Seriously, we pay them to do this? Part 2 (Part 1 is here.)
The Department of Planning and Zoning is going to have two “Community Workshops” on MAC zoning. Originally, at the 2/11/2018 Town Council work session, these had been discussed as if they were, in part, legitimate attempts to gauge community sentiment about MAC. But anyone who looks at the details of these workshops should realize that’s nonsense. I’ve already covered that here. Continue reading Seriously?
This evening, I went to Town Hall to attend and record the 5:30 PM meeting of the “Maple Avenue Commercial (MAC) Design Guidelines Working Group“. I am fairly sure this constitutes an open public meeting, under the definitions of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act. And it was, in fact, announced on the Town Calendar.
Just in case you may have missed it, there’s been quite a controversy going on in Reston over increased building density. The County was on a roll to rewrite the zoning there to allow higher density (more persons and dwelling units per acre). They got a lot of pushback from the citizens. And now, that plan for increased density has been indefinitely deferred.
It’s not clear at this point whether that deferral will be the sort of sham that the Vienna MAC moratorium is shaping up to be. But there is at least the possibility that they may genuinely try to rethink higher density in Reston. (See this page for my talk with a Board of Supervisors candidate Parker Messick, whose main platform plank is opposition to excess development in the Hunter Mill district.)
You may wonder why I call the MAC moratorium a sham. Well, there are a lot of reasons. Unlike my usual writing, I’m not even going to provide citations as to source (links) here. If you’ve been reading my website, you’ll know that I have been pointing out these facts (with a handful of guesses) for some time.
Continue reading Reston rethinks increased density. Vienna doesn’t. 3/13/2019
I had the privilege of chatting with Parker Messick earlier this week, at Caffe Amouri. He’s one of four candidates seeking election to the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors from the Hunter Mill district, following the announced retirement Supervisor Catherine Hudgins.
This was a first for me, in many ways, so let me share a few things that I learned. Continue reading Board of Supervisors candidate Parker Messick, 3/7/2019
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
(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
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
I attended last night’s meeting of the Traffic Transportation Safety Commission (TSC). You can find a (rather poor-quality) audio recording, and an Excel file that serves as an index to the recording, here on Google Drive. Basically, use the Excel spreadsheet to find the times for items you would care to listen to, then move to that spot in the recording to hear what was said.
I attended because TSC was considering an on-demand flashing sign at the crosswalk where Glen Avenue hits Courthouse Road. The sign is called a rectangular rapid flashing beacon (RRFB). It would allow pedestrians to stop traffic in order to get across Courthouse. We already have a few of these in Vienna. Here’s a view of an RRFB pair on Beulah.
Continue reading 2019-02-26 Transportation Safety Commission, audio recording and notes
This post is not yet complete. It will change over the course of today (2/26/2019) as I add more video segments. At present, it gives you immediate access to video of the MAC “visual preference survey” portion of last night’s Town Council meeting .
EDIT: The Town has posted its own video of last night’s meeting, as of about noon today. That’s a first, as you can see by looking at the meetings calendar to see that the next-most-recent Town Council video dates back to 1/7/2019. If this rapid turnaround reflects a new policy, then it is a material and welcome change. As of now, it appears that the Town has moved from a policy of holding the videos of meetings for months before posting, to a policy of releasing them immediately.
Click the meetings calendar link above, then click the video link to get to the Town’s recording of last night’s meeting. If you can’t get the video to play, try using the Google Chrome browser. On my system, that’s the only browser that works with the Town’s video host. Continue reading Town Council meeting video, 2-25-2019, UPDATED to reflect a what I sincerely hope is a change in Town policy
Updated 2/28/2019 to remove a couple of properties that I thought were vacant, but are either occupied or in the process of being occupied. I’ll put the new material in … whatever color you’d call this. Continue reading Retail vacancy rate estimate, 2/13/2019, REVISED 2/28/2019