Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay, I think we can call the Wednesday, May 6, 2026 meeting of the Foster City Planning Commission to order. Uh, Mr. Trainer, can you call the role, please? Mr. Duncan, here. Mr. Kraner, here. Mr. Stevens, here. Chair Kont here. Mr. Mr. Kinsky here. Thank you. Absent is Miss Freellander and Mr. Pollinsky. Okay. And this is a joint session with our housing commission colleagues. Welcome um tonight. Happy to be with you to discuss the Virginia village project. Um do we call role for housing commission as well or how do you all usually handle that in your meetings?

No quorum. Okay. Do you all want to introduce yourselves u maybe at the top of the meeting? I don't know that you know all the commissioners and we could do the same. Absolutely. Jordan Hicks. I'm the chair of the housing commission. Great. I'm Sarah Farice. Great. Thank you for being here. I'm Andrea Kant, um, planning commission chair. And I'm Tim Stevens, the vice chair, planning commission. Grant, Bob Stravinsky, planning commission, former housing commission.

Great. Okay. All right. So, I think that brings us to the adoption of tonight's agenda. I think we have one small change that we were going to recommend. Yeah, I'd recommend uh chair that we switch under item seven where it says a commissioner reports uh which probably would not be of interest to our friends uh on the housing commission, but B uh is of interest to them that we switch A and B under seven so that we do the director's report first and then we can follow with the commissioner reports and uh folks from the housing commission can stay Leave without shame. Okay. Is there a second for that change? Second.

All in favor? I I Okay, that brings us to our receipt of petitions. Any uh written correspondence this evening? Yeah, the commission uh received written comment from Nater Baruk on the Virginia Village uh project uh making recommendations for um uh to be to be added to the RFP. Great. Thank you. Uh, are there any in-person petitions tonight? Does anyone here like to speak? Okay, please come up. Um, could you could you

We have We've set up a public comment. Yeah. So, I was always looking for the forums, but I didn't see them. Bit of a surprise. Thank you. Welcome. If you could just state your name and address and

absolutely. My name is Nater Bu. Uh 243 um Gundry Drive Falls Church. Um uh and also just I do need to give credit to my wife for the letter. It was not just me. Um she would be uh very upset if she thought it was just me. Um but anyways, I'll be very brief uh given that I already submitted comments. Um, again, I'm here before you as an individual homeowner. Um, the RFP is moving um in the right direction as it relates to Virginia Village. Um, it recognizes the need for building free green buffers next to Winter Hill. Um, step downs closest to the neighborhood, shade studies, and higher heights being pushed towards Maple and Bull America. That's important. But the key issue is whether those protections are strong enough to actually shape what gets built. The RFP currently says that beyond the green buffer, building heights should step down to three to four stories closest to Winter Hill, but three to four stories should not necessarily be treated as automatically acceptable. Many residents during the discussions pushed for something closer to two stories at neighborhood edges including Winter Hill given that Winter Hill is relatively short at two stories and much of the properties but Big Chimney Park which is directly adjacent to Bull America and the site. Unfortunately, given how the questions were phrased during the public discussions, the default was three to four because that's what was defined as low density. um not something shorter than that. So I think that was an issue with how the questions were phrased rather than what the community wanted. The issue is simple. Heights plus proximity creates impact. Even three to four stories can cast shadows, reduce openness, and create wall effects if buildings are too close to property lines.

The draft says studies that shadow should be studied should inform how buildings minimize impact on Winter Hill and Big Chimneys Park. That language is simply too weak. If a shadow study shows meaningful impacts, the RFP should require design changes including additional setbacks, real stepbacks, reduce heights where necessary, and massing changes to prevent a continuous wall condition or negative impacts to the neighborhood. and an open space park which we've spent lots of money redoing as a result and profers coming from the Harris ter building. So my ask is straightforward. Keep the buffers and step down language but make it enforceable and meaningful. Require substantial stepbacks from Winter Hill and Big Chimney Park. Require real stepbacks and stepdowns at the edges. and require that redevelopment prevent negative shadowing and wall effects impacts to the neighborhood and the park, not merely study them. If the transition is not required, it will not happen. And given how this is being phased, the RFP plus the zoning changes are going to drive the development. We're not going to have an opportunity to do that at the tail end, and we're going to end up in binary choices, which none of us want to get into at the end of the day. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Welcome. Thank you. Don't be nervous. I am. If you can just state your name and address um for the record.

Okay. Uh Mary Lou Pickle and 249 Gundry Drive. Um dear Planning Commission and Housing Commission. didn't know the housing folk would be here, but it's great to see you. As you consider um any possible changes to current zoning rules in Virginia Village and Big Chimneys, please uh consider the impact on residents and taxpayers from what you do. What you have a lot of power and what you do affects a lot of people. Um preserving livability and false shirt should be your number one goal, I think. Um that's why I've taken time to come here tonight. Please preserve the character of our neighborhood, Winter Hill. Do not change the rules to allow tall buildings next to residential neighborhoods. Anything next to Winter Hill should be two stories tall with buffering, wide setbacks, and preservation or even expansion of open space. Children deserve an open park with no walls that tower over them. That park is in use all year round, every month of the year, because safe space for children to get their wiggles out is in high demand in Falls Church. Um, we have a lovely continuity between the neighborhoods now with the current heights and setbacks and we want to preserve that vibe. Please don't box us in and please include explicit language if you're going to do anything to the zoning rules and explicit lang language and RFP to address these concerns. Thank you very much for your consideration.

Thank you for your comments. Is there anybody else you'd like to speak tonight? Okay. All right. I think that brings us to our action items. Um, which will be quick. Uh, we need to approve our minutes from our April 15th meeting or any changes. Uh, anybody wanted to request? Nothing. If not, motion to approve. Madam Chair, I move to adopt the meeting meeting minutes. Is there a second of April 15th? All in favor? Hi. Hi. Hi.

Okay, that brings us to our work session items. Uh the first is uh Virginia Village small area plan first and only Virginia Village small area plan amendments joint work session with the housing commission.

All right, let's give us a second to bring up the presentation. Make sure everybody can see it. Uh and good evening everybody. Um, in case somebody's joining us for the first time, I'm Matt Matusac, planning director with the city, and I'm joined here by several planning staff next to me, as well as housing staff and our HHS director as well. Uh, so I wanted to do is recap uh some of the progress that has been taking place. Uh, we have a couple of slides. I do see a lot of familiar faces. So much of this information is very similar to what you've seen in April. Uh, and I think we're trying to do is continue the conversation of based on what we're hearing, what are we doing with that information? And as we transition into the next phase of engagement, what do we need to do to actually kind of memorialize and document it? Because there is going to be a lot of specific steps ahead of us that require this information to go through c certain steps uh and processes for us to really make sure um it lives beyond this process. So, uh we'll try to map that out for you. um explain where where it's going, how it's impacting various documents, and I'm sure through the Q&A be able to kind of get to all the different questions. So, um just going to wait for the presentation to show up. Are we able to uh share it? There it is. Okay. All right. So, we can go to slide two. Um and again for context purposes, the uh Virginia Village site is located on Maple Avenue um intersection of Gibson Street. Most of you are very familiar with it. Um this image again reinforces uh how the city's um recent acquisitions uh and transfers of land uh make us a uh partial property owner of that property. So all the green polygons that you see

on that map indicate the ones that the city and its partner, the economic development authority, um are controlling. Uh for purposes of the conversation tonight, we're going to be jumping around between two sets of guidance and and kind of recommendations. The first one generally speaks to the entire site. So regardless of ownership, the feedback that we've heard and some of the general nature of that feedback, how do we incorporate that into the small area plans, the planning documents that we've established 10, 15 years ago that do speak to the entire neighborhood regardless of ownership? There is also tonight some more specific feedback we've heard that does not belong in those plans, but we want to memorialize as well. So, we'll kind of highlight what that means and be very clear that the more specific feedback is intentionally set aside for the city- owned properties. That's a very important distinction because as we jump around it, you can very easily get confused about what's happening and how each property is impacted. Um, so the two plans that you're going to keep hearing about are the South Washington Street and the downtown small area plan. As we'll see in the next couple of slides, there's a reason for that because this site is kind of in in the middle of both of them. So for us the best engagement uh approach was to kind of start small, engage the right folks, slowly kind of surface the conversation that needs to happen. And the way we've tried to do that is really looking at um earlier in this in this year kind of asking some key questions. Um not necessarily planning or zoning specific, but what do you want to see here? What works? What doesn't? And reminding folks we've asked those questions 10, 15 years ago. here's what we've heard. And I think combining the feedback from those allows us to gauge, do we even need to change anything? Maybe the feedback is the same, hasn't changed much. In many cases, as you'll see, it hasn't. In some cases, maybe we do need to do some cleanup. Uh, one of the things that

we've heard is if we are now uh trying to reassess what's possible on this property and we are part owners of that property, maybe it makes sense to make sure that that document is not split, that site is not split between two different documents. So, kind of consolidating a guidance into one small area plan is something we've consistently heard. That's more of a technical cleanup, but we do want to emphasize some of the things that are happening. So, we've used the month of March uh to kind of ask some of those questions. In April, we came back kind of sharing what we've heard, verifying we've heard you correctly. Um, and now as we get into the month of May, we're transitioning into what are we going to do with that information? Where does it live? And how do we make sure that it doesn't get lost once this process concludes. So, the month of May through July is going to be uh full of those steps as we deal with various boards and commissions and the city council going through all the different uh required steps. On the next slide, what you can see is uh those guid guidance policy documents that we talked about. This graphic is a little bit hard to read at the scale, but it shows you how the city over the last 10 20 years has spent a lot of time through community engagement figuring out how different neighborhoods should look like in the future should change happen. And we've done that in kind of incremental efforts so that it's digestible. we can spend about one one and a half years looking at entire neighborhoods at one time and not doing the entire city all at once. And that has produced several different guiding documents, what we call small area plans. And we're going to drill down into two of them uh along Washington Street that really speak to what could happen, what should happen on the Virginia Village site. uh and these documents generally talk about different land uses, what's permitted, uh connectivity, open space, those kind of general themes that kind of capture the vision. So, if we go in the next slide,

as we zoom in, uh the two different area plans, you can see how in the yellow boundary, the Virginia village site is split partially between those two. And again, uh, what we've taken away from both plans when they get to that granular level of detail for Virginia Village and less so about the rest of the neighborhood, the four things that continue to jump off the page are building height and density, uh, housing affordability, open space and connectivity, and kind of building uses. So we've tried to kind of extract that and pose those as questions to help us verify and affirm if anything at all needs to change in those plans. So on the next slide and really next series of slides, we're going to quickly walk you through this is the same exact information we shared in April, but on those four themes, what have we heard? What do we need? What do we think needs to change if anything at all? And here's where in the final two columns where we say proposed SAP amendments or changes to those plans versus related RFP guidance how we jump back and forth between guidance for the entire property versus guidance just for the city-owned parcels. Uh so you can see here I'm not going to go through each one of them but some of the themes and feedback we've heard as it relates to height. Um, a lot of is pulling from the adopted guidance which did talk about moderate density on the site, uh, various height restrictions and expectations. So, a lot of what you see here is us simply reaffirming from all the feedback we've heard through all the different engagements and the online feedback form that a lot of that guidance is still valid. So we're kind of moving it forward but recognizing that at some point we do need to be more explicit and specific regarding that guidance and it won't live solely in the small area plans. So the final column which is kind of a preview of the next item on the agenda which is the information we want to share with the development community

that might help us think about what could happen here. That's where all that specific detail of information is going to because those folks when they look at this will need to be that specific when looking at what's possible, what makes the most sense, how much is it going to cost, and really help us think about the future of this property. So, as we go through these slides, you can see here and on the next couple we kind of break up the building scale and density categories um and kind of give you a sense of what did each area plan talk about, where do we feel like changes are necessary. In a lot of instances, no changes are necessary at this point because of the general level of detail that we're at. So, building scale and density was the first theme. I think if we go down a few more, you can see how we transition from that category to affordable housing. So, I think we're going to get to the second one. Maybe one more slide. Yep. Uh, and again, affordable housing is part of the reason we're asking these questions now because as we became part owners, the acquisition history of how we got to this point is pretty clear. We're doing this for the purpose of preserving affordable units and maybe at the right time making sure we have an opportunity to expand affordability on this property. There was very strategic guidance about how we got here and why we were acquiring properties. And I think that emphasis perhaps was not as significant when the first area plans were being done. So it's really important for us to revisit that guidance with the benefit of this new priority that that that we have in front of us. So as you see this theme and some of the updates that are there obviously some general parameters could fall right into the small area plan and the more specific guidance can go into the requestful proposals which is the document we're going to be sharing with the developers. So the other category you'll see here as we keep going the third one deals with the open space and connectivity. um past guidance kind of give gave us several

different scenarios uh how the property could be used for both open space and housing. So no matter where you look, there's a kind of a mixture of what could happen here. Um, what we've heard more recently was pretty consistent emphasis on connectivity, making sure that trails continue to allow folks to gain access from Virginia Village into Big Chenise Park, from Big Chenise Park onto Maple Avenue, and kind of making sure the destinations that are near that site could continue to have pedestrian access and folks don't have to make go out of their way to still reach those destinations on foot. So that was kind of the consistent theme that we're capturing here and bring it into the RFP document. And then finally under number four, I'll just go right into that one. We have the kind of complimentary building uses which speak to if change were to happen and if the development community came back and said you actually might have enough here to expand affordable housing and if we're going to be evaluating or considering a new building that does that are there some complimentary uses that work well with affordable housing and what do people feel might be the right solution for this particular site given what's around it. So, this is kind of a flavor of what we've heard. Um, and some, I think, pretty typical responses, things like daycare, supportive housing services, civic uses, uh, quite often came up. And this is really helpful because part of what we want to do when we convey this to development community is to signal that we have a pretty limited menu of options of of preferred uses that we'd like to see them be creative with and see if maybe when grouped with a mixed income community they can get a pretty competitive project to get additional funding sources. Um, so that was kind of the the summary of the various themes that we've heard and how we are progressing uh through small area plan amendments in some cases some technical cleanups but then also more specific guidance for the RFP document that we're going to talk about later. So if we keep going through

now we talked about that some of the stakeholder outreach I think is really important to highlight. Um I know a lot of the meetings that we discussed with the broader community meetings open to everyone but we have been very mindful of some of the stakeholder groups that are mindful of this process keenly aware and impacted by what might happen here. So we have been uh intentionally reaching out to Winter Hill uh having regular communication with uh folks that live there. Um we continue to have regular meetings with folks that live on the property today and making sure they're able to follow. Um, these are really good sessions where we can translate what's happening and kind of walk them through because this is kind of a new process. Not everybody has seen too many of these. Uh, and we want to make sure everybody is speaking the same language and kind of following as we go along. Um, and then also the Tenant Hill Heritage Foundation. Um, their district kind of begins right across the street, making sure that they're aware. Um, they have some thoughts on what could happen, how anything on the site could have a relationship with that district. Um so again trying to be very mindful and also just open things up for everyone that lives in the city. So this is a very kind of engagement engaging process. Uh so with that I think the other items that we wanted to highlight is again we've kind of finished the first phase where we're trying to revisit the vision. Um we've I think attempted to summarize and recap what we heard. Uh and now we are entering this this three-month window where we're going to be kind of channeling the feedback that we've heard. What of what level of detail uh are we receiving it at? And the most general feedback is going to go into the small area plans. More specific feedback is going to go into the RFP document kind of informing the development community and also probably become uh zoning changes to really help make sure that we're very clear about what our expectations are. And sometimes because of the nature of the small area plans that kind of becomes less predictable, it's open to

interpretation uh and negotiations that happen when projects are actually filed. So making sure that we're very prescriptive and having things that live in the zoning ordinance, I think gets us to kind of fill that gap and have some more certainty about what we really say about this particular site. Uh so that schedule, if you look at the next slide, feeds into the next item we'll have on the agenda. I'm sure we'll pause for questions but um there is a lot of work happening behind the scenes that as the planning work uh which has started earlier this year continues through its uh schedule through July there is a lot of work to kind of stand things up on the request for proposals side where we've hired a consultant firm to help us evaluate what type of questions we ask for what expectations we set for this site and making sure that we are getting pretty helpful responses from the development community. And as you'll see in the RFP draft that we've developed, we actually are asking, is renovation the preferred option? Do we just pour money into the current buildings, rehab them, and just make sure the same number of units exist there in the future at the same affordability level? Or do we have a separate scenario where perhaps we do some bumpouts, add an extra floor, modest gain of units, but still mostly a renovation uh effort? or as the third scenario outlines, is it time to demolish those units and introduce a new building that actually significantly expands the amount of affordable units we have? Given that whichever scenario we pick, it will represent kind of a generational opportunity. We may not be able to do this again uh not in our lifetime perhaps because of how significant of an investment it is and we are going to require a lot of coordination and partnerships to get the right funding to make this even happen. So considering all that, the goals that we've set for ourselves as a city last summer through the affordable living policy, what is the right approach here? And I think we're trying to make sure

all the right people are in the room to help us make that really critical decision this summer. So we can speak more about the RFP later, but I do want to just kind of end it with um where we are in the broader schedule and obviously the additional meetings that are still happening and will happen um through this summer. So I think on the next and final slide we just have some next next steps um kind of highlighting additional meetings that are going to happen. Most of them I think have been scheduled but we have a few more to also look at and kind of make sure we're giving ourselves adequate timing between various commissions and council meetings. So I'll pause there and happy to take questions as we kind of initially focus on the small area plan but and then we're going to talk about the RFP as well.

Great. Thank you. Um, what would you recommend is the best way to kind of go through do we want to go through the table that's at the end of the staff? I mean, are you looking for feedback on the proposed SAP amendments from staff or general discussion? I mean, we have four different areas. We could approach it that way. I I think that's probably best. We we want to make sure we walk away tonight with being on the same page as it relates to the type of changes we want to proceed with as it relates to the small area plans

because when we do return in June um in addition to what we discussed tonight, we're going to have the more specific changes we think might be necessary for the city code and that may require a whole separate conversation. So, we want to kind of have this in a good place so that when the more detailed analysis comes back in June, we can kind of focus on that. Okay. Um, can we Does everybody have the in the staff report? Jack, could you bring it up? Sure. Maybe we can just go through each section. Anybody have a better idea?

Or does anybody have some initial comments right off the bat that they'd like to share? Thoughts they'd like to share? housing commission members. If not, we can just kind of dive right into the to the table. Okay. Yeah. So, just one um we are going to make you are recommending that we make that boundary change for the bold America adjacent properties. Correct. Those would be brought into the South Washington. Okay.

Will that by itself change any of the zoning? Because right now you've got part of it is B2 I think and the other part is RM. If you merge those two in the same small area plan, do you have to make an adjustment to those? It is a good question, but I think because this is a lot to unpack on its own, I'd rather kind of keep the zoning conversation separate. Yeah.

To answer your question shortly, the two in our opinion are unrelated because there will be different solutions for the zoning side of this. I think for now what we're trying to do is reconcile the boundaries of the small area plan. So we're kind of staying at a higher altitude. Um there is some consideration as we continue to coordinate with our city attorney that those boundaries should also be reflected on the comprehensive plan which I think right now is one large boundary for the entire city. So there is I think a current approach to make sure people when they look at the land use map and the comprehensive plan uh can see the boundaries of the small area plans. So that will reinforce the relationship between the two documents. But the small area plans will continue to be kind of a supporting role to the comp plan and also separate from the zoning ordinance which will be much more detailed. Um but I think once we clarify and clean this up next month when we come back we'll give you a better sense of what's happening on the zoning side.

Go ahead.

Yeah. Just before we get into the specifics about what we heard. So Mike, um I was I was under the assumption it would be fairly easy just to redraw the map um and could almost be done administratively. I'm I'm wondering why we're actually rewriting two 12-year-old plans at this point. It seems to me like if you look at the South Washington Street small area plan, it has everything that we wanted to say already. It proposes uh potentially preservation of the of the site. It proposes redevelopment of the site. It also proposes additional parkland, which I don't think is it is currently on the table. But why are we why are we spending staff time rewriting a 12-year-old plan when the original plans have everything that we want in terms of the broad scope of the project? It seems to me like we should just dive right into the what we want out of the project as opposed to public hearings on small area plans and things like that. It seems that that it's a bureaucratic step that probably isn't necessary. I don't I don't know. Does it I'm not quite sure why we're doing this part of it. um when in fact the South Washington small area plan already says everything we want to do and we could probably just adjust the map to take those four structures and put them in the South Washington plan and be done with it. I don't know, maybe I'm missing something.

No, you're not. Um the logic behind what you just described I think is valid. um I'll split into a legal argument and one that I think is more of a transparency and optics argument where from a legal side even if we are solely interested and only wanted to do a map change that would still need to reach the council for adoption. So we're just kind of following our city attorney's guidance and that any changes to those plans I think require a certain process which will invite key meetings that any other change like that requires. So to a degree some of this is unavoidable. There is a more nuanced conversation about if we feel like a change is necessary do all these documents need to be changed and I think you might hear a difference of opinion of what that really means. Uh there is some belief that only the zoning language I think really needs to be reflective of what we're seeing here. I think the judgment call that we made as city staff leadership was early on even if it means a few extra steps or a few extra meetings might be necessary. Let's go through and update as much as we can for the sake of everyone being able to see follow not be confused and even 5 10 years from now look back and not start misinterpreting these plans because something else actually happened regardless of which scenario we end up going with. So I think primarily for the community for various you know stakeholders that are following this we don't want to leave adopted plans uh with an outdated set of guidance uh some of which does speak to certain levels of density that we're hearing maybe are not appropriate some of it speaks to the entire site becoming a big park expansion I don't think that's on the table anymore um so setting those expectations and making sure beyond the group that's here tonight anybody referencing them after July I think is following a certain course that aligns

with where we want to be with the site. The last thing I'll mention is, and I know this is a conf consistent um assessment and sometimes accusations on staff, we don't know exactly what needs to happen on this site. We are entertaining a conversation to help us answer that because it's going to require a lot of experts in the room, right?

Some of that falls in the consultant team that's going to help us. Some of it falls in the development community. And I think as we all have uh additional conversations through the summer, it will really highlight based on what we have where we are today, do we have enough either, you know, uh money or will to do any of those steps or we just need to kind of be more patient? That could also be on the table. Perhaps this is just too soon. And I think we really want to hear that because we're all genuinely curious uh of where we are. And I think everybody has an instinct and opinion, but I think until it gets verified and tested, we really don't know. So in some cases, allowing the small area plans to have a range of options kind of keeps the door open to a lot could still happen. Um, and who knows if 10, 20 years from now, something else might also materialize if maybe we're not ready right now.

Yeah. And I I I'm uh I would just encourage keeping the updates as small area as lowmaintenance as possible. The the South Washington plan already says what we wanted to say. Um and I'm not uh it seems to me like we could jump right into the public discussion as we did with T-zones and uh ADUs. We didn't update the small area plans for those, you know, for those. If I could interject, madam chair, please.

I mean, I would I I would align myself with the comments of our planning director that there is a legal requirement to just respond to my fellow commissioner's, you know, um, recommendation to just dispense with some of that. We can't. I also think we should be careful about there's a reason why a planning process works in a certain order. There's a logic to it. It's not random. Um we want to solicit input. I don't think you're saying we know we already says what we wanted to say. We know exactly what we want to do. I think that's a little presumptuous at this stage. Absolutely. Absolutely not. I don't know. I don't I'm not saying we know what we want to do. I'm just saying that there's a bureaucratic aspect to a rewrite of plan

and that may be but unfortunately we you know we inherit the plans of our forefather so to speak um and whether we like them or not and we have to work with within that and if we want to change that there is a process which is exactly what we're embarking to do it doesn't mean I think we have to rewrite the whole you know small area I did not get the sense that that was anticipated right right so I don't think we're going to be you know I understand maybe I understand your statement was kind of hyperbolic we're not intended to both small area plans just you know but I do think we we have to acknowledge that's part of the process and it's not for nothing. I mean it's bureaucratic in some levels but but

but but I think that it's important that we understand why we're doing it because there was a reason at the time why that the boundary was made. Some people might disagree with that now. Some people might not. I don't know. We'll find out. Um, but I think it's important that we go through the process properly because we we've seen what happens when other things have occurred in the city and we haven't done it in my opinion in the proper sort of planning uh um order and process starting at this level very you know uh at the at the comprehensive plan level working then working up eventually as you mentioned to zoning um you know we're doing an RFP at the same time which is a little bit of a wrinkle because um you know there's certain opportunities we're trying to take advantage of but um I I think the process is actually very important. Um, and so I again I agree with the plan director. I think we we need to go through the process and we should take it seriously and try to benefit from it. It's not just to kind of go through it because we have to as a prefuncter exercise. It there's a there's something to be gained by soliciting input. The commission chewing on this, the other boards and commissions providing their input hearing from the private sector and other stakeholders and the public. So, so I would just say that I think that's important and I think we can make it as we can certainly strive and we should to make it efficient. Um, we're not looking to delay things unnecessarily, but we should take it seriously and and proceed. And I think what's been laid out I think actually is doing that. So,

yeah, it looks like you just picked some really kind of high level issues to make changes and you know, one that occurs to me is stepbacks. I don't think we really have anything right now in the small area plans on stepbacks. So obviously it's kind of important for the community to be aware that hey stepbacks are in there. I mean we'll we can discuss and debate what they should be but right now it's not really mentioned and so it's kind of a gap and I it strikes me that you've just picked these large issues to consider uh updating the small area plans for

and that my politically safe response is you're both right in that we have to go through some steps. The beauty of it is it's a surgical strike where a significant portion of either plan is not specific enough just to this property. It sets parameters for the entire neighborhood, goals and objectives that we're not going to have to touch. So even though we are going to have to go through the necessary steps, I think the markups you'll see are very minimal and I think that is our intent. We certainly don't want to take on any more work than we have to simply just for one property. Nor do we want to set the president that every time something like this happens, we have to revisit every single document. So we'll try to thread the needle on that. Great. Thank you. Any other questions to start? Mr. Duncan.

Uh I would just like to associate myself everyone who is correct in this and including the planning director and Mr. K. I I will say that I started the this with the same sort of question that Mr. Kinsky eloquently voiced. I did find that attending the four sessions that you've uh staged and uh hearing folks sit at the table with their neighbors and talk through this there's there there has there's real benefit in that and I think that we've made um good progress in turning the page. I mean I remember when yeah we first did the small area plan for this area. Jim Snyder was proposing a community center and a baseball field or something. I mean you know we clearly have gone a distance from those days and this process um is enabling us to narrow down and make relevant to today's times you know what our choices are. Um I guess uh you need to tell me how to vote uh based on uh offering the possibility of the generational opportunity that you outlined. Uh that's my particular preference and hope, but I understand that others have preferences and hopes that may differ from mine. I do think there's more in common at least again at the table sessions that I attended and folks who u you know understand that we have a we we have a challenge in providing affordable housing in our community. staff will remind me how many units we're going to lose uh unless you know something extraordinary happens over the next several years. And going into this whole uh adventure to me the objective is to

to to at least stay where we are. We can have a discussion about whether maybe we have uh too much affordable housing. There are some who think that. I I I like to think that a majority of folks would be on the side of, you know, we're we're at risk of losing what little affordable housing that we have. And so however we uh arrange the small area plans and the language in the RFP which we'll talk about later, I would just ask that it include the possibility at least of uh a development that would provide a number of units that would be equal to if not slightly greater than the ones that are on the books now that we are that we stand to lose in the next six to seven years. Thank you. Any other um questions housing commissioners to start? Um I have one. So rel regarding the downtown small area plan. So we will make potentially the proposal will be to make that boundary change. What other changes would potentially be required for the downtown small area plan? Is it just that we want to make sure that references any references specifically to Virginia Village are kind of in line with our current vision or are there other questions that we or changes that we might make to that plan? So, the idea at least um as it stands right now is for the downtown small area plan, we'd be um essentially moving any of the references from that to from that plan about Virginia Village into South Washing.

Okay. So, any any references to Virginia Village in downtown the downtown smell would just be struck basically. That's the current plan or idea. Okay. Unless they're sort of like related to Well, okay. Yeah. If there's references that are saying that's next to that or something.

Yeah. Or that makes that make sense in some kind of context. But it's Yeah. Okay. Um, I just wanted to understand, I mean, re really like how much I need to kind of pay attention to that column because it seems like the work that we're really going to be doing here in terms of like reinvisioning this area, hearing from the community and these commissions is is in the South Washington Street small area plan. Is that correct? That's like the meat of it, right? Okay. Um, all right. Well, then why don't we get started with this first section and maybe we can just discuss each one in turn. So, the step down approach um maybe we can look more specifically at the South Washington Street small area plan unless you think there's benefit to sort of looking at both of those columns. I think that the South Washington Street one is is probably more um is the most relevant, but

yeah, we'll be looking at the downtown one as well. Okay. As we go. So, the the staff proposal would be to not make any major amendments regarding any step down approach apart from adding um additional guidance on stepbacks and screening. And that guidance would be general, right? not specific in terms of like stepbacks should be X. Yes. Yeah. It would be general in line with just that we would like to see stepbacks in screening in these areas. Okay. Yes. Any uh any thoughts on that proposal from our commission or the housing commission? Go ahead.

Uh well going back to what was said earlier in the meeting. So what's what's the what's the enforcement mechanism here not only for this but whatever else we're going to talk about uh I mean what we would like to see I agree based on my hearings of the conversations at the tables there was a general agreement on step downs some differ about where we start and where we end up you know do we start at seven and step down to four and two or do we start at five and step down to three and one or or two I think that I think that's a discussion that we'll have when we get to the RFP. Okay. So,

because right now we're just talking about the small area plan which is the much more general vision for this area, right? I think we want to go through this table and talk only about the small area plan which is kind of the big picture. What do we want to see here? And then we'll talk about the RFP where we'll get into more of the specifics in terms of the guidance that we're going to give the development. Sorry if I jumped the gun. I'm I guess is that is that correct, Mr. Matusk? Okay. All right. So, you're asking for it specifically about the step down question. Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, what I would say is,

you know, is is it this is we're talking about, you know, comp plan language here and I don't know if we want to or need to get to that level of detail when we start talking about, you know, what we think a future building should or shouldn't do or I mean, I think it might be sufficient to talk in more broad terms about respecting, you know, providing a transition Mhm.

Respecting the disp the the the adjacent land uses not causing a negative impact. I mean I think there may be ways to in to to have our our goals and intents our purposes and intent in in the plan without saying well this many stories. I mean I think that starts to be too specific for a comprehensive plan. I mean obviously we're not there's nothing that prohibits us from being so specific at the comprehensive plan level but I don't know if we need to be. I mean, I think, you know, as we just acknowledged, we're looking at different options for the site, which could even include retaining what's there today. We don't know. Um, I mean, if if the consensus is is to redevelop, even still, I don't know if we need to prescribe necessarily things like that. I mean, I think it, you know, that may be boxing ourselves in unnecessarily at this point.

Well, maybe maybe Staff, could you talk a little bit about what you envisioned here? I mean, I was kind of thinking of these things as like EGs, you know, like to your point, like respectful transitions to the neighborhood um in the form of, for example, stepbacks or screening, right? Like not necessarily specific guidance. Was that the vision?

I think as for the small area plans, we'd want to keep it at the same level that it is currently at. Um we wanted to we have including this um bit about step downs because we heard it a lot and that it was important. So we I think any inclusion of it would be pretty general. It would be just saying like that that having step backs having um I I agree with that. I think I don't I think we I mean I would say we don't need to include be so specific as to say the number of stories that nobody nobody looking at what's in the table. So look at ignore that last column. Oh, the what we heard. Okay.

The the the related F RFP guidance. That last column. Can you cover up that column, Jack? Just just just slide that just slide the teams thing over there. Um we're only looking at the proposed SAP amendments. The third column. Yeah, there we go. Okay. Thank you. I associate myself with being wrong. That'll be the next discussion. Um, if I just maybe as an example as to why something like this might be helpful at a very general level, the office buildings that are on Park Avenue behind the Panera,

you know, they're kind of straight like this could have benefited from, you know, uh, step down and, um, might have helped terms of community acceptance. So, uh, having something like that here, I think would be a good communication effort at the at this stage. The idea of a step back. Yeah. Yeah. Not the specifics. You don't actually have to cover it, Jack. If people want to see it, it's okay. I think I think we're all clear now. My benefit. I appreciate my eyes were wandering, but uh

Okay. Okay. So, we we're in agreement that, you know, in incorporating some additional language on stepbacks, screening, respectful transitions to the neighborhood um to augment what is already currently in the plan. Sounds good. Okay, that brings us to building height again. column, the third column here, no major amendments necessary given current level of detail. Additional guidance for height transitions may be added. Um could you talk a little bit about what kind of guidance you're envisioning? Yeah. So it would be similar to the um setbacks that we just talked about where we would say um that the um we would that there would be a preference to height transitions that there would be a preference to having kind of that um buffer that kind of step down approach. It would probably fall in the same language but remain general, not have any specific heights included in this portion of the project.

Okay. Any thoughts on that? Sound good? I'll just add Yeah. I mean I I think we heard a lot of um preference for you know obviously more moderate density happening here and so

there were you know examples given of what moderate density looks like throughout the city which generally generally range you know from five to seven stories and so you know thinking about just current examples in the city versus uh what you know other developments that have been approved uh more recently like the Quinn uh for instance as sort of a contrast example of things that might represent developments on kind of the higher end of the spectrum. You know, for for points of reference, if this is something I always brought up at my smaller tables, if we had Quinn kind of is one of the taller developments, which I I think is 10 10 plus stories on one end and then you have um you know, Winter Hill uh kind of on the other in terms of height and scale. Where is what's kind of in the middle there? what represents a um uh you know inappropriate transition in building height and scale. And so you know we we almost overwhelmingly heard you know you somewhere in the middle like a more moderate kind of density um and and height is um what what would be preferred. Um and so that's you just to put a little more context I think in those

okay

descriptions. That's helpful. Uh any additional questions or discussion? Nope. Okay. I think we can move to um buffers and setbacks. Uh again, no major amendments necessary. Update language where needed to emphasize creative integration of green space. as part of the medium density with an emphasis on green buffers. Uh so again um pretty generalized language but trying to incorporate some of the um more modern um standards and things that we've uh been including in our our more recent plans. talking about um biofilic design, having uh green space um integrated as much as possible, just encouraging that in that area. Uh having that language, but nothing too specific or prescriptive.

Go ahead.

Just one thought. It's a little bit outside of the box uh on this, but I can't think of any other place to raise this. Uh but the whole issue of single stair has kind of been emerging. Um not in Europe where they've had it for decades. It's in the US it's like oh oh okay yes we can do that and some places are starting to do that. I see DC is just about ready to adopt a single stair uh approach which reduced costs relevant to the situation we have here and provides uh maybe some more attractive uh potential in terms of design. I don't know if we're at a point where in Virginia that could even be considered or whether, you know, more state legislation is required before we would be able to uh seriously consider that. But it strikes me given the the kind of the level of buildings that we're looking at that this might be a possible location for considering something like that. So may I ask so so the point of a single stair building is that the building's footprint itself is is diminished without the number of units that it includes being affected. Well, today it requires for for let's say the three to six story, which is kind of the relevant uh size that we're looking at, requires two stairways uh for fire code purposes,

but that restricts the shape of the building. You you typically get these buildings that look like, you know, uh motel, you know, with a central hallway and the and the rooms kind of double corridor. Yeah. And as opposed to in Europe, you get these really nice nicely designed buildings that are, you know, three to six stories because they were able to do single stair. So it really is more of an architectural I guess, but it has cost reduction benefits as well.

Uh cost reduction. Okay. I guess I'm I'm trying to plug it into the category that we're talking about buffers and setbacks. I I could see a case being made for that being stronger if you say and that helps us increase the green space buffer. Um I I don't know if this is the place to put that thought, but seems seems like a reason. I'm not sure where something like single stair would fit. Uh Mayor Hardy, did you have uh something that you wanted to add? So in 2025, the general assembly actually passed the bill asking to study it offline. DHC

so maybe some progress. That would that would be great. So the market might might bring us that if we do the RFP and make sure that it includes that maybe something to consider for the RFP and it might give uh one of the biders who might have some expertise in that particular area. Right. Okay. I'm for that.

Could I ask uh what is the difference between a green space and a green buffer? I think I'm for both but I'm not really sure what's the difference. Uh so a green space um can fall under essentially a green buffer could fall under a green space but a green buffer is looking at more like a a set of trees that creates kind of a wall it or hedges or some kind of natural divider um using green um architecture essentially. So green trees, plants, anything like that. Whereas a green space uh is more general and it it's just any green space.

So a buffer would include something like the linear park. I guess you call it a linear walkway behind the Whole Foods Broaden Washington building. That would be a green buffer. Yeah, I I think so. I it's um been a while since I looked at that specific um spot, but I think kind of uh from my understanding there's an existing green buffer between the Virginia Village site and the Bull America where there's that set of trees. Um so that's kind of what it uh an example in the site of what

Okay. There was some discussion at one of my tables at one of the meetings about what what what is because most people have not walked behind the Whole Foods building to see what what what we're talking about when we're talking about a green buffer. I think that does qualify which is an excellent addition to that project and was much sought by the nearby neighbors to the good to the good of the whole to the good of the cause all the way around. Yeah, I think this is getting into a lot of the lingo, but I think that um would be considered a green link. Sorry, we have green everything, but um and that it's in there a little bit further down, but uh that's having kind of a park spaceish like a as you said a linear park that can connect.

I think what might also help is Yeah. So whether it's two, three, four different elements that involve vegetation, bofilic design, green spaces, um having visuals of recent examples, whether they're in the city or not, might also help kind of translate and distinguish between them. So that's that could be on the table if we're making minus minor updates to the plan.

Yeah. Yeah. And the mention of biophilic design makes me it just makes me think like any opportunities we have to like link to the best practices that we've defined in the updated comprehensive plan chapters like environment for everyone was done in 2020 and so maybe there are other I know it's a surgical update and we're not trying to change a lot but if you see easy opportunities to kind of work those best practices in that we have in our new comp new newer comprehensive plan chapters into the small area plan like please do. Yeah, that's uh we'll definitely take that into consideration. Um as well as updating things like maps and and visuals. I think it's a good idea to have some examples especially from u more recent projects included.

Yeah, because the date on this will be 2026, right? The it'll be the smaller area plan as of 2026. So I I don't think we want anything in there that is sort of like not current best practice or um you know so ideally we're we're really looking through the whole thing. We will specify um in the plan there's a section that talks about the process of the plan's adoption. we will add a paragraph talking about the process this that the update in 2026 h was and how that process was mainly focused on this one site this Virginia village okay

so that should hopefully signal to anyone that um that it wasn't a complete overhaul although we should I um think it's good to consider removing anything that isn't best practice but yeah that should point to that this was the specific the reason that we did the update Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Any other thoughts on buffers or setbacks when it comes to the smaller area plan?

I mean, I think these are these items are all sort of variations on the same theme as far as respecting, you know, adjacent land uses from potential, you know, incompatibility and negative impacts, which is sort of planning 101. I mean, a lot of that's enshrined in sort of other foundational documents like in the comp plan. But um yeah, I think clearly that that's a concern of the of the neighbors and people who live in proximity to the site. And so I think it needs to feature prominently. But yeah, I agree just overall we can we can be specific to a point. But right, I think we should make be careful to prescribe, you know, more than than sort of what the general what the goal is to as far as not causing harm and negative impacts to those adjacent uh neighborhoods that ab but the site. I think it also speaks to I think the great work that went into developing these plans in the first place where the in our opinion and the community's feedback even 101 15 years ago I think that transition the expectation for how sites fit within their context I think was captured effectively enough where as you go down that fourth column uh there's a lot of no changes needed and that's partly because I think how well the wording was originally crafted but also I think from our ability to be very mindful of the fact that a lot of work went into those plans

and we don't want to set expectation that suddenly for one particular objective for one particular site we're going to just rewrite the entire guidance. So the degree to which we can rely on wellcraftrafted you know expectations that live in those plans I think we're trying to stay true to that. I think the community respects that and then they're hoping that the work they did put in whoever was involved back then I think is still valid and we're trying to be respectful of that. It's a good approach. Okay. Uh I think that brings us to the last item section or topic architectural style. So here staff recommends that we emphasize residential forward design that complements neighboring architectural architecture such as Pearson Square, Winterhill, and the existing Virginia Village structures. any thoughts or feedback on I'm assuming we would be adding language to to create to to make that emphasis.

Yeah. I think um one thing we heard in the uh meetings was that the current language that's in the plan is is a little vague. It just says to um align with nearby neighborhoods. So what we heard was that these three um kind of kept categories of Pearson Square, Winter Hill, and Virginia Village were ones that they specifically wanted to for any possible future project to be in conversation with those those architectural styles. So, just adding a little bit more specificity in reference to the exist the current um neighborhood

the term residential forward. Can you uh maybe expand on that a little bit? Yeah, I I think that um that one was um at least from person from my experience in the meetings kind of what comes to mind is kind of the negatives people think of and nonresidential forward. So things like big concrete pillars or kind of more uh harsh architecture that might not be as warm and fuzzy. Warm and fuzzy. Okay. People live here. That's kind of

we could use a lessy kind of term. It's kind of vague. It's open to interpretation. I mean, I've I don't know if I've heard that exactly. I mean, residential forward. I mean, I don't know. As opposed to what? Yeah. I mean, non-residential forward. I don't know. So, it's maybe just let's be specific like what do we want? Um, you know, don't leave it open to interpretation. If we know the kind of things we want or things we don't want, the things we're trying to avoid, just come out and say it. Um, sometimes it's better. Yeah, we can definitely workshop that.

Go ahead. your use of the phrase in conversation with that that I can get my head around link I understood forward I don't get but I I agree with Mr. Kraner on that. But it does make me wonder uh there's been some uh talk at uh among a couple of us I think about when the Quinn building comes online, we would like whatever is across the street from it at Virginia Village to be very much in conversation with that because the Gwyn building's height is uh as Jack said, nine stories or so. And one of the reasons that the council agreed to go to that height was because it allowed I think 30% uh open space canopy. So it's it's conceivable and quite hopeful actually that people who live in Virginia Village, whatever it is, would cross the street and make use of the amenities on the ground floor of the of the win of the Quinn building. Not including it suggests that there's well suggests two things. One, people are just not thinking about it because the building's not there. Or two, that you know that the nature of whatever happens at Virginia Village is you know dramatically apart from what's happening at Quinn. And I don't I don't think we want that. I think we want to create a pedestrian environment where the two do converse. Yeah, I think that was uh an oversight and and pointed especially to your first point that that it's not built so people aren't thinking about it. Uh but I think that uh it's a good edit to add reference to that.

Okay. Thank you. Any other thoughts on this topic? No. All right. Anything else on uh these small area plan updates in general? Advice for staff? So, the next step on this is that you'll draft the updates to both plans and we'll see that at our June 3rd work session.

Uh yes. So, we're working on on drafting it based on the input that are is in these uh four tables. uh and then and what we hear tonight and and during the meetings um and then we'll bring that back to you at your next work session. Go ahead.

Uh just one question. So uh in terms of the what we heard um I don't see anything did you hear anything about anybody advocating preservation of the units? Um it's not listed here as what we heard. Um, did I'm I'm just I'm not advocating for it. I just want to understand is there any community input that has said what we really want is just to preserve the units or modify the units, update the units to add the buff belouts. I know that those are options that you're considering in the RFP. Did you hear any of that? And if not, uh, because I went to one at, uh, uh, Columbia Baptist, and it didn't seem as though that was even sort of a way to integrate that into the conversation, like preservation is what is my preferred option. And I'm not advocating for that, but I'm just wondering if anybody from the community has said, "What we really want is just to upgrade these units." Um, has that come up?

It has and it's why those sentiments are reflected very clearly and throughout the RFP document in that we're jumping around between guidance that lives in the small area plans that speaks to this is a huge disclaimer. If change were to happen, what should it look like? So, there's an underlying premise that change is happening and we all want to know and agree on what that should be. So, these are guidance for change documents, if you will. Um, the fact that this site was not established as a very specific historic district suggesting that preservation was always intended, um, I think was also kind of a hint. The fact that some of the plans speak to converting it all to open space, also speak to the preservation aspect and where the community was 10, 15 years ago, uh, or the fact that moderate level of housing, which is significantly higher than what's there today, was also on the table. So that full menu of options of what could happen here signal that we have a mixed opinion about what could happen here and what the small area plans did to their credit was highlight for each one of these scenarios options. Here's what we think should happen if you go down this path. Bringing your question down to the 2026 feedback and guidance is we want to know what is the best course of action because there are kind of answers and guidance for no matter what we end up doing. The question is what do we want to start doing now that we are part owners and I think that question was not explicitly posed when it was completely privately owned. Um the portions that are privately owned and we keep emphasizing this there is no change anticipated. Uh at the moment we are not pursuing any further acquisitions. So they're going to be forced you know moving uh down the road to ask the same questions about preservation infill any other options and these plans will continue to guide them in that. But for the city owned properties, I think we're capturing this full menu of preservation, min minor bumpouts, and

infill development. So that the folks that are usually running the numbers on that, checking to see what's feasible, they're going to give us some guidance about do we have enough for either of those to make sense. Yeah. And I'm sure you're doing this already, but um in the small area plan, you want to emphasize that this is if change, if there's going to be redevelopment, these are the parameters of the redevelopment, but we're not disregarding the potential that preservation is still an option. Right.

Correct. And I think most of these plans early on tried to describe what this plan is about, what its purpose is, uh, similar to some of the comp plan chapters about kind of establishing a vision for where we want to go. Um, it kind of bleeds into other aspects of the role the zoning plays and the kind of underlining zoning districts that are there and uh, folks ability and access to maintain certain uses and densities today uh, or replace what they have one for one. So there's a lot of different answers, a lot of legal answers about everybody's rights to continue to have what they have. Um, and a lot of these are really private decisions. So folks are various different stages of where how they're maintaining their property and um, the income they're generating and the impacts of potential sale they have to factor in to their own economics. Um, so a lot of that I think on every site uh, in any jurisdiction I think factors into what can I do today? Do I have to change? Whose call is that? And if I do change, what does it look like? What are my options?

Mr. Duncan,

just one quickie about the including a diverse mix of housing types and bedroom count sort of implies that the current use is not very diverse. Actually, I don't know uh for a fact. the 80 uh households, the 20 quads times four 80 households. Are any of those uh in more than a one-bedroom setup or are they all onebedrooms? They're all okay. Thanks. Number one. Number two, functionally are the occupancy patterns do we know? Are there folks who are trying to squeeze, you know, more than you might think would fit into a one-bedroom because it is affordable? So if we were to build something new somewhere somehow on this site, there's a possibility that families that are now squeezed into onebedrooms could have had the opportunity to move into a two-bedroom or even threebedroom if if we could make the money work.

Okay, thanks. the housing commission has put together statistics about what the what the current excuse me affordable houses are and what the demand is both in terms of um a range of income levels and a range of household sizes. And so I think that would, you know, obviously be a useful and appropriate thing to be referencing here when we get to the stage of determining unit sizes and that that's something we'd provide to developers.

So for the small area plan guidance, um, yeah, do we want to also recommend a mix? So we have a mix of housing types, bedroom counts. Do we also want to recommend a mix of sort of affordability here or in the in the small area plan? I think the bottom row that's bleeding off the page there. Oh, it's the next one. Okay.

Okay. So, any other any other thoughts on unit mix the the recommended changes on unit mix for small area plan guidance? No. So for affordability um you want to amend the downtown small area plan. So this is not related to Virginia Village, but we still do want to make this amendment in our small area plan because it's a good opportunity to do so because we have a new affordable uh housing plan that we want reflected in the downtown small area plan. Is that right? Yeah, I think um I think that's the idea is if we are going in and removing some of these things, we want to we won't be making um many edits but to try to as you said bring things up to our most recent

or reflect the more recent conversation. Yeah. On affordability. Okay. Uh any any comments on the recommendations for affordability then?

Go ahead. So, the reference to starter homes, um, you when I hear starter home, I think of like an ownerowned home, not like a rental unit. Is that I mean, is that what the the feedback was? Uh, and, you know, I think that that would be a pretty drastic shift in in what I think a lot of folks have been expecting to happen at Virginia Village. Yeah.

Yeah. So, I think the small area, sorry, uh the small area plans are again covering all of the Virginia V village areas, not just the city- owned lots. So, these are more general policies. Um, but it is something we heard was was a desire for a mix of of types and that includes um possibly includes some things like starter homes and stuff like that. But um so units for purchase. Could you say home ownership? Home ownership. Yes. Affordable home ownership. Yeah. but not necessarily as part of the city's portion of redevelopment

for the small area plan element at least it is more general and just covering um the Virginia village area uh as far as the RFPs um and what is more specifically touched on there um I think Matt might have a better um way to explain Yes. So I think if we later on we get into the RFP guidance that that is more specific. Um there are sections that I think express mandatory requirements kind of you know our non-negotiables expectations we absolutely want to achieve or see if developers choose to pursue change. There are other ones that are preferences goals. If you can make this work it' be great. Let us know your thoughts on how feasible this is. the starter home, the kind of um certain town home functions, those type of housing typologies are in that latter category where I think we're curious. We like to see if they could be a part of the solution. When we get into affordable versus market rate um units, whether they're for sale or ownership, there's an not just a housing typology and affordability question, but an immediate impact to what is the ultimate financing scheme to make any any change happen. Uh so the more affordable expectations we set for the entire property, our entire portfolio of city-owned lots, um the larger the impact, the potential gap financing might be of any project that might materialize. So we can set those things, but I think what we'll hear from the development community is, okay, well, if that's your preference, here's how much more it's going to cost you to redevelop or renovate or do bumpouts. So there will be a correct a direct correlation between setting that as a requirement versus maybe a preference we just want to learn more about.

And then my the other comment I was going to make was in that second bullet whether it would be appropriate to add something along the lines of with an emphasis on affordable homes. Yeah, I think that that type of um that that is definitely on the mind while editing and could be an easy kind of addition. Any other recommendations on this area?

So, just a question. So given that this applies to the entire small area, not just the property that we're talking about Virginia villages on, uh, if we keep the language in there the way it is, referencing starter homes, that communicates the our view that it would be desirable to encourage developers to come with a product that was um, you know, threebedroom one and a half bath, $650,000 town home, which is something that it's a niche that Winterh Hill used to fill that it does not fill anymore because of the assessment increases. At my table, there was interest in including that as a component as part of the Virginia Village redevelopment, like maybe the owner occupies would back up to the closest Winter Hill neighbors. I don't know whether that's feasible or not, but I'd be interested to know if the market thought that it was doable. Anyway, whether they do or not, we would like to encourage somebody in some somewhere in the small areas that we're talking about to come with that product because it's not something that we've been offering here for the past years that I've been involved at least.

Great. Thank you. Any other comments? Okay, I think that brings us to open space and connectivity. Uh so the first section is uh recommendations for amendments uh regarding Big Chimneys Park. So staff's recommending that we remove references to full conversion of Virginia Village into an expanded park or community center. instead reference increased connectivity to existing park green space built into the development and future expansion of green and community space. Any thoughts on that? Sound good? All right. Uh pedestrian links highlight the need to expand Pearson Square pedestrian experience up to Virginia Village to accommodate increased pedestrian traffic post redevelopment. So the sidewalk through there is quite narrow. So you're recommending that it be ex, you know, look basically like what it looks like in front of Pearson Square with with our new updated streetscape standards. Yeah, I think I think that's part of it is um bringing that and just um uh yeah, generally looking at um I think that's the only like specific thing we found that isn't already covered in the plan. Adding that kind of that expansion.

And you referenced Green Links earlier. It looks like that's in the downtown small area plan. Is that also in the South Washington Street small area plan? Uh, I think not that language specifically, but um, but again in this kind of marriage of the two uh, plans, I think it's something that could be brought over pretty easily as um, as having and then as we use in the RFP comm a porous site, a site that has for that specific

parcel. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it also reflects the common feedback we've heard in that even in today's conditions and environment, folks do sometimes struggle for some of the more convenient pedestrian connectivity designs. There's a lot of informal pathways, a lot of shortcuts.

Um, and I think the easier conversation which perhaps took place years ago is well, if the entire site redevelops, I don't think we'll ever have that scenario in front of us. So if some of it stays the same, if some of it maybe changes, what does that look like? What is the right answer? Because we're trying to prepare ourselves for either scenario. Can we still find creatively, opportunistically ways to improve that pedestrian access to and from the site? Yeah. When I first read this, I was thinking you were talking about, you know, possibly finding some uh additional pathways through there. like on the Madera project on the western side of it, there was that that walkway that was put along there to so people could get through without having to go all the way around the block.

All right. Anything else on pedestrian links? If not, I think we can go to parking. No amendments proposed here. Any comments on that? Adequate parking should be provided for residents is sort of the current guidance in the South Washington Street small area plan. None of the units have parking, right? They're all on street or do they or do some of them have they do in the rear? It's a combination. Some some have less formal off- streetet parking spaces, a lot of on street. Um

it's somewhat challenged because of the dead-end condition of Shirley, but also uh in some regards from a distance it looks like we're parking single family homes but in fact these are quadplexes. So um there's a kind of a natural maybe historical challenge that was never solved in terms of having adequate physical supply for the amount of cars that folks usually have. So, right. Right now, we have like restricted parking on those public streets. Right. Today, there's some kind of like I was looking at the street view. There's like two hour some like twohour parking I think on Maple. I'm not sure about the internal streets. No, on on Shirley Street, too. Okay. There's sign twoour restriction.

It's signed for two hour parking. Do we enforce that? Probably never. Monday to That's a very different conversation. 8 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. 2 hour parking only. only 8 a.m. to 5. It doesn't say like resident only. It's not resident. It's not a resident parking district back there, is it? No. It's interesting. I wonder the history behind that. Two-hour parking 8 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday to Saturday. Oh, no. Sorry. Except by permit. So, it is a permit district. You're looking at Shirley or Gibson? Shirley. The whole street is permitted twohour only. Yeah, I think most uh residential areas that are down the street from a commercial area have similar two-hour parking. So maybe it was signage put in when Pearson Square was built or Ter

potentially. Yeah. Or Yeah. Or Harris ter. I just wonder. I mean I wonder I never Yeah. I just I don't know. I wonder how many of those folks have permit. I just don't know how we're actually programs in force or what. I don't know. And then the fact I'm sorry, forgive me just my ignorance of like some of like the intricacies. There's like a gravel parking area back in there on off of Gibson. Is that privately owned? I guess who? And there's like dumpsters. There's like that's for the those units specifically those buildings. That's not for the whole everything's individually owned. So I'm just saying almost look like a common lot or maybe that just belongs to one of the units. I think when you overlay that with the lot boundaries I think the parking area actually bleeds into multiple lots. Okay. So they share at least two.

Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. It's like one or two maybe that share that and they have like some trash dumpsters back there. I don't know. Anyhow. Yeah. But overall for the comp plan I'm getting into the weeds. But yeah, the providing adequate parking is probably sufficient. Okay, any other comments on parking? If not, I think we can move on to placemaking. So, the recommendation here is to uh integrate historical walks, creative design features, and public seating into the newly created green link paths. Can you talk a little bit about that? Because we didn't reference the green link paths. ear or did we earlier talking about earlier? I guess

I think they were touched on a little bit um in kind of that combining the two plans moving over some of that having um the poorest site and and that kind of thing. Um uh hopefully it all reads a little easier once we have the drafted language in front of you next after your next session. Um but yeah, I think this uh came out of conversations uh from the um public meetings where people um pointed out that there are a lot of the historical walking routes and art walk art walk route is near there and kind of how can we combine that as well as um as well as creating a link to the um park that is on the other side of the lot and and how can we kind of creatively um make that a um intuitive movement through the space and a and a comfortable place for people to walk people to walk their kids generally a um a nice green pathway.

So that's where the language comes from. Sounds lovely. Any other thoughts on this one? No.

Okay. I think that brings us to the last section, complimentary uses. So, there are two amendments proposed here. The first um is to I guess add language encouraging neighborhoods serving retail and services such as child care as a commercial component of any redevelopment should it occur. Uh and then do we want to talk about that one first? Uh neighborhood serving retail and services, daycare use, child care.

This is again this is for the entire small area. This is for the vision for the area. Yeah. The small area.

I don't I have no objection for the whole area. The more I've thought about the Virginia Village site itself and particularly the parking situation, the more I veer towards thinking it should be a as close to residential only as we can as as the market will bear just because uh again, you know, the hope is that we'd be able to serve more than 80 households and more than 80 households is going to generate at least at least one car per unit and probably more like one and a half. And adding that parking demand to a demand for parking for commercial uses in that particular area, I think is asking a lot. I mean, you know, again, the ground floor of the Quinn building is leasable and has spaces for commercial uses that are walkable by Winterhill and Virginia Village residents. So, but but again, I'm talking specifically about Virginia Village as a whole. The small area certainly could include an encouragement to do small commercial bays. Go ahead.

I I just wanted to uh second what uh Mr. Duncan said. I It seems to me that if we're going to put that in as a requirement specifically for Virginia Village, and maybe again this is broader, but we want to be careful about presupposing what the development should look like in Virginia Village. I mean, we We may find out that that type of language pre presupposes a five to sevenstory building with where that could accommodate street level retail things like that. I'm not sure that we want to go down that road right off the bat, you know. Um it it may be that a developer is going to come in and propose something else, you know, that's fully residential. So I think right now what you're seeing in that fourth column is really any additions above and beyond what's already in the plan. Um I think the daycare child care nod is to simply begin a journey of maybe u a revisit to what our permissions and prohibitions are on that use throughout the city. um and making sure that if it perhaps serves a project well we be you know open to kind of considering it here

I don't view that column as a requirement just simply kind of guidance for the entire area about what we would like to see what's perhaps part of the vision we've established um I think once we get to the fourth column which is the RFP guidance even within that there'll be several different tracks of mandatory requirements versus preferences so and I think when we get to that use discussion that is more of a preference in terms of if possible we'd be willing to and like to see people's reactions about which uses are complimentary to whatever housing solution they come up with. So I our intent at least is not to prescribe like it has to be this. Yeah. Because historically ground ground floor commercial was just retail, right?

So

yeah, I mean I I do think neighborhood serving retail and and services is appropriate in this area. Um, I'm also a big fan of the second bullet, which is, you know, adding language to encourage smaller retail spaces. I think a lot of the spaces we have are really very large. It makes it difficult for small businesses to get started. Um, any thoughts on that one? Second bullet. If not, I think we might be done with the feedback. on the small area plan amendments and I guess when you bring all of this back in June, we'll have more detailed language.

Yeah, thank you. This is helpful and will be taken into account as as we work on those edits. Great. All right. Thank you. Uh okay, so Mr. Did you want to walk through the RFP maybe at just like a high level to kind of orient us to what it is that we're giving feedback on and then maybe we can go back through this table again with the fifth column that everybody's sure wanting to look at.

Yeah. And again, we're just beginning to kind of roll this out. I think there's a lot of attention, visibility, anxiety about what's in this document, what purpose is it serving, how are we going to use it. Um, so I think our intent is to even though we have a very early draft, we do think it's a good one and I think it's in everybody's interest to start socializing that while staff, the city attorney, our consultants that we're beginning to partner with all take and apply their own filters to that document, which we do expect will evolve over the next several weeks. But I think it'll be a helpful opportunity for everybody to kind of share their reactions. uh and really I think it helps improve the version that we're going to want to have at the end of the month. So if we can share or jump back to the presentation we had I have one late slide that kind of breaks down the document and again we just started to kind of release it uh earlier today. So again we're not expecting a robust conversation but since we're all here I think it's a good opportunity to kind of walk everyone through. Um so once we bring the presentation up, you know, the document right now is is about 25 pages or so uh it does have some again very basic information about what RFP requests for proposals need to have. Anyway, um I wanted to kind of highlight, you know, there's some that are pretty straightforward. We don't anticipate um any kind of critical controversial items, maybe some technical inaccuracies if we need to verify, but sections one and two are really what are we trying to accomplish? What is the city about? What are we looking to solve for? Where is this site located? What's our market snapshot, our housing inventory, things that I think in some form or fashion we have socialized in recent months. So, no new information in the first two sections. Um, the final section is really what our purchasing staff will be updating over the next few week weeks and days, which

is kind of the boilerplate technical legal language we need to have on all solicitations of this nature. So, I'm not expecting too much feedback on the first two and final sections. The bulk of where I think our focus should be is sections three, four, and five. And this is where we are similar to the earlier slides in tonight's presentation, bringing forward and incorporating all the feedback we've heard in March and April. Um, and highlighting and elevating the guidance that already lives in our planning documents and the affordable living policy. So, this is kind of more of like a data dump, if you will, of here's everything that we're trying to incorporate as we make the best decision possible. Um, and once we lay that groundwork for potential interested parties, we get into what's really important here because not everything is treated equally, um, some things we're really going to be more, uh, having more emphasis on. And it's not so much how people are approaching the property and what their qualifications may be, their past experience, their portfolio in solving these type of challenges on other complicated sites. but really how are they creatively approaching what's possible uh and how are they approaching the financing of that idea whatever that idea might be and at this stage as you read through the document um we don't know yet if it's renovation we don't know yet if it's minor bumpouts we don't know if it's going to be infill development so that redundancy of ideas and options are continually visible throughout the document and for whatever scenario the development team may pick. We're asking them a give us more details, explain how you got there, and also tell us why you didn't pick the other options so we can see their train of thought and what did what jumped out to them that made them pick whatever they ended up picking. because both of those kind of part A and B answers are going to be very helpful in not just

informing staff, all of our stakeholders um and leadership about where we are right now in terms of meeting the city's goals on this property given the current conditions and our ownership structure. Um so that's kind of what I wanted to uh elevate. Um and then of course the evaluation process which is going to uh fast forward to the month of July by which point we anticipate receiving some of these bids from the development community. Um we are going to be establishing a selection committee uh likely comprised of seven stakeholder individuals uh representing various groups. Um right now we're thinking there'll be some staff presence there, somebody from the planning commission, somebody from the housing commission, an EDA member. Um, so we're working through what that list looks like, but being meaningful and mindful of the fact that we're all going to have to get together in the summer, share ideas, share reactions, perhaps talk with some of these firms that might apply. So, it's not so much who's interested, who's got the right expertise, who balances the conversation for us, but are you actually going to be around

to take part in this? Maybe people have huge summer plans that I'm jealous of, but we need you to be here for this. So applying that filter now so that once we get to July I think this committee is set up for success um and is able to kind of maintain the schedule that we're on. So a lot of that is in the document um and again the caveat which I think all of our messaging is carrying that you know a lot of critical stakeholders have not yet reviewed this or in the process of reviewing it. Um so the version we plan to publish later in the month will look different just by its nature uh in addition to anything you all might send us along the way. So uh we we felt this was an appropriate time to share even the early draft that staff has produced because even that version might be helpful and getting the socialize and everybody feeling more comfortable as we get to the later weeks uh this month.

Great. That's very helpful. Thank you. Uh so maybe we can pop back over to the table and have a discussion on that final column. Would that be helpful at this point to go through each of the issues again? Okay. So this is related specifically to the any redevelopment of the Virginia village parcels that the city owns.

Correct. So we we spent the first hour and a half of this meeting looking at the site in general as a whole because that's how the small area plans are treating it. Now we're shifting to just the green polygons that are representing the city owned lots because that's the only thing that's going to be subject to this request for proposals. Okay. Can I go ahead

throw the train off the track right at the outset by uh expressing first of all it's a good document a lot of great work goes into it and I think it's by and large got most everything that we need I am concerned disconcerted and distressed that it puts a heavy thumb on one thing which is what you just said that we're only asking the market to comment on uh a development or a renovation or whatever whatever options they might be interested in on the sites that we currently own. I mean, to me, I'm trying to put myself in the shoes of somebody who owns one of the quads today and is here at the meeting or is listening to what we're doing and thinking, you know, they maybe actually might get this airplane off the ground this time, you know, and and I hadn't really thought about it, but I'd like to get in on this because I know my building is old and it's going to need renovation. And anyway, across the street, if the city does what it says it's going to do with the city-owned buildings, construction is going to be, you know, very disruptive on my property for years to come. Now, might be a good time for me to get in on this. And I feel like if we don't tell the market that that's at least an option to consider all the properties, then the whole effort that we go to is to some degree not achieving our fullest potential. I don't know if anybody else feels that way, but I'm not asking you to agree with me on whether there needs to be a generational opportunity, but I am asking that we ask the market what they think about that.

I agree. I mean, I guess I was going to ask it kind of a similar question in a different way. And again, forgive me because I've been I know people have been very involved in this for a number of months and maybe in years, but why this RFP now? We owe nine of the 20. So why now? Why didn't we do this five years ago? Why wouldn't we wait till we have some larger percentage of the of the units to have that critical mass? The kind of what Mr. Duncan is getting at. So, and again, please like enlighten me. I like I don't know like why why now? Why are we doing this RFP now? Why in 2026 with nine of the 20 less than 50% are we doing? Curious. I'd like to know.

It's a great question and let me explain why we're doing it. um even if it leads to us just agreeing to disagree on the current direction. First of all, we are proceeding with 10 lots being in play because the corner one which closest to chimneys that we don't own has expressed interest in participating in several different ways which I think allows us flexibility and I think signals to the development community that you can count on that parcel if it helps you with any kind of creative solutions. Everything you were just raised I think was exactly valid in November of last year when we first maybe for the first time appeared with a aggressive schedule how to potentially solve this kind of ask some of the tough questions look at this site very differently that we haven't before and since that time we've been raising awareness with the existing ownership structures through letters emails phone calls meetings um and over the last five six months we have had discuss discussions with many of them. Not just kind of socialize and introduce what we might be entertaining here, but really gauge where are you with your property, how's everything going, explain the direction we might be taking, you know, explaining some of the different scenarios in front of us. And many of them have expressed that as attractive and appealing as some of this might be, they have some critical restrictions that for the near future prevent them from selling. Uh some have uh capital gain issues uh that I think have significant financial implications for them. Some of them have a really strong relationships with the people that they're renting those units out to, some of which are their relatives. Um and it is not in their interest to displace them. And I think it's a great relationship. We want to continue and support. uh some could be uh actively negotiating for potential sale but at

values that are five to six times more what the actual going rate might be for units that way. So whether it's us, whether it's a developer asking the same question, hey, would you be, you know, interested in this might be a really good time, I don't think somebody is going to agree to some of the terms that one or two individuals may have offered us. So we've made the attempt. I think we've tried our best to expand as many as we can to make this as viable an opportunity as possible. I think the signal we're sending to residents of the property to development side that what we're asking for is do we have enough? And one of the answers might be you're probably two or three lots shy. So just keep asking, be patient. Maybe in 10 years something might materialize. The reason why we're asking right now is because there are consequences to status quo holding on to these units because they are in bad shape. The ones that we own at least many of them require regular maintenance. Some are going to require a lot of significant reinvestment soon. So we need to know, are we doing those investments for the long term? Is it just for to get by the next five ten years? Now that they're ours, there comes a certain kind of fiscal responsibility and it's something that city leadership and the EDA have been really contemplating and struggling with like what do we do with this?

Um, and I think one of the things we need to know before we can make any further investments no matter what they are is what do the experts think. So the timeliness of this question is having the consultants there to kind of help us ask the right questions and then the people that do this for a living and solve these complicated challenges give us their take. And I think what you'll see in the RFP there's actually one option of a response where neither of these scenarios currently make sense and here's why and we're kind of asking them out of curiosity. We're really interested why you reach that conclusion. So, one way of thinking about it is we may be going through all this just to get to August or Labor Day and have that response that we're just not there yet. But that would be very helpful in any kind of critical strategic decision-m that might come after that. So, I think we do need to ask the question absent of which I think we're just having opinions and everybody has some instincts about what we are, where we're going, but I think they need to be verified. Go ahead.

I had a um kind of a slight variation on the same issue and that is um let's assume that um and you've had some of these discussions with developers that they can do something with these two components of that of that site. Uh what's it going to look like when that's done from a let's say an architectural standpoint? Is that viable to have some kind of development on the ends and then those existing older buildings in the middle? Is that it'd be good to have them address how they think the pro the site as a whole can work with kind of a and I maybe this is too strong of a term but somewhat vulcanized uh approach to it. There's probably a better word than that, but uh but this but the book ends, you know, they may turn out really nice, but then you're going to have something in the middle that may not be so nice. It would be good to get input from the from the respondents as to how that can still work.

No disrespect to current property owners. Um but what you're saying is I think something that I consider true for the entire commercial corridor that we have in the city and that I think there's a healthy appetite not to redevelop every single site

where every block looks the same. We kind of start to lose the character of the place and I think even if we wanted to we could never accomplish that just to kind of ease everybody's tension. But the other thing is the market alone will do some of that for us. And that same logic I think applies to Virginia Village where even outside of our control, the natural forces that are pulling on this property will likely result in kind of a mixed bag of some new, some old. Um, and there's nothing really wrong with that. I think it helps with some of the typologies, various housing income levels that can be supported. Um, so there are some potential advantages to that. What I think is really critical is that we could spend days and hours focusing on like what could happen here, what could happen there. What I want to emphasize is part of why we feel the way we feel about the aggressiveness of the schedule is that we're not receiving proposals by this summer. We're receiving concepts, an idea, both the narrative and visual of how people see those two bookends solving themselves or one helping the other. enough to kind of tell the story to make us feel like we're understanding it, but also to generate the financial uh solutions that come with that idea. And if we were to agree on one and start working with a developer, they would have a whole separate process to actually file a more detailed project that we then have to go through our typical review process and kind of see the actual details of what that looks like. We're not going to get all that up front. I don't think you could have a viable solicitation process where you know free of charge everybody would just design this whole site for us. Um so we have to be very careful about how much detail we're asking up front uh and how much of it I think once a commitment is made and we start to establish a relationship with some interim agreements then they're going to spend more and more money as we're kind of maybe heading in a certain direction.

Go ahead. Uh so just to uh piggyback on that uh one, does the city have resources to buy additional properties or you do? They do. Okay. So um is it part of the grant uh program or is that So I'm going to let our housing staff answer that one. It's part of the Amazon grant program. Yes. Okay.

So, uh just to um expand on what the other commissioners were talking about, you've created you suggested a u a particular type of development in the RFP. Five to seven stories. It specifically calls out. It says it it can reach a maximum of five to seven stories, but that's sort of what you're throwing out there is a five to seven. There's one scenario if more significant change were to happen. There are two other ones that are much smaller than that.

And there's two other which are more smaller. And then you say and and in that scenario it says something about and 120 of those units need to be um affordable housing units.

Correct. So my question is should there be another scenario that would sort of integrate better into this bookend sort of concept of we have a development on the south end and a development on the north end and existing houses and what right now it seems as though you have got this five seven five to seven story building and something else on the other end and these houses in the I mean, I could envision, for instance, I don't know if you can, you know, the area, but the uh right at Maple and West Colombia, there's garden apartments with, you know, that are three stories. Uh, and as opposed to a sevenstory, you know, bookends. Uh, but you could easily integrate three-story walk up garden apartments with balconies into that space and it would integrate pretty pretty nicely into the rest of the buildings in Virginia Village, you know, so you might not get as much density, uh, but you would get more density than you have now. uh and I'm wondering if it is taking that approach might be a better approach and then you can expand out at a more incremental basis you know phased uh timeline I'm just that was my initial reaction is why do we have just that scenario C and not a scenario D which is something a little bit less That's more modest than a 5 to sevenstory building.

So, isn't that scenario B where you talk about modest bumpouts and maybe going up a floor? I think that's exactly what you're describing, Bob, is is scenario B.

Um, not really because a a you still don't have a contiguous building. you you one could have a a long garden apartment as we have a lot of them through the area. We have a number of them on South Lee Highway. We have a couple uh you know in my neighborhood. We have one right across the street on West Columbia and Little Falls uh and Maple. Um but they're they're they're not individual buildings. there. It's It's an apartment building, but it's a garden apartment building as opposed to a high-rise with an elevator. So, part of it I think what you're describing, and Sarah's absolutely right, I think this the second scenario does speak to I think some of our lower and medium uh scaled solution uh that kind of expands the current quadplexes outward and then potentially vertically. um which I think would serve some of what you described. If we apply what you just described to the third scenario, the larger infield development, what we then have to just to complete the conversation, applies all the all the other guidance that we have uh in the RFP that speaks to the transitions, the sensitivity to the park, sensitivity to the surrounding neighborhood. Once that gets applied, I think the push and pull of those that guidance, some of which are expectations and requirements, I think will naturally depress the building. So I don't want people to envision where we say five to seven stories, the entire building footprint is 5 to seven stories. If you really apply all that guidance onto the third scenario, it will gradually step up because that five to seven story height is only expected along Maple Avenue.

Yeah. And I'm I I I think you you may want to just look at scenario B as opposed to just modifying the existing buildings to developing sort of garden apartments that can be expanded as you get more additional properties. Uh or create a whole new scenario which would be sort of garden apartments. three to three story walk ups, you know, uh that could also be, you know, would be expanded.

So, I think what we're going to end up doing, I I think I'm getting to a yes. uh is threading the needle where we are not starting to encroach into a significantly high number of scenarios but keeping the three basic ones which do cover a lot of bases and I think part of the response where if folks just cannot seem to make any one of those economically viable go and suggest an alternative and I think that very open-ended question might lead the way for something like that if they feel like that actually solves

maybe a hybrid I mean you know I think the issue here like a hybrid solution and I don't we'll see what what the respondents you know would come back with but you know this is not everything it's not contiguous so you have the two pieces but even the pieces on either end are not contiguous you know I don't know if you have the map handy but um with the exception of the row adjacent to Bowl America you know you know and then there are two lots at the b you know on the southern end you have other things that are that are not contiguous and maybe you know for the ones that are you could have a critical mass perhaps to do something that's significant that's more dense than what's there now, but maybe the other lots are get are bumped out. Maybe those those those lots like I just had the map um three like 303 and 310 which are kind of on their own right now. Um maybe those you know would could you know maybe there'd be a hybrid approach where you know there something larger could be built and then those lots are bumped out. I I don't know. I mean I think it'll be interesting to see what comes back. I do think that the idea about a five to seven type of infill thing is probably going to be very very difficult without a larger piece of land that's contiguous. Um, so I don't think we should preclude maybe allowing folks to have a kind of a a response that incorporates maybe pieces of two of the choices. Does it have to be either or? Um, because I just don't see how would you incorporate 303 into the rest of it. It's kind of an island by itself and 310 they're by themselves. So part of this happens at every meeting by the way. Uh everybody plays the architect and designer which again is somewhat uh helpful here. But I think adding hybrid, adding alternative scenarios, it's something we can easily incorporate in there because the whole intent of the document, the exercise we're going through is let's invite creativity. Let's not try to presume like we've solved it or we know that there's only one or two different ways this can go into. um we're asking for

that expertise to come in and tell us maybe we're overlooking something including you don't have anything there yet. So just be be more patient. So I think all those things I think have a role to play in that document. Yeah.

Just gets back to my point at the beginning about like I mean are we going to are we precluding a better end result by doing this now without a more critical mass? I don't know. I mean maybe that's what the process you said. Maybe that will be the conclusion that you hear from the market. that there's not enough here. I mean, certainly on the infill side, I mean, that obviously would you'd have a line of people, you know, but then we there'd be a lot of market rate as you said in the RFP. You'd have to, you know, the pot would have to you'd have to sweeten the deal by providing a lot of market rate in order to get additional the additional um affordable. Without that, I don't know what you're going to get. It'll be interesting to see.

But I just want Oh, sorry. I was just going to add to to reiterate what Matt said about the city really does not want to be in the business of property owner. Like Kaen works really hard with the property manager and these buildings are old and have a lot of needs um and we're spending a lot of money which is coming out of rental income and that type of thing to um you know to manage the properties. And so that's not really sustainable in the long term. Um you know from a costwise staff management time like that that takes a lot of we made a decision to buy them. I don't know and I say we yeah

collectively we the city made a decision to buy these properties. So what was our plan? I mean did we have a plan? I I don't know. So um but I hear you. I mean I I guess the problem is now we we've invested so much that um you know we have to I understand there's a need to where we're expending money on them. But I I don't know. I don't I don't have the answers. I mean, the RFP process will, I guess, hopefully inform that decision. But I do think that it will be a challenge. And I think I'm not saying this is not something that anyone people in this room don't already realize that this will be a challenging thing for a private developer to look at because it's so unusual and and again disjointed um with the exception of maybe the row at B America. So, um, but that's why I think, yeah, allowing flexibility, you know, that's probably the best chance to get a positive response that might yield what we're kind of looking for here. But I still think there's a tradeoff to, you know, perhaps an outcome in the future that might have been even better. But I don't know, right, there's there's a limited time, I suppose, if we it's a budgetary issue. Um, you know, how much we can subsidize, you know, be be in that in the housing ownership, you know, business. But um yeah, it's it's it's it's a very tricky the way it's set up now. Just I'm not playing designer. I'm just saying looking at it and I've been involved in a lot of projects over the years, you know, and it's it's the geometry is is very difficult.

Go ahead.

I'll try not to give the same passionate speech again. So you'll hear it at every meeting between now and when we're done with this. But um I'm not an architect or a designer or anything like it. But I do know based on the experience of the redevelopment that we've done here over the last dozen years that you know leaving these vestigial properties dangling around the vicinity of a more modern building is something that would be desirable to avoid. you know, the nail salon in front of Byron, the pizza place in front of the Broadway. I mean, somebody somewhere along the line should have figured out what the price tag is that would have, you know, developed those as part of the bigger developments around them. I'd like would like us to try to, you know, not make that same not go down. I won't say it's a mistake because people were doing the best they could. But but on a more practical note, um I hear what you're saying about, you know, maybe maybe this comes to the point where everyone throws their hands up and says, you know, you really just can't advance without more if not all of the buildings involved. What does the LITC mechanism speak to in those terms? What are our chances of qualifying for grants and tax breaks and so forth relevant to what we're talking about here? Are we more likely, you know, does does that money want to go to renovations of 83y old buildings or does that money want to go to something different? I'll start with the first point you made and depending on the meeting I'm I'm the

minority on this but I remain hopeful that when we do get a proposal back the reaction most people will have is wow I didn't think of that and I think we might realize just how creative people might be that do this for a living and realize that with the right approach um and a little bit of optimism I think you can actually make a lot of different things happen on that one site just within what we own or have access to. So, I'm looking forward to when those bits come back and kind of testing that theory. Um, and until that happens, I think we just have a lot of opinions which at some point, you know, is limiting. What you highlighted in the second part of that question is the fiscal responsibility we have and the opportunity in front of us to preserve or expand affordable housing and the nature by which grants, loans, other funding streams are available for either renovation or creation of affordable units. And in the same way that we got ourselves in the current situation by relying on other grants and other people's other organizations money to acquire these lots very little of our own with the help of the EDA that same approach of leveraging other dollars minimizing our investment is what I think is in front of us if we were to take the third scenario and expand affordable housing because that's where a lot of the money is. That's where a lot of jurisdictions nationwide are trying to do with those limited opportunities, whether it's their land or private land. Uh so the renovation side of the equation is very limited in terms of financing. It's there, it's difficult, it's competitive, it's nowhere near what it is for redevelopment. So, in terms of how far our dollars go in terms of expanding uh and reaching the affordability goals, that's one of the debates we're going to have once these bids come back because I think it will highlight that we can, you

know, triple the amount of affordable units that are in that site. Um, and use a lot of other funding streams to get there as opposed to doing it solely out of our own pocket. I don't know if the answer is the same if we are simply just considering bumpouts and renovation, which is likely going to be much more expensive on a per unit scale than wholesale redevelopment. And I think it'll pose questions of like how many times we're going to have to do this if we're just renovating 80-year-old buildings. Uh which again, that's a debate we can also continue to have. So the financial feasibility of what's in front of us, I think, is really almost more important than the actual built environment. But that's where to your earlier point, why are we looking at 120 units, for example, if a new building is introduced is because on the financial side, there is a sweet spot where buildings that are only 80, 90 units are not as competitive for those annual tax credit deadlines and other projects that are vying for the same loans. But there's also s such a thing as too big of a building. So, and that comes with its own restrictions. The more you locate there, the more you have to park, the bigger the impacts are. Um, and I think we're putting enough restrictions here where there's only so big of a building that can even meet all those guidance. So all that I think is going to spell very few limited options, but I think a few that could be viable. We just need to kind of hear from the experts and kind of feel more confident about that.

Okay, that's very helpful to know. I would like to share your optimism and and I will at the end of the day. You know, I think this is the direction we're going to go and you know, staff needs to drive it. guys been working really hard and and you know I want to support that. Um you know at the same time I've always been old man in a hurry and I I would like us to get to that point where the scales fall from our eyes and you know opportunities that we had never imagined come into the daylight. And if if you're saying that the process that we're going through now has a better chance of making that happen than just endlessly talking about what each individual of us might prefer, then let's certainly go year round. I I kind of question like what's the harm in asking? We're not, you know, we're simply, you know, posing a question and getting expert opinions about it. Um, and I think folks that are in this room have been working on this site for years. Like this isn't like, you know, something we just started a few months ago. It may feel rushed, but there's some people in this city that have been looking looking at this for what, approaching a decade now, maybe.

Anytime anybody says approaching a decade, just add another decade to it. There you go. Yeah. You make working on Founders Row for a decade. It's like, no, we've been working on Founders Row since my kids were in elementary school. So the full story of how sites like this even come to be you know and even if all this falls into you know the universe aligns and you know we get all the answers we're looking for there's still like four to five years worth of steps and construction and anything else that could happen ahead of us. So it feels aggressive in the moment but the bigger picture is very slow. So it's trust me once we get past the summer next winter maybe even things will not feel any anything like that. Thanks.

Did you have a comment? Oh, okay. All right. Where are we? Um, we haven't gotten we haven't gotten very big picture issues. Chewing over those. Uh, know if we want to go back to the table. I do have some thoughts on the transition language and I just looking at the RFP. We talk a lot about the transition to Winter Hill, the transition to the park. we don't really talk about to the transition to the existing Virginia Village homes. And so I think that would be something that I would work into the RFP. Um, and I don't know what our requirements are. I, you know, but I just it's missing here. I Good point.

We need to be respectful of how the building feels to the current residents who are remaining. um kind of somewhat connected with that. Do you are you going to be including the u actual setbacks and so forth in the RFP for developers or just rely on just say here's the zoning code check it out or

we are going to be including it. I think there is going to be a delineation between explicitly spelling out an exact number of feet for example. We don't know enough and we shouldn't be fooling ourselves that seven feet, 15, 30 feet is the right number. Uh, and I think back to the flexibility and creativity. We need to see and react to the way people interpret transitions and stepbacks.

Um, and I think that might lead to further evolutions, further guidance. Um I've been involved in a lot of processes like this where there's folks who do not deal with development uh have good intentions uh and I think unintentionally uh prescribed something that can never be built uh and our code is kind of full with that uh and we don't have a lot of outcomes to show for the progress we made and all the work that went into this. So learning from those um and every place I think has examples of that. How can we be intentional, clear, transparent, but stop short of designing the site because I think we can all appreciate how complicated this is. Let's not presume that we know what the exact number might be. So for that reason or reasons, we are not planning to add specific numbers for distances uh at this point in the RFP. But you would expect the developers to come back and tell us, you know, in order for us to make this whatever it is proposal work, we need a setback of no bigger than 8 feet or something, right? I mean, we would at some point you have to get to that level of specificity.

We may get there. Uh some of the zoning work that's kind of uh being queued up for next month might also help us with that. Um, so we're doing some additional thinking, some additional site visits, understanding what's happening on either side of the lot lines there. Um, some numbers might be helpful. Uh, I just caution that prescribing too much will backfire. Um, and I don't think anybody has enough uh, justification to really back up any number we could come up with. But at some point, I suspect there might be minimums.

I just had another question. I don't know if we want to change. Oh, a different topic. Well, I just wanted to acknowledge that we've been we've been going for a few hours now. We start at 7:30. So, our housing commission members, thank you for joining us. If you are want to continue to the conversation on the RFP, you're welcome to stay, but I know we've we've completed the small area plan discussion. So, you're also welcome to go home. Yeah, I think the RFP conversation is probably going to be more relevant. So, okay. I don't know about that one, especially for the affordability section.

Okay, maybe we can prioritize that section then. Why don't we Why don't we go to the affordability section and then we can um excuse our housing commissioners. Thank you. Start at 6:30.

Uh you started at 6:30. I see. Yeah, we start at 7:30. Um is your question related to affordability? If not, can you hold it? Okay. Okay. So the this is the related RFP guidance. We have the actual text as well if which was included in our materials if you want to reference that. Um but I think maybe for now we can stay on this table. So the guidance is to target a diverse mix of housing types and bedroom counts that is reflective of the city's current needs. And are we including

are we including um any of that data that I mentioned earlier or the data that I know Cath Kaen's collecting about current um income mix of current tenants?

We are some of it is already in there. Some of it we expect to have by midmay when the next version gets released. The thinking there, if we're were to elaborate on that bullet, is not just prescribing the amount of units that we think we're, you know, seeking if uh changes happen. Um because again, if we're just discussing the first two scenarios of renovation, those are pretty straightforward. Um when I outline what that looks like, if you've been to the site, there's not much to say. I mean, it's these are the buildings. But on the infill development scenario, uh it's not just a m matter of how many units, but what type of units. So inventorying who's there today because those folks will have priority to come back to the site is really critical bedroom types uh income levels AMI ranges um as a secondary priority factoring into some of the units I know we mentioned this earlier that might be expiring elsewhere in the city we do have that information incorporating that in there as well then also uh when you scroll through the housing snapshot in the RFP we do kind of capture our overall affordable housing portfolio and when you look at that table there's some pretty clear gaps particularly on the lower AMI levels 30 40 50% AMI we've not been as successful in getting those units in some of the new developments so there are clear opportunities but I similar to the setback you know specific distance conversation we do want to prescribe much of what we would like to see in terms of a new building but leave some flexibility for the development team to be creative and make the project as competitive as possible Because one of the questions here is can you structure everything to meet our expectations and still have a viable project that actually competes for the tax credits and I think some of that will require kind of a sliding scale of well in that case I'm going to need these type of units based on what you guys are telling me I have to deliver. So leaving some room for breathing and and adjustment I

think will be critical to that but we can certainly spell out a big chunk of it first. Um, okay. Any other thoughts on unit mix? If not, maybe we can go to affordability. Yeah, I mean, just as a general matter, I know that like when we're talking about uh affordable units that I think one bedroom is the one that we have kind of the greatest stock of or like least demand for. to better. Yes. But I think that's certainly a key key issue.

So on the affordability front specifically in the RFP will um seek to establish permanent affordability for all new units. Prioritize right to return. Are we not requiring right to return? I'm sorry. a question. Oh, um, sorry. For Virginia Village residents who might be displaced or temporarily relocated during the redevelopment, would we require a right to return for those residents? They do have priority um based on the return based on whatever eligibility requirements that we establish. Yes. So, whatever eligibility requirements we establish for the project um they will have um first priority to return to the project.

Great. So that's not really something that's like on the developer. It's really our duty. So the relocation policy that we have, it does specify that they do receive priority, first priority before we market the units to others that they do get first priority. Does this influence the previous uh the previous item? I guess because they're they're all onebedrooms right now. We're now suggesting that we need actually we need more two bedrooms, but all these folks are in one bedrooms and they have the priority to come back. They need something to come back to. I know some of them would maybe want to move up to a larger unit, but some some of them would have to. But some probably Yeah,

I don't know. I just want to make sure that there's not, you know, too much of a tension between those two points. And what happens to the rent? Their rent may come back. Does it stay the same?

So rent will be determined based on the AMI set aides that we have. That's how we determine rent for affordable housing. So if the specific unit is on 30%, 40%, 50% the rent would be determined based on that. And also based on what AMI levels the residents are on, they would be paying rent based on that AMI level. The current tenant could move out, have to move out and then come back at a higher rent. It depends on what their income is. If the income is on a higher level, then yes.

Um let's see. Just to be clear, if we finance the movement of people who are in winter in Virginia Village units now that we're going to the city is going to renovate or do whatever we're going to do with them. One of the options for what the city could do is just sell the units that we own today and the people would have not necessarily any place to come back to. I mean, you know, this is that's a a dark possibility, but it it as has been said by others, the city doesn't want to be in the landlord business for an eternity. And the easiest way to accomplish that is to if we just run into, you know, roadblocks everywhere we turn on dealing with the current buildings that we own and doing anything economically feasible with them. We could just sell them and then hopefully maybe apply the proceeds to affordable housing opportunities somewhere else. But if you're a resident of the building today, it's there's no guarantee that you're going to be able to come back unless we do a substantial economically feasible within the city's budget remodeling campaign to make the places they left livable.

I don't know that that's necessarily true. I I think that we could develop a project that had if there's currently 30 families in one-bedroom units that we could develop a project that had 30 one-bedroom units that those folks could return to.

I think it also speaks to phasing mechanisms. You know, let's say we get through August, let's say the predominant feedback is you don't have enough. We would not even recommend some of the, you know, larger moves, but maybe there's some renovation activities. You know, you could do one building at a time and kind of be very mindful of the displacement or the intermediate shifts that have to happen. It would still require more long-term uh ownership of it. If we based on feedback received and further analysis get to a point where selling the properties is the preferred choice for whatever reason that might be, I think that would trigger a very separate and also longer conversation because um I think that would conflict with some of our affordability goals. Um and not the reason why I think we entered into this picture in the first place.

So I I think if we get even get close to that scenario, there would have to be a lot more of the conversations to figure out like how did we do this the right way. Um, I don't think we're anywhere near that.

Yeah. No, I'm not suggesting that anything's going to happen tomorrow or maybe even this decade, but I mean, it is a possibility that the city decides it doesn't want to be in the landlord business for 85 year old buildings. And that would not be an irrational decision given our financial commitment to affordable housing. Now, it's usually the first thing that goes out the door when, you know, we're looking to trim the budget. I think that's regrettable, but it's just a fact of life. I think it also returns to the point I made earlier about renovation versus infill and if this becomes more of a financial conversation between the various scenarios that are outlined in the RFP, which one allows us to leverage more outside money to get us to a good place? And I think the closer we are to status quo to returning and keeping these very aging units longer, the more of our own money we're probably going to have to spend because just there's less resources available for that option. Um, and even the money that we do have that we could be spending is really the best use of money if we're just returning one for one units and not really growing our portfolio. Yeah, I would argue that you could house those 30 families in existing buildings cheaper than uh updating, modernizing, remodeling an 85 year old building. Uh

when you say existing buildings, current housing stock that we have built already that has to think it opportunistically multi-bedroom units or one-bedroom units. If if we say that, you know, there's demand for different kind of bedrooms, you know, we could go buying those those units down in existing buildings cheaper than we could remodel 85year-old Virginia Village.

I think what's embedded in your statement and scenario though is this convenience that those units would be available when I think in reality the demand is so so high that we don't really have a lot of vacancy in those units, unless I'm wrong. So part of what I think we continue to highlight the infill scenario which I know is not popular for some uh is that it allows us to address the bigger citywide issue. Um and I think absent of that I think we're going to continue to struggle because we don't know when the next SC project is going to come in. We don't know even if it gets filed that we're going to be as successful and get another 30 35 units in perpetuity from that project. Is that six years away a decade? Um, so I think being opportunistic and just realistic about where we are, when is the next opportunity if it's not here. Um, and I think all that just places additional pressure on the decision we're about to make with Virginia.

On that we agree for sure. Yeah. And I'm just and this the financial arrangement we would sell our lots to a developer. What's the financial arrangement with the city and these developers who would, you know, assuming there's the RFP, we get the responses and what would we do? We'd sell it to them or we would give it to them. We would lease it to them. What would we do?

There are sections in the RFP that speak to that very scenario. Um and much like the flexibility we outlined earlier, um we are keeping our options open because the development community has kind of progressed in two or three different, you know, ways when partnering with a jurisdiction or another entity, a nonprofit, uh when trying to solve this type of situation in other locations. Ground leases sometimes may help subsidize the property further. If there's gap financing that falls back on the city to contribute even more beyond the land that we already have, there's ways to kind of use that as a credit towards the city where uh through creative financing strategies. We're kind of minimizing that gap um and continuing to rely on other sources. Um, acquisition and fee transfers are also on the table, but I think we're not expressly saying it has to be this and not that because we want to hear if there are advantages to one of those two options or there's a third one. So, as you read the RFP, the sections that speak to that real estate transaction if we were to partner with someone, currently it's open because we want to hear from them about advantages and disadvantages.

All right. any any other comments on the affordability section. I just want to be mindful of our housing commission colleagues. Um we did not discuss I think the end of that uh recommendation was to require new units meet the AMI levels represented in the current among the current residents. Uh so I think that speaks to your question earlier. Does this influence the first uh oh no sorry that's AMI levels not uh unit mix. Um any thoughts on that? Okay, you all are welcome to stay or or leave uh be excused. Up to you.

All right. Thank you. Thank you for coming. Okay. Uh we have a few other uh I think areas to discuss as a planning commission. Is everybody doing okay? We're at almost 10 o'clock. optimistic with that 910 adjournment time there. What's that? You were a little optimistic with the 910 adjournment. I know. Yeah. What does that mean? I don't know that the I don't know that the RFP was this draft RFP was originally included in the discussion in the estimates. I'm always going to tease on Yeah. Yeah.

Uh Okay. So maybe we can talk a little bit about the the sort of step down recommendations that we have in the RFP. Uh so the language in the RFP behind beyond this green buffer building height should step down to three to four stories closest to the Winter Hill community to achieve better transitions. Um I'm curious u Mr. Matus, like if we're if we're trying to kind of leave room for, you know, the developer to kind of propose what they think is right, do we just want to ask for, you know, the the building to achieve a respectful neighborhood compatible transition to the Winterhill neighborhood rather than specify here like three to four stories? I don't I just wonder the more we add numbers the more are we setting sort of like the goalposts and expectations in a way that

I know we don't well want people to you know I was just going to say we think six stories is respectful only only three of our lots that we own but adjacent residential most of our lots are but

the bowling the bowling alley um you know so I I don't know so again I gets back to like you know what we're expecting to get like from these folks. I mean, you know, when we're talking about step down, that would assume like we have like this, you know, we have this large common property boundary with adjacent residential and right now, I mean, we don't really I don't know. I don't know that we have those two disjointed pieces. Um, so I'm not sure even what, you know, I mean, I don't have any problem with talking about a transition, but it's only really lot 310, 312, and 302, and if we partner with the owner of 300. So those are just those are you know there's a disjointed so like there are those two areas I guess right for those lots we can talk about you know it's relevant but um you know

maybe moving beyond how many instances of that we may see given what's at play here the guidance itself I think when we get into a number of stories I think most people can agree that's something that is generally at a level of detail that I think doesn't get in the way of creativity. I think when we get into like feet in inches,

then I think we have I think regular and typical problems about how do we know that's the right number? Um I think stories is also a good way to limit the ways in which something could be misinterpreted. And I think if it continually shows up in our policies if we continue to hear that from the community, um some things just through repetition become probably something we should just carry forward and be very clear about that. And I think everybody can kind of relate to a number of stories particularly for dealing with a residential use. Um so we felt like in this case that was probably a healthy um instance of kind of respecting what we heard, carrying it forward and and being true to you know we heard you and we want to make sure everybody else is very clear about what we mean.

Okay. I agree with Mr. crassers. I mean, if if all I get to do is build on the two barbells, then I'm much less concerned about step downs to anywhere because they're not really a budding, you know, they're abuing a bowling alley and and Pearson Square, let's say. Mhm.

Um, so I I guess, you know, I don't want to constrain the market from bringing us a proposal for two sevenstory buildings at the land that we can aggregate uh that we've already aggregated. Uh, and stepping down just makes it harder for that that kind of building to pencil out, right? I mean, so this is where I think we don't have the luxury of wearing any one of those hats on their own. I think we have to kind of balance everything we're hearing. I also want us to evolve beyond I think earlier thinking and even modeling from what I can see that was done on this property where there were presumptions that we would at some point own everything and let's just elevate everything to six to seven stories because I think that's not either realistic or appropriate given the context of this site. What I want us to focus on is it's very easy to transition into what's realistic, what's likely, playing the odds of what might happen where, and how does this all look. Um, I mean, we're all we all want to be designers. I think what I think this is getting at is us being smart enough to recognize we don't have all the answers, but let's make sure we have guidance for just about any scenario developers can throw at this, no matter what it looks like, no matter how you know, strange it might be to us, I think the protections, the guidance, let's make sure we do this right because there's no reason I think something has to be really sacrificed. And I think there are probably smart ways to go about development on a challenging property that still I think maintains a good relationship with its neighbors. Um, we may get feedback, you're right, that, you know, I have some ideas, but that that one clause is just really killing the feasibility. I, you know, if you're telling me I got to step down, I just can't make this work. That's kind of a non-negotiable. I think we've heard that pretty consistently. I

don't see that going away. And if that's the bar barrier to, you know, redevelopment, I think we just need to be more patient and acquire more parcels.

Again, the other risk of repeating myself. The other risk I mean the other risk we have at a of being too prescriptive though is you know which I guess I kind of agree with you is that we you know again we have this this concurrent small area plan update going simultaneously and if we're too prescriptive in the RFP I mean I don't know I mean again it's kind of short circuiting that um you know as far as saying what we want to happen or you know putting in that you know those types of level of detail. I don't know. Um, I mean, if your goal is to get, you know, kind of give give the market as much flexibility within reason, you know, find out what folks might be willing to do here in order to presumably we're trying to maximize, you know, new affordable units um on this land, you know. Yeah, I would say, you know, you you certainly don't want to stifle like that. You want to get the feedback and then we can always rein it in, you know. I mean, that's the whole point. This is going to go through a process. I mean, we haven't even talked about probably time tonight as far as what this would look like. Are we talking about you know by write process a special exception process a reszoning process what you know we know the existing this is existing zone what like B2 and R

it's B2 and RM so we haven't even talked about that I mean I know you mentioned the zoning in the RFP you know obviously that's important to let the developers know what this is zoned today and what that might allow um well they'll just go to the code right just saying like right we yeah I don't know it's it's some of those answers I think will be covered in June Um and uh I think the clarity in the RFP is that we are actively reviewing the current code language and trying to see how does it really meet meet and match what we're hearing from the community and a lot of times I think there's a lot of shortcomings gaps and headaches if you will. Uh, so I I think some of the rewrite

that may be a question that you get. Developers are certainly going to want to know, you know, because that obviously is a huge factor for their costs and their budgeting is, you know, is this going to be am I going to have to go through a a special exception process? Am I going to have to go through a a legislative, you know, approval process or is this going to be by right? Am I going to be given, you know, just have to go through a site plan? Um, so that's very important. I mean, you know, I have my opinions on that. I don't have to get into that now as far as what I would prefer to see, but um that's certainly something that I suspect you'll hear questions about that from respondents. They'll look at the zoning today and say, "Okay, you know, this is what I just I just that's something I think we'll need to think about sooner than later." Um and then then from the balancing that with the concerns from the community, same thing. I mean, you know, we're hearing from members of the community in Winter Hill and some, you know, others nearby and that's something I think that they'll be interested to understand as well. And it it just makes it all that more important if we're going to, you know, be specific about things like buffering and heights and if it's going to go through a public hearing, you know, approval process, there'll be opportunities to kind of deal with that later. Um, but if it's not, then yeah, I mean, making sure expectations are clear now does become kind of vitally important. So, I don't know.

So, we have been spending a lot of time thinking about a lot of what you just mentioned. Um, I think the answers are forthcoming. I did want to piggy back to one of the earlier comments you made in terms of timing and this parallel process, which I know a lot of folks it's different. It's it's fast, depends what we're comparing it to. Uh the timing right now is strategic in that as the small area plan changes or any zoning changes, comp plan changes are proceeding, we will have opportunities once the RFP is issued to have uh informal conversations with developers, which is something you typically do. Once that process begins, there's a question session. There's a pre-conference meeting where we kind of answer clarifying aspects perhaps we didn't we weren't specific enough in some parts of the RFP. So, those are all beneficial and quite often those steps lead to us issuing an addendum, an update to the RFP uh to make sure everybody's aware of what we've been discussing and the clarifying comments.

The timing right now for that potential addendum to be issued as we currently have mapped out would fall in line that it would happen shortly after the first reading for the code changes. So we would have that opportunity even at that late stage if we learn something new, if perhaps there's a change, some new thinking about how we are capturing all this, it could still have an opportunity to feed into updates to the developers that are responding to the RFP. So we're being very mindful of how one process informs the other and not letting one get away. Um because I know that's pretty critical and we want to make sure we're not misleading anybody and it's a very transparent effort. Can you remind me of the timeline when we're issuing the RFP and when the responses are due back?

So, right now the uh target is for late May once we have um the May 26th uh council action meeting. They'll give us a full month of review of the current draft. Uh it'll probably have a few other iterations during the course of this month. Once that is issued, the tenative plan is to have it out there on the street for about five to six weeks. Uh so if you think about July 4th, that would be the target when we would I think expect everybody to submit and that would set us up for a selection process from July to August. Okay. Thank you.

And just to clarify, the city has an option when I'm looking at this the map of of of where the structures are. Does the city have the option to close off Gibson Street entirely and create one large structure that's 208 206 204 202 303 302 the whole as as that's where I think the step down becomes most relevant. Um is is that is that an option and then sort of eress and ingress uh from uh maybe 310

is that right now? Short answer is yes. The RFP speaks to creative solutions if people feel like the right of way we have could be a part of the solution. So I think we want to put that on the table and have people respond to that. Maybe it doesn't, maybe they're unrelated, but if there could be some additional opportunities there, we would want to know about that. Okay, good.

All right. Um, can you scroll down, Jack? This is pretty similar. Building heights, height of three to four stories near lower density areas. Can you keep scrolling? taller building heights on Maple and next to the Bull America. No high quyle towers. Okay. Any thoughts on this?

Okay. Uh let's go to buffers. I just want to make sure we get through and give staff any feedback. Uh there were a couple other areas. Um require the existing green buffer trees to be meaningfully expanded. provide a vegetative screen. Utilize setbacks to appropriately distribute density away from lower density residential areas. Any feedback on that? If not, can you keep going? Architectural style residential forward design. We'll find we'll find a better term maybe for that.

Told you guys used that word somewhere. a design that complements surrounding housing structures through thoughtful use of materials, color, schemes, and other design details. Don't forget the Quinn building, future Quinn building is a surrounding structure as well, as Mr. Duncan pointed out earlier. Um, I think that was the only office forward. Yeah, it's mostly residential. Well, maybe not. Yeah, mostly backward.

Um, all right. Can you go to the next section, Jack? Uh, we talked about this, correct? We we worked through housing affordability with our housing commission colleagues before they left. Open space. Uh, here's the reference to green links, green space, existing parks, and green space. Mr. Stevens, did you have a Nope. Okay.

All right. Porest site plan public walking paths connecting residential areas to parks and main thorough affairs. All right. And then no guidance on parking. I think that's right. Let the market propose.

Yeah. I think right now what you'll see in the draft is it references our current minimums and suggests um ideas on if any of that were to be adjusted would that make a big difference. uh which is kind of driven driving at the core role that parking plays in the financing of a project and um understanding better if are there any issues where if the developer can solve everything else that we're throwing at them with this project is parking the last obstacle in the way and if so how big of an obstacle. So just try to understand that um will be very helpful.

Yep. Uh can you scroll down? Uh placemaking any ensure any pedestrian trails introduced in this area are supported by wayfinding signage. Uh can you keep scrolling, Chuck?

And lighting. Yeah, I do I do feel like um that sort of like pedestrian lighting is a comment that we frequently give on site plans. So good to highlight it here. Um all right in the complimentary uses I think there was some discussion or there was some desired discussion about the RFP guidance earlier here. Uh so currently it's reserved ground floor space for subsidized daycare. I think are you broadening this to sort of like is it is it a daycare specifically these two uses specifically? I think what we're partly hearing from the community, but also I think in earlier conversations this past winter about like what are complimentary uses to affordable housing, it kind of bled into supportive housing services and kind of the the full basket of needs and services that usually really assist folks that are in those situations in terms of um their other needs and kind of you know what you kind of have to go through in your typical week uh and month. So subsidy for some of those services I think was a common theme and thread. Uh but again this aspect of the RFP is really kind of a preferential menu of things we like to see but we want them to respond back with in terms of what's going to make a potential project if we go with that scenario more competitive. Uh, and I don't think we know enough to specifically require any one of those, but just kind of be very clear about what we think is an appropriate menu and then kind of have them contribute to the conversation.

Yeah. Going back to what I said earlier, we have a tendency here to address new buildings wherever they are as an opportunity to solve every problem that we have. And I just don't want this particular project to be so burdened. uh you know, oh my god, you mean I've got to put a daycare center in the base in the first floor too and a support service and a teen center and a you know, at some point it just becomes too much and although all those things are needed and and I support them and I think the suggestion that they be on your chart what came from certainly was discussed at one of my tables. I I think that we have to as a practical matter maybe you can just emphasize the you know if feasible or discuss the feasibility in the RFP rather than say you know what we really want a daycare center on the ground floor of this new building or buildings I think it would be exactly that it's you know curiosity options uh and be very very clear which we can kind of scrub the document again that they fully housing uh you residential project I think is also acceptable.

Be clear about that. Yeah, it's not a requirement. Yeah, it's pretty directive in the guidance preserve and dedicate in the RFP. It's it's you know redevelopment should prioritize the most feasible combination of residential supporting uses that includes some combination of daycare facilities, supportive housing services and civic spaces. So it does sound like we really do want these three things. You can go back and explain. Yeah, softening clarifying be the straw that breaks the camel's back. There's already so many difficulties that this this facing. You don't want that to be the thing that developers are like, well, that that's too much at that point. That's forget it.

But I agree that those what should those are uses that I would like to see in this location for the reasons that you that you said. And I'm assuming that the community space would or the civic space would um maybe be um used by the Tuner Hill. Yeah, I think we had representatives from that group uh regularly attend and express and I think other members of the community as well that being this close to that district, being this close to the history that it represents um and speaking to the other comp plan chapter that kind of captures the district and the cultural aspect of that. Um activating opportunities as development happens are regularly highlighted as you know we should be opportunistic and proactive about identifying them. Um, I think the Quinn project already has a few. Uh, understanding what those are and not replicating them, but perhaps looking at other opportunities given the location and the type of building this might be something to consider. Will it happen? Perhaps unlikely, but I

think it's fine to talk about it as like the city, you know, would would welcome those things, but you should make it very clear that it's not a requirement and that all residential project would also be completely acceptable. That's what I mean in my opinion that's what because that's our goal here, right? Our primary goal is to create affordable unit. So, let's not get let these other things get in the way of that because I don't think we have the luxury to be able to put on a bunch of extras extra options. And I mean, it's going to be tough enough to get the the affordable units that we are going for here in my opinion. So, if that's not make it even harder on ourselves. Um

um I think that's the end of the table. there's any other are there any other comments on the uses compatible uses? I don't Mr. Stevens raised uh the you know sort of single stair design earlier. It sounds like that might be feasible in Virginia at some point. I'm not sure what the timeline for that would be. I don't know if that's something you'd want to I think we're going to wait for the building code to catch up. Yeah. permit it first and then we can have a conversation with our zoning administrator to see is that enough and the market will sew it for us or do we need to be more explicit and carried forward.

Yeah. Um we talked about other things. Okay. Any other final comments, advice? Just one question. I I jotted down somewhere in the language is a reference to transfer of ownership. What does that speak to? Is that is that I think that relates back to the two or three real estate options that are on the table in terms of what happens if we were to partner and proceed in one direction. Um allowing the developers to kind of highlight to us which one of those real estate, you know, whether it's a ground lease or a fee transfer.

So it refers to whatever the the larger project, whatever. It doesn't refer to like transferring the ownership of one building to something else to Yeah. It's simply highlighting that we in addition to hearing uh what you think might work here in terms of the various scenarios we outlined as part of the financing strategy asking them to give us a preference on the ground lease versus the fee transfer. Okay. And what does that mean for any further contributions the city might be asked to uh complete here? Okay. Um, go ahead. Go ahead.

I was just gonna make a comment on one of the items in the uh in the back section. Um, which you know, you've included lead gold, which is which is good. Um, I'm not even sure Energy Star, does that still exist? I thought the administration got rid of it. So, uh, you might want to check that. Uh, also on the league gold, you could uh maybe reference version five. I think that's what what we're in just to make that clear, which is actually good because it has much better energy efficiency provisions than uh the previous uh additions.

That's all I have. Great. Thank you. Mr. Kinsky, did you have another comment or question? Uh, it was mostly a question. So the the uh lowincome housing tax credit you you you talked in the staff report to a deadline of March 20 of 27. Um is that's a recurring correct annual and do we see any the current environment that tax credit uh or

I've not heard of anything like that. um in an effort to adjust expectations even if all this were to happen, we start to head in a certain direction where pursuing those tax credits is part of the solution here. Um you know, we can do everything within our power to kind of set this up for success. We may just be in a year where 2027 is very competitive. There's a lot of other good projects in the region and we just don't or whoever the developers doesn't get the credits to make this happen. What might happen after that, and we're going to get into potential agreements with that uh entity if we get that far, is what happens if you don't win the competitive credits. Do you wait another year? What happens to that? Because that that has implications on us as property owners, do you pursue and can we agree on what other tax credit options or tax or funding streams might be available? So, we're going to be kind of walking through that and we have the rest of the year to kind of even into next year to finalize that, but it's not guaranteed. Yeah. But it it should be there for the next foreseeable future.

Okay. Thanks. Meant to ask a question earlier. Uh this falls under the commercial building, right? Not residential is a for the building code. Uh from that perspective, if I answered that, I presume that I know where this is going. But uh it depends on what the responses are. It could still be residential if we're just, you know, dealing with renovation. And I think this is how the building code looks at it, not not whether it's used for residential or it's just if it's commercial, it falls under a different uh level of requirement, which is good. And I I kind of hope that these would fall under, you know, under the commercial code that it's a tighter, more energyefficient code.

IRC. Yeah. And I I think regardless Yeah. And regardless of whichever code we're dealing with, I'm sure it's gone through revolution since the last 80 years. So either way, we're going to get improvements. So I'm hopeful. Yeah. All right. There's no other comments. I think we can close out this item. Thank you all for the discussion. Uh and I think we have just one more item on our agenda, which is the our commissioner reports. Well, and if we had any uh correspondence. Um, anybody have any commissioner reports?

I had a couple, but I'm happy to defer to the next meeting. It'll it'll last and we're getting close to 10:30, so Okay. Uh, yeah, maybe we can do the look. Can you walk Yeah. Can we do the calendaring for I won't be here May 20th. Are we cancelling that meeting or is that do we do you think you'll have an RFP like a a what's the what's next for the RFP? Is it going to council next week for their feedback?

We are orchestrating a joint work session for the May 18th meeting. So my current thinking and we we still have a few more conversations is to invite planning housing commission EDA similar to I think what happened in November when we kind of kicked off this current phase we're in. Um so that would be the next opportunity to have this type of conversation on the RFP. Um, I think what we're working with, uh, and the rest of our team is to return to that document, uh, and provide a more comprehensive look ahead as we get into the fall, perhaps even the end of the year. uh since I think we're getting some more clarity about what our current active items are doing from a council schedule perspective which might allow us now that we're entering into some more predictable stages of those items. What where when what and how could the planning commission play a role with introductory scoping conversations, work sessions, and public hearings?

Okay, we should have that for you soon. So there might be a joint meeting on May 18th and that would replace the May 20th meeting for the planning commission. Is that right? Like I'm just Should we count on May 20th being cancelled? I do. We have any particular items that night? Not scheduled. Yeah, I think the few items that could have come back, they've not been filed or we won't have them in time for that meeting. But we'd be with council on the 18th. You can confirm. I just I think that might be the best approach is to cancel that and just meet with the 18. Okay. As a joint meeting with council and housing commission and EDI that's going to be full full

we already know some people were out of town that week so uh I I feel better about the capacity issue. Okay. One thing that I know about the schedule is that I do need to bring the council priorities. June 3rd. Yeah,

sure. That'd be great. Min. Okay. Um, so May 18th and then June 3rd. I think I would pencil those dates in and we'll hear from staff to confirm. Sounds good. All right. And that June 3rd meeting is when we'll see um draft changes, text changes for the small area. Yeah. Okay. All right. Nothing else. I think designated agent approved the North Washington uh proposal 258.

I've had very few approvals. Uh, so I I don't think that was in one of them. Um, on average, I think we're getting to about three rounds before I think they they're ready to be approved. And I think the last one, which I think you're asking about, may have to come back to planning commission. There was just enough they're there to have a second conversation. So, we're not sure what their timing might be, though. I was going to say, does it does coming back to us fit into the calendar? I mean, do we have to I think enough coordination, we can give ourselves a shot. It will be tighter because now the second round is only 30 days long. Right. Exactly. We'll give it a go.

We begin to have to schedule our meetings around what would be before us, not necessarily what normally we would like to do.

And and if we can't schedule around the meetings, it might be worth is it possible that Jack could send out a email to the commission just to say every time there's been a decision by the designated so we could just track it. Is that is that feasible? So two things on that. We are actively working with our communications team to build out our website where right now I think it emphasizes major SE projects and you can get some more information on what they were, when they got approved, what's their status. Um, our plan is to build that out. So, some of the smaller site plan uh projects are also um listed there, making it more easier to find. Uh, at least get to the approval letters uh that we're going to be issuing. Um, separate from that, uh, I think we're also trying to highlight exactly what that process looks like. uh and being more diligent about how do we coordinate with the developer so that you know given that we only meet twice a month how do we coordinate the submission timelines which I think could be flexible with a willing partner to make sure that we're not somehow avoiding this type of conversation and if we ever get to that point

I mean we there's probably enough creativity to figure out a path of communication noticing and um still giving people an update an opportunity to provide feedback even if it's not through a formal meeting We haven't gotten that far yet. So I I think Well, I'm not talking about feedback. I'm talking actually about closing the loop. Yeah, just closing the loop on what the decision was.

And I I think what my plan might be is in an upcoming meeting and we'll figure out, you know, when dust settles a little bit on some of these projects. Uh having a kind of a summary of where we've been on the site plan topic with rejections, approvals. Um, and I think there's also some conversation about just returning to what's happened with with the ADUs, with what's happening with some of the other things that we've adopted, but perhaps there hasn't been as much activity on. So, I think we're seeing a general level of curiosity that with our zoning staff and planning staff, we can kind of report out whether that's at the end of the year or, you know, more strategically get back to. Um, I was reading in the pulse a couple of days ago about a what sounds like a JARP type study group which is forming or has maybe already formed around you how to deal with the situation that we find ourselves in with the new restrictions on the planning commission. You guys know anything about that? I had not read about that, but and I forgot to ask Marcus about it the last time I saw him, but there was a reference in print, which sounded like a process that I don't know if it's just for show, frankly, or whether they're actually going to claim to have stakeholders, you know, represented, home builders, etc. And it sounded like it might be running through the planning associations opaces. Anyway, I'm it just seems like something that we'd like to be aware of and be a part of if we're

we we have some folks on our staff that are more closely following that. I I I do think it's a potential effort that's happening, you know, throughout the entire state. Uh I'm not sure how local it is. Uh and the ability to which, you know, one can kind of join that conversation. I think it bleeds into a larger expectation on an impact on our work program because you know every session now I think there's a lot of pretty impactful topics that are coming out that you know immediately trigger months and months of analysis and work on our side to implement

and we don't really have a choice in whether or not we can follow or just reject. So I think it's going to be a regular pattern we can expect both from parking from housing all kinds of issues. um approval authority is one of them. So, but on that topic, I think we are queuing up some updates in terms of responding to I think what you all heard from our city attorney about what that looks like moving forward. So, um I do anticipate having kind of a 2.0 version of that available with maybe more predictability, but in some sense not not as much change as some were hoping for. Okay. Thanks.

All right. Well, I I think I think we are done. Well, I'm gonna adjourn the meeting past 10:30. Thank you all for