Author: chogan@directresearch.com

See Post #360.  The important parts of this are wrong.

This text is Town of Vienna policy as posted on this webpage.

The table is from one of the Town’s Granicus web pages.  This is where those recordings used to be posted.  The forlorn little greyed-out right-most column is where Town recordings should be listed.

So, has the Town started slacking off?  Nah.  They just stopped posting them there.  Instead, you can now only access them by clicking links at the bottom of a page on the Town’s website. Continue reading Post #356: INCORRECT, see post #360. In case you’re looking for recordings of Town meetings …

Hey, is this new?  Or have I just not been paying attention?  The Town has a series of maps summarizing development activity in the Town of Vienna:

https://www.viennava.gov/index.aspx?nid=1346

Or go here for the map itself.

This is the first time I’ve stumbled across it, and certainly the first time I’ve ever seen the associated map.  Kudos to the Town of Vienna, as this how such activity should be tracked, for benefit of the public, in the modern world.

Previously, the Town had a map for MAC projects, but I never could get much use of it.  This current effort seems an order of magnitude better, largely for use of a better map.

That said, be aware that these maps have a few limitations.  Mostly, these maps appeared to show anything requiring Town approval via some public meeting.  So there is construction that does not go through that process, and there are things that go through that process that are not construction.

Omitted construction:  My guess is that any purely by-right construction will be omitted.  Mostly, that omits all of the tear-downs all over Vienna.  Those are handled entirely within Planning and Zoning and Public Works (I think) and so are not subject to any sort of public exposure.  But also notably absent is 901 Glyndon.  I’m not sure whether that’s due to the age, or due to that project having been determined to be by-right (no-public-review) construction.

Omitted construction:  I would also guess that anything done by Town of Vienna Public Works or by Fairfax County would be omitted.  So construction relating to roads, schools, parks, sidewalks, and other public property likely won’t show up here.  In fact, I can see that sidewalk revisions don’t show up, because we’ve had several in the past years and none appear.  Again, that’s probably because those aren’t reviewed and approved in public by the Town of Vienna.

Included but not construction:  This map shows changes in any conditional use permits.  So, e.g., if a restaurant wants to have live music (a conditional use of the property, requiring Town approval due to the potential for annoying the neighbors as Bey Lounge did), that will show up on the map.  But that’s not new construction.  The marker for “Blend 111” is one such case — it’s on the map, but it has nothing to do with construction, just with how the property is used.

This does not give you a link to some document repository for each site, but it does at least link to (e.g.) the documents that were provided during the last available public meeting on the project, if any.

One little quirk is that they didn’t know where to put denied applications, so Sunrise (assisted living, Maple and Center, denied by the Town, currently the subject of a lawsuit) shows up on the “Under Construction/Completed” page.  I understand the logic from Town staff point of view — they are done with it — but I think I’d at least give the denials a different shape or color or something.

All in all, a vast improvement over what was available previously, and particularly relative to the half-baked attempts by private citizens to do the same sort of tracking.  I believe that I will now retire that project tracking page.

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A colleague just sent me an email that was a quick lesson in the complexities of Town of Vienna zoning rules.  My head is still spinning, and that was just about the rules applying to one new building.

As it turns out, much of what I thought was true, when I wrote Post #346 may or may not be true.  I’m still trying to decide if I believe and/or understand what I think I was just taught, about our zoning rules.  The upshot is that Town of Vienna zoning rules are a lot more loosey-goosey than you might think if you just read the plain language of the statute.  And as a corollary, where there is discretion, that discretion can be used to favor or hinder specific projects, depending on … it’s not clear exactly what.

You can find the zoning regulations at this website.  You might want to try to read along, if you read the rest of this posting.

The first thing that stuck out, from this brief lesson, is that Town staff and developers have significant discretion in applying the zoning rules.  Discretion as to what parts they claim apply to a particular project, and discretion as to how those parts are interpreted.  So, as I have guessed all along, yes, the Town does in fact make-it-up-as-they-go-along, to a significant degree, in many cases.

If that’s not enough, the second major item is that the Town Council can waive many (but not all) of the zoning rules, period.  So if they like/want a commercial development, they can (e.g.) allow greater density and smaller setbacks than the law otherwise allows, skip brick walls and other shielding for the adjacent neighborhood, and so on.  Almost anything, as I understand it, other than building height.  Apparently that explains the high density, reduced setbacks, and lack of brick wall shielding for the townhouse condos that went up next to Town Hall.

The third is “determinations”.  If the first two did not provide enough looseness in the rules, the Director of Planning and Zoning can issue a “determination” on any issue for any particular project.  And, once issued, that acts just like it is a part of the zoning rules.   (This “determination” process is why the Wawa is about to occupy a commercial lot, adjacent to residential area, with no brick sound wall separating the two.  Back in the 1970s, a “determination” was issued that no such wall was needed — uniquely for that one lot, in that area.  See this post for description.)

So with that in mind, let me explain two of my own misconceptions about Town of Vienna zoning.   With the idea being that maybe other people were unaware of this.

Continue reading Post #349: I was given a quick lesson in Town of Vienna zoning