, there was like, you know, this cynical smile saying, oh, yeah, Vision Zero, right, you will get there, I know. Oh, yeah. Today, it's actually something that people are taking very, very seriously. it has become a credible goal of policy. And this is also because of everything that you've done and what you're working on. So one thing that I wanted to, one of the documents that I believe is for me absolutely critical in all this, besides the vision document about what happens next, is the multi-modal safety engineering toolbox. So, this is basically our inventory of all the devices and tools and things that we do. I want to ask you two things. Number one, is there anything that you see that should be maturing in our horizon that should be incorporated in this toolbox and it's not yet there? I will give you an example. For example, we don't talk too much about pedestrian zones. pedestrian-only zones. We don't talk too much about types of signage that are, for example, responsive to speeding. If you speed, the light turns red, et cetera. We still are not, I mean, there are certain things that we see in other places, but we haven't adopted here. Is there any thinking of going there or graduating towards a more complete toolbox?

Absolutely. And that's what the pilot program is for. So every time we would like to try something that is either atypical to the toolbox or it's something that's not in there, we use the pilot process as a way to introduce it. And that involves communicating out that this project is coming in. We collect before data. We install the project. We then collect after data and community input. And then we use all of that feedback and data combined to make a decision on, How does this get incorporated into our toolbox or into our daily project delivery? It gives us a chance to vet it and also make sure the community has a chance to vet it. The things that you just mentioned are great candidates for potential pilots in the future. I think it just establishes that way to bring something new. And for example, we just did a leading through interval pilot, which it's really wonky, but it's like a longer leading pedestrian interval. And it gave us the capacity to check it out because not many people are doing it in the US. We don't have a lot of data on it. So we're able to test it here. And it just shows how if there's something we want to try out, we can and we will. And we'll make sure that it's implemented safely and with the community brought along too.

The second question is, what is the, how would you say, so from everything that you are listing for the major drivers, the major vectors, I always try to find is street design part of that? In the toolbox, there are some street design elements. For example, chicanes, they are named there. Hardening left turns, they're named there. We have amazing results where we did these things. We have great results and they have been opposed in the past and now they are demanded. So where do you see street design going from here? Should we focus more on counting street design? I consider the slowdown campaign as a huge thing, and I know that it's a function not only of behavior but also of design. So how do we want to go ahead? I mean, you do the quick builds and we learn from the quick builds. So do we see enough of translation into street design that's hard built?

Yeah, I think the quick builds is a way to chip away at old roadway design, right? It's a way to kind of retrofit it to meet, you know, new needs or, you know, new best practices. So that helps us to kind of take what is already in the built environment and, you know, improve, you know, and enhance the safety. I don't know, Dan, if you want to talk to larger design.

Yeah, I mean, this is an excellent question. And I will just recognize that, you know, our goal is in five years. So, you know, a lot of what we're doing are those quick builds, those things where we're going to get a quick return on investment. But, yes, in the big picture, we want to see our capital projects you know, embrace more innovative designs and we're starting to do that. We want to see, you know, some of the efforts once we conclude the multimodal transportation plan. We'll see some efforts that will help advance some of those concepts in terms of how we set priorities and mode and how we look at more detailed operational or design elements of our streets. So I think these are things that are on the horizon as part of both our Vision Zero effort and our multimodal transportation plan. And it's something that we're always looking at. You know, we're frequently updating some of our very core important standards frequently, such as our marking standards. You know, that was one of the first elements that we updated to put in a lot of what you see in terms of the protected bike lanes, the green markings on the streets. And, you know, open to considering other things like Board Member Cunningham mentioned with the arrows and things like that. Some of those things are important design baselines, but we have to recognize, yes, they have to be nimble as well. So, there are things that we recognize are continuously changing and things we have to look to some of the new plans and policies that we're putting in place that will assure kind of the change for, you know, the next projects that come up.

Right. One thing that we made a lot of progress, by the way, and not everybody sees that immediately, is access to and from public transit is now a lot, a lot safer. And I would like to flag it without wanting to discuss it and to belabor it more. Our sensitivity to people with disabilities and the devices they use has increased and what we built is actually far friendlier than what we had before. And this is also a good segue because we'll have a population who will be needing this kind of devices in the future in order to be able to have a meaningful mobility. And so thank you for that.

so i i yield thank you mr carantonis thank you colleagues each of you for the questions for the care and thank you to the two of you there are instances where i think that you guys are more diplomatic than i could ever hope to be as a local politician in how you have to navigate different circumstances both seeing through to the results that need to keep people safe but also mindful that the data has to be salient and drive not just the anecdotal stories which are personal and important to everyone. The question is on Ms. Coffey's, Vice Chair Coffey's motion seconded by Mr. Spain. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Passes 5-0, I believe. Yes, passes 5-0. Mr. Kushner, is there anything else to come before the board today? No additional items. We are recessed until Tuesday at three o'clock. Do I have that right, Vice Chair Coffey? Thank you, goodness gracious. I finally got that right. We're recessed. Thanks, colleagues.