I didn’t attend. I caught most of it via streaming, but this review is based on the Town’s video recording, which is already posted at this link. I think that sets a new record for timeliness. (FYI, I need to use Chrome to watch those Town recordings, YMMV.)
Times listed below are offsets within the Town recording linked above.
My summary report, below, is not an exhaustive list, just the items I thought were most relevant to me, and things that I post here. You can find the agenda for the meeting at this link (.pdf) or shown in the box below:
Town Council 2019-11-05 agenda
0:24 minutes: Sunrise at 380 Maple West. Councilwoman Patel discussed the recent meeting between Sunrise Assisted Living (presumed to be the new owners of the 380 Maple West property) and some residents from the surrounding neighborhood. The meeting was described as a success.
0:31 Consent agenda: The Town looks like it’s going to use a consent agenda starting with the December meeting. after discussing it in a work session sometime in December. See Post #437 for a description of the consent agenda approach. This was Councilman Majdi’s suggestion to help speed up Town Council meetings.
0:35 Glass recycling: As you may know, the Town does not recycle glass any more, as part of the weekly trash pickup (“single-stream recycling”). You can see the list of items that you may put in your recycling on this Town webpage. Fairfax County has now placed a purple recycling bin (dumpster), for glass, at 431 Mill Street NE, next to Capital Building Supply. The Town’s announcement can be found on this web page.
0:40 Vienna Arts Society bench auction raised more than $50,000.
1:23 Extension of the MAC moratorium to June 30 2020. Two citizens spoke, and there was minimal discussion before the extension was approved unanimously at about 1:33 into the tape. (This was a sharp contrast to the Planning Commission meeting, where contentious discussion proceeded for about an hour before the extension was passed on a split vote.)
1:34 Resolution to proceed with applications for funding from the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority (NVTA), for “”Vienna Metro Rail access improvements.” These were applications to fund “commuter parking” at the proposed Patrick Henry Library garage, and funding for four Capital Bikeshare stations in Vienna.
Councilman Springsteen brought up the issue of whether this locks us into a three-story building at Patrick Henry, because the grant proposal is scaled to the number of parking slots that the largest proposed building would provide. The answer from DPW and others appears to be no. If NVTA approves a grant scaled to the (proposed) 181 commuter parking places, the Town can go smaller and spend less. But Councilman Majdi suggested that this might preclude underground parking, if underground parking was more expensive than the amount we ask for.
Apparently, all the spaces in the Town of Vienna portion of the garage will be reserved for commuters from (say) 6 AM to 10 AM. After that, anyone may park there. There are no plans to charge for parking.
The actual design phase for this project will be led by Fairfax County, after it gets bond-based funding for the new libraries in 2020. Design would be winter 2021.
The consensus of all at this meeting is that this keeps it open, design wise. The Town is not locked into building the largest building, with the most parking, that was proposed for that site.
This passed with unanimous approval.
(Separately, I plan to write up a posting on the Patrick Henry Library and parking garage.)
1:47: Discussion of proposed 2020 bond issue for about $30M to cover the costs of the capital improvement plan.
2:00 Vienna Market/Marco Polo appeal. Discussion of the proposed change (more brick on the backs of the townhouses) was brief, and this passed unanimously without controversy.
