At this point, we have four MAC buildings approved and a moratorium on new MAC rezoning applications until (I believe) November 15.
So, what do we do next? First, let’s recap recent events. Continue reading Post #304: Where do we go from here, part 1
I send out an email, once a week to inform people of MAC-related public meetings in the Town of Vienna. It’s not as easy as you might think, because the Town tends to be … sloppy … about keeping citizens informed. In this post, I’m going to walk through this week’s calendar and point out a few things.
First, a summary:
Number of public meetings: 4
Meetings with agenda posted: 1
Meetings with reliably-available recordings: 2
Continue reading Post #305: This week’s schedule as an example of Town governance
Spoiler alert: No matter how sincere this seems to be, it’s actually sarcasm.
Suppose you have to design a new pedestrian-friendly retail area from scratch. Continue reading Post #303: Big Yellow Taxi
At this point, we have a little breather from MAC. Assuming that the moratorium on new MAC applications is not extended, we have a little less than five months to think about where we now stand, and where this is all heading. If that moratorium is extended — something I will argue for at length — then we have longer.
Now is the time to look back, separate fact from fantasy, and try to evaluate the proposed redevelopment of Vienna’s Maple Avenue commercial district in a more realistic light.
First, though, I think it’s worth studying (what most would agree is) a local success story — the Merrifield Mosaic District. Maybe try to learn a few lessons from that. For now, the only lesson I’m going to look at is a geometry lesson.
Briefly:
The Town Council approved the 380 Maple West project (37 condos plus retail, Maple and Wade Hampton) by a vote of 5-2 (Majdi and Springsteen voting against).
The same Town Council turned down the Sunrise assisted living facility at Maple and Center by a vote of 3-4 (Majdi, Springsteen, Noble, DiRocco voting against).
I’ll have my usual audio file and index up at this Google Drive location. Download both files (.mp3 and .xlsx) marked “2019-06-17 …” to get both the audio file and the Excel index showing what was said, when.
Continue reading Post #301: The 6/17/2019 Town Council meeting
Tonight, I’m going to have to drag myself to yet one more Town Council meeting on a MAC project. Really not sure I have the spine for it.
But I can tell you the one thing that, by far, is the most objectionable part of the meetings where they pass judgment on MAC projects: The pre-vote bloviation. (If you have somehow managed to live in the DC area and are not familiar with the term, you can see bloviate defined here.)
In the Town of Vienna, the pre-vote blovation apparently is a tradition for such occasions. Once all the arguments have been made, when everything meaningful has been said, before the vote occurs, they set aside time for each Town Council member to make a little speech. Typically, it’s some form of C-Y-A, oh-this-is-for-the-greater-good, change-is-hard pap. Mixed in with the occasional in-your-face remark. Or the truly bizarre, such as quoting from the preamble of the MAC statute.
And we, the citizens, have no choice but to sit through this self-aggrandizing crap, in order to hear what the vote is. As if anyone but the Town Council members themselves care what their particular rationale is.
Given that Town Council may have two votes tonight, I suggest that this may be a good time to break with tradition: Skip the pre-vote bloviation. It’s a fair bet that Town Council members have already decided how they will vote before the meeting even starts. So we already know that 99% of what will happen tonight is purely theater. And that particular theatrical tradition — the pre-vote bloviation — is truly annoying to those whose neighborhoods are affected by these projects.
So, what say we just skip that tonight, and if there is going to be a vote, just vote. We really don’t need to hear the self-justification. We just need to hear the vote.
Tonight, Monday 6/17/2019, at 8:00 PM in Town Hall, the Town Council will discuss two MAC proposals: 380 Maple West (37 condos plus retail, Maple and Wade Hampton) and the Sunrise assisted living facility (roughly 100 assisted living beds plus retail, corner of Maple and Center).
The Town Council may vote on either or both of these new buildings at this meeting.
The meeting materials for the entire meeting may be found at this location. Items 19-1317 and 19-1316 are the two MAC buildings.
https://vienna-va.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=685999&GUID=F7FE8425-E79C-42A7-969B-AB177B4635DE&Options=info&Search=
This will be the last Town Council meeting before the new Town Council members Patel and Potter are sworn in, along with returning Town Council member Springsteen. These are also the last two buildings proposed prior to the temporary moratorium on new MAC buildings. FWIW, the prior Town Manager publicly called for the Town Council to delay the vote.
The Board of Architectural Review (BAR) had a work session this morning to discuss revised plans for the Marco Polo/Vienna Market site (44 luxury town houses plus retail at Maple and Pleasant).
You can find my audio recording and Excel index to the audio recording at this Google Drive directory. Download the two files starting “2019-06-14 …” for the audio and the index. The audio quality is poor, as most participants did not use their microphones and/or the sound system did not amplify their voices.
I’ll keep this short, because I learned just two things.
If you ever want to introduce MAC zoning to somebody outside of the Town of Vienna, just say “Chick-fil-A-car-wash”. One word. As in, “Oh, yeah, the first thing they are building is a Chick-fil-A-car-wash.”
Don’t explain it. Act like it’s perfectly normal. Keep talking. And see how far you get before somebody says “a what?”.
At that point, they will have grasped the essence of MAC zoning. They’re going to do what? How big is that going to be? And that pretty much covers it.
I’ve done a series of articles tracking the progress of the Chick-fil-A-car-wash. You can read them here, here, here, and here. Except for that last post — where construction of the exterior mysteriously halted just prior to the Town elections — its a series of posts detailing that a) the building was going to get bigger yet, and b) by MAC standards, this is a small building.
And now, the building is about as big as it’s going to get. And it’s still small, by MAC standards. But mostly, this post focuses on the outdoor dining area in the front of the building. Continue reading Post #297: Chick-fil-A-car-wash, is that really a 20′ setback?
This Friday, 6/14/2019, at 8 AM (yes, AM) in Town Hall, the Board of Architectural Review (BAR) will again examine revised plans for the Marco Polo/Vienna Market project. It will be interesting to see how this evolves. I put in a series of drawings below to show how the Church Street view of the building has changed, ending with the drawings to be examined this Friday.
Looking forward, I think the more interesting question is how the BAR’s changes will be enforced. For the time being, let’s assume the BAR and the builder can agree on a building. After that, then who, exactly, is in charge of making sure the actual building matches that agreement? As with the changes in the plans, does the Director of Planning and Zoning have the final say as to whether a building is substantially similar to what was originally agreed upon?
If so — if enforcement is in the hands of the individuals who played a key role in creating this mess — then these BAR meetings take on a tinge of theater of the absurd. The BAR can demand any degree of architectural sophistication that it deems reasonable. And then, when it comes time actually to build the building, that can all be erased by the Town bureaucracy.
So, it will be interesting to see what the BAR and the builder can agree to. It will be more interesting still to see what actually gets built, and whether it bears anything more than a passing resemblance to any agreed-upon building.
Continue reading Post #296: Marco Polo/Vienna Market continues to evolve
