Post #491: NVTA granted us money for the Church Street garage?

If you read this website, you know that I’m certain that the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority (NVTA) has absolutely no business paying for shopper/diner parking in Vienna.  Their job is to fund projects that reduce traffic congestion, not to pay for merchants’ parking.  To put it as plainly as possible, I think we’re getting their money under circumstances that are just shy of outright fraud.  See (e.g.) Post #447, Post #446.  And yet, NVTA was willing to fund half of the now-defunct Mill Street garage project.

But as part of the planning for the 2020 bond issue, Vienna assumes that NVTA will pay for 59% of a proposed Church Street garage, and 100% of a proposed Patrick Henry garage.

In fact, at this last Town Council meeting, the Director of Finance said unambiguously that Vienna had won a grant from NVTA to finance the Church Street garage.

To which I had to say, uh, what?  When did that happen?  Near as I can tell, there isn’t even a plan yet, for that Church Street building, let alone an agreement-in-principle for the Town to buy into it. How the heck did we get them to fund that when the building is still in the vague-concept stage.

And then, uh, what, again, for the 59% cost share (calculated).  That’s an odd number, where did that come from?

And then I put it all together.   And when I put it all together, it just highlighted how sloppy NVTA is with its awards.  Which I think is consistent with how we got the money in the first place.

NVTA was willing to pay for half of the now-defunct Mill Street garage, a sum of $2.3M.  That was in return for reserving half the parking places for (imaginary) public-transit commuters.  And now, apparently, they’re just going to let the Town of Vienna apply that $2.3M to the proposed Church Street garage.

Let me emphasize:  Different building, different fraction of cost covered, different number of parking places.  Different location, completely different access to the street, looks like far more difficult entry and exit, no longer adjacent to the W&OD (yeah, we even argued that people would drive to Mill Street, park there, and then bike to work), different distance to bus stops, different distance to Metro.

But the same $2.3M award. Which makes absolutely no sense.  But having NVTA pay for shopper/diner parking in Vienna makes no sense in the first place.

Post #490: Other happenings at last night’s Town Council meeting

In no particular order, these are the other items I noted from last night, other than the ones about which I have posted separately.


It was not a good night for Councilman Majdi.

In addition to being the only person not to get on board with the creation of a Zoning Czar (Post #487),  I note the following:

Councilman Majdi filed his financial disclosure form waaay after the deadline and took a raft of crap over it.

The audit of the Town’s books revealed that one public official had not filed the legally required financial disclosure (conflict-of-interest) form, and that individual then filed the form very much past the deadline.  That was Councilmember Majdi.  And Councilmembers Noble and Colbert worked him over for it.  Over a six-minute span, under two different interrogations, I counted Councilman saying “my mistake”, “my error” or “I apologize” at least ten separate times.  As it went on … and on … it got a little awkward to listen to.  In fact, it went on even after the Town Lawyer said there was no substantive violation of the law.  It went on even after Majdi said he’d now hired a CPA and given him power of attorney, to ensure that it was filed correctly going forward.  It went on to the point of awkwardness.

In hindsight, in light of Post #487, the many mentions of “transparency” rang a little hollow with me.  But that’s my slant, I guess.

Councilman Majdi’s attempt to keep rental electric scooters off the Maple Avenue sidewalk was defeated.  

The rental electric scooter discussion starts about 1:44:30 into my recording of the meeting, available at this Google Drive link as an MP3 file.  Otherwise, the scooter proposal passed with just two modifications — setting the speed limit on Maple and Nutley to 8 MPH, and setting an 8 MPH speed limit around schools, parks, and rec centers (per Councilman Noble).  So the upshot is that if a rental company wants to offer them, we’ll have rental electric scooters in Vienna next year.  They can ride on the sidewalks or roads, preferable roads.  Speed limit is 20 MPH except as noted above.

Councilman Majdi’s attempt to get some systematic policy in place toward Town right-of-way was widely derided, then tabled.

For a Town Council that always seemed to make nice-nice a point of honor, they sure didn’t seem to have any trouble being less than delicate here.  I think Councilman Noble literally used the phrase “a waste of time”.  But in the end, the decision was made to table this until they could see what the Town Manager could come up with first.  You can hear that section starting around 2:49:00 into into my recording of the meeting, available at this Google Drive link as an MP3 file.


Other items that I happened to note.

The (up to) $35M 2020 bond issue was approved, but see my after-the-fact calculation in Post #488.  I’m pretty sure that, based on the Town’s assumptions, they can’t borrow the full $35M and maintain adequate reserves in the capital fund.

The vote on the Town’s proposed contract to Rinker Design, to figure out the logistics and cost of burying the power lines on Maple, was deferred.   Councilman Noble wanted Town Staff to get information on whether or not the chosen consultant had enough talent available in non-engineering areas (such as legal issues and economic issues).

The “consent agenda” worked flawlessly, and Town Council disposed of half-a-dozen minor items in less than a minute.

The purchase of the Robinson’s former home was approved, with the intention to turn that into a park, at 124 Courthouse.

I left early, and I didn’t get to hear the outcome of the last two items.


 

Post #486: Public meetings this week regarding MAC zoning

The Town broadcasts Town Council and Planning Commission meetings on Cox channel 27, Verizon FIOS channel 38, and streaming at http://vienna-va.granicus.com/player/camera/3?publish_id=5

The Town does not broadcast work sessions, but audio recordings are available after-the-fact in the “archives” section of this web page: 
https://www.viennava.gov/index.aspx?NID=567

There are two meetings this week with some relevance to MAC zoning.

Monday, 12/9/2019, at 8:00 PM in Town Hall, a Town Council meeting will address several MAC-related items, including the proposed Sunrise assisted living facility at 380 Maple West, and a proposal to stop work on Town Council efforts to amend MAC zoning, and instead include MAC changes in a Town staff rewrite of all of Town of Vienna zoning.

The relevant materials can be found here:
https://vienna-va.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=719393&GUID=5E996136-2D14-4359-8F43-53EE3EAC510B&Options=info&Search=

Wednesday, 12/11/2019, at 8:00 PM in Town Hall, the Planning Commission will consider the proposed Sunrise assisted living facility at 380 Maple West (Maple and Wade Hampton). 

The relevant materials can be found here:
https://vienna-va.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=673423&GUID=EE2610F2-5202-485C-8DE4-7E25679684C8&Options=info&Search=

The Town reserves the right to change or cancel meetings on short notice, so check the Town’s general calendar before you go, at this URL:
https://www.viennava.gov/Calendar.aspx?NID=1&FID=220

Post #484: Tonight’s Town Council meeting

It should be an interesting night, because tonight’s Town Council agenda has something for everybody.  If you want a seat, you’d best show up early.  Start time is 8 PM, in Town Hall.

Here are links to my summaries of the agenda items (below).  I’ll post the agenda itself at the bottom of this page.

You can also catch it live, on cable or streaming, following the directions shown in the middle of this Town of Vienna web page.  (Be aware that the streaming is kind of glitchy, and the only browser I’ve ever gotten to work with it is Chrome.)

You can find the agenda and meeting materials on this web page.  Looking at the agenda, my guess is that this might end up being a long meeting.

As is traditional with the Town of Vienna, the agenda gives few clues as to the importance of individual items, either in terms of dollar amounts involved, or in the amount of time that Town Council expects to spend on an item.

Continue reading Post #484: Tonight’s Town Council meeting

Post #483: CORRECTED: A big strategic mistake

In the original version of this, I was incorrect when I said I could not obtain a copy of the scope of work for this task.  Councilman Noble has pointed out that I could, in fact, find an earlier draft of the scope of work for this task, posted as the last item on an October 28, 2019 Town Council work session.  The earlier draft was posted for that work session, but not for the Town Council meeting.  I apologize for my error, and have modified this post accordingly.

This post is a re-analysis of the proposal to allow Planning and Zoning to rewrite the entire town zoning ordinance, including MAC zoning.  It boils down the lengthy Post #483 into a straightforward summary.  The summary is the title of the post.

Caveat:  I supported Steve Potter for Town Council.  But you probably aren’t going to remember that by the time you’re done with this.


The setup

The last item on tonight’s Town Council agenda is this:

I. 19-1527 Motion by Councilmember Potter for comprehensive reorganization and update of Subdivision and Zoning Ordinances, Chapters 17 and 18 of Town Code.

To translate:  The Town Council is going to stop looking at revising MAC, or revising parts of the commercial code to match MAC.  Instead, they’re going to do a mash-up of the MAC rewrite and a second proposal to “clean up” the rest of the zoning code.  That “cleanup” proposal was previously billed as a purely technical exercise, one that would make no substantive changes in Town of Vienna zoning.  But with this motion, Town Council will fold everything into one big code rewrite, under the direction of Planning and Zoning.  Basically, they are punting, handing this task to Planning and Zoning, providing some oversight (I guess), and then, as I understand it, they’ll vote on the whole ball of wax at the end.

I think this is a big strategic mistake, for those of us who don’t much like MAC as-written.  And in this post, I’m going to explain why.  In a nutshell, if you do this, you give Planning and Zoning the vehicle that they will use to cram MAC down your throat, at the end of this process.  It’s a variant of the classic poison-pill strategy.  With this approach, if you want the zoning code cleaned up, you have to swallow the poison pill as well.

Now, mere citizens are not allowed to see the scope of work for this task.  But as I vaguely understand it, the proposed voting scheme for this is modeled on the original MAC.  Whatever package Planning and Zoning puts together will be put in front of Town Council for an up-or-down vote.  Town Council will have to accept the entire rewrite, or reject it.

Assume that’s correct, for now, and try to figure out how this will turn out, in the end.  Assume further — and I’d say this is pretty much a given — that Planning and Zoning will have larded this revised law with many potentially objectionable clauses to encourage greater density of development, larger buildings, and so on.

Or, simply assume that they return a package that leaves the current MAC language unchanged.  But now, instead of MAC being a stand-alone piece of legislation, it has been firmly embedded in the rewrite of the existing code.  Now you can’t separate the two.  You can’t have one without the other.  That’s the core of the problem.  And that’s source of the leverage you are needlessly giving pro-development forces.

So, just for a moment, assume that happens.  Assume that the final product has either the existing MAC language, or language preferred by Planning and Zoning that would allow even larger buildings.

What are a Town Council member’s options at that point?

If you don’t want the revised MAC, or the many other pro-development provisions that Planning and Zoning is likely to stick into the revised law, you’d have to vote against the whole package.   If you have the courage to.  Because at that point, you’ll be accused of being against Progress, of wasting the Town’s time, wasting the quarter-million-dollar contract.  Standing in the way of a much-needed cleanup of the Town’s zoning ordinances.  Tossing the baby out with the bathwater.  And so on.

And if you give in to all that, and vote for it, and use the rewrite of the code as cover for your actions — then you’ll have had MAC crammed down your throat.

I can surely understand the technical merits of revising the code all at once.  And I understand the amount of time it would save Town Council to punt on revising MAC, and have somebody else do it.  Those are laudable goals.

But, to me, having worked for a decade in a Federal legislative-branch agency, this proposal looks like a variant of the classic poison-pill strategy.    The poison pill here is MAC, and all the other clauses our pro-growth Planning and Zoning department will put into the revised law.  And the sugar coating is the presumed need to … simplify?  streamline? … our current and functional zoning code so that it’s easier for developers to understand.  The only difference between this and a classic poison pill is that, traditionally, the poison pill was used to kill legislation, under the assumption that it would force legislators to vote it down.  Here, by contrast, it looks like the strategy is to get the Town Council to swallow it.

So, again, whatever the technical merits, by rolling this up into one big project, you are setting yourself up to allow pro-MAC pro-growth pro-developer interests to feed you a piece of poison-pill legislation at the end of this process.  That’s a big strategic mistake.


What could you do instead?

First, and most obviously, one option is simply not to do this.  Continue on the path you’ve already started down, which is to revise MAC and make the relevant portions of the commercial code adhere to the “MAC streetscape”.

Apparently the pro-MAC Town Council members have decided to deride that as a “piecemeal” approach.  So keep your ears open, and count the number of times the word “piecemeal” comes up at tonight’s meeting.

But I could as easily deride the proposal as “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”.  MAC is broke.  It got some sitting Town Council members voted out of office.  The rest of the code is awkward, but it works.  Buildings manage to get built under it.  I certainly don’t see any shortage of new houses being built, for example.

Second, if you proceed with this, you need to preserve your right to separate out the votes for the various pieces of it.  That’s the only way to extract the poison pill.  You have to separate the poison-pill portions (MAC and all the other pro-development language) from the sugar coating (the zoning rewrite that was originally proposed — the purely technical cleanup of the existing zoning.)  And give yourself the option to vote on those pieces separately.

And in this case, if you game it out fully, you’ll realize you need to break this into at least three pieces.  (And so, this corrects what I wrote in Post #481.)  What are those pieces:

  1.  The purely technical rewrite that preserves existing zoning unchanged, just streamlines and simplifies it.
  2. MAC zoning.
  3. All other changes that Planning and Zoning has introduced into the code.

Why do you need three pieces, and not two?  Because Piece #1 will, by definition, contain the existing MAC zoning rules.  And if you don’t break MAC out separately, then if you vote for Piece #1 — the plain-vanilla “clean up” that this code rewrite was originally billed as — you’ll be voting to reinstate MAC as it is currently written.

So it really does need to be broken into three parts.  With that, Town Council will have the option to take or reject the parts as they see fit.

Let me put this another way:  If you truly believe that a revised MAC and other pro-development changes really are in the best interest of the citizens, then let those parts of the revised law stand or fall on their own.  This poison-pill approach is, at root, an admission that you are unwilling to do that.  It’s an acknowledgement that now that we’ve seen what MAC is bring us, the average Vienna citizen may not want what you are offering.


Other red flags

I realize that when I write a post like this, if I paid any attention to social media, I’d get a lot of what I call kumbaya blowback.  Oh, gosh, I’ve made all these mean assumptions about how Planning and Zoning will behave.  I haven’t given certain Town Council members credit for their ability to keep this process in check.  Can’t we all just be friends and assume that everyone is working for the greater good.  And so on.

Well, my observation is that Planning and Zoning considers it their duty to get as much development as possible in the Town of Vienna.  Full stop.  In a sense, that’s pretty much what the current crew was hired to do.  It’s their mission.  And so, because I don’t want to see a bunch of “medium-density” development here, I don’t want those people running the show.  I think that’s pretty straightfoward.  This is business, not friendship.

But now let me line out a few additional red flags that parts of this process have raised.

This next paragraph was wrong.  Town of Vienna posted a draft of the Scope of Work as the last item in their 10/28/2019 Town Council work session.   I missed that by looking only at the current Town Council meeting posting, which had only the staff description.  The draft SOW is included here.  If you read the “review and potentially revise” lines, I think you can see that the contractor has broad scope to make significant change in … pretty much every aspect of Town of Vienna zoning.

Draft Scope of Services to Reorganize and Update Subdivision and Zoning Ordinances - Oct 2019-1

First, we as citizens don’t get to see the documents that Town Council has been looking at, as they prepare to vote on this.  In particular, we don’t get to see the scope of work for the contract that would be issued to cover the bulk of this work.  If you know anything about the Virginia Freedom of Information Act, and have read my writeup of the hoops that the Town would have to go through to sidestep the guarantees written into the act, that’s one big red flag.

Second, the bland and plain-vanilla description offered by Town Staff, in the meeting materials for tonight’s Town Council meeting, cannot possibly be an accurate description of this project.  Because now they’ve rolled the MAC zoning rewrite into this.  And so, we’re already starting off with the public-facing portion of this — the stuff we’re allowed to see — presenting a misleading picture of the actual task.  That’s a second red flag. (That’s an exaggeration, I thing.  If I’d done my homework and looked back to the October work session, I could clearly see that more-or-less everything in Town of Vienna zoning is up for modification per the Scope of Work.  So the short description posted for this evening’s Town Council meeting is, in fact, not an accurate description of the full breadth of the scope of work.  But if I’d done my homework, I could have known that.)

Third, the language the Town has used to sell this rewrite of the zoning keeps shifting.  Which, to me, means that either that somebody is lying about it, as a matter of expediency, or that there really is no firmly-defined and clearly-circumscribed scope of work.  I.e., it means that Town of Vienna government, as a whole, hasn’t really said with they intend to do with this.

The very first descriptions of this code-rewrite proposal touted it as a way to get more, bigger, and faster development.  I documented that over a year ago, in this post.  But when Town Council discussed it on 1/7/2019, some Town Council members ran away from that as fast as they could.  The Mayor herself is on tape unambiguously stating that the goal of this rewrite was NOT to change any aspect of Town zoning.  You can see my writeup of that in this post from January 2019.

And now it has devolved into typical Town-of-Vienna hash.  You can’t be quite sure what the goal is.  The public-facing writeup appears to be pap written to assure us that nothing will change.  But the actual task now includes the MAC rewrite, where I’m pretty sure the sentiment of the majority of Town Council is that something had to change.  And the actual scope-of-work document that will direct the contractor’s work is secret.  (Wrong.  A prior draft is available, as noted above.)  The continuously-shifting description of the task is yet another red flag.

Fourth, we are making the same ready-fire-aim mistake that was made with MAC.  This process is set to proceed before the Town has done its due diligence in the areas of traffic, economics, and costs imposed on the Town (in particular, cost of burying utility lines).  Not to mention, before the Town has surveyed public opinion on proposed changes.

It’s not like this is some uniquely new  idea — get your facts together before you proceed.  When Councilman Majdi voted against the original MAC legislation in 2014, he plainly said that the Town needed to do a traffic impact study, a parking impact study, and an economic impact study before proceeding with MAC.  So at least some people recognized the need for this information half a decade ago.

And now, the Town is finally getting its act together, somewhat, to get that information.  But they don’t have it, yet.  And the fact that they are willing to proceed with the rewrite anyway, before the information is in hand, tells you that the place no value on that information.  To me, that approach says that these studies are all for show, and the planning process in Vienna — such as it is — isn’t going to be affected by what those studies actually say.

Finally, directly addressing my lack of “kumbaya”, I don’t think there’s anything to suggest that town staff will “play fair” during this process.  In fact, I’d say the preponderance of evidence strongly suggests otherwise.   In a nutshell, if you give them the opportunity to have leverage over this process, I’d say it’s a pretty good bet that they will take full advantage of that.

And on that note, I’m just going to copy in a shorter version of paragraph from Post #481, and call it a day.

Let me just take stock a bit.  A brand new significant pedestrian hazard on a walk-to-school routeSubstitution of building plans in the middle of the approval process.  Ah, don’t forget about quietly giving away four feet of the public right-of-way for benefit of a developer.  Heck, substituting one building for another, after approval.  So far, for two out of four projects, the locally-known builder got the zoning, then turned around and sold the development rights.  Ah, and we can’t leave out the mythical hundred-day rule that the Town (and only the Town) adheres to.  And four-floors-really-means-five-floors (which is still in the draft revision of MAC zoning), and mezzanine rules only apply to residential mezzanines, and so on.  Oh, and the fact that we dove into this having no clue what it would cost to put utilities on Maple underground, and are just now getting around to finding out.  And had no idea how much MAC would contribute to Maple Avenue traffic, and are only just now finding out — but the Town Council still hasn’t discussed that in public.

In the immortal words of Yogi Berra, it’s deja vu all over again.

Post #482: Public hearing tomorrow on the $35 million Town of Vienna bond issue.

 

This was originally an afterthought from the last posting, but it got so long I decided to post it separately.  And so that leads to a major caveat:  I haven’t had the time to do my homework on this one.  I’m usually pretty good about getting the facts straight before opening my mouth.  But for this one — which comes up tomorrow — I started to look at it, and I kept coming up with what I thought were some fairly important questions that I don’t think I’m going to be able to answer in time for that meeting.

Anyway, tomorrow’s Town Council hearing looks to be a real Duesy.  You might want to have a look at the agenda (.pdf), and maybe even take a look at the meeting materials if something catches your eye.  Maybe plan to be there, or at least catch it on cable or internet (as described halfway down this Town of Vienna web page.)  I’ll post the agenda at the end of this article, below, for ease of access.

Among other things, Town Council is holding its one and only public hearing on a borrowing $35 million for various construction projects and reserves.  It is a legally required public hearing, and if you have any thoughts on that bond issue you can speak for up to three minutes.  But I suggest you do some homework on it first, because the more I look at that, the less I understand it.  If I have the time, I’ll amend this posting to add links to prior Town discussions of this bond issue.

The amount of the Town’s borrowing represents a significant departure from the past.  In fact, that by itself is so noteworthy that I ginned up that little graph at the top of this post, right out of the Town’s 2019-202 budget, using data take from pages 359 and forward, and adding in the proposed $35 million.  As you can see, we’ve never done anything like this before.

I haven’t looked at the details/done my homework, but my guess is that, in large part, this is made possible by the 50% increase in your water bill (Post #448).  Of which you have only seen the first 20%, so far.   (Some portion of water bill receipts are used to cover the Town’s debt issuance (“capital fund”) costs.)

But now that I think that through, if the Town is counting on those water bill receipts to pay off this debt issue, doesn’t that makes the next three annual votes to raise sewer and water rates kind of a joke?  Has Town Council really put us in a position of “raise the rates the full 50%, or default on our bonds”?  I’ll have to look into that, but that’s my first question.  Are they predicating the payback of these bonds on rate increases that they haven’t yet voted on?  I would certainly hope not, but I don’t know.

Anyway, the proposed sewer and water projects are on top of the Town building itself a new police station, and a few other things, and … hmm.  I don’t really know how they plan to fund even that piece, in the normal fashion (meals tax and hotel room tax), because that, by itself, the police station and other projects amount to twice our normal bond issue.  I guess I really haven’t done my homework.  I sure hope our Town Council has.  I wonder just how much of this is projected to be funded by the water bill increase?

And let’s not forget that the Town capital budget includes $0 to pay for the nearly $5 million Patrick Henry garage.  Yep, we assume that’s free, because we think the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority is going to be stupid enough to pay for all of our merchant/restaurant parking at that site, even though that organization has absolutely no business doing so (Post #446 and Post #447).  (Oh, and let’s not forget that we assume they’ll pay for about half the cost of a garage on Church street, just for good measure.)

If you add in the capital projects that we think we’re getting for free or at half price (the two garages), we’re looking at another, oh, $7 million or so in liabilities on top of that.   (Alternatively, this may be why Town staff are asking for about … you guessed it … $7 million in additional funding as part of the overall $35 million debt issue, to provide “reserves” that, somehow, are earmarked for as-yet-unnamed property acquisition within the Town?)

Anyway, no matter how you cut it, that’s a heck of a departure from tradition.

N.B.:  If you took $35 million in hundred-dollar bills and laid them in a straight line, they would stretch from Vienna to Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia.  So we’re borrowing a a pretty good-sized pile of cash.

And there are a couple of other deusies on that agenda, in addition to the bond issue.  Check it out for yourself.  But in typical Town fashion, the agenda often gives no clue as to the dollar value or other importance of any one item.  So you have to read it carefully, then check the Town web page cited above for whatever details have been made public.

Agenda-66

 

 


Post #481: CORRECTED: Are we really going to open up the entire zoning code, right now?

 

In the original version of this, I was incorrect when I said I could not obtain a copy of the scope of work for this task.  Councilman Noble has pointed out that I could, in fact, find an earlier draft of the scope of work for this task, posted as the last item on an October 28, 2019 Town Council work session.  The earlier draft was posted for that work session, but not for the Town Council meeting.  I apologize for my error, and have modified this post accordingly.

Complete this sentence:  If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is to:

A) drop the shovel.

B) pick up more shovels.

I’m going for A, but I would accept the traditional “stop digging” as an acceptable answer as well.


Background

If there is anything I have learned from sitting through countless Town Council meetings, it’s that Town staff put the controversial stuff last on the agenda.  And they make it sound as innocuous as possible.

Maybe that’s purely by chance, but I have always assumed they do that as a way to thin the crowd out before the controversial stuff gets discussed.  Those Town Council meetings go on for a long time.  In fact, the only thing I have learned, for certain, from attending these meetings is that my bladder disqualifies me from public service.  (If you see a fat guy sprinting for the door after the first few hours of one of those meetings, that’ll likely be me.)  And I don’t think I’m alone in that.  But whether it’s the call of nature or just plain fatigue, you’ll often see that Town Council chambers will be nearly empty by the time they get to the good stuff at the end of the agenda.

So I have learned to read the last item first, and make sure that I (think) I understand it.  The item of interest for tomorrow’s Town Council meeting is:

I. 19-1527 Motion by Councilmember Potter for comprehensive reorganization and update of Subdivision and Zoning Ordinances, Chapters 17 and 18 of Town Code.

Caveat:  I supported Steve Potter for Town Council.  But you probably aren’t going to remember that by the time you’re done with this.

This is a long post.  Links to specific sections are given directly below:

The scope of work (SOW) isn’t public, and I bet the SOW includes a lot more than just the simple project as described in the Town Council meeting materials.

Making this one big package deal is a strategic blunder.

You’d be smarter to break this into two pieces:  the non-controversial purely technical changes that merely clean up existing code, and, separately, all the other would be everything else that Planning and Zoning is going to add in.

Are we really going to make the same mistake all over again, and do the rewrite in an information vacuum?  Or are we going to wait until various studies are completed, and actually based the rewrite on information?

Rewriting the by-right zoning is serious stuff, compared to MAC.  Are we going to have any serious guidelines and guide rails written down, or is Town Council’s input limited to occasional and informal guidance to Town Staff?

Put in writing that the MAC zoning rewrite was not finished, and that the things in the existing red-lined copy are far from agreed-upon by Town Council.

If you keep digging yourself into a hole, do you really want to pick up more shovels?  Maybe just skip this additional chaos for the time being and fix only what needs to be fixed right now.

 

Continue reading Post #481: CORRECTED: Are we really going to open up the entire zoning code, right now?

Post #479: How many people could you house at the Giant Food property, if you really tried?

(Click this link to download a spreadsheet with all the VDOT traffic counts for the Town of Vienna:  VDOT traffic counts 9-27-2019)

This is a little thought experiment, prompted by Town Staff’s continuing to push the idea of six-story buildings under MAC.  Rather than fight that, I figure, what the heck, let’s just run with it.  What would we get?

Best guess?  A six-story MAC development on the Giant Food property would yield about 1400 new residents, or roughly an 8.5 percent increase in the population of the Town of Vienna.  All in one place.  And maybe a 15 percent increase in peak rush hour traffic on Maple?

Such is the power of medium-density housing.

Detail follows. Continue reading Post #479: How many people could you house at the Giant Food property, if you really tried?

Post #477: A Councilmember’s proposal in response to the Wawa tree destruction

Something remarkable appears to be happening in response to the mistaken removal of mature maple trees at the Wawa lot.  A Town Council member is trying to fix the system so that this doesn’t happen again.  You can download Councilman Majdi’s proposal from this Google Drive link (.pdf)  This is a rare enough event in Town of Vienna government that it’s worth writing up for that reason alone.  And, separately, because it might actually work to prevent a repeat of what happened at the Wawa.

Continue reading Post #477: A Councilmember’s proposal in response to the Wawa tree destruction

Post #476: Public meetings this week regarding MAC zoning

There is just one meeting this week with some relevance to MAC zoning.

Wednesday, 12/4/2019, at 7:30 PM in Town Hall, a Town Council work session will address a planned survey of opinions about commercial development in Vienna, including MAC and other commercial zoning.

The relevant materials can be found here:
https://vienna-va.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=724096&GUID=6AFBF094-74CE-43D7-95F4-5AB50093E578&Options=&Search=