Category: MAC zoning

Post #386, the 9/16/2019 Town Council meeting

I attended the work session, but not the meeting.  I recorded the webcast from the Town, but it froze periodically, so information was limited.  (Others report the same, so the issue was with the Town’s source, not my own computer.)  My wife attended the after-meeting continuation of the work session.  Among those three pieces of information, let me see if I can at least summarize what the conclusions for some items were.

The Town needed to start the process for extending the MAC moratorium.  It did so, getting the process started to extend the moratorium to June 30 2020.  The date was Councilman Noble’s suggestion, from an earlier meeting, to provide adequate time for revising the zoning laws.  As it stands, we appear to be right at the deadline for getting all this done, and they have to start advertising these public hearings immediately.

The Town Council had to approve the schedule for the coming year, and that turned out to be a surprisingly difficult item.  They also considered starting both meetings and work sessions earlier.  Discussion went on for half an hour, and, at the end, and I heard at least one “nay” vote in there somewhere.

On the $8M in public works spending (last agenda item), turns out, that was in fact a done deal.  These are grant applications for which Town staff have already put together all the paperwork for applying for grants from VDOT and other entities.  All that Town staff wanted was the pro-forma Town Council resolution approving the projects, to be included with the grant applications.   Then, at some later date, they will see how many of the grants were approved by VDOT.  Anyway, it appears that the entire package passed with minimal discussion.

The work session had a few more-or-less low key items, including the process for getting items on the agenda, a discussion of the Town code of conduct, and some discussion of whether Town Council members should take a three-hour seminar in parliamentary procedure.

But the Town put off the one contentious issue in the work session until after the end of the Town Council meeting.  The issue was more-or-less that there was an objection to Councilman Majdi’s recent article in the Vienna Voice, and more specifically to his discussion of MAC zoning.  At issue was whether or not there needed to be rules (set down by Staff, or by Town Council) as to what was an was not an acceptable topic for a Vienna Voice article by Town Councilmembers.  

I think Councilman Potter summed it up best for me, by referring to an earlier article in the Vienna Voice that, in my view, more-or-less said that people who disagreed with Town Council about MAC were liars.  While saccharine-coated, this was the core message of the “Miss Information” article published in the Vienna Voice.  The argument was that if you wanted to know the Truth about MAC, the only entity that could be trusted was the sitting government.  Potter’s point was that if that was acceptable, then there’s no way that Majdi’s article could be deemed unacceptable.

In the end, I think that viewpoint won out, and as my wife reports it, there will be no restrictions on those articles for the time being.

Separately, in my opinion, the Vienna Voice already shades into being more cheerleader than information source in many areas.  It appear to take on the job of selling what Town staff want to see sold to the public, rather than merely informing.  Take a look at the writeup of the Town’s multimodal transportation study, per the September Vienna Voice, and contrast that with (say) my assessment here.  To read about it in the Vienna Voice, you’d think the consultants had actually identified significant ways to address Maple Avenue traffic.  But as far as I can tell, they did not even come close to doing that.

 

Post #384: Vienna public meetings this week regarding Maple Avenue Commercial (MAC) zoning, 9/16/2019

There are several public meetings this week relevant to MAC zoning.

Monday, 9/16/2019 at 7:00 PM in Town Hall, Town Council will have a work session. The final item will be a discussion of recent topic selections for Town Councilmember articles in the Vienna Voice.  Among options to be considered are a) continuing to allow Town Council members to select topics, b) having staff or Council create guidelines to “inform” topic selection, or c) eliminating these articles in the Vienna Voice entirely.

The work session materials are here:

https://vienna-va.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=715484&GUID=2752511E-62AC-4BAE-8132-5C036B1652A0&Options=info&Search=

Monday, 9/16/2019 at 8:00 PM in Town Hall, Town Council meeting will address, among other things, extension of the current MAC moratorium, and a request to add a property that is adjacent to the proposed 380 Maple West development to the Town of Vienna historic register.

Meeting materials may be found on this page:

https://vienna-va.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=684464&GUID=FEB6C922-FF36-40EA-82D5-4AB1FE4E36B4&Options=info&Search=

Tuesday, 9/17/2019 at 7:00 PM in Town Hall, the Public Art Commission will meet.  Among items to be discussed will be ideas for a mural, facing Maple Avenue, as part of the Marco Polo/Vienna Market development. 

The agenda (Microsoft Word document) can be found at this link on the Town’s website:

https://www.viennava.gov/Archive.aspx?ADID=4359

Thursday, 9/19/2019 at 8:00 PM in Town Hall, the Board of Architectural Review will review (what appears to be) final plans for the Marco Polo/Vienna Market development.  This is the first of several items on the agenda for this meeting. 

Meeting materials can be found on this page:

https://vienna-va.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=721337&GUID=C471960D-BF57-4BAB-B5EA-9B0DCA77A5AF&Options=info&Search=

Post #383: It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future

I’m going to attribute the title of this post to Yogi Berra.  And while my last post was a lament for the things I think the Town ought to ask, this one is my prediction of what they’re actually going to do.

The point of this post is to predict what the zoning will look like for Maple Avenue, once the Town Council’s deliberations are finished five months from now, in February 2020.  (Or at least, scheduled to finish.)  And, by inference, what Maple will look like in the long run.

This post is just a plain statement of what I think we’ll get.  A subsequent post will explain why I think we’re going to get that.

Anyway, let’s face the facts.  Allowing just five months to redo the zoning, within a cumbersome legal and governmental framework, strongly limits what you can do and what you can consider.  Thus, once you’ve set that at the goal, you have a good idea of where this is going to end up.  That’s based on what’s on the table now, recent history, and some understand of the players.

Just as a hint, the original title of my last post was “why I despair”.  So if you expect something chipper and upbeat here, you’ve come to the wrong place.

But first, one more for the obits

I have one more item to add to the obits of the prior post.  Of all the things I could have added to that last posting, but forgot to, I want to mention “produce a drawing of what one whole block of Maple would look like, under MAC redevelopment”.  That came up at one of the recent meetings.  Staff were going to look into doing that.  But some Town Council members didn’t want anyone to do that.  So staff didn’t bother.  And it was forgotten.

The bottom line is that they Town is not going to commission any drawing of what the MAC build-out might look like.  Which is not a surprise, as that is just one more in the list of incredibly reasonable questions the Town might try to answer before plowing ahead.  But won’t.   Most of which I listed in my just-prior “obits” post.

A few pictures of a block-level build-out would be useful, if for no other reason than to see what it will look like when two abutting MAC developments are built  just off the common lot line, as the law allows.  But it’s obvious by now that this request — “may we please have even one image of what Maple might look like” — ain’t gonna happen.

As an economist, I believe in “revealed preference”.  That is, what you do reveals what you actually prefer.   So in this case, I infer that Town Council would rather buy a pig in a poke than let anyone have any image whatsoever of what they are actually voting for.  Fully admitting that (see post title), I just shake my head about that whenever I think about it.  The full extent of our forward-looking planning is going to be, more or less, “oh, just surprise us.”

So, because we won’t hire a professional to try to give you a picture of the future, I figure, what the hey, I might as well give it a shot — let me tell you what I think we’re going to get, to be decided by our Town staff Council over the next five months.  Let me first outline what, then why.

Continue reading Post #383: It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future

Post #382: An obituary for questions that will not be answered.

How is the Town going about rewriting its zoning laws, including MAC zoning?  Is this process likely to have a good outcome?

I’ve written four throwaway pieces on issues that I thought needed to be addressed as the Town moves forward on Maple Avenue redevelopment.  But at this point, I fully realize that I’m just talking to myself.  The Town is scheduled to rewrite its entire commercial zoning code, including MAC, finishing about five months from now, in February 2020.  So, more-or-less none of what I’m going to write below is going to be addressed.  That said, I’m going to roll up everything of value from the prior posts, listed below.  And then, at that point, I don’t think I have anything left to say.

  • Post #304, Where do we go from here, Part I.
  • Post #306, Where do we go from here, Part II, Falls Church
  • Post #322:  Moving forward (where do we go from here, Part 3).
  • Post #327:  Some basic questions to ask before modifying MAC zoning.

In effect, this posting is my obituary for all the questions that aren’t going to be answered, and all the things that aren’t going to be done.  As the Town proceeds to rewrite its entire commercial zoning code.

Now, that’s kind of a cheap shot — “Here’s what needs to be asked” — except for the fact that I’ve already given my best answer for what to do.  That answer aimed to address what I measured or perceive to be the main concerns of Vienna citizens.  As outlines in Post 322 above, my solution would be:

  1. Three story buildings.
  2. True open space requirements.
  3. Concrete, quantifiable changes to offset increased traffic.

Great.  Opinions are like bellybuttons, as the clean version of that phrase goes.   Or maybe, “that and $0.50 will get you a phone call.”   It’s great to toss out some sketchy off-the-cuff answer.  But the real questions are, what is the Town government capable of doing?  And then, what is the Town actually going to do? Continue reading Post #382: An obituary for questions that will not be answered.

Post #381: Illegal meetings by Town of Vienna officials — withdrawn

I have been advised by Councilman Noble that meetings of the MAC Ad Hoc committee were,  in fact, duly advertised and open to the public in some manner.  I just missed that.  I apologize to the Town of Vienna for this posting.  I was wrong.

Usually, when I make a mistake, I just strike through the original text.  In this case, let me just erase it.  So the story is that I accused the Town of violating FOIA because they did not hold open public meetings for the committee that drafted the amendments to MAC.  The Town posted notice, on its calendar, for exactly two meetings of this Ad Hoc Committee.  I’ll assume that’s all there were and leave it at that.  I was incorrect and I apologize.

 

 

 

 

Post #380: Sidewalk alignment and avoiding a waste of space

I want to make two simple points in this posting.

First, when I said the MAC sidewalks would not align with existing sidewalks, I was wrong.  They will, because the proposed 6′ buffer between the road and sidewalk, under MAC, is not new.  For almost all of Maple, it just matches what we already have.

Second,  if we are determined to have a 28′ wide sidewalk along Maple, my suggestion is not to waste it on outdoor seating that isn’t going to be used.  Maybe set it up to carry a “shared use trail” (a.k.a., a bike path) and integrate that with an eventual multimodal transit plan.

The upshot of that second point is that instead of ignoring the fact that Maple Avenue is an unpleasant transit corridor now, due to the traffic, it might be more efficient to acknowledge that and run with it.  It’s a traffic corridor.  Rather perfuming the pig, it might make more sense to focus on making it a better traffic corridor.

Continue reading Post #380: Sidewalk alignment and avoiding a waste of space

Post #378: Town Council work session 9/9/2019, Part 1

My wife and I attended last night’s Town Council work session, along with about (best guess) 40 other audience members.  I’m going to break my review of that into two separate posts:  This post will be a timely overview.  Other posts may go into more detail.

It’s almost not worth posting my audio file, because microphone discipline was poor.  FWIW:  Download the audio (.mp3) at this Google Drive link, and download the corresponding .xls index file (my notes at to what was said when) at this Google Drive link.

The work session covered four topics.  You can find the meeting materials at this location.  Click links below to get to a brief writeup of the four topics.

I didn’t stay for the last one, so I have little to say for that one until I listen to the Town’s audio recording.  An overview of the others follows.

Continue reading Post #378: Town Council work session 9/9/2019, Part 1

Post #376: MAC-related public meetings this week.

There is one public meetings this week relevant to MAC zoning.

Monday, 9/9/2019 at 7:30 PM in Town Hall, the first item in the Town Council work session will be discussion of changing the proffers for the recently approved 380 Maple West (37 condos plus retail, corner of Wade Hampton and Maple) to allow the building to be used for some other purpose.     

The meeting materials for that portion of the meeting are here:

https://vienna-va.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=4124947&GUID=48E2E0E1-5C96-4D8E-8F20-7356781D9682&Options=&Search=

You can see my guesses as to what’s going on in Post #375.

At that meeting, they will also discuss draft changes to the commercial zoning and MAC zoning codes.  Materials for that are given here:

https://vienna-va.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=4124946&GUID=E124EC89-7A23-4EE3-A207-328A8712F4AA&Options=&Search=