Author: chogan@directresearch.com

2019-03-04 Town Council/Planning Commission work session, audio and index

The Town Council and Planning Commission held a joint work session on 3/4/2019 to discuss three items:  two MAC projects (380 Maple West and the Sunrise assisted living facility), and to discuss restrictions on private meetings between property developers and elected or appointed Town officials. Continue reading 2019-03-04 Town Council/Planning Commission work session, audio and index

Some trivia from the Town Council/Planning Commission meeting, 3/5/2019

On 3/4/2019, the Town Council and Planning Commission had a joint meeting to discuss 380 Maple West (40 condos at Maple and Wade Hampton), and the proposed Sunrise assisted living (85 rooms, more than 100 beds?, Maple and Center).  They also discussed placing limits on private (non-public) meetings between elected and appointed Town officials and developers.

There’s a lot to talk about here, and I hope to do so, but in this post, I’m going to talk about a seeming trivial thing.  Because the one thing that sticks in my mind, from all of last night’s meeting, is the extent to which the Town just seems to make up the zoning rules as it goes along.

The example here is the difference between abutting properties and adjacent properties.  These terms, as used in real estate, are well-defined.  Properties abut if they literally touch.  Properties are adjacent if they are near one another, and no other piece of private property comes between them.  So you and your next-door neighbor on the same side of the street have abutting property; you and your directly-across-the-street neighbor have adjacent property. Continue reading Some trivia from the Town Council/Planning Commission meeting, 3/5/2019

Somebody is confused about the Town’s traffic study, 3-4-2019

Maybe I’m confused.  Maybe Town Council is confused.  Either way, one of us has to be wrong about this.

The Vienna Town Council has made much out of a “traffic study” that Town staff commissioned.  But it sure sounds to me as if none of them has actually read the scope of work for the study they voted to fund. (here, as a .pdf.)

I wrote a page almost two months ago, where I analyzed the description of the proposed traffic study.  (Read it, in blue, halfway down this page.) My opinion then was that it would be useless from the standpoint of assessing the long-run impact of MAC on traffic.  Instead, the point of the study appeared to be to speed up development by helping the Town to develop a standard transportation “proffer” that it would expect all MAC developers to pay. Continue reading Somebody is confused about the Town’s traffic study, 3-4-2019

Pedestrian-friendly? 3/4/2019

(This map was generated by walkscore.com.  You can check out the walkability of your neighborhood by visiting their website and typing in your address.)

Town government has repeatedly said that MAC will make Maple Avenue more “pedestrian-friendly”.  But that’s … questionable, at best.  And in some key cases, I am almost sure that MAC-redeveloped property will make Maple less safe for pedestrians. Continue reading Pedestrian-friendly? 3/4/2019

If the community says No, No, No, then we’ll have to start all over, 3/4/2019

This page explains a critical step coming up in the development of MAC zoning.  Turns out, the Town is going to ask the citizens what they think about MAC, and then act on that.  Which sounds pretty good, until you realize that the way they are proposing to do that is … confused, to be as polite as I can about it.

Read on and decide for yourself.  This shouldn’t take more than five minutes. Continue reading If the community says No, No, No, then we’ll have to start all over, 3/4/2019

2019-02-27 Planning Commission work session, comments part 1

It’s hard to know where to start, but let me begin with the low-hanging fruit.

Seriously, we pay them to do this?  Part 1

Arguably, the single nuttiest thing to come out of this meeting was beautiful set of poster boards, developed by Planning and Zoning, the purpose of which is to convince you that MAC development on Maple is just as warm, cozy, and human-scale as the development on Church Street. Continue reading 2019-02-27 Planning Commission work session, comments part 1

A little reality check regarding Sunrise and others, 2-28-2019

Unlike most of my other posts, I have no hard data here.  I’m just going to tell you how I see it.

Sunrise is a major US corporation that has likely spent millions of dollars buying land and putting a contingent contract on land and preparing plans to build an assisted living facility in Vienna.  Presumably, the Mayor invited them in and quietly assured them that they would be able to build here.  At the very least, the Town was talking about a development at Maple and Center long before there was any public acknowledgement that it would be a Sunrise assisted living facility.

To get to the point, if you think the Town of Vienna could stop them from building anything they wanted, at this point, you’re probably out of touch with reality. Continue reading A little reality check regarding Sunrise and others, 2-28-2019

2019-02-27 Planning Commission Work Session, audio and index to audio

Edit:  The Town’s audio is up now.  Theirs has vastly less less crowd noise, but mine is louder, and might be more understandable for the quieter speakers.  Take your pick.

You can find it at this link.  On my system, the only browser that can deal with the Granicus system used by the Town is Chrome.   If you don’t like the Granicus player, you can download the file (slowly) and play it on your own system.

To avoid confusion, I’ll post the “index” that matches the Town’s audio file here, on this page.  The only major difference I see is that I left the tape running during the break and replaced that with silence.  The Town just cut that out.  The times in this file are approximate right for the Town’s recording.  If you use my recording (Google Drive link below), use the index stored with my recording.

2019-02-27 Planning Commission work session index for TOV audio

Original post follows. Continue reading 2019-02-27 Planning Commission Work Session, audio and index to audio

Oh, you meant residential mezzanine? Five floors are just fine then, 2/28/2019.

I have a lot to say about last night’s Planning Commission work session, but I’m going to start my day by pointing out yet another bit of sleight-of-hand from our Department of Planning and Zoning.

The story so far.  MAC zoning was sold, in part, on the notion that the buildings would be limited to four floors.  Although some Planning Commission members now profess that this is irrelevant, I’ll remind people that the functional point of limiting the number of floors is to keep density down.  This wasn’t some frill tacked onto the law purely for the look of it.  It is the Town’s crude, home-grown method analogous to the Floor Area Ratio (FAR) regulations used by more sophisticated entities (such as Falls Church).  It means you can cram only-so-much sellable or rentable floor space onto these MAC-zoned lots. Continue reading Oh, you meant residential mezzanine? Five floors are just fine then, 2/28/2019.