Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon or good evening everyone. Welcome to the Prince William County Planning Commission hearing. I would like to ask that you please silence your electronic devices so that we're not disrupted or interrupted during the meeting. And we would now like to, we had an agenda review at 645, where we had a slight amendment to the agenda, which will occur between item three and four. And for now, we'd like everyone to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Thank you. We now have a slight amendment to the agenda. And one of our commission members, Vice Chair Justice, has a motion that she'd like to make. So I would turn it over to Vice Chair Justice.

Thank you. You take one and pass it down? OK. All right. Good evening. Madam Chair, I move that the Planning Commission adopt for the remainder of the September 16th regular meeting only the procedures governing questions, statements, discussion, and debate by members of the Planning Commission as set forth in the resolution below us, including paragraphs A through F. I move that the planning commission gives notice of its intent to consider and vote at its next regular meeting on October 14th, 2026 on permanently adding these same procedures to the planning commission's current bylaws and par

I would need a second. Did you move? Do I hear a second? Second. Thank you. Vice Chair Justice has made the motion to properly move that the Planning Commission Give us notice of intent to consider and adopt at its adopt for the remainder of today's meeting the procedural governing the procedures that she just read before you and Further move with the intent to consider and vote at our next regular meeting on October 14th to permanently add these procedures to the bylaws of the Prince William County Planning Commission and and it has been properly seconded by Commissioner Shaik. Madam, do we h

This would go for both. And this is very similar language to what the board of County supervisors follows.

I'm sorry. I'll just, by way of discussion, I dislike this. And one other item is, is this supposed to replace the rules that are in our parliamentary guide? or supplement them. I suppose it would replace them and it would kind of make a hash out of them. And I've learned just very recently that We are unable to, if we're following our parliamentary guide, we're unable to suspend bylaws. We can have, there's another category of regulation or rule that we can put in place that is suspendable but bylaws are not supposed to be suspendable.

We're not suspending the bylaws. This is just a vote for, a motion for a vote.

Understood, but if we want these rules to be a bylaw, or fall into that other category is a decision we would need to think about. This to me just seems wholly inappropriate for the workload we have and the complexity of the topics we discuss and the amount of time that we spend together. discussing applications before they show up here in the boardroom. And that amount of time is right now zero. I yield.

So is it correct that these, you said largely mirror the board's language? Well, I mean, one of the things that I think that this would benefit us for is that predictability for when staff or applicants come to speak, just following a similar procedure to that of the Board makes a lot of sense, just so people aren't caught off guard and wondering what on earth is going on at these Planning Commission meetings that the procedures are so different. Do we have any really, I guess, codified process to follow currently? Well, in the interest of predictability and consistency, I think that having a

Thank you, and I'll just echo what you were saying in that our duty is to conduct the business of Prince William County in the most efficient and concise manner and expeditious manner that we can. And so looking at how the Board of Supervisors conducts their meetings, we thought that if, actually, Vice Chair, Justice thought it would be a good idea to at least model that. And just for the sake of being more efficient with the government's time. Do you have a question, Chair Justice?

I was just going to add... If there is a case or there's something going on where additional discussion is warranted, there can always be a suspension of this, just similar to how the Board of County Supervisors does that. So that's available. Also, too, I know that I spend quite a bit of time meeting with applicants prior to the meeting. Most of my questions are pretty well prepared or my asks have come through. And I feel that at the board level, if they have the same amount of time, I've made no reduction in time. This is the same amount of time that your supervisors have.

Commissioner Shaikh. Thank you, Vice Chair, for bringing this motion. I personally do like it. It gives everyone equal opportunity. to speak to the applicant. Just for clarity, though, so these are two rounds of five minutes, each applicant and staff, or is it just five minutes for staff and five minutes for applicant? Each round. Each round. So that's 160 minutes, which is a lot of time for one case, given that we all meet with the applicants ahead of time. So thank you so much for clarity.

As the chair, I will keep time. Okay. And I may ask for assistance from Madam Clerk.

We'll have to, yeah. Madam Clerk, is there a way that we can put up the time when each commissioner starts to speak like we do when the public speaks? Okay. Okay. Do you think you could do that? Would it be burdensome for you to do that? Okay. All right. Question solved. And lastly, oh, Commissioner Scheifler.

Yeah, so is the intent that this would supersede, I know we've had kind of a discussion of like, we asked three questions and it goes to the next person, so this would supersede that? Yes. Five minutes? Five minutes. Give as many questions as we want then?

Well, is a response to a question part of the five minute or 10 minute budget? I've asked questions before and gotten long winded pseudo-answers that are not actually answers. And I would hate to watch my clock counting down while someone tries to deflect from the topic I'm trying to learn about.

So, Mr. Venegas, you sit during board meetings. How do they handle it during the board meeting?

Okay. Thank you. Can I add something? Yes. I'm sorry. I'll let Commissioner Ross finish. Sorry.

Well, I'll comment that I honestly don't care how the board does it. I want to do this job correctly and thoroughly. I'm not in a hurry to dash out the door. I'm in a hurry to reach a good conclusion. And so, at least for me, how the board does it falls flat. I could care less. Now I'll also add this. I believe that items A, B, D, and F are either wholly or partially unnecessary because they're already within the purview of the chair according to our current parliamentary authority. So I wouldn't see any reason to re-specify those. Just at first glance here, I'd take those out.

Okay, do you have any other questions? Seeing that there are none, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll? I mean, please call the vote, sorry.

I generally agree in principle, but I'm disappointed we didn't get a copy of this beforehand to review, so I'm a no for this meeting. Thank you.

Thank you. Moving on, since everyone is here, that means we don't have any remote participation requests in number four, so now we will move on to number five, and this is the consent agenda. Mr. Venegas, do we have any items for the consent agenda?

Okay, moving on to item number six, expedited agenda. Mr. Venegas, do we have any items for the expedited agenda?

Okay, as I understand, we have one item on the expedited agenda that is in Vice Chair Justice's district that she has an amendment to make to the proffer conditions. Is that item, which item is that? Item C. Okay, we will now turn it over to Commissioner Ross for him to make the motion for the expedited agenda. Okay. We will now actually open the hearing for the expedited agenda and we will now move it over to commissioner Ross.

Okay, we will now hear from the person who is online.

Did they hear you? We will share it on our end. On their end, I'm sorry. He has three minutes to speak.

First, are you for or against this project?

Okay. Will you go ahead and if we can't get the PowerPoint shared, you can go ahead and speak.

Thank you, sir. We will now turn it over to Commissioner Roth. Hello.

Chair, I recommend that we close the public hearings for the items A, B, D, and E. The public hearing is now closed. And, okay. Before I make this motion I'll say that I did discuss crosswalks and pedestrian traffic with the applicant's representative and I was just looking at a site plan drawing, a preliminary one of course, that does show what looked like to me striped crosswalks and stop either signs or at least markings on the pavement at all the pedestrian entrances and exits. With that in mind, I'm going to say, using the item numbers and item names from Section 10 of tonight's announced

Thank you, the motion has been properly made by Commissioner Ross to adopt, to recommend approval of REZ 226-00012, Westcott, REZ 2026-00005, Independent Hill Village, SUP 2025-00031, Chick-fil-A, Virginia Gateway, and Special Use Permit, 2026-00007, Common Recovery, and it has been properly seconded by Commissioner Shaikh. Madam Clerk, will you please call the vote?

Thank you. We will now turn it over to Vice Chair Justice for her motion.

I'd like to make a motion to approve proffer amendment REZ2026-00007, Independent Hill Village, PRA, with the proffers dated August 31st, with the additional comment that the applicant work out the trail proper language before it goes to the board to ensure the alignment, standards, easement efforts, and connectivity are fully preserved.

Second. Thank you. The motion has been properly made to recommend approval for REZ 2026-00007, Independent Hill Village, by Vice Chair Justice and properly seconded by Commissioner Landrum. Madam Clerk, can you please call the vote?

Okay, for anyone that wants to exit the chambers, please do so quietly. We will continue on the agenda with public comment. If there's anyone in the chamber that wants to speak about or make a comment, you can make your way to the back about any items that are not on the agenda today.

Okay. Anyone remotely for public comment? Nope. Okay. Moving on. Item number eight. Mr. Venegas, do we have any requests for deferrals or continuations?

Thank you. Moving to item number nine. I see that Mr. McGettigan is substituting for Director Washington. Do we have anything you'd like to present for planning director's time? No, thank you, Madam Chair. Moving on, since we have everything on expedited, there will be no public hearing, and now we're moving on to number 11, planning commission procedures. We're going to go down the dais for old business or new business, starting with Commissioner Sherman.

Okay, Commissioner Carroll. No business. Commissioner Shaik. No, ma'am. Vice Chair Justice. No, ma'am. Commissioner Landrum.

I had one item. I just wanted to, now that we've been talking about kind of changing the bylaws, did we want to have any resolution on the other effort to update the bylaws at the next meeting? I wasn't sure. We never really kind of came to a consensus on kind of the path forward on that effort that Commissioner Ross had put together. I'm just trying to make sure. I mean, I understand this piece, but again, I know that there was an effort to kind of streamline the bylaws. I just weren't sure if we were going to talk about that potentially at the next meeting, if we're talking about this guy to

Right now, we're only addressing Vice Chair Justice's motion that we adopted today. Okay.

For next meeting. Did we not want to look at, I think everybody's had multiple months to look at that. Do we want to take a vote on that? It's been like over a year and a half. I just want to make sure like an up down vote. We don't want to incorporate those changes or not. I mean, that's kind of I just want to make sure we finally have resolution on that. Everybody should have had plenty of time to look at the changes. Do we want to take a vote on that for our next meeting?

That was not planned. And so let me think about it and get back to you.

Okay, well, I mean, it's been like a year and a half, so I mean, I just don't, I'm trying to better understand, are we ever going to talk about it? I mean, it seems like we've just been ignoring it the past year and a half. So I just want to make sure, I mean, if the call is just to not do anything, that's fine, but I just want to have resolution on, we don't think what Commissioner Ross' work done, we don't want to do that, we don't want to take a vote on it, so I just want to make sure we have clarity on kind of closing that loop or closing that business. I don't, I don't, you know, I have m

I would just offer that if we're going to do that, we would need to find a time to schedule it when we could have a work session beforehand just to go over it. I mean, if it's identical to what was presented before, I wasn't there for that presentation. I've certainly sat down. We've discussed it one-on-one. But having that refresher beforehand, we would want to have that time budgeted, I think. That's just my two cents.

Okay. Commissioner Ross? Okay. Commissioner Kerrio.

Madam secretary, do we, I know that when we, you do not have to do it annually. I'm sorry.

Okay. Although I do know that our list of commissioners has changed since we last signed, which was in 2024. And so do we need to just update that?

Okay. Okay, so right now we have adopted Vice Chair Justice's motion to incorporate these procedures, and we will take a vote at our next regular meeting to amend the bylaws to adopt this. Is that correct, Vice Chair? That's correct. I have something to add, but I'll wait until you're done. Okay, no, go right ahead.

If anybody has any input or wants to get together with me, hopefully, I'm pretty sure all of you have my cell phone number, so feel free to reach out, shoot me an email, whatever you think, and then, yeah, we've got lots of time between now and the next meeting. Thank you.

Okay. We were doing old and new business. Did I go to, who did I leave off with?

We'll go down, Commissioner Landrum. Older new business? None. Commissioner Ross, older new business?

Commissioner Scheifler, older new business? Nothing additional. Okay. I do actually have... It's old and new business, but I just wanted to briefly just discuss the duties of the chairperson that are in our bylaws. I went and reviewed the bylaws, and I just wanted to read what the duties of the chairperson are, and this is found in Article 5 of our bylaws. It says the chairperson shall preside at all regular and special commission meetings, appoint committees and be an ex-officio member thereof, rule on all procedural questions subject to majority of the commissioners present, be informed imme

I have no, there's no tabled business that I want to bring forward and I have no new motion to make. I turned it on anticipating commission members time.

Okay, we're moving to commission members time. We'll go ahead with you since your light is on.

Okay. There's no doubt that part of what you just said involves me. So I'm going to point out that ruling on a procedural question is not the same as changing procedures. Each time that I recall that I have disagreed with you about the procedure that you wish us to follow, it's because there is a procedure and you have decided not to follow it. And most recently when that happened, I appealed your ruling, which is the, in our bylaws, the part that says subject to majority of the commissioners present. And you refuse to hear an appeal or conduct a vote on it. So I'll also add that our parliamen

I discussed it with a couple of people. Yes, sir, I did. Obviously, this isn't being added into the bylaws, right? Because our bylaws have a certain number of days that it has to be distributed prior. Sure, sure. So that's happening tonight.

Yeah. Okay. Well, when it comes to the topic of procedural questions, I mean, I would so much rather be in a better mood at the moment and try to catch some flies with honey rather than vinegar. But my goodness gracious, to be chastised about not following proper procedure and then to have new business introduced at the beginning of the meeting instead of at the proper time, that just chaps me. Raw. So with that in mind, I'll see everyone at the next meeting when we vote.

Sorry, we're going down the dais to Commissioner Scheifler. Do you have anything for Commissioner Members' time?

Nothing in particular to add, but I would just offer that given that there's the mandatory waiting period prior to any amendment to the bylaws being made, it's not unusual or irregular to have a motion made by a member of a board or a commission to propose such an amendment, nor is it irregular to simply make a motion on something temporary and vote on it in the same meeting. And we may not always agree with things that are moved on. We may not always agree with the outcome of the motion, but certainly that's not unusual procedure for a board or a commission such as we are.

Thank you. Moving down. Vice chair justice. Anything for commissioner's time? Commissioner shake. Commissioner Carol.

That is correct. Commissioner Sherman. All right. Seeing that there are none, we'll take a motion to adjourn. Second meeting is adjourned.