Category: Town of Vienna, VA

Post #338: Rental electric scooters, again.

This article is about decisions that the Town must make, in the near future, regarding rental electric scooters and rental bicycles.  It ends with some discussion of the presumed environmental benefits of electric scooters.

Bottom line:  Thanks to a change in Virginia law, the Town needs to come up with some form of regulation for “dockless” rental electric scooters by 1/1/2020.  If not, we end up with open season for rental electric scooters in Vienna, which we probably want to avoid.  Unregulated dockless bike and scooter rentals have become a nuisance in many major cities (see examples in this post).

Here, I line out what a minimum set of regulations probably ought to cover.  (Which is no great shakes — just look at what other local jurisdictions have done.)

Separately, the Town needs to find places for racks for the “docked” Capital Bikeshare rental bikes.

N.B:  In “docked” systems, bikes (or other devices) are picked up from and returned to dedicated racks.  (If not, steep charges mount up for the renter.)  Smartphone apps show how many bicycles/scooters are available for use at each rack.  By contrast, in “dockless” systems, scooters or bikes may be picked up and left anywhere, tracked by a combination of on-board GPS and internet connectivity.  Smartphone apps show the location of available scooters or bikes.   Rental is accomplished via smartphone app and account, or in some cases, via credit card swipe.

Continue reading Post #338: Rental electric scooters, again.

Post #337: Retail property assessments along Maple

I’m certainly tired of hearing about what a crisis Maple Avenue retail is in.  At the risk of caricature, the argument seems to be that We Must Act Now or risk having Maple become a ghost town.

Anyone who has tried to drive down Maple Avenue on a Saturday afternoon probably wishes for a little more”ghost town” now and then.  By eye, the reality appears to be the opposite of crisis:  Maple appears to be a busy, viable, profitable shopping district.  Maybe a little too busy at times.

In this posting, I’m going to take my prior analyses of Maple Avenue retail a bit further and look at tax assessments along Maple, compared their trend and level ($/sq ft.) to assessments of similar properties outside of Vienna, but nearby.  The bottom line is consistent with all my prior work:  Tax assessments of the largest retail properties here are rising, and assessment per square foot of land is comparable to retail sites near (but not in) the Town of Vienna.

People who tell you there’s a crisis in Maple Avenue retail do not appear to have the facts on their side. Continue reading Post #337: Retail property assessments along Maple

Post #333: How did 901 Glyndon happen?

You can see the background on 901 Glyndon in this posting.  It’s a building with two floors of condos over one floor of retail space.

Put aside the fact that it is jarringly out-of-place in a neighhorhood of single-family homes.  My question is, how did this get built under standard Vienna commercial (C1) zoning?  Doesn’t that zoning require that more than half of the building be used for commercial purposes? 

Continue reading Post #333: How did 901 Glyndon happen?

Post #332: UPDATED 8/1/2019: Why I loathe social media/why the Russkis are winning, in one short lesson

This is a set of screen captures from a dialogue that, unfortunately, I entered into last night, on some Facebook page related to Vienna development.  Some entries may be duplicated as I maintained continuity of the screen capture.  Please Google “Neal Rentle” and “Vienna” and see what you come up with.

Just some observations.  If you see someone a) who just joined a group a few hours ago, b) who posts under a name that looks real, but is in fact a false name, who c) refuses to offer any verification that they are in fact a Vienna resident, and d) gets obvious points of fact about Vienna completely wrong, and most tellingly, e) immediately deflects to another point when called out on those incorrect points of fact (a form of the “Gish Gallop“), then f) odds are you are looking at a paid “social media campaign” posting.  Or, possibly, a sock puppet.

Apparently this sort of thing is now part of the game plan.   Do your due diligence, folks, because there really are agents out there, both foreign and domestic.   Caveat emptor. Continue reading Post #332: UPDATED 8/1/2019: Why I loathe social media/why the Russkis are winning, in one short lesson

Post #330: Scooter alert

I was driving in the City of Fairfax last week and had my first sighting of rental electric scooters there.  First time it was a set of red devices parked on the sidewalk, and I was not quite sure what I was looking at.  But when I saw a couple of lime-green ones in action, that’s when it hit me:  the scooters are here.

Turns out, if I had been paying attention, I’d have been prepared for it.  You can read news coverage here,  or here.

For us, note the key paragraph from that second news article:

"H.B. 2572 also amended the Code of Virginia to state that, if a locality does not adopt a licensing ordinance, regulation, or other action by Jan. 1, 2020, motorized skateboards, scooters, and dockless or electric-powered bicycles can be deployed without formal regulation."

That’s not exactly how I read that law, but it’s close enough.  In so many words, time is running out for having any orderly introduction of electric rental scooters or dockless rental bikes in Vienna.  We have five months to get our act together, or we’re fair game until such time as we do establish some rules.

There appear to be two main objections to rental scooters from the standpoint of the general public.

One, these scooters can typically do about 15 MPH top speed.  That can be a safety issue if allowed to be ridden on the sidewalk. 

Just as a point of reference, 15 MPH on level ground is a pretty good clip for a bicyclist.  I doubt that I have ever managed to achieve that, for any length of time, along any Town of Vienna sidewalk.  And on many parts of those sidewalks, you don’t dare ride at speed.  For example, my least favorite stretch of Maple Avenue sidewalk is below.  The doors of the shops literally open onto the sidewalk, and there’s no place to go.  I traverse this section at a walking pace.

The emergency stopping distance for an electric scooter traveling at 15 MPH appears to be around 30 feet (per this reference).  (About half of that is reaction time, the rest is braking distance.)  This does not strike me as being hugely different from the stopping distance for a bicycle at that speed.

So, in terms of hazard, my guess is, you are relying on the good sense and skill of the sidewalk scooter rider, same as you are relying on the good sense of the sidewalk bicyclist.  Scooters will attract a different type of person, will be ridden (at first) by inexperienced riders, and are capable of speeds without the corresponding physical exertion.  So they may be more dangerous than sidewalk bicycles for those reasons. But not inherently different, in my view, from a sidewalk bicyclist.

Furthermore, if you expect people to get around Maple Avenue on scooters, practically speaking, you have no choice but to allow them on the sidewalk.  I think you’d be borderline crazy to ride a scooter on Maple Avenue at almost any time.  (I feel the same about riding a bicycle on Maple.)   And the presence of scooters in the roadway would substantially disrupt traffic flow.

Two, people leave them anywhere, so they become a nuisance when parked willy-nilly. You can see some discussion of this issue in this post, which is my write up of dockless bike sharing.  Various cities have tried various solutions to this issue, as outlined in that posting.

Other issues with electric scooters are more of a non-public nature.  For example, rentals do not include helmets and (my best estimate) users tend to have a high rate of injury (compared to bicyclists, for example).

Back to Fairfax City: 

Fairfax City expects scooter riders to ride in the road, and not on the sidewalk, among other things explained in this FAQ on the Faifax City website.  But, I also note here that, apparently, Fairfax city does not allow bicycles on the sidewalk, either.  (The exception appears to be routes that are marked bicycle routes, as explained in this Fairfax City ordinance.)

To which I can only say, good luck with that.  The Lime scooter users I saw on Old Lee Highway were cruising down the sidewalk, and I doubt that any no-sidwalk rules will be stringently enforced.  The reason I doubt that is my experience as a bicyclist.  Mainly, a) I never knew that City of Fairfax banned bicycles from sidewalks except along marked bike routes, b) I’m pretty sure I’ve bicycled on the sidewalk there many times and never been hassled. So they may enforce that in the Old Town section of Fairfax City, but certainly not city-wide.

Here’s news reporting on how Vienna is planning to handle this.  That article helpfully gives a link to audio for that meeting.  (Kudos to the Town of Vienna for proving timely audio for Town Council work sessions.)  The discussion of rental scooters starts about 33 minutes into the recording.  Discussion continues for about another 45 minutes, but after listening to most of it, I didn’t detect a lot of clarity there, and not much nuts-and-bolts discussion of how this should play out in Vienna.  It appears to me that Town government is nowhere near prepared to act.  They actually spent some time discussing whether the Virginia legislature is likely to change that January 1 2020 deadline noted above.

Also absent from the discussion — or maybe I missed it — is any notion that, as an ordinance, the Town could bar the use of these devices (say, on any public sidewalk).   The Town already has the right to bar bicycles from the sidewalk if it so chooses.  But near as I can tell, the discussion was all about how Vienna was going to allow electric scooter use in Town, and not really focused on whether Vienna would allow it.  It seemed to be taken as a done deal that they had no choice but to allow scooters here.  That’s not how I read the law, but I’m not a lawyer.  As I read it, if the Town hasn’t acted in some fashion, then rental scooters are legal here.  I didn’t read anything in the law to suggest that (e.g.) barring scooters from the sidewalks was not a legal course of action.

So the clock is ticking on this one, and we seem to be running late.  If you have an opinion on this, it will soon be time to make that known to the Town Council.  Hope the Town can get something reasonable enacted in time.   For a discussion of dockless bike rental — which shares some but not all the problems and benefits of scooter rental —

Post #324: Affordable housing (ADDENDUM AND FURTHER CORRECTION 7/24/2019)

Affordable housing is a weighty topic that requires a real depth of knowledge if you’re going to address it seriously.

This post, by contrast, is not a serious analysis of affordable housing.  This is just one of those quirky little things you stumble across doing a Google search, that, oddly enough, can be used to get across a few simple points.

Bottom line:  Vienna residence, furnished, utilities included.  Monthly rent is $1950 $1500.  Price includes utilities, internet and cable, as well as daily maid service and free continental breakfast.

Correction:  Turns out, a colleague knows people who have lived there.  If you prepay a week in advance, it’s just $50/night, which works out to $1500/month.

Trip Advisor breathlessly assures me that it’s the #1 rated! motel in Vienna, VA. True, by definition.

On a more serious note, how about a little arithmetic.  It looks like the Wolf Trap Motel has about 120 rooms, or “dwelling units” in this case.  Is there any hope that MAC zoning will ever provide even as many as 120 affordable housing units in Vienna? 

And by that I mean, actual, formally-defined affordable housing under some legally-administered program.  Not the fast-and-loose discussion of “the market-determined rent on these apartments will be more affordable” that has substituted for real Town public discussion of this issue so far.  (And if you have no clue what I’m talking about, in terms of a legally-defined affordable housing project, take a look at what they do in Falls Church.)

The arithmetic is easy enough:  Additional MAC dwelling units x % reserved for affordable housing = additional MAC affordable housing.  All we need are plausible estimates for each.

The table below works through all of that, projecting total dwelling units based on the current MAC average density of dwelling units per acre, and some assumed fraction of Maple that eventually undergoes redevelopment.

But what fraction of units might plausibly be affordable housing?  To model that, I took one of the recent Falls Church mixed use projects.  There, for the Broad and Washington Project, the developer proffered six percent of the units in the building for affordable housing (see this .pdf).  So, if they can do it, presumably we … might too.  (I think this figure is ballpark for the rest of the Falls Church mixed-use development.  E.g., five beds in the large Kensington assisted living facility in Falls Church are in a special affordability program.)

Reading down the table, the first three MAC projects come in at 41 units per acre.  You can then see counts of total additional units that would be built under assumptions that 30% or 70% of the total MAC acreage gets redeveloped at that density.  Finally, if 6% of all new units are set aside for affordable housing, you get the counts at the bottom:  64 affordable housing units if 30% of Maple is redeveloped, or 169 affordable housing units if 70% of Maple is redeveloped.

(N.B. for the number-oriented among you.  The acreage is not proportional to the percentages because I net out the 5.7 that have already been approved for mixed-use development.)

And so the answer to my question is, maybe, if all suns shine.  If Vienna actually had an affordable housing program.  If every mixed-use building from now on would proffer affordable units at the same rate as was seen in the model Falls Church project.  And if a very large fraction of Maple gets redeveloped.

If all that happened, you might get more affordable housing units out of MAC than there currently are rooms in the Wolf Trap Motel.

But:  You can’t get blood from a stone.  Put aside the fact that some projects would not be suitable for this program (e.g., the million-dollar condo townhouses at Marco Polo).  The bottom line remains that there is no free lunch.  Every one of those units is money out of the developers’ pockets, so affordable housing must be balanced against other competing demands for proffers.  For example, developers might not be able to afford both putting the utility lines underground and reserving 6% of units for affordable housing.  Ditto, providing significant public green space on their property and in additional supplying significant affordable housing.  And if a future MAC results in smaller buildings, there would be fewer units and less profit available from which to supply affordable housing.

My point is that instead of just talking in the abstract about affordable housing, we really ought to get into the numbers just a bit.  It’s instructive.  Best guess, any formal, legal, zoning-driven affordable housing program under MAC would be a drop in the bucket, relative to the perceived need for affordable housing.

My only other point is to study Falls Church, because, by definition, they’re doing  better at it than we are.  Interestingly, while Falls Church has this formal, legally-defined affordable housing program, they also make sure that people looking for affordable housing can find a comprehensive list of apartment and condo rental rates.  They put those right on their website, on the affordable housing page (here, .pdf.). Those aren’t “affordable housing” in the legal sense, they are just (presumably) the market rates on the cheapest housing options available in Falls Church.  And given the extremely limited supply of legally-defined affordable housing, the market rate is going to be what almost every person pays.  Like it or not.

So, no free lunch.  But maybe a free breakfast, for the time being.

Addendum

I started out this post entirely tongue-in-cheek.  But I didn’t realize there was more truth here than I bargained for.  A colleague assures me that she knows of five or six people who do, in fact, use the Wolf Trap as the only affordable housing in town.  They all work food-service jobs on Maple Avenue, as far up the block as Whole Foods, don’t own cars, and walk to work, while living (presumably two-to-a-room, so 750/month/person?) at the Wolf Trap Motel.

So, in fact, Wolf Trap Motel does function as affordable housing in Vienna.  And that peculiar old motel out on Route 50 in Fairfax — the one that looks like a ship’s wheelhouse — apparently does the same for that area.  So the recycling of downscale hotels as affordable workers’ housing is not just limited to the Wolf Trap Hotel.

As a final note, yet another colleague assures me that the Wolf Trap is the most common way-station for the newly divorced in the area.   So, yeah, it does serve as affordable housing.  Maybe not as the Town intends it, but it serves as that all the same.

Post #320: The 7/16/2019 Town Council/Planning Commission joint meeting

This was a joint meeting of Town Council and Planning Commission to consider a motion to rescind the rezoning of 380 Maple West (37 condos plus retail, Wade Hampton and Maple).

The meeting lasted nearly six hours.  I went there, but could not stomach it, so I left before it started.  My wife lasted until about 1 AM.   I recorded the Town’s live stream, but even now I don’t have the stomach to watch the entire thing.

In all that time, near as I can tell, they never did make or consider a motion to rescind the zoning.

Instead, the meeting ended with a vague direction for Town Staff to negotiate with the builder about maybe possibly not narrowing Wade Hampton to 32 feet (Post #301), and perhaps keeping the street parking that is there (Post #238r).

All told, what can I say in response to that?  I am reminded of a quote from Tom Lehrer:  “Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.”

And, as with the bait-and-switch with the Marco Polo proposal, there was not even a hint that the Town would ask how this happened in the first place.  How is it that Town staff unilaterally decided to narrow the road, to the benefit of a developer.  Asking such questions is apparently — vulgar or something.  It’s just not done in the Town of Vienna.  Do Town staff retain the power to do those sorts of things in the future?  Did they go rogue?  Did the Mayor order it?  Did they just consider it business as usual?  Was the Town Manager aware of these actions at the time they occurred?  Guess we’ll never find out.

The two newcomers I supported in the last election put in a less-than-stellar performance.  Literally phoned it in, in one case.  Clearly not as prepared as possible in the other.  The net effect was arguably a lack of effectiveness in the meeting.  I retain an abiding faith that they will get the lay of the land and that if there is a next time, they’ll be more effective next time.

At any rate, between 444 Maple West and this one, the Town has more-or-less doubled the number of people living in my neighborhood.  The most stress-free way for all of them to get to I-66 and Metro in the morning will be by coming down my street.  (Which is, by the way, a whopping 20′ wide.  But who’s counting.)  This graphic is a little outdated (the 40 should now be 37), but it gives you the gist of what’s happened so far.  And they are just getting started.

 

Ah, well, what’s a little collateral damage, right?

So, crazily enough, I moved within the Town of Vienna, a dozen years ago, so I could have a house in a quiet residential district within easy walking distance of Maple.  Paid a hefty premium to do that.  In hindsight, that was not one of my smarter investments.

Post #319: $60/sq ft/yr.

After making a few informal inquiries, it seems that $60/square foot/year is the new normal rate for prime retail space on Maple Avenue.  I’ve stumbled across that figure in several prior posts (search for it if you want).  So I thought I might comment on that a bit, in the context of what makes Maple Avenue retail property worth that.

The point of this posting is that a lot of what makes Maple Avenue tick, right now, runs contrary to a lot of what people seem to claim about Maple Avenue.  And run contrary to some of the stated goals of the current MAC statute. Continue reading Post #319: $60/sq ft/yr.

Post #318: Motion to rescind

Tomorrow (7/15/2019) the Town Council and Planning Commission will hold a joint hearing on a motion to rescind the approval of 380 Maple West (37 condos plus retail, Wade Hampton and Maple).

I have discussed the background for this in several posts but my best explanation for how we got here is Post #309.

I have just three things to add at this point.

1:  It’s just theater.

Having sat through dozens of such meetings over the past year, and having seen the Town Council approve 444 Maple West despite massive public opposition, I’m pretty sure that the “public hearing” portion of this meeting is purely for show.   It’s a legal requirement, so they have to do it.  But Town Council members already know how they will vote on this, and nothing that the public has to say will change those positions one bit.

By contrast, I have seen the Planning Commission modify its position in response to public comment.  But Town Council?  On this issue?  Nah.  Not gonna happen.

So, by all means, show up and speak.  Be heard.  Sit through the hours (?) of discussion.  Listen to our elected representatives give their speeches.  But realize that, absent the legal requirements, they could have gotten this piece of business over with in about five minutes.   Call the roll, vote, and leave.

Why am I so sanguine about that?  Because …

2:  The game is rigged.

In order to approve 380 West, in the presence of a protest petition, at least five Town Council members had to vote in favor of it.  (It used to be six, but Town Council changed that after the initial defeat of the Marco Polo proposal, one of the many times they doubled-down on MAC zoning (Post #227).

So, logically, anything under five “yes” votes for 380 — i.e., anything over two votes to rescind 380 — ought to result in rescinding the decision,.  They are revisiting a decision that required five “yes” votes.  Anything under five, now, means that the original motion would not have passed.

Under that interpretation (undoing the original decision), three or move voting to rescind would result in rescinding the original decision.  Three or more would have been enough to block the original approval.  Logically, three should be adequate to rescind the approval.

But wait, maybe that’s not fair.  Maybe this needs to be treated like any other motion before Town Council, and should require a majority of Town Council members voting in favor of it.

Under that interpretation (treat as any other motion), four or more voting to rescind would result in rescinding the original decision.  That’s a simple majority of the Town Council, that’s the way business is normally conducted.  And that’s consistent with why this is being revisited in the first place — three-quarters of votes cast in the May election were for anti-MAC candidates, and those now account for a majority of the members of the Town Council.

Under either of those interpretations, the motion to rescind would pass.  Which is precisely why the Mayor and Town Attorney aren’t going to do either of those things.   The rumor I have heard is that they are going to require a super-majority of “yes” votes in order to pass the motion to rescind the 380 approval. 

Because …. ?

Because they win, in that case.  Under that interpretation, five people would have to vote to rescind the decision.  Absent a miracle, that will not occur, as Council members DiRocco, Colbert, and Noble can be counted to vote against rescinding the 380 approval.   I’m sure there will be some legalese solemly spoken in order to bless this decision.  But the reality of it is, the remaining pro-MAC Town Council members would not win in any sort of fair fight.  But only idiots opt for a fair fight when they control the rules.  So they have taken the last two weeks to gin up a rationale that lets them win.

Which merely underscores that ….

3:  We need to vote the three remaining pro-MAC Town Council members out of office next year.  (Or, at the least, give it a good try).

Up to now, when challenged, the pro-MAC Town Council and Town employees have simply doubled-down on every objectionable aspect of MAC zoning (Post #227).  And this next meeting will NOT be the last of that of that doubling-down strategy that we have seen so far.

Why?

Because this latest episode shows that if you control the rules, and have Town staff working for you, it doesn’t really much matter that you are in the minority.  It doesn’t much matter that the most recent election should have sent a fairly strong signal about what the majority of Vienna citizens want, with three-quarters of votes case for anti-MAC candidates.

If you hold the reins of power, you can use them to ignore the results of the last election, in the hope that the next election will turn things around for you.  Given that attitude, the only option for people who oppose the current MAC setup is to prevent that from happening.  The only option is to try to vote the rest of them out, if we can.

I don’t say that lightly.  I’m pretty much sick of this issue.  But there hasn’t been the slightest indication that the pro-MAC forces are willing to consider material changes to the existing law.  I.e., Almost nobody wants to get rid of MAC entirely, but a large fraction of the population appears to want smaller buildings and more green space (as outlined in this post based on a survey of Vienna residents).  But all we have seen so far is more sleight-of-hand, such as the offer to replace the useless 15% “open space” requirement with what would in all likelihood be an equally useless 10% “gathering space” requirement.

In summary, for those who have been following this issue closely, it’s absolutely no surprise that those in power would bend the rules in their favor.  Recall that after the original Marco Polo proposal was turned down, those in power changed the voting rules to try to ensure that would not happen again.  This latest twist is just more of the same.

 

Post #317: D-I-Y alerts for Town business relevant to you.

I have finally figured out a way to set up automatic notifications that should send me an email when some forthcoming Town meeting contains an item of interest to me.  It’s not perfect, but it’s the best I’ve been able to figure out so far.  I believe that few people realize this can be done.   So I thought I’d share, just in case you would care to do the same.

The problem.

Suppose that you have a particular interest in (say) trash pickup in the Town of Vienna.  And that, any time this is discussed in a public meeting, you’d like the Town to notify you in advance, e.g., send you an email a few days ahead of the meeting.

Nothing on the Town of Vienna website will allow you to do that.  Or, at least, nothing that I have ever found.  The Town has an Alerts system, but that’s for things like tornadoes and street closings and such.  The Town website would allow you to set up an RSS feed for the Town Calendar, but if that worked, that would notify you every time the calendar changed for any reason.  (And I have my doubts that it does work, based on the community connections section of the Town’s RSS feed page.)

Near as I can tell, before I figured out my current approach, the only way a citizen could be aware of what the Town will discuss is to wait for the Town to post the meeting agenda, then go to the Town website and look at it.

The (partial) solution.

Rely on the Legistar (Granicus) website to do that.  The Town posts meeting notices and agendas on the Legistar website for its four main governing bodies:  Town Council, Planning Commission, Board of Architectural Review, Board of Zoning Appeals.

Legistar allows you easily to set up an account, and then set up alerts based on any set of keywords or phrases that you wish.  Either click the “sign in” link in the upper right corner of that page cited above, or click the “Alerts” link.

Set up any number of alerts based on more or less standard Boolean phrases using AND and OR and NOT.  (So, if I wanted to hear about trash pickup or recycling, I would ask for … “trash pickup” OR recycling.  Search appears to be case-insensitive.  You cannot search for special characters.)

If you click for daily alerts, in theory, the Legistar system will check daily for any new items posted on the Vienna page that mention those words or phrases, and email you if they find a new one.  You can add CC email addresses if you have friends who want to piggyback on your alerts.

Because the Town posts the agendas and meeting details only a few days before each meeting, this should give you a timely reminder of a meeting you would like to attend.

Limitations and caveats.

  1.  You have to trust that the Granicus/Legistar system will work.  They serve thousands of local governments, so it’s a fair bet that it works.
  2. Only those four boards (TC, PC, BAR, BZA) are posted to Granicus/Legistar.
  3. Other important commissions in Vienna (e.g., Transportation Safety Commission) are NOT posted to this website.  The only way to know what those other commissions are doing remains to check the Town calendar (on the Town’s website) to see if they have posted a new meeting agenda.
  4. The search function appears to check the title of each listed agenda item, but does not search through the contents of the attached documents.

Still, this is better than nothing.  And it’s the best method that I have found so far.