Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everybody. The 03/24/2026, Loudoun County Planning Commission work session and public hearing will now come to order. And as is our custom, let's stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. All right, commissioners, we have minutes from the 02/24/2026 public hearing to approve and review. If you have had a chance to review them, I'll accept the motion.

So moved.

Second.

Motion to approve made by Commissioner Miller, seconded by Commissioner Jasper. Any discussion on the motion? No? Okay. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? That motion will pass eight zero one with Commissioner Frank absent for the vote. Next up, we have disclosures, and I will start to my right. If you have any disclosures, please turn your light on. Commissioner Jasper.

I met yesterday. I met with Bill Junda and Ernest Brown on the Tuscarora Crossing project. And then on Monday, March 16, I met with supervisor Takroni and the applicant team on the Leesburg Compressor Station.

Alright. Thank you. Commissioner Combs.

Thank you, mister chair. Today, I had a conversation with Bill Junda regarding the Tuscarora Land Bay four application before us tonight.

Okay. Commissioner Miller.

On March 12, I had a conversation with Ernie Brown regarding the Tuscarora Land Bay application.

Commissioner Madre.

I have quite a few here. On March 2, met with the applicant team from Happy Pass. On Wednesday, March 11, I met with Mike Romeo and the applicant team from Foxgate mixed use application. On twelfth no. Not twelfth.

Thirteenth, I met with SDC Ashburn representative and the applicant. On March 17, I met with Bill Jinder and Ernie Brown regarding the Tuscarora Crossing. And on March 10, I met with South Riding Intergenerational Property and its applicant team. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Myers.

I met with Friday virtually with Bill Junda regarding the Tuscarora application for the county.

Thank you. For myself, on March 16, I met with Dominion applicant regarding the Barrister substation application tonight. On March 16, I met with Bill Junda and Ernie Brown regarding the Tuscarora Land Bay d application. And today I met with Ron Meyer about the SDC Ashburn one application and toward a data center under construction. And that is all for myself. Alright, folks. We're gonna start tonight with the work session item first and then after completion of that, we will move to the public hearing agenda. So with that, the first item we have is for work session is LEGI 2024Dash59 Novak Demo substation commission permit 2024Dash10.

Good evening. My name is Erin Fisher with the Department of Planning and Zoning. I'm here today to present the application for Novak Demos Sub Station. As you know, the subject property is located at the northwest corner of the intersection of Belmont Ridge Road and Arcola Mills Drive and is zoned industrial park under the Loudoun County zoning ordinance. The application is for a standalone commission permit to establish a public utility on approximately eight acres of the subject site.

On the screen, you see the proposed site layout you're familiar with. When the application was originally heard by the Planning Commission in December, screening consisted of a 12 foot tall screen wall and enhanced vegetative screening. At the February work session, the applicant added berming along both road frontages, increased the height of the screen wall to 16 feet, and placed the wall on the berm along our Cola Mills Drive. A stone masonry facade was also proposed. Following the February work session, the applicant revised the substation screening measures in response to the commission's request for improved screening of the interior of the site to protect views from southbound Belmont Ridge Road, eastbound Arcola Mills Drive, and the Evermont Trace neighborhood to the north of the site.

The applicant expanded the 16 foot tall screen wall to enclose the entire substation and included a graphic of what the wall will look like, as you see on the screen. And additionally proposed to dedicate a tree conservation easement to the county for the forested areas flanking the north side of the substation. After the packet was published last week, staff received feedback from the county attorney's office that it would be best for this commitment to include a time frame for dedication. The plat was resubmitted yesterday and included a commitment to dedicate the easement prior to final site plan approval. Staff finds the application updates consistent with 2019 general plan policies and supports a planning commission recommendation of approval of the commission permit.

Staff is happy to answer any questions.

Alright. Any questions for staff?

Just a clarification, please.

Commissioner Myers.

So so now the entire surrounding is gonna be the 16 feet, not just partials of it. Correct?

The entire perimeter of the substation. Correct.

Thank you.

Any other questions for staff? Commissioner Jasper.

I haven't had a chance. I know I we got some new information today. The proffers include the timing that staff request. I'm just asking for confirmation for dedication of the TCA easement.

That is now included. Okay. Thank you.

Vice chair Monterey.

There was like some of the design elements that proffered like how the wall is going to look like. Is is that thing changed, or is it the same design goes around?

The applicant can describe this in more detail, but it's similar to the wall design that the commission selected at the last work session, but it's more specialized for substations.

Okay.

Does the applicant have a presentation?

We do. I need to get a clicker though, I think, from over here. Mr. Chair, members of the commission, I'm Gifford Hampshire with the law firm of Blankenship in Keith. I represent NOVAC.

And with me today in the audience here is Arthur Singletary, who is the Vice President of Civil Engineering. To my right is Jake Holmes, is an engineer with NOVAC. And to his right is Matthew McElhaney of Urban, also an engineer. As staff said, we've been before you a couple times and we hope that we've been responsive to the concerns of the commission. Just as a little bit of background, we again were before you on December 18.

As Ms. Fisher said, the concern there at the eighteenth was the view from our Carla Mills Drive and the fact that the fence could be higher and we raised the fence to from 12 to 16 feet. And we also put it on a berm which rose the effective height to 20 feet along Arcola Mills Drive. At the February 12 work session, the commission was concerned that fence was not all the way around the station and we've responded, as Ms. Fisher said, to that concern.

I don't think I need to go through all of these slides, but here's one that shows you where the property is located within the rezoning for 2020. Here's a slide that shows you in itemized form what we think we have done to make the character, location and extent consistent, substantially consistent with the comprehensive plan as Ms. Fisher was talking, including the 10 feet wide evergreen strip in addition to the road the corridor the Type two road corridor buffer. But most significantly for tonight is to increase the size of the fence. And also you'll see in a second, we actually have two fences along the Arcola Mills Drive location.

In response to a question a second ago, here's what the fence will look like. In response to that question, it had to be a little bit different in terms of material because it's now going to be serving as a security fence in addition to a screening fence And it doesn't make sense to have different materials between the two. And so it has to be a non conductive material. But this is what it will look like. This is a slide that shows you in red graphically that the fence will go all the way around the substation.

Here's a slide that shows you the tree conservation areas that are not proffered, the ones that are closest in next to the risk are buffer. Those were not proffered in the 2020 rezoning, but we are effectively proffering them now pursuant to the note Ms. Fisher described that would require dedication to the county prior to site plan approval. Here's the view that you've seen before. This is the view, the cross section from Arcola Mills Drive, which shows you the 16 foot fence on top of the wall with the evergreens and deciduous trees there on the other side that will block everything but the H structures from Arcola Mill Drive.

Here's a view of five years after the planting, what we expect the wall to look like and the trees to look like, except that we don't have the right color there so you have to use your imagination a little bit to see the beige color likewise here. Here's the view from Evermont Trace. The commission's concern on February 12 was we didn't have the screening wall from this view. And so the wall is there along with that 1,000 foot distance, if you will, to help screen the impact of the station from the view from Evermont Trace. Here's a view that is responsive.

I believe it was Commissioner Meyer's concern about the view from Belmont Ridge Road going towards our Cullen Mills Drive. And when we didn't have the fence going all the way around, there was a gap perhaps through which one could see the substation that has been closed up. And in addition to that, with that fence going all the way around, in addition to that, you see the tree preservation that we're committed to. So that should be what the view will look like as one goes to the believe it's south on Belmont Ridge Road. So that's that's our presentation and we're happy to answer any questions.

Thank you. Any questions for the applicants? No? Okay. Commissioner Jasper, this is in the Lower District.

So I move that the planning commission approved Legi 2024 Dash 0059 Novak Demo Substation CMPT 2024 Dash 0010 subject to the commission permit plat dated 03/23/2026 based on the findings for approval as provided as attachment two to the 03/24/2026 planning commission work session memorandum and forward it to the board of supervisors for ratification.

K. Motion made by commissioner Jasper, seconded by commissioner Myers. Commissioner Jasper, do you have an opening?

I I would just wanna thank the team for working with us. I mean, I think this is for us one of the best examples we've seen about screening a substation. And, you know, we've all been kind of working on trying to get these better screened from residential communities and vistas. And so thank you.

Okay. Any other commissioners' comments?

I just wanna echo the same comments. I really appreciate you guys taking into the comments I made about Bell Mountain Ridge Road. I do appreciate that. And I think that this is going to be a much better look for that roadway than what was first here. So I do appreciate you doing that.

Any other comments? No. Commissioner Jasper, have a closing?

No. Okay.

So we have a motion to approve. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? That motion will carry eight zero one with Commissioner Frank absent for the vote. Thank you very much.

All right.

Go ahead. Yep.

As we prepare for the next item, I did want to mention that Erin Fisher has accepted a promotion in DTCI. So her last day with LUR will be on April 7. So do appreciate her time. Congratulations. Always great to keep someone in the county and we have a friend in the DTI.

So Why don't we see other departments sending people coming over to planning? I haven't noticed that too much.

Well,

really seems like our folks leave. Alright. So with that, the, the work session is, now adjourned and, the public hearing will now come to order. Members of the public who wish to comment on any item on the public hearing legislative agenda may do so. If you are in the boardroom, please fill out a speaker slip and hand it to the assistant deputy clerk of the Planning Commission at the end of the dais to my left.

If you are participating electronically, please call the number at the bottom of the screen. If you signed up to speak that leadership company's team has that working Written comments may be submitted to the assistant deputy clerk who will make copies for the planning commissioners. The commission may vote on applications tonight and send its recommendation to the board of supervisors or may forward the item to work session for further consideration before taking a final vote. Our procedure for tonight's public hearing is as follows. Ten minutes staff presentation followed by commissioners questions to staff.

Commissioners will be given three minutes to ask questions. Ten minute applicant presentation. Commissioners will be given three minutes to ask questions of the applicant. Hearing is then opened for public comment, three minutes for each speaker. After everyone has had a chance to speak, the hearing is closed. The applicant and staff will have an opportunity to provide any responses to public comment. Finally, there will be a motion, deliberation, and vote by the commission. The maker of the motion will have three minutes for opening and closing remarks. Other commissioners will be given three minutes to speak on the motion. And with that, our our first item is Allegi twenty twenty five dash 13 request for withdrawal of land belonging to Thomas L.

And Mary F. Francis from the new Bluemont Agriculture and Forest Hall district.

Is the meeting up on the computer, Webex?

There's Webex.

There's no Webex? There's no Webex.

Good evening, chair Keers and commissioners. I'm Rachel Evenchuk with department of planning and zoning presenting a leggy twenty twenty five double o thirteen Francis early withdrawal of land from the new Bluemont Agricultural And Forest District. The applicant is requesting the withdrawal of 39.23 acres from this district, which has a 20 acre minimum subdivision and is due to next expire on 06/01/2028. The owner wishes to withdraw and place this parcel and an adjoining parcel that they own that is not enrolled in the AFD program in a conservation easement. Early withdrawal is permitted under Virginia code section fifteen two point forty three fourteen for good and reasonable costs.

The property is located west of the town of Round Hill. Its withdrawal will not affect the eligibility of any other parcels in the new Bluemont AFD. The parcel is vacant with agricultural and forestry uses on the North side of Route 7. At the planning commission briefing on March 12, there was a request to understand the terms of the draft conservation easement. Provisions of the draft easement include restrictions on boundary line adjustments, limits on the total ground area to 21,400 square feet, prohibits industrial uses, and limits commercial activity, and requires a forestry or farm plan for such activity that occurs on the property.

The agricultural district advisory committee was scheduled four times to meet and was unable to reach a quorum. Virginia code does not Virginia code requests that the a deck make a recommendation to the board, but it is not required. Staff supports a commission recommendation of approval for the early withdrawal request. That completes my presentation.

Thank you. Any questions for staff? No. Does the applicant have a presentation?

Press the button.

And if you could state your name for the record as Yes.

This is Jack Hansen here with Moise Hansen Overson. And I'm here on behalf of Thomas and Mary Francis as trustees as the owner. Just in case you have any questions, don't want to belabor this point. I'm sure you have other things to attend to. But I will say that the property the conservation easement project is well along the way. We've pretty much worked out most issues with Land Trust of Virginia and as well as as so it's pretty much this is kind of the last step we need to move forward with conserving the property as well as the 10 acre property next to it. And this is just need to unlike most projects, this is not a request to take it out so that we could develop it. It's a request to take it out so that we can serve it

for perpetual. Alright. Thank you. Any questions for the applicants? Commissioner Combs.

Just quickly. Jack, quick question for you. In terms of sequencing removal from the AFD is just a gate that that has to be passed through it. And then in order for the property to become eligible for easement, is that

Yes. Really, because of the the nature of it and the the goal of the landowner to, preserve land in in perpetuity, as well as apply for the state tax benefits, the presence of the open space agreements could adversely impact his conservation easement transaction. And so the goal is always to take it out so that they can really get the full benefit of their easement.

Got it. Okay.

Thank you, Jack.

Commissioner Myers.

I just have a quick question. It's not particularly just about this application, but knowing that you do this for the getting it towards that endpoint. When this says limited commercial activity, what does that mean? I mean, does it mean you can do bed and breakfasts? You can do breweries. You can do those type of things, or does it limit that type of commercial what what does it mean by limited commercial activity?

So it depends It's

a broader question, I realize, than just this

application. Sure.

It it will typically name a section his section two, point nine will lay out the specific uses that are permitted, in this easement. So limited to agricultural uses, home occupation uses, in this case, been breakfast, wineries, and and breweries in this easement would be prohibited. Although they could make they could make wine, but they could not sell it like an active winery with tastings and on it. So this easement would prohibit that that use. So, each easement obviously varies, but in this instance, a winery use would not be one of the permitted uses.

Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that explanation. Any other questions?

No. Okay. We'll open up the public hearing for this item. Do we have anybody signed up or online for this? No? Would anybody in the room like to speak to this application? No? Okay. Public hearing is now closed. This is in the Catoctin District. Commissioner Miller, I'll go to you for a motion.

Thank you. I move the Planning Commission recommend the Board of Supervisors approve the request to withdraw 39.23 acres Pin6Ten-thirtyFive-nine402 from the new Bluemont Agricultural and Forest Hill District provided as attachments one to the 03/24/2026 Planning Commission public hearing staff report because such withdrawal is found to be good and reasonable cause since the early withdrawal would facilitate the establishment of a conservation easement on the property. Second.

Motion made by Commissioner Miller, seconded by Vice Chair Matarelli. Commissioner Miller, do you have an opening?

I do. I can appreciate that this there might be some concern here with regard to this property comes out of the Forest Hill District and then the applicant then goes and doesn't put in conservation easement and goes and does something with it. It is my understanding that by having this particular representative representing them, it is unlikely that that would be the case. You don't hire someone that does this for a full time every day just what she does. And with the Land Trust of Virginia, if you have intention, your intention is otherwise.

So given that, I think it's relatively safe bet that this is going to continue to be in the conservation easement. And for the reasons why you have to bring it out in order to put a conservation easement first, I get it. This is a tax and a math issue that we unfortunately have to use our best judgment with. In this case, I believe that to be a fair assessment. Thank you.

Any other discussion on the motion? No? Oh, Commissioner Jesper.

It's not in discussion. I just wanna thank Rachel and the team for sharing the draft conservation easement with me. It's very helpful to be able to review it. So I'm I appreciate that this has happened now. I look forward to going forward.

Alright. Thank you. Anybody else? Commissioner Miller, you have a closing?

I'm good.

Okay. We have a motion to approve made by commissioner Miller, seconded by vice chair Moderetti. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? That motion will carry eight zero one commissioner Frank absent for the vote. Good luck. Thank you very much. Alright. Our next item, Legi twenty twenty five dash 20, Tuscarora Land Bay 4 special exception twenty twenty five dash 36.

Good evening. My name is Tess Lynch with the Department of Planning and Zoning here to present the application for Tuscarora Land Bay 4. As of 5PM tonight, staff has not received any public comments regarding the application. Subject property is 15 acres. It is bounded by Cross Trail Boulevard to the South, Natchez Drive to the West, and the Washington And Old Dominion Trail to the East.

Land use to the north, east, and west is residential and to the south is industrial. The site is located within the Leesburg JLMA employment place type in the Leesburg Election District. It is zoned PDH 4. In 2015, the Board approved a rezoning of two fifty acres to develop residential, commercial and industrial uses. In 2019, the Board approved a request to amend the proper statement and concept development plan to redesign Land Bay 4 to be used for public, civic, school or open space uses.

The applicant is proposing a special exception to permit the construction of a government building with warehouse and office facilities. Present on screen is an annotated specs plat. The building footprint is shown in blue, parking and circulation in orange, open space in green hatching, and TCA in yellow. The speckled area to the right of the building is the loading area. The general plan supports a range of light and general industrial uses in this place type and anticipates extensive buffering and preservation of tree cover to shield industrial uses from residential uses nearby.

Conditions have been recommended to address transportation infrastructure, lighting, trees and plantings, architectural design, and storm water management. A condition has also been recommended to ensure substantial conformance with the elevations shown on screen. Present on screen are additional illustrative elevations. The property was originally intended for civic use, potentially an elementary school. A community meeting was held in July 2025 and an additional meeting is planned for this April.

And land use in the area includes residential industrial. As condition, the proposal is consistent with the general plan and staff supports a recommendation of approval.

All right. Any questions for staff? Questions? No? All right. Does the applicant have a presentation?

Good evening. My name is Bill Junda. I'm a civil engineer with Gordon representing Loudoun County Department of General Services on this project. With me is Ernie Brown, the director of Department of General Services. We also have Aaron Steele with Grove Slate, our traffic engineer, if there's any questions related to traffic.

I won't repeat a lot of the great information that staff shared on this project, location. I will flip to this zoning concept plan amendment sheet from the latest rezoning at Tuscarora Crossing. This identifies Lambay 4 as a proffered civic public use school site. This site has always been originally since the original 2012 zoning to be an elementary school. Until about two years ago, Loudoun County Public Schools completed a planning exercise and recognized that they no longer planned for or needed an elementary school in this planning area or any other type of school.

And so they released this property back to Loudoun County. So Department of General Services identified a specific need for a project on this property. So we're before you today for a special exception for this government warehouse use for Department of General Services. This is gonna be their headquarter facility. And so the types of things that will occur at this building, so this is like the staging area for maintenance of all the county facilities.

So you think of all the buildings that the county either owns or leases or maintains throughout the entire county, And things like light bulbs and air filters and all those types of things that it takes to maintain a property, they would all be stored here. County technicians would come in in the morning, pick up whatever they need to maintain facilities elsewhere throughout the county and go about their day. Loudoun County Department of General Services is also responsible for maintaining the library of record for Loudoun. And so those those records will be stored in this facility. Department of General Services staff will also be housed here.

There will be no on-site like vehicle outdoor maintenance, equipment maintenance, anything like that that occurs outside. There's no outdoor storage. The proposal is approximately a point to FAR, so pretty significantly less than what would be permitted otherwise by right. As staff already identified, there are no outstanding staff issues. We just wanted to highlight briefly some of the things that we're committing to a pretty significant open space in excess of 30%, 1.65 acres of tree conservation area strategically placed around the property.

We have the LID stormwater commitment. Really important that we agreed to a maximum height of our light fixtures, both pole mounted and building mounted at 14 feet of height to make sure that we have as little light pollution as possible spilling off of the site. We've agreed to the lead silver green building commitment, and we're gonna have EV charging stations at the facility as well. So when we were looking at designing the site, one of the things we really focused on was the visibility and the buffering and the impacts to our neighbors. And so along Notchaz Drive, this is a local VDOT road.

The zoning ordinance requires street trees for buffering, is honestly quite minimal. It's a one tree over 50 feet. It doesn't really do a whole lot for buffering. So we offered up an enhanced type two road corridor buffer, which adds significantly more landscaping, shrubs, evergreens beyond the canopy trees. Then along the back adjacent to Kinkade Forest, we have from there was a originally with the original zoning, a 25 foot tree conservation area that was proffered.

We are maintaining that. But in on in addition to that, we are layering in another 25 feet of landscape buffer enhanced type two buffer with additional evergreens adjacent to that tree conservation area to give us a minimum of people making committed decision to So we will have make a 100 feet of continuous either natural vegetation a or new buffering and fencing to provide a complete opaque screen to the properties to the rear. Additionally, we have two areas of tree conservation area that further buffer the site both to the Kinkade Forest and to the Tuscarora Crossing HOAs. Those are what add up to the 1.65 acres of TCA, and those are identified on the left side in the upper right corner. It's of note that the property has only really decent trees worth saving in this back corner, which is why we identified that area with staff.

I wanted to talk quickly about the traffic impacts of this project. As we noted, the project was previously slated to be an elementary school. An elementary school with nine sixty students has a weekday trip approximately 2,200 vehicle trips per day. This proposed warehouse use, and we assume that 49% of the building would be office, which is the highest possible trip generator. The office will actually be less than that, but we assess assess it at the highest possible office rate.

We came up with about 1,236 vehicle trips per day, so a 43% reduction below what the elementary school would have generated and more importantly, 546 fewer AM trips. There is a Tuscarora crossing overall proffer for signals at at the Cross Trail or, yeah, Cross Trail Boulevard and our Natchez Drive intersection. The Loudoun County Department of General Services as accepting this property is not responsible for putting in those signals. But when that signal is triggered, overall developer will put those in. We did have a community meeting with the HOA and their residents last summer.

There was quite a bit of good feedback that they gave us regarding the visibility of the building and traffic. Those were their biggest concerns. So they were the residents were concerned that there could potentially be some cut through traffic through their neighborhood with department and county department employees leaving and exiting through their neighborhood rather than coming right right back out to Crosstalk Boulevard. So we are agreeing to a condition of approval to limit and restrict right turns out of the facility so that there is no cut through traffic. The original design that we we showed the HOA, the building and the parking were a lot closer to the road.

So we agreed to also push the building back, and we removed some of the parking from the front of the facility. So you you see a larger green space in between the two entrances. And we are working to set up a follow-up meeting with both the Tuscarora Crossing HOA as well as the Kinkade Forest HOA. It's tentatively scheduled for next week on the thirty first, although we're still waiting on some confirmation. So it might slip to sometime in April and it'll be held here in the Dulles Room.

Staff already presented the building elevations. These are predesigned elevations that the developer gave to us to use for this application. Loudoun County is currently putting together the RFP for a design build project. So the, contractor will be responsible for designing and constructing this facility in conformance with these elevations. And this is the rear elevation. This shows the typical flex warehouse loading docks. One thing of note, this shows all of the loading docks at dock bay height at four feet of height. There will likely be some of these bays that are down at ground level height as well so that equipment can be driven into the facility as well. And with that, happy to answer any questions that you may have.

Alright. Thank you. Questions for the applicants? Commissioner Barnes.

Yes, sir.

If you get your mic there.

It'd about I was weak, I guess. A question I have go to the last picture. Yeah. That one. Which side this loading zone faces? Is is it toward the whether residential area is or is it in the front?

So it faces to the right on this image. So it faces the W And OD Trail and there is a 25 foot tree conservation area separating the trail from the loading dock. But this does not face any of the residential to the north or

to It's the

it's not toward the residential area?

No. It's not. No. Okay. So and I had another question. How many parking spaces you're gonna have? So the the zoning ordinance has a minimum and a maximum number of spaces for this type of use. It's the range is minimum of two per thousand to a maximum of four per thousand. Four per thousand would would allow us to build about 520 parking spaces. Right now, we're proposing somewhere in the 480 range, although that hasn't been final designed yet.

How many folks do you think gonna be working there? How how many people should be will be working there?

So good evening. Ernie Brown, director general services. So department general services has based on this current budget that has passed about 226 employees. Yes, sir.

So they're gonna be all offices there. Plus the loading zone and storage.

Yes. There'll be about approximately 50,000 square feet for offices, and then the the the bulk of it is 80,000 square feet is warehouses. Yeah.

How the traffic coming off of those employees come are gonna affect the Cross Trail? That's where they're go from. Right? Coming on the Cross Trail? Correct. So what we've limited is that the the the folks that come to the county facility can't turn right and go through the community. They have to come back out to Cross Cross Trail Boulevard right at that intersection.

Cross Trail. Right? Yes. Is it four lane?

Cross Trail Boulevard, yes, it's four lanes.

Okay. Thank you. I'll have other questions later on. Thank you right now.

K. Commissioner Jesper.

Okay. First of all, thank you for coming tonight and for speaking with me yesterday. I there's some questions I have. Most of them you've heard before. I'm gonna start with you said you mentioned that you had a community meeting. And one of the things I was wondering because we talked about it a bit, was there any concern by the community expressed about the loss of civic use of the space? Because you didn't mention it in your presentation.

So it's our understanding that the residents were aware that this was slated for a public civic school site. I think some residents were hoping that it was going to stay open space park, but they understood that this use fit into the list of approved uses for civic public sites.

Okay. Maybe somebody will go back to that. There you know, we talked about this yesterday. There are no plantings on the concept plan that you provided in the parking lot. Does the facility standard manual require such plantings?

So the the zoning ordinance requires parking lot landscaping, peripheral parking lot landscaping around the parking lot, and that's in addition to all the perimeter buffers and tree conservation areas.

So it's just perimeter and not within the

parking Within it. So there's interior parking lot

and then there's peripheral parking lot around. And somewhere in the proffers, you've agreed to to those standards. I just wanna make sure we're not in a little funny space where because this is a county building, these standards might not apply.

So those are the requirements. There's no need to memorialize them. They're required as the baseline. But the other thing that staff recommend is a condition for the overall tree canopy across the site. That's to reduce the impacts from heat island effect and Yep. And and impervious surface has shown. So the requirement is 10% of the site b tree canopy, and staff are recommending a condition for 15%, which can be met by buffering or tree conservation, but it's to address that specifically. Okay.

We talked a little bit about the perimeter fence appearance, and I see no representation of what that will look like. But, you know, we talked about maybe having some image. So when, you know, what is proposed at least in the language of the report is a, you know, the kind of fence we're trying to kill every place else, which is a, you know, steel wire fence with interlaced with plastic. I'm just wondering if this is something that I mean, I think we I'll speak only for myself, but I would hope that the applicant would be open to doing a better job of screening the facility.

Sorry. So we talked about different fence types, and I think that because there is over a 100 feet of vegetation between where that fence is is and the Kincaid Forest neighborhood to the rear, we hadn't until last night hadn't focused on the material of that fence. I think it's something we can continue to talk about though.

And and as you know, my my request for today, I know it wasn't much notice was to kind of show us what it would look like, you know, so that we understand how much of that fence will be visible from various parts of the site.

Commissioner Jasper, your time is

up. Okay. Thanks.

We're not there. Commissioner Combs?

Thank you, mister chair. Bill, we spoke briefly about lighting and the 14 foot maximum height for any lighting fixture, external lighting fixture, does that apply also to building mounted lighting fixtures as well? Yes, it does. Okay. And then you're probably much more familiar with this than I am and maybe staff can help too.

But I know we spent a lot of time in the zoning ordinance rewrite on lighting and section seven development standards. And there's some pretty robust protections in there for the light spillage over property, full cast, full coverage, downward cast, all sorts of things like that. But are there any exceptions to that or exemptions from those requirements because this is a government building? Building? This use is treated

like any other use. It doesn't matter who the entity is that's occupying it. So we will have to do a photometric plan at the time of site plan and show that we don't have any spillage of light beyond the property line.

Okay. Thank you.

Vice chair moderating.

Thank you, mister chair. I have few questions in here. Let me start with the operational hours. This is going to be the external essential area. So do you have, like, a office hours, eight to six, nine to five? Or because this is more like a maintenance building too, are you expecting vehicles into late night?

So the typical operations of this building will be 08:30 to five like any other, government facility. The only caveat to that is that since this is department general services command center operation center for things like emergencies, if there was, a snow event, like, staff would have to come in and and operate switchboards and and coordinate the county's response to those emergencies. But it this isn't like you're not gonna see like dump trucks and salt trucks coming in here. That's not what this facility is for. But there will be staff that could come in on a weekend or at night in an emergency situation. So staff. That would not be the norm.

Thank you, Bill. So staff, would you like to put some kind of a language around this thing like this only in emergencies or you rather leave it open?

If it is the will of the commission, there could be a condition added to specify memorialize what was just said, just that general operations are from 08:30 to five absent like an emergency operations need.

Thank you. Thank you, Allison. Second one, lighting, I think Eric just covered it. So the third one, I I never seen somebody actually out of a building stopping the free right turn. I thought it's always you can you can stop prevent people from going left, but can you do that too? I haven't seen an example so far.

You can. I mean, we're gonna we're gonna put signage in. You can also shape the curb to to discourage people. Obviously, someone could still drive around it if they were so inclined, but you can shape the curb to restrict those right turns.

I don't want incoming traffic to come in though if you do that. In terms of vehicles, I know I asked you last time, you said there are no 18 wheel trucks, but can we expect how big your trucks can get? I know Ernie said sometime box trucks, but how big they can get?

I know

if we have a size on the box trucks.

So the box trucks that we use and you've seen them, they're usually 26 foot box trucks. That's the largest and like Eureka, which is our contractor that handles our surplus and going around to all the different county facilities and collecting that. That's the largest size that we'd see equivalent to a 26 foot box truck. We have smaller ones as well. But that's I mean, I've been the Director of General Services for over ten years, eleven years, and I've never seen an 18 wheeler come into our facilities. We just don't have that.

Okay. Thank you. My last question is, I asked about the community input. So literally the input that you got, I I been told it was not a dedicated meeting with the HOA rather. Just you piggyback on another call to get the input. So I don't I don't believe you guys have a still a a proper community outreach on this particular neighborhood. So I know you guys are going to have one soon, but I I I believe this is a little premature right now. I almost feel like if we are going into this thing without having no community input into this building. So

So if I could add some context to that meeting, the meeting was specifically for our project with the community because the overall developer was there and is was also processing a separate application for a substation. That became part of the discussion as well, but that was not the intent. They were invited specifically for this project, and that's what they came to speak about.

Good. Thank you.

Commissioner Myers.

Yeah. I have, two questions. I'm not sure if it's for the left hand side of the table or the right hand side of the table. But my first question is, did we look at any other uses for this property, or

did we just

decide, you all need a home. Let's give you a home. I mean, did the county do any search words like, hey. You know, we we wanna try to do something where we're talking about partnerships for ADU programs. Maybe this is a partnership where we could do some innovative housing here. Did they look at I mean, I'm looking at the proximity to W And 0 And D. Did we look at some kind of creative park design that could be there to facilitate? Was there any other thing looked at other than and I'm asking this question as respectful as I can. You know, did we look at a holistic of here's all the needs in the county, here's the amount of property, or was it just they need to give it to them?

So we would not have that information available to us, but I'm sure there was a a decision making process. We could if if this does go to a work session, we can ask the folks in our believe our finance department or whoever the real property group is that can talk to unless Ernie, unless you have any insight on the site location.

If I may. Yeah. So supervisor Myers, excuse me.

That's fine.

You're fine.

Mister Myers. That's right.

You're

fine. What Dale's fine.

What Our our real

our real property and asset management, program, does an in-depth evaluation and it bases it on the greatest need for the county operations when they look at these. And when determined it by the school board that it was not going to use it for an elementary school, then our PAMP evaluated that to determine what would be the right fit and what is the highest priority for county operations and this was identified as the highest priority.

And I can appreciate that it's a priority. I don't know necessarily that it's the right fit on this property. It was more my question of looking at the surrounding area, the other needs in the county. Was this really is this the best design? Is this the best use?

The other question I have, and this is dealing definitely, I think, the planning side of this is, I know that you guys have schooled me a lot on the definition of civic uses in past applications. And in those educations I've had with you, I don't see where this is a civic use from what we've used before. And when I look at what this was supposed to be, it's very clear that it was supposed to be really kinda defined as a civic use, a school, or open space. So I'm not sure how we get to a general service use when we when the community thought was this was gonna be, unless now we're saying industrial buildings are also a civic use. And that's for this side of the table.

I think to to parse words, so this is a public civic school. I think this in this instance, it would be the public use would be under which this would fall, not a civic use to your point because it's not open to the general public. It's not a public facility per se. It's it's for

And I guess that's part of my concern. Civic use, as you guys have defined, is usually open to the community. This will not be open to the community. This would

not be the definition of a civic use.

No. But I'm just saying usually in the past, you've looked for like where's the building that structure, where's the gathering place for the community to get to. All these definitions we've looked at. And in in my concern in this one is that doesn't have any of that flavor. So I know my time's up.

Understood. Thank you. Commissioner Miller.

Thank you. I just wanna briefly comment on the right turn issue that I've heard brought up. It would seem incongruous for someone to make a right turn out of the General Facilities Building to get to Crossrail because you'd have to go through the neighborhood and then make a left turn on the Tuscarora Crossing to get right back to Crossrail. Also the light for understanding is it going to be Natchez not at Tuscarora Crossing. So in actuality, would imagine a lot of the neighborhood would want to exit through Natchez to use the light to safely traverse the intersection.

Just food for thought as we go through this process. Okay.

Couple of questions I have. So going to the hours of operation, it states 7AM to 6PM Monday through Friday, but maybe open after regular hours up to twenty four hours per day to accommodate county activities. This is a county building. Wouldn't every activity there be a county activity, which basically is saying it can be open twenty four hours a day, seven days a week? I'm trying to figure out what and then it mentions about emergency use. But what was the intent of that statement twenty four hours per day to accommodate county activities?

So if I could speak to that. So one of the things that we house at our facility currently 801 Sickland is our environmental commission meetings. So the environmental commission has about three to four meetings a month. The natural resources subcommittee, the energy subcommittee and the whole committee at large, they meet at our locations and they're held after hours. So that's after the six p. M. Period. So they would be those publicly advertised meetings would be at this facility.

Okay. But so the operation of the building and the warehouse isn't what is meant? Okay. No, sir.

No, sir.

Going back to the parking. I mean, it it seems this one a few times that you got too much parking. Looking at approximately 480 spaces, I think you mentioned 220 odd employees. So you have two spots per employee. It's I mean, do you really believe you need this amount of parking? And what I'm getting kinda getting at is could it be reduced and maybe pull things away from the backs of that residential neighborhood by reducing some of the

parking? Yes,

sir. Thank you. So many of our staff and facilities in particular and storm water and the public works and our transit operations, not the actual bus operators, but those administrative folks that come in, bring the personal vehicles in and then they will leave in a county owned vehicle to go perform the function. So on a daily basis, these the staff will come in, they'll have their personal vehicle and then they'll take a county vehicle just like we have in every county facility.

Do you know roughly how many county vehicles will be parked there?

So I know that our fleet, I'm sorry, our maintenance team has about 80 staff that will rotate vehicles. Now on weekends, they take them home. They'll leave their personal vehicle here and they'll take them home for being on call because to your point, they don't when after hours, they don't come back into the building, they'll pack up a stack up what they need, what they think they may need for emergency response and then go for call outs.

I would just comment even two twenty odd employees, 80 County vehicles, you're at 300 spots and you want four eighty.

So that's the facility team. There are also the public works team and the storm water team. Every county facility has what they call pool vehicles located in them for those purposes. So I don't have the exact criteria, but it certainly would add another 20 to 30 vehicles that they would need for their county operations.

Okay. All right. So with that, I will open up the public hearing for this item. I do have three people signed up to speak and I'll call out your names. We have two podiums that you can get speak from. So if I call your name, if you could just move up to one of the podiums and you'll have three minutes to speak. First, I have Barbara Day to be followed by looks like Yassam Diab followed by Emily Johnson.

Hello everyone. I'm Barbara Day. I am a resident of Tuscarora Crossing. I've lived there a little over two years and like many others that live in the area, we saw the little patch of land that's worse, Land Bay 4 as a benefit to the residential area with all of its trees and come to learn that it's going to be considered for a warehouse instead of an elementary school. We were hoping that perhaps another position could be considered for the warehouse.

It may meet the public use definition because it's connected to the school district, but the activities that occur there are industrial. So, that's the number one concern. Should the building move forward? I'm very pleased many of questions that you all brought up were our same concerns like what are the hours of operation? Is it gonna be noisy?

What's the buffer gonna be like? I look at the maps that the contractors, I think, developed, and I'm wondering if those areas of open space, if the building does end up getting built there, why take all the trees down? Why not leave them up? Only take the trees out that need are needed for the driveway and then amend that with trees and it may even look the same as it looks now. You wouldn't might not even see that building back there.

But other operational concerns besides the time of day that it runs, also the number of reducing the number of parking spots, that would be helpful. No outdoor storage, I think that's already there. And keeping the tree conservation area as large as possible. Thank you very much.

Alright. Thank you. Next up is Assam Diab followed by Emily Johnson.

Hi. Good evening. My name is Assam Diab. Well said, by the way. Most people butcher it. So thank you. So I have a couple points to make. First, I want to the non comments thing about the public hearing. We were informed today about 05:00 from our HOA that this is happening. So there's that response and I would excuse the disjointedness of my presentation. We were told we were told at the meeting first of all, that was a gross misrepresentation of how we actually reacted. It wasn't a, oh, it's gonna be warehouse. Thumbs up. Let's do this thing. No. We fully rejected it. We don't want it. We cited many many reasons. It was not as pleasant as it made. Oops.

Sorry about that. And we were told it was given to the reason they wanted it is because it was given to them for free. There's a development happening there. This thing is gonna be surrounded by three different neighborhoods. Ours on the left, Kincaid in the back, and then there's a whole another development on the right that's gonna be there, all houses.

So that's they failed to mention that loading docks are going to be towards a neighborhood over the W And OD, but they're gonna be towards a neighborhood. Like Barbara said, it's arguable that it's public use, but it's really in effect industrial. They also failed to mention that there's a playground right across the street that's part of our neighborhood, literally adjacent to the turn in that they wanna have. Failed to mention that it was supposed to be a school. We bought it on the premise. We bought houses with some of these things. Basing it, it's gonna be not industrial. Industrial is very noisy. Let's see here. They argue less traffic over a school but it's not controlled traffic.

It's kind of a free for all traffic pattern. It may be less but I'd much rather have a school. I think anybody would much rather have a school than a warehouse. I run a warehouse. It's noisy. It's well lit. It's just not this it's incompatible with this use. Again, excuse me. It's a little disjointed. Like I said, incompatible.

There's gonna be truck traffic. There's gonna be noise from any repairs that may happen there. Trucks backing up, loading operations could be twenty four hours a day, seven days a week depending on the emergency situation. But I wanna get into real quick before I run out of time, a quick story. I was at Meadow Farms the other day, and my one son was making a ruckus. So we paid attention to him for maybe three, four seconds, turned around. My other son, who's one and a half, was literally running down Route 7. And I can't emphasize how traumatic that was. So nothing happened, thank God, by the grace of God. You're putting children in a similar high traffic situation.

If it was me and something happened to my child, I would sue the county into oblivion. It's not a threat of any kind. It's just a liability statement. You add a ton of liability here for all the wrong reasons. It's not compatible with the area. It just does not fit. Thank you.

Good. Thank you. And the last speaker is Emily Johnson.

Good evening, commissioners. My name is Emily Johnson with the Piedmont Environmental Council. This application, Tuscarora Land Bay 4, is for a county government center. As such, we are asking that development on this property be a model of high standards when it comes to natural resource protection and mitigation and sustainable design. While we're grateful for some thoughtfully updated conditions of approval that now call for lead certification, invasive species management, high quality tree conservation, and low impact development practices, we'd like to ask that you go one step further.

Please treat this property as an opportunity to demonstrate government by example in accordance with the county energy strategy and include rooftop solar and battery storage. Please also commit to the wetland restoration, considered high consider higher LEED certification in silver and put in place more support for electric vehicles. If this building is for DGS headquarters that will support the expansion of services and staffing for the next thirty years, then we need to plan decades out. A department that provides service technicians with county vehicles should maybe have more than two electric vehicle charging stations to plan for a changing fleet. A department that provides environmental and energy programs should maybe be housed in a building with solar and battery storage to plan for our changing energy landscape.

What's before you is standard. We're asking that the Loudoun standard be just a bit higher and maybe something we can all be excited about. Thank you.

Thank you. That was the last speaker we had signed up. Do have anybody online for this one? Yes. We do. You do? Okay.

Thirty years. If you need to plan decades out, a department that provides service technicians with county vehicles should maybe have more than two electric vehicle charging stations to plan for a changing fleet. A department that provides environmental and energy house, building, sewer, and storage to plan for our changing energy landscape. Once before you miss standard, you're asking to allow the standard to be just Hello?

Do know who that was or was that a person? Hello?

He's just replaying back. Okay. Emily is her name.

Believe our first speaker on the line is I can't read the first name. Yum yum yummins. Owen Yummins. So he's here. Okay. So who do we have online? You said you had people online. I'm not showing anybody.

Emily is her name.

Emily was here.

She just Okay.

No. I'm I'm another Emily.

Another Emily. Another Emily. Okay.

Yeah.

So I don't have a slip. Okay. Is this Emily Sposa?

Yes.

Please go ahead.

All right. Hi. This is Emily. I am a resident of the Tuscarora community. Thank you for your thoughtful questions this evening and reflecting some of our residential concerns as well.

I just want to start with the community meeting. As my neighbor said, it was a gross representation of of what actually happened. You know, it really felt like a slap in the face not only to the residents that this facility was gonna be put here, but also a slap in the face for for taxpayers. This is not an appropriate location for something like this. We're very concerned about the traffic and the applicant's unwillingness to commit to different things like ours and the the use of this warehouse.

Mhmm. You know, I understand they said things like, oh, no right turn. But, you know, in reality, our we walk all over our neighborhood. The tot lots is across the street. We're gonna need to use the access to the WOND.

That will get us to our other the other part of our neighborhood. I just really feel like there's not much you guys can put into place that that will make this an appropriate and safe use for our community. It's also been brought to my attention that the developer offered to pay for this facility if you guys approved, the substation application across the street. Since that wasn't approved, you know, it's gonna cost taxpayers another 50 plus million dollars. So I would really urge the county to see if this is an appropriate use for this land and an appropriate use of of our taxpayer dollars.

It really is setting an extremely dangerous and, bad set, precedent for our our county. Thank you for your time.

Alright. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else? Please don't say whether they're live or online. So we have anybody else online? No. No. Okay. So I think we have two more speakers that are in the room. Looks like Owen Yamans followed by Kwaja Ahmed.

Hi. I'm Owen Yamang. I'm I represent Duskoro Crossing. I'll I'll I'll be talk about from macro to micro. From macro perspective, this site is along the corridor of our of our community. As you see the map, they're all residential. And all of a sudden you have that development. In my professional opinion, as a PES as well, that's nonconforming. It's intense. They're all residential and boom. You have you have that, you know, building and parking lot. Number two, from traffic perspective, I trust the roads late. We hired them as well. However, the cross trail here, it it's very dangerous. You need a right turn lane.

Next, for that kind of site, you need a w d 60 truck no matter what. It it makes wide turn. When it enters the site, it clips that top lock there. If I have my daughter there, potentially it will hit all those kids. It makes wide turn. It's beyond their control. Without right in right in right out, it's not gonna happen. It's very dangerous. It's safety for our residents here. So that needs to be covered as well.

It was not discussed. The w d 60, if you Google it, those are white trucks. We're obligated to do the auto turn to make sure it's not clipping the road and it's not going to the other to the to the other aisle. Definitely 1000% it will clip the road and it will even go to the play area. So for all intents and purposes, the reason why they're loading docks right there, that's for the WD 60 for all intents and purposes.

It makes wide turns. It's very dangerous. The moment you go down that cross trail boulevard because it has an apex, it's dangerous when you when when I'm driving and you make a turn, safety. V dot, that's that's a nonstarter. So I hope you consider about safety, number one, for all of us who are living there and I see that myself, I drive, I design those stuff, that's a nonstarter. And and let alone this is not in harmony along that corridor. All residential. How I wish they build it all industrial, I'm not be here. I won't be speaking to you guys. But that all of a sudden, there's a building and a parking lot along the corridor of residential, it doesn't connect. I hope you consider that. Thank you very much.

Alright. Thank you. And Khawaja Ahmed.

Good evening members of the commission. My name is Kwaja Ahmed. I'm a resident of Tuscarora Crossing. I live in the property that is directly nearest to the Land Bay 4 potential warehouse. I believe this location is not befitting for the purpose that it is being intended for.

The you know, I just became a father in January. My daughter is gonna turn three months in two two weeks. I, you know, the idea that a warehouse with maintenance vehicles that will be going and coming from that land bay makes me think twice about letting my child play at the at the top lot that's immediately across the Crawford site. Additionally, in the beginning of this year, a maintenance worker for Loudoun County struck and fatally killed a 20 year old student that attended Stonebridge High School while she was walking to school at the intersection of Portsmouth Boulevard and Claiborne Parkway. You know, safety should be paramount.

We can't compromise on safety especially when it comes to our children. We have to be mindful of the implications when it comes to our children and the future of our nation. Additionally, we implore you as members of the commission to restrict the site to office use only. Using the site for both office and general warehouse purposes does not make sense. It should be used for office space only, and then there shouldn't be any maintenance vehicles that are coming and going, especially traversing through the neighborhood.

If that is a need, then Crossrail there should be another avenue directly from Crossrail Boulevard that does not involve the use of Natchez Drive. That'll ensure that children are still able to safely play at the tot lot. Members of the community are able to freely walk and enjoy their evening strolls, their morning runs, their bike rides onto the W And OD Trail. Things of that nature should not be compromised because of the need for a warehouse. I yield my time. Thank you.

Thank you. That was the last speaker we had signed up. Is there anybody else in the room that would like to speak to this item? No? Okay. The public hearing is now closed. Does staff or the applicant have any like to address any comments they heard?

I can now speak to a couple of the comments. I know there were some questions about adding some additional tree conservation area which we had originally proposed. Unfortunately, a lot of the vegetation on the site is doesn't meet the requirements of being qualified for TCA. So, we did maximize what we could show. So, that's why we went to enhancing the buffers with new landscaping.

I there's anything else.

Is there anything else you want to cover? Okay.

I will also address the if there were 18 wheelers to enter the site, we have done an auto turn analysis to show that they can safely enter Notchaz Drive, make the turns through the site, exit back out safely without exiting the road.

Okay. Alright. Thank you. So this is in the Leesburg District. I'll go to commissioner Barnes for a motion.

I have a question. One more before I make a motion on it. Those trucks that you have, box trucks, is it like the mail trucks, size of the mail truck or like UPS or trucks like they're running around? What size are those trucks?

The closest analogy I can come up with is like a Penske rental truck, a large Penske rental truck.

Penske, that's a bigger truck, right?

Bigger than The 26 foot or a U Haul truck like you'd move your home.

Yes. See this.

Those are the largest of our vehicles.

Yes, sir.

Okay. I'll make a motion.

Didn't give you one for

They don't have homework for workstation, but there it is. Commissioner I

got that.

Commissioner Barnes.

Yeah. Do you have a motion for work session then?

Commissioner Barnes,

do want

me to do a motion to work session for you?

Yeah.

Okay. Go ahead and do it. I move that the planning commission forward, Lodgy, two zero 25002 o Tuscarora Lane Bay for special exception two zero two five zero zero three six to a future work session of the planning commission to to be determined by staff.

I was gonna say that, but that that

Motion made by commissioner Barnes. I

guess Yeah.

I guess commissioner Myers made the motion for. So I guess commissioner Myers made the motion. Is there a second?

Second.

Okay. So motion made by commissioner Myers, seconded by commissioner Barnes.

Yeah.

Commissioner Myers, do you have an opening?

You know, with all due respect, it's it's I was just trying to help out commissioner Barnes to No. Drafted here. Okay. But I I I think we all have enough questions and stuff. I'm not I have to say to begin with, I'm not sure this is the appropriate use at the appropriate location just for the beginning.

So I definitely am looking forward to get that information of how did we what was what was the pocket or the bowl that was looked at in relationship to the property, not just that the schools didn't need it right now. And I know others have addressed other questions and concerns that all should be. Would I hope that we just took notes from everything. And I would like to make sure that I know I personally would like to get the information of when the community meeting's gonna be and where and have the opportunity to to be at the meeting if it if it work out. So we may have to make sure that it's advertised the right way so that more than two planning commissioners can be at that community meeting. Thank you.

Other Commissioner Barnes? Yes.

I have a comment on it. You have to staff, you have all you got all the information from the planning commission, the questions they ask for a work session that when we come to work session that we're gonna discuss.

I believe so. I'm happy to run through a list of questions to consider or things to come back with answers to if it would help the commission.

Yeah. Well, why we go through comments and then we'll summarize. Because we don't requesting we go to for going to work session?

Yeah. If we go into work session, better have some questions. Otherwise, why go to work session if we don't have any questions to get the answers?

They've got them. They're good.

Mister Jasper.

Thank you. I don't want you to never talk to me again, mister Brown. I apologize. It was a good conversation. And one of the things that concerns me, so regardless of the planned, you know, how this fits in, and I have the same questions that some of the other commissioners and some of the residents have raised.

I have the same questions about the amount of parking, and you've heard those before. And is there some compromise here where there's communities? Safety is always paramount. But one of the things I'd also love to hear at work session, you mentioned that the building is not purpose built for automated storage and retrieval systems. And you said that, you know, this is a long term building and you're sure that the county's needs are gonna change.

If you're gonna build a building now, it should be built to a specification that at least can be adapted for an automated storage and retrieval system. Otherwise, you're taking an antiquated technology for warehouse storage and embedding it in a brand new building, which doesn't make a ton of sense to me. So when we come back, I'd love to hear about the consideration that, you know, you've put to this and and is there, you know, it should the concept plan maybe be adapted a bit to ensure that for thirty years, as the representative from PEC said that this is a useful building for the county.

Commissioner Combs.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to better understand the proffers that were put in place in, was it 2019 or so? I assume the proffers contemplate a use like this since we're not dealing with a ZCPA and that you're just proceeding as a specs. This is PDH4 administered as R8.

Okay, so specs use. But I saw in the statement of justification that there was mention of at the time of that rezoning when the proffers were committed to, LCPS was really vocalizing that this would be an elementary school, and that was the understanding. So I think that's where we're a lot of folks are getting that understanding, but I would like to just better understand what do we have in the proffers, how did they come about, and what was really more of the what was the landscape at that point in time? Thank you.

Vice Chair Modi?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. One big thing I would like to see for the work session is going through that community meeting you guys are planning and take their feedback very seriously. Looks like some of them again I mean, I'm not saying it's your fault, but looks like some of them not even been informed until today by their HOA. Not where you probably you guys might have informed HOA, but either way, I think you guys are representing the county.

I think we got to do the right thing. We got to talk to those residents. So we we do get their feedback, and and any changes that we are going to make, I would like to see those changes during the work session. That that's number one. Number two, I'm still not fully convinced what the plan is going to be for the, no right turn so that to prevent the traffic going to neighborhood. Maybe I would like to see some illustrations or some kind of a plan from a traffic engineer, how that's going to work if we are going to do that. So those two are the ones I would like to see part of the work session.

Thank you. Mister Banks?

I like commissioner Moderetti. I would like to have more information about the transportation, the turning, etcetera going in there. In addition, I'd like to have a better count of the parking, the typical number of employee vehicles, typical number of stored vehicles that will be there because we gave you gave some estimates, but I'd like to have a little bit more in the way of precise numbers in that regard. And then finally, I'd like to have a better understanding of the types of vehicles that would be there and that we could expect to come in and out of there so that we really do understand completely the size of the vehicles and what are the safety concerns that have certainly been expressed by some of the residents. And I just wanna make sure that we fully understand what those vehicles will look like.

So for myself, obviously, support going to work session, couple of I'll get back to her. No.

No. Oh, I just had questions for the works.

Yeah. Okay. So I'll go back to you because you made the motions. I'll come back to you. One thing commissioner Myers had mentioned earlier about the look of the the fence. I'd like to get better understanding of the parking. It just seems like this is vastly over parked unless there's uses and things there that haven't been made clear yet, I'd like to have a discussion on that. Clarifying the hours of operation and sort of in conjunction with providing more of a buffer. We talked about it briefly, we met can a building be moved forward closer to cross trail. It seems like you've got a significant difference between the building set back and where the building and the parking starts.

And that would pull it farther away from the homes and be able to provide a larger buffer back there. And if we can reduce the parking, it would even provide more of a buffer. So I'd like to see if that is something that we could do. And and the community meeting has already mentioned, so those are the items I would like to see discussed at work session. And so commissioner Myers, I'll go back to you for closing.

Well, before that, I wanted to add a couple more question things. Now that we know that they're gonna leave vehicles parked, I'm sure that means it's gonna be overnight parking there. I'd like to know how that's gonna be secured because one of the things that you have to think about in this area, you know, if there's cars that people know and there's lights and they're always parked there, it can create for for situations also if it if it doesn't have any sign of security or anything to it. So I'd like to know how that overnight parking is monitored. I also would like to know if we can look at having some definition and also cutoff for what you're calling after hour activities.

I mean, I know serving on both the planning commission and the board of supervisors, we've all seen where we ran till one and 02:00 in the morning. I'm not sure if these other communities structures do that, but I definitely think the folks there have the right to know that unless it's an emergency, you know, even it's not a twenty four seven. There's some point where it ends and it's and it's closed and it doesn't do it on the weekends or something. It's just, again, for looking at that. Again, looking at what is the fencing that you're talking about, but more importantly, really looking at what were the other uses that were looked at or could be looked at for this property.

Just not just because the school didn't wanna use it right now doesn't mean some other school may not need it or there's not an opportunity. And I mean that respectfully. I don't mean that as prejudging this particular use. But with that said, I look forward to it going to work session when staff can can come back to us with it.

Okay. So we have the motion to send a work session made by commissioner Myers, seconded by commissioner Barnes. All those in favor, say

aye. Aye.

Opposed? That motion will carry eight zero one. Commissioner Frank a And I

a the Any questions about the types of the vegetative screening? Any other lot information they would want wanna know about the screening?

Well, with me, when I was thinking about the fencing, that kinda lot went with the screening too. And then especially when we talked about pulling the parking back, that whole idea was then we could increase that buffer and the screening more. So they kinda went side to side together to me.

Okay. Cool.

K. All set.

Thank you all very

much. Alright. Thank you. Have

great evening.

And I'm sure you'll notify planning staff whenever the community meeting is set up, and then staff can notify the full commission and advertise it as such so more than two commissioners can attend. Thank you very much. Our next item is ledgee 2025Dash16 Eastern Gas Transmission and Storage Incorporated Leesburg Compressor Station,

Eastern Grass Transmission.

Ready. Good evening. My name is Christian Maldonado with the Department of Planning and Zoning here to present the application for Eastern Gas Transmission and Storage, Leesburg Compressor Station. Since the publication of the staff report, staff has received one public comment in opposition of the application. The subject property is located East Of Route 15, West of Evergreen Mills Road along Watson Road in the rural policy area and Little River Election District.

The applicant is proposing a special exception to permit an upgrade and expansion of an existing natural gas compressor station in the AR 1 zoning district. The subject proposal is centered on a 73.4 acre parcel. The 2019 general plan supports the co location of public facilities to improve service efficiencies and the use of existing substation sites to expand capacity. Further, the 2019 general plan encourages the preservation of existing vegetation on to address environmental impacts. Given the site is located in a residential zoning district and within an existing substation compound, staff finds the proposal could be compatible with the appropriate design considerations.

The existing compressor station was originally constructed in the early nineteen nineties to collect and distribute natural gas and as part of a larger pipeline system that connects from Pennsylvania to Virginia. Every so often, improvements have taken place over capacity. Said improvements will largely remain within the existing compound. Staff recommends conditions pertaining to the operation and design of the proposed facility, including testing, safety protocols, and environmental mitigation measures to provide enhanced screening and limit potential noise impacts. The commission requested information regarding nearby utilities.

Staff notes nearby utilities including electrical and natural gas infrastructure exists to the east and southeast of the subject site. Staff supports the planning commission recommendation of approvals the board subject to conditions. As conditioned staff finds a proposal to be consistent with the land use and energy policies of the 2019 general plan. Staff is happy to answer any questions.

Alright. Thank you. Questions for staff. Commissioner Jasper.

Hi. What was the nature of the opposition in the public comment? I'm sorry. I haven't reviewed it yet.

It was in relation to overall data center development and power usage.

Okay. But not specifically with related to a gas compressor stuff.

That's correct.

Okay. Thank you.

Any other questions for staff? One just briefly my understanding, is no more tree clearing. This will go on area that's already cleared. Correct?

Generally, yes. If there is any, would defer to the applicant but it's very, very minimal.

Okay. Thank you. Alright. Does the applicant have a presentation?

Thank you chair cares, members of the commission. My name is Sherry Yakin. I'm a senior land use planner with the law firm of Maguire Woods and it's pleasure to be here this evening on behalf of AGTS. With me, I have several team members. I have Paul Wilmuth, our project manager, George Anas, director of external affairs, and behind me, I have our consultant engineer Jason Gentry with McCormick Taylor.

As always, after we conclude our presentation, we'll be happy to address any questions that you may have. Let me begin by first talking about the overall project and its need. EGTS is proposing a capital area project to meet the growing energy needs of customers in Virginia and Maryland. The project proposes a series of infrastructure improvements at four stations. Three of them are in Pennsylvania and the fourth is here in Virginia at the Leesburg Compressor Station site.

Overall, once completed, the improvements will create an incremental 67,500 dekatherms of, per day. And to put that in perspective, that the 67,500 dekatherms is equal to heating about 355,000 residential homes per day. So this is an important reliability project that will serve to meet energy needs. It's important to note it will be using existing EGTS infrastructure to increase the capacity through compression additions to the system. So what that means is there's no changes to the pipeline infrastructure, just the station improvements that we're here for tonight.

And then just for a little more orientation, the site is located off of Watson Road about two and a half miles north of Route 50. We're in between Route 15 to our West and Evergreen Mills Road to our East. These overall property is about 73.4 acres, and as you can see on this aerial, it has significant mature tree vegetation surrounding, the facility itself. Of those 73 acres, we have about 13 acres of developed area, and the remaining 60 areas is that tree is those trees that you see which will remain. It's also set back very well from Watson Road, probably about a thousand feet or so from the entrance.

As mister Maldonado just mentioned, this site has been here since the early nineteen nineties when it actually received its original special exception as well as a commission permit approval. Interestingly, back in 2006, the county rezoned the area as part of its rural policy remapping, and the site actually became by right, and it's been operating as a by right use for the past two decades. Then with the rezoning I'm sorry, with the newly adopted zoning ordinance in 2023, it's now back to being a special exception use. So that's why we're here tonight. But overall, in those past two decades, there really have there's been some minor site plan approvals administrative, but overall the sites remain pretty much the way you see it on the screen.

We wanted to add this entrance exhibit. This is taken at about the location of Watson Road. As you can see, the station is way at the end of the entrance driveway. I like this photo because with even with it taken late fall, it seems like with most of the leaves down, you could still see how this tree buffer at ground level provides very good buffering of the facility. And then for the overall site changes, the one clarification I do wanna make, and it's been brought up several times, the improvements in the facility are entirely within the existing fence exception of a new utility line that's coming in from the site from Watson Road.

That line will be undergrounded and serve the new equipment. You could it's gonna run along the driveway entrance and you could see that marked in the red dash line. And then for the equipment, I will start at the bottom of the screen within the area outlined in red or the areas outlined in red. That's where the equipment changes will be made. At the bottom, g t over the screen, e g t s will be demolishing an existing drum building and replacing it with a new compressor building that will contain the new 5,000 horsepower electric driven compressor.

The new compressor, again, will be located inside of a building, which will be appropriately mitigated. We do not anticipate any significant sound emanating from this site. We do anticipate a 55 dBA at the property line with all of the mitigations that we're gonna be putting on the new equipment. Then the replacement building will be going in that upper area outlined in red. And then there will be other kind of other infrastructure improvements that are a little more secondary such as containment areas and new switch gear.

But emphasizing again, the site is gonna be remain remain heavily wooded. Since we are using the existing vegetation to meet our buffer requirements, we are going to be putting tree conservation easements around the perimeter fence, and those are the areas that you see highlighted in green. And that's really about it for the station improvements. EGTS did try to make as minimal changes as necessary in order to accomplish the necessary infrastructure improvements. And then as far as public outreach, this project began a couple years ago.

EGTS has held two open house community meetings, the first in October 2024, the second to this past summer in July 2025. Comments were pretty minor, good questions asked, but overall not too much feedback from the community even with our public notices going out and the property being posted. And then for timeline, the project has been moving very well since 2024 when the customer agreement was signed and the application submitted to FERC. EGTS did receive its CPCN in November 2025 with a notice to proceed issued this past January. We're in the middle of our public hearings, and if we have a recommendation of approval tonight, we do hope we'll get board approval at our April 15 meeting.

We also have a concurrent site plan in the work

brief to of

overview project. We'll project. Project complete and in service by the 2027.

And

And with that, we will be happy to answer any questions.

All right. Thank you. Questions for the Commissioner Jasper.

I have just one. Thank you. You mentioned that the that you anticipate that the noise will be 55 decibels at the property line. Is that I'm just trying to understand. It will be 55 decibels at the property line or lower than 55 decibels? And if you could just have somebody speak very little to noise mitigation strategies.

Hi. My name is Paul Womuth. Yeah. It'd be 55 or less

Okay.

At the property lines. After we finish our construction and we get the project in service, we go back and we do a follow-up sound survey with our sound consultant, which we've used for many years. If we fail many of those measures, we will go back and we will make mitigation additional mitigations to make sure that we fall below that 55.

Thank you. Mhmm.

Commissioner Byrnes?

Yes. I I just have a quick question. Is there already a a compressor station there? So you are just modifying it?

We're making an additional we're adding an additional compressor unit.

And you will leave the one that's already there?

Yes. We will. It's not a replacement. It's addition.

Addition to that. Yes. But natural gas?

It will be compressing natural gas. Yes. It will be powered with electric.

Okay. Thank you.

Mister Miller,

On the sound issue, why would the sound increase from where it is? It's bigger. It's a bigger system, but it's the same type of system.

It is very similar to what is their existing. It's just an additional one. There will be additional gas cooler outside with fans to it, and we need to make sure that that or anything coming from any other piece of equipment that we put in that supports that, that it doesn't add to the to the noise

But that's what's there right now is lower than 55 decibels.

Correct.

So unless they're all operating together and by operating in unison that would increase the sound like I understand the concern. I'm just trying to understand if they actually will make more noise by having two instead of one.

It can make more, but it will not make more than 55.

Okay. Thank you.

Okay. Any other questions? Commissioner Meyer?

Just a quick just a process. So you guys must have been you're double advertised because you said you're one of the board. Correct. Okay. Okay.

Alright. I will go ahead and open up the public hearing in this. I don't believe we have anybody signed up online or in the room. Is anybody in the room like to speak to this item? Okay. The public hearing is now closed. This is in the Little River District. Commissioner Jasper, go to you for a motion.

Thank you. I move that the planning commission forward ledge 2025Dash0016 Eastern Gas Transmission and Storage Inc Leesburg Compression State Compressor Station specs 2025Dash0053 to the board of supervisors with a recommendation of approval subject to the conditions of approval dated 03/06/2026 and based on the findings for approval provided as attachments one and two to the 03/24/2020 '6 planning commission public hearing staff report.

Second. Motion made by commissioner Jasper, seconded by commissioner Combs. Commissioner Jasper, do you have an opening?

I don't. I think this has been a thoughtful process. It was good to hear that the community had been engaged early on, and I appreciated that you guys have been diligent about all of this stuff. So I'm hopeful that we can do what we always say we want to do which is move good applications forward without delay.

Okay. Any other comments in the motion? Alright. Motion approved with all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed? That motion will carry eight zero one with commissioner Frank absent for the vote. Thank you very much. Moving right along. Our next item is Legi twenty twenty five dash 15 SDC Ashburn one special exception twenty twenty five dash 31.

Good evening, members of the planning commission. My name is Fayeula Gordon with the department of planning and zoning. And tonight, I will be presenting LEGI 20250015 SDC Ashburn one, a special exception application. The subject property is located along Shellhorn Road East of Loudoun County Parkway and North of Dulles Greenway. The site highlighted in yellow is part of the existing project Nova development.

The portion East of Bullpen Drive is constrained by a major floodplain and is not included in the application. The surrounding areas include data center development such as project Samuel to the West. There is also a planned mixed use development to the Southwest named Silver District West. The subject property is zoned office park and is within the urban policy area. It is designated as the urban transit center place type.

This designation was previously urban employment and was updated following the adoption of the data center standards and locations, CPAM and ZOEM. The applicant is requesting a special exception to increase Building D footprint from 14,386 square feet as previously approved under ZMAP twenty nineteen zero zero zero two project Novo to 20,000 square feet. On your screen is a timeline summarizing the development history of the site where data center use was established through prior rezonings in 1993 and in 2009. In 2020, Buildings A Through D were approved. Ultimately, in 2023, Building D was removed from the approved site plan.

Today, Buildings A Through C have been constructed along with a supporting stormwater pond shown on the provided graphic. This current application is limited to the special exception area shown in pink. So this plot, it highlights the limits of special exception. The bold orange triangles on your screen, they are approximately eight and thirty square feet and it represents the portion of Building D that extends beyond the approved rezoning boundary that is indicated by the dashed red lines. Bullpen Drive will provide permanent access to the site once it is completed.

The 2019 general plan envision mixed use walkable transit oriented development in the urban transit center place type and does not identify data center as a primary use. However, Building D remains approved and the special exception request is limited to the portion of Building D extending beyond the previously approved rezoning boundary. Therefore, while place type remains an issue for consideration, staff could support the request given the surrounding pattern of development. Staff has recommended conditions of approval to ensure the development meets county stat county standards. These include building design featuring office like architectural appearance shown in the provided graphic along with size sustainable measures such as soil restoration, storm water management, recycled materials, and low carbon concrete.

Additional conditions include EV charging, outdoor seating, and bicycle pedestrian facilities consistent with the 2019 GP. These provided elevation shows the proposed office like architectural design including glazing and varied materials. The proposed building height is 20 feet or thirty three thirty three feet including the parapet. As conditioned, these elements would be carried through to ensure consistency with the place type. At the Planning Commission briefing, there was a question regarding whether the subject parcel is within the metro rail tax district.

The parcel is located within the district boundary. Based on the analysis presented, place tight place tight notwithstanding, staff could support planning commission approval of the application to the board of supervisor subject to the recommended conditions of approval, and the staff is available to answer any questions.

All right. Thank you. Questions for staff? No? Okay. Does the applicant have a presentation?

Chair Kearce, we are very happy to waive our presentation time because I believe that we would say very largely the same things that Feula, just said.

All right, thank you. All right, so there won't be any questions for the applicant. So that will open up the public hearing. We have one person signed up and that would be Emily Johnson.

Good evening. Good evening commissioners. My name is Emily Johnson on behalf of the Piedmont Environmental Council. We have questions about this application and concerns about applying 2019 standards to a 2026 proposal. We understand that a ZMAP was approved for this property in 2019, an effort that was termed project Nova and rezoned the area for four data center buildings totaling just over 600,000 square feet.

After that, at site plan in 2023, the applicant removed this fourth building, Building D, from the plan as the tenant wasn't ready for its construction. Our question is, now that the tenant's ready, why shouldn't they be met with the current moment? We know after the data center standards public process and CPAM adoption that this use type is not envisioned in this area. Why should we allow the requested expansion for an additional 5,614 square feet of a use that we no longer think is appropriate and that might not be approved here now. At minimum, if the applicant is coming back to edit the scope of the data center, is it not also appropriate for us to ask for updated efficiency and sustainability seven years later.

Why would we apply outdated conditions of approval to a new expanded design? For instance, there's no closed loop cooling or water sustainability commitment and no commitment to the generator tier. This building will be constructed now and should follow our lived and learned best practices. Thank you.

Alright. Thank you. Anybody on I don't think there's nobody else online for this one. Nope. Does anybody else in the room wish to speak to this application? Nope. That's public hearing is closed. Would the applicant like to respond to the public comments?

I think the only thing that I would say, Chair Kearce, is that the conditions of approval are updated. They reflect the county's current standards for design and also reflect commitments to recycled materials and low carbon materials that I believe are conditions of first impression for the planning commission. At least to my knowledge, there's been no other developer that has committed to those conditions.

Thank you. Alright. This application is in the Sterling District, so I move that the planning commission forward ledge twenty twenty five dash fifteen SDC Ashburn one special exception 2025 dash 31 to the Board of Supervisors with the recommendation of approval subject to the conditions of approval dated 02/10/2026 and based on the findings for approval provided as attachments one and two to the 03/24/2026 planning commission public hearing staff report. Second. Okay.

Motion made by chair Kearse, seconded by vice chair Moderetti. As far as an opening, this area has up until the very recent change to the place type was designed and planned for data centers when the county was busy or when the metro and trying to figure out how to fund it and creating the metro rail tax district. And when the county said who who's willing to, you know, fund this, pay this 20%, data center industry raised their hand and said, we have no problem paying that extra 20% or 20¢ I should say. So this area was actually promoted for data center development. It wasn't seen as very fit for residential because proximity to the Dulles Airport and so the data industry has thrived in this area.

I understand that the board has recently changed this planning type to not permit data center. However, this campus had been previously approved and it's just a few 100 square feet of the corners of this building that fall across the line. To me, it's just more of a correction of a minor change to allow this. The specs is just a very minor part of the building. It's not a material change in the use that would be expected on this property. So any other comments from commissioners? Commissioner bar commissioner Myers.

Okay.

So I was just wondering here because of to create some consistency here. When you look at the first page there from the staff and it talks about really kind of the reasons why you would support this, they actually call it under an outstanding issue, but it's really not an outstanding issue. It identifies why this is consistent. It talks about the proposed data center is even though it was not envisioned within the urban transit center, it has already been established through prior approvals, remains compatible with surrounding contents, which includes existing data centers, development of the property. The architectural and site design reflects place types, characteristics, the environmental substantial measures requires the conditions of applications as the policy directions of the Loudoun County 2019 plan.

To me, that's a much better definition of why you would approve this for a condition of approval than no offense, but a one sentence that we have right now on, page 16. So I'm just wondering if that wouldn't also, we wouldn't wanna add that too when you get to page 16 and it talks about our findings for approval. To me, that's a that's a more defined reason why you would do it in this case than others because of those consistencies that have been created. And I think it's it's more compelling why you would do it than this this kind of just generic one sentence. So I was just wondering if the maker of the motion would consider also including that as a finding for approval that I think is more kind of, like, more reasoning why you would do it.

Where was that you were reading from?

Very if you go to the very first page of our staff report, they actually call it an outstanding issue, but it's really not an outstanding issue.

It's Right.

It's what they're identifying that they've seen. And so to me, it's it's under land use, and it talks about how even though this was necessarily not envisioned, what has happened would make us then support this here. So to me, it's kinda makes it more thoughtful than just that one sentence that we had there and why we did it. I I'm just one of these that always like to make sure that we give the the the board more reasoning why you're doing it than just because they wanted it. And to me, this gives a better definition of what we were looking at.

So staff, any of issued it kinda makes sense. I mean, I imagine you'd mentioned that, but if we'd list it as a condition of why that kind of explains and commissioner Meyer's point is why the commission is okay

with it.

Or just added No.

It's added as a finding of approval.

But not a commission. I'm sorry. I said the wrong word. Finding that condition.

I think it's entirely appropriate. Yes.

Yep. Yep.

I would recommend breaking them up a little bit, but adding all of that all of that to the

You can work with it how you can, but I just think to me, there's a lot more definition of why you're doing this in that one paragraph than the two little sentences that are there because it looks like, well, did we think about it? Did we not? Where this is a much more defined why you did it.

Give credit to Fayola for that.

So Okay. Okay.

That was a friendly amendment to it one of the findings. So I would accept that as a second or Yeah. As well. Alright. Excellent. Alright. So Alright. Anything else? Commissioner Combs.

Thank you, mister chair. I support commissioner Myers, suggestion there. I think that's a great one. And I just wanna recognize the applicant. We've seen this before from this applicant. The the the high grade, architecture, very office like. I think that's something we're striving toward with with our other applications, that we see here. So just wanna commend you again for bringing something, of that caliber to us again. Thanks.

Mister Jasper.

So, in general, I agree with the comments made by commissioner Myers, and I think in particular that last sentence in that introductory paragraph is is would be extremely useful in the findings. The first sentence though, I here's what I worry about, is that the first sentence might lead somebody to say, well, if the use has previously been accept established despite the fact that the board has changed its policy, then it is a reason for not following the new board policy. So I I would don't know if I'm proposing a friendly amendment to the friendly amendment. Exclude that first sentence, being careful that we don't wanna encourage additional development simply because it's established and consistent with the surrounding context, especially in the case where the board has established a new policy. So

I would not accept that amendment. I liked having that sentence in there because I think it is important, to explain, the the reason for the approval. So I wouldn't accept that amendment to delete that sentence.

Okay.

Right. Any other comments? Alright. So all those in favor of the motion to approve say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion will carry seven zero two with commissioners Frank and Miller absent for the vote. Thank you very much. We we have commissioner, have one left. Do you wanna move on through or do you wanna take a quick break?

It's on.

Keep on going. Alright. Our next item is ledgee twenty twenty five dash ten barrister substation commission permit twenty twenty five dash four, special exception twenty twenty five dash twenty one, and special exception twenty twenty five dash twenty three.

Good evening, commissioners. My name is Allison Britton. I'm joined here tonight by, one of our newer planner twos who helped co process this application. Her name is Brianna Smith. It's her first time in front of the planning commission, so I wanted to introduce her.

We are here today for the barrister substation application. The subject property, which straddles two parcels, is a 22 acre portion of both a 23 acre and 19 acre parcels, independent parcels located east of the intersection of Shellhorn Road and Loudoun County Parkway. This is just a couple 100 feet, north of the the last, application. The site is split zoned, planned development research, development park, p d r d p, and office park, o p, and located in the urban policy area and the urban transit center place type. A portion of the subject property is currently being developed with utility substation and date and, data center uses.

The area proposed for the new substation is predominantly undeveloped and contains limited forest cover shown here. The applicant's requesting a commission permit and special exception to permit the, utility substation use and a minor special exception to reduce parking ratio. Here's just a little bit more context for some of the approvals in the surrounding area. So, this subject property is, part of what was originally a Dullesbury data center site, contains several other substations in the surrounding areas with Shellhorn substation to the South, Strata substation to the East. And additionally, like the last application with the adoption of CPM twenty twenty four zero zero zero one.

The property was redesigned, or redesignated rather from the urban employment place type to the urban transit center place type. Here is the, layout of the proposed substation, with the type c buffering required, on the north and west sides, type two road corridor buffer that is enhanced, on the, east side and, utilizing the existing, risker existing vegetation on the south side, to buffer from the south side. In general, the 2019 general plan policies support location of electrical infrastructure near existing transmission corridors and other infrastructure as is proposed here. The urban transit center place type envisions mixed use, residential, commercial business uses with thoughtful pedestrian oriented urban design supported by easy access to local transit options. So with the redesignation of this property from urban employment to urban transit center, substations are not anticipated in this area.

The urban policy area is intended to be designed to create a distinctive local character, specifically when viewed from roadways and adjacent properties, utilizing things like architectural features or enhanced materials or other visual interest along the roadways to to designate, that urban policy feel. So in addition to the proposed oh, while the proposed substation doesn't advance the the goals of the place type specifically, the there are design enhancements that can be made to make this more compatible. So that is my only item for consideration tonight. The application generally is a hybrid substation proposal, which the applicant is also proposing to screen with a 12 foot masonry wall rising to being the 15 feet where future Thumb Drive or Barrister Street is. Staff would recommend some enhanced features specific specifically along that roadway area where their screen wall is.

That could be something like enhanced masonry or a patterned masonry or perhaps like a mural or art feature just to better implement that urban transit center place type. Staff recommend a number of conditions related to transportation environment and administration. In the staff report, it's noted that, staff were recommending a condition for a low impact development measure, but, since publication of the staff report, staff have received some more information that this, that that this site is adequately served already. And, so staff recommends the planning commission for the application to a work session to address, the issues related to compatibility and design, on the urban transit center. But generally, similar to the last application, staff can support this use, given the development pattern and the existing industrial in the area.

As conditioned, it's generally, compatible with the general plan. Staff are happy to answer any questions.

Okay. Thank you. Questions for staff? Okay. Just to clarify, Alison, you had mentioned either an architectural feature on the wall or advance or some other additional vegetation. As it sits, those are not part of the conditions of approval?

Right. Yes. Correct.

Okay. Alright. Anything else? Alright. Does the applicant have a presentation?

We do have an app sorry, a presentation. However, I'll just skip and try to highlight some of those design commitments that we've we've agreed to. My name is Jack Story. I'm with DuBerry. The applicant's representative with me tonight is Jerry Epsey from Dominion. And you've already heard all the the location and what it is that we're proposing. This is a substation that is designed to support the Dullesbury campus. It was envisioned with the Dullesbury campus, but it will also supply power to the regional grid for overall reliability. It's an unmanned substation, and you've already heard that it's colocated with very similar uses. It's on the same parcel as an existing substation, and there's one under construction immediately to the to the west.

As Allison was saying, there are some design commitments to further enhance the general plan policies, particularly for the buffering and screening along future Thumb Drive or Barister Street. And in those conditions, I believe there is a condition for a 15 foot tall wall along Barister. Allison mentioned that we are agreeing to that commission condition along with an enhanced type two road corridor buffer, which would have additional evergreen tree plantings, and it would be extended all the way down to that tree conservation area that was shown in the flood plain area. So we have updated that plan and resubmitted it as of yesterday. Staff had also asked to see what that would look like from from that future road.

And since that future road hasn't been designed, it's difficult to to convey that image correctly and accurately. So we've prepared a section that you see on the the bottom right that illustrates what the substation pad is in relation to where that future roadway could go. Right now, it's 15 feet below the substation elevation, and then we have a 15 foot solid wall. The image on the top right is what we're planning on installing out there. It's a a stone textured concrete wall.

And again, it would be 15 feet on this side. And as you can see on the aerial on the left, the buffer has been extended all the way down to the tree conservation area or basically the entire road frontage, future road frontage. And I think those are, yeah, the design commitments that we've agreed to. So we short of that LID condition of approval, we have agreed to all of those draft conditions of approval. There's no other issues that we're aware of that staff has identified.

Staff has supported the parking reduction request that is part of this application, and we are processing the boundary line adjustment, and that should be approved shortly well before a site plan approval. So we respectfully ask that the commission forward this to the planning, to the board of supervisors with the recommendation of approval. Happy to answer any questions.

Great. Questions for the applicant. Commissioner Jasper.

So it seems like staff was recommending aesthetic improvements to the wall, but maybe I missed that because it sounds like you're saying they're not recommending anything and you're saying and they said they were.

Their staff did give a list of recommendations and that was one of them, and we are proposing a stone textured wall. There's not a mural or any other feature on the wall.

What ended I guess the question back to see if was that satisfactory a way adjust addressed to you adjusted to you?

Up to the commission, but staff recommend just to better implement that urban feel something like a pattern or enhanced materials or something kinda more visually interesting as you drive along the roadway.

Okay. Thanks. I just wanna make sure we weren't we were actually on different pages.

Okay. Any other questions for the applicant? Commissioner Combs.

Thank you, mister chair. Jack, can you just explain more for us this hybrid GIS air technology for the substation and how that how that works?

Just generally, the the high side where the power comes in will be GIS. And then when it gets stepped down to the lower voltage, that side is the air insulated. It's just a function of how everything fits on the on the site. So GIS is a logical step for this particular substation on the high side.

Okay. And so then and then that's enclosed, and that's that will likely be more visible?

It's actually very difficult to see on here. There's well, I didn't still don't there's not much to really show on there. So the power is gonna come in. I don't know if you can see the the transmission lines running through there, but the power will come in on that side. And then there is a structure right there that encloses its enclosed structure, and that is the GIS Building. From there, that line that you see across the top of it, that is the air insulated

Okay. Switchgear. Got it.

So there there is a building, but it is all the way on the the left hand side.

Right here.

Just under the word substation. The the little the light. Just down below it there. Yep. Right there.

Okay.

And then everything up top is the air insulated

Correct.

Towards the data center.

And are you concurrently running site plan with this?

How's it in flight? It's coming. It's coming. It's be filed shortly.

You.

So I have one question. We spoke about again screening from roadway view and you had agreed to the 15 foot right along Thumb Drive. And my concern and my request was to do a 15 foot along the southern boundary because when you're northbound on Thumb Drive, you'll be looking right at that facility and it's north of the tree conservation area, so it'll be very visible. Are you willing to do a 15 foot wall along the southern boundary as well as the eastern boundary?

Yes. We've we've looked at that and discussed it internally. And I think up to that first bend where you see it make the the hard left turn Yep. Down towards the tree conservation, we could go from there Okay. From that bend over to the thumb drive.

Okay. And that's more what I was asking for. So I appreciate that. Alright. So with that, we'll open up the public hearing. I don't believe we have anybody signed up to speak. No. Anybody in the room wish to speak to this application? No. Okay.

The public hearing is then closed. So I will go ahead and get this back up and make a motion. Get to it. I moved the I moved to the Planning Commission forward ledge twenty twenty five dash ten barrister substation commission permit twenty twenty five -four, special exception twenty twenty five-twenty one and special exception twenty twenty five-twenty three to the Board of Supervisors with a recommendation of approval subject to the conditions of approval dated 03/24/2026 and based on the findings for approval provided as attachments one and two to the 03/24/2026 planning commission public hearing staff report and with the additional conditions as mentioned tonight to provide an additional vegetative screening southbound to a long thumb drive to the where the T C area TCA area begins to provide the stone textured wall and to provide an additional 15 foot tall section from the southeast corner westward along the southern boundary to the basic where it makes a curve to the southwest.

Second.

Okay. So motion made by commissioner, sorry, cures, seconded by vice chair Monterey. As far as an opening.

Oh, Yep. Just a second. So, after you make this motion, we need to have a separate motion just for the commission permit. So, you approve the commission permit, correct, and forward it to ratification, and then the second one's approving it. I apologize, that's not in the motion That's not in the draft motion. So I think the motion that you just made is correct. I would just strike the commission numbers from the motion. And then once you finish your discussion on this, then we can come back to separately approving the commission permit. That makes sense?

Okay. So you want the commission permit as a

distinct because you approve that and recommend it for ratification, but you're recommending approval of the special exceptions. So, usually you break up your motion when you have to when you have a commission permit and a special exception, you break up your motion. We didn't have that in here, so apologize. We just caught a mistake.

So even though you're we're the motions well, okay. Approve both. You still need to separate the two.

So, yeah, the motion you just read was for recommendation of approval. Correct? Right. Let's dispose of that with the special exceptions and then we'll quickly draft a motion for you to approve Okay.

So we'll strike the commission permit from this motion and just go with the two special exception approvals. Is that

what you're asking? With the recommended additions you're talking about right now. Right. And then we'll draft up the alternate motion for you to read off the

For the commission permit. Okay.

Good. Sorry about that.

Alright. Do you want to read read it again or are you good with just the striking of the commission permit 2025Dash4 from this motion for approval?

That's fine. Okay. Checking the number. Okay.

Second.

Yeah. Okay. Any other discussion on the motion? Commissioner Myers.

I just wanna ask staff. I know that you would recommend this go to work session because concerns about compatibility and design. Do you feel like the things as they were addressed and agreed to tonight, then cover what your concerns were?

I think that, as far as I had written down, there were no additional commitments made tonight that are that are not already reflected in the materials. But but the only recommendation was really just, like, a differentiation in patterns or an enhanced kind of material for the wall. So the items that we've talked about, the enhanced type two road corridor buffer, extending south to the risker area, are are already reflected. I guess, the one that was not was the, addition of the wall extending on the south half of the south portion. So they're not particularly different different, like, visual like, visually interesting screening features, but they do better screen from the roadway, if that helps.

I guess my only comment would be is, you know, these gray blah walls are just horrible. It would be nice to see, like, the last application we had that looked almost like a more of a pattern stone beige kind of color are much more, I think, enhancing than than this. Makes me think of a a concrete construction yard, All due respect. So I don't know if you and the applicant would have some kind of different material or design that could be agreed upon during this tonight or at least encourage them before the public hearing to have some kind of different than this concrete

blah blah look?

So to mister Myers comment, I I well, let me get your other comments, and I'll I'll address that in my closing. So let me go commissioner Jasper. I'm gonna suggest it. My my thought is rather than ask them to consider that or as opposed to bringing this back to a work session just to look at a different wall. I'd prefer not to do that.

But you're gonna put that as part of your motion?

Pardon? You're gonna you're

gonna add that as part of a motion moving forward that you're looking for them to do that?

No. I'm just gonna have the discussion with them now to work with staff on that as they go to the board. So wouldn't so technically, yes. They could say, well, no. We're good with this wall and that's what moves forward.

Okay. That's well, I was hoping not, but

Okay. So okay. Commissioner Jasper?

Sorry. I mean, if associate myself with remarks of commissioner Myers. You know, I could support the motion if it included a specific further recommendation for improvements to the aesthetics of the wall. I don't think this wall looks like a stone wall. I think it looks like stamped concrete, which is what it is. And we've been trying to get a better aesthetic appearance for our neighborhoods and I don't think this is so this is adequate. So without any kind of change, I I would not be supporting the motion. Okay.

Any other comments? Alright. So as a closing, I understand that account. When I look at where this area is and what thumb drive would potentially be used for, this isn't an area where you're gonna see a whole lot of general public driving through this area even now, let alone when it's completely built out with already planned data centers, more substations coming. If you remember, we approved one immediately to the right or to the left of this site, which will be right up against it.

This facility will be mostly buried in amongst other substations and data centers. So from my perspective, the 15 foot wall with the additional vegetative screening, I'm fine with the rather lackluster looking wall around it because of its location in with its general surroundings. So that's why I don't feel the need to require a more architecturally enhanced wall here as opposed to the demos, which is in a very highly visible location near residential, totally different situation. This situation, I don't think it's required. Alright.

So with that, we have the motion to approve with the additional conditions for the special exceptions. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Nay. That motion carries six two one with commissioner Myers and Jasper opposed and commissioner Frank absent for the vote. What I would suggest you is you want to take that feedback as it moves forward to the board. If you wanna look at some other designs that might have gotten you a higher approval vote here, I think that would be strongly recommended. But that I will give that your option as to if you choose to do that or not and take your chances with the board. Okay?

Mister chair?

We're not

not done yet. Oh, okay. Do you have the language for the commission permit? I know it's got more specific words about ratifying and things in it that can't remember.

Email it to you. Okay.

There's Outlook. I just got my thing updated today. Alright. And I move the Planning Commission approve ledgee twenty twenty five dash ten barrister substation commission permit twenty twenty five dash four subject to commission permit plat dated 03/23/2026 and based on the findings for approval provided as attachments two and three to the 03/24/2026 planning commission public hearing staff report.

Second.

Any motion made by chair Keir, second of vice chair Moderetti. Don't have an opening on this one. Any comments on the commission permit? No? Alright. We have a motion to approve. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed? So that motion will pass eight zero one with commissioner Frank absent for the vote. Alright. All set on that one? Alright.

Thank you. So a couple administrative items. So as mentioned in the email, April the April 9 work session is now canceled because we just took care of that tonight. I also just wanted to mention the other commissioners, if you haven't gone and gotten your iPad migrated yet, When I did mine, they came up with the Apple ID password reset and it does the two two factor authenticate authentication and it sends an authentication code to phone number that it isn't was never mine. It was something that was set up by staff.

So it ended in the last two digits of two eight. So they went through every single county staff number and found it. So if I'm guessing if it applied to me, might apply to everybody else because ours these were all set up by staff years ago. So if you wanna write it down, I'll give you that number. If you run into that problem, you can read off this number because who I don't know if you'll see the same person I did whenever you get this done. But the county number was 5718311728. So when they know that number, they can go in and say this number no longer works and you can assign a new number. That's for

the phone. That's for

the for the for the iPad, for the Apple ID when they did the reset. So that's what I have. Brian, did you have anything else? Yep. That is (571) 831-1728.

And Brian, we have to bring our iPads in to have this taken care of by the thirtieth. Is that what it was?

01/07/2028.

Yes. Okay.

And who we bring it to?

172 So

they're doing it the the the the the email said go to the 5th Floor

Right.

Which it's in the Leesburg Room. That's where they were all because I I was wandering around looking for it. Somebody directed me to the Leesburg Room.

Thank you.

That's where they were set up doing all the

changes.

If we need to reschedule like, was supposed to have done mine at 04:30 day. Unfortunately, I was on Route 7 until right before the meeting started. How do we reschedule?

I I know they had a number that you could or email or a time to call. I definitely look at the email they sent. That's all I got. And I just picked the time date and time, and they said you're good.

You can contact the department of information technology as well to reschedule that. I can send you the information.

Would you please? Yep.

Yeah. You should have. Yeah. I was If you don't have it, but they sent an email out. That's how I found out about it.

Which I thought I had it timed perfectly. Alright.

So, Brian, nothing else? Alright. We are adjourned, and we'll see you April 28.