On May 20, 2026, at 7:00 PM (Tuesday evening), the City of Alexandria's Planning and Zoning Department held its bi-monthly public update meeting via Zoom. Director Paul Stoddard welcomed attendees and outlined the agenda, which included updates on the Duke Street Land Use Plan, a spotlight on landscape review, upcoming development cases, and a Q&A session. The meeting aimed to inform the public about planning initiatives and development applications coming before the Planning Commission and City Council over the next two to three months.
Duke Street Land Use Plan Update – Deputy Director Jeff Farner presented the current status of the plan, which is in the mid-phase of development. Key themes from community input included cohesive corridor design, expanded parks, infrastructure adequacy, neighborhood-serving retail, safer bike/ped connections, and traffic concerns. Staff introduced framework plans showing opportunity sites (commercial parcels like Alexandria Commons, Fox Chase, Honda dealership), affordability and growth areas (e.g., Fox Chase – a large naturally occurring affordable housing site), civic/city campus areas, and small business districts. Land use maps propose residential/commercial in opportunity sites, with no changes outside those areas. Building height changes are recommended only for hatched properties, with density as a potential tool for retaining affordable housing. Mobility maps propose new bike, ped, and vehicle connections, particularly between Quaker and Telegraph. Open space maps aim to add neighborhood parks in the middle of the corridor and improve connections. The next community meeting is May 28 (housing and health), followed by June 29 (transportation, parks, sustainability), with draft plan release in September and public hearing goal in December 2026. Melissa Sims demonstrated the Social Pinpoint engagement hub, where feedback is accepted until May 28. Virtual office hours with Christian Brant are available May 27 at 4 PM.
Landscape Review Process Spotlight – City Landscape Architect Nathan M explained the city’s rigorous landscape review, mandated by zoning code and landscape guidelines (last updated 2019). Key requirements: 25% canopy cover for residential zones and DSPs/DSUPs; emphasis on native plants, biodiversity, and invasive species control to protect overall tree canopy and avoid monocultures (e.g., emerald ash borer issues). Review process includes pre-installation meetings, performance bonds (100% compliance inspection on site), followed by one-year and three-year maintenance bonds. The three-year bond may be extended if a large percentage of plants fail. This ensures long-term canopy and sustainability.
Development Activity Updates – Catherine Milliaris and Tony Lakola presented upcoming cases scheduled for June and July hearings.
Housing 2040 Update – Paul Stoddard noted that the draft plan is scheduled for release later this week (May 22, 2026). Community engagement has been extensive; the plan will be heard by City Council on June 13, 2026.
Staff answered several questions submitted via the Zoom Q&A box:
All presentation materials (slides, recording, Q&A responses) will be posted on the city’s bi-monthly meeting series webpage. Upcoming meetings and deadlines: Duke Street Plan community meeting May 28, PRGS community meeting May 26, Housing 2040 draft plan release May 22, Planning Commission hearings June 2 and June 22, City Council hearings June 13 and July 1. Staff emphasized the importance of public feedback via Social Pinpoint (through May 28) and other channels. No formal votes were taken during this informational session.
The attendee count has sort of stabilized here, so I'll go ahead and get going. So let me say welcome and thank you, everyone, for uh joining us here for uh the next session of our uh our bi-monthly meeting series. Uh my name is Paul Stoddard. I'm the director with planning zoning here in the city of Alexandria. Uh, and of course, we all appreciate uh you all giving up uh one of your Tuesday evenings uh uh to stay informed about what's uh what's happening in the city around uh planning and development uh and learning about uh what are the cases that are coming up uh in uh docs over the next couple of months. Uh and as we go through the presentations, I'll flag it here and I'll probably say it throughout. Uh, but on many of these slides, they uh you'll see um uh links to web pages on the city's website. Uh of course, we're trying to cover as many cases as we can as we can in the hour that we have. Uh and is as uh if you want to dig in on more detail, um, those those web links can provide additional information. Uh let's jump over to the next slide. Uh so as I mentioned, uh, this is the next installment of our bi-monthly meeting series. Uh we kicked this off in uh April of last year, April of 25. Uh, and we've been holding it approximately every other month since then, uh, accommodating uh accommodating for holidays. Uh but the idea behind the meeting series is to provide another tool uh by which the general public can stay informed about what's going on around planning initiatives, uh plan updates, uh, as well as stay informed about development applications that are coming up for consideration, uh, whether that's in front of the planning commission or the council. Uh, and so we do try to highlight all the cases that are coming up in their dockets uh over the next two to three months. Um, and that's uh in cycle with with holding the meeting series every other month so that can so that folks can always stay informed about what's coming next. Uh and as I mentioned, uh throughout, we'll provide links uh to additional information uh throughout the uh throughout the slides of the presentation. Go to the next slide. Uh so this is a walkthrough of the topics that we'll cover in tonight's presentation. Uh as always, we begin with uh with a warm welcome for everyone who's on the call. Uh again, thank you for being here. Uh, and then we'll talk through uh uh different types of work that's going on uh in and uh in and around the city. So we'll talk about long range planning, planning for the future of development. Uh, we'll talk about the Duke Street plan. Uh of course, we've been providing updates uh throughout the planning process, and we'll let you know what the latest thinking is on that. Uh, then we're going to do this is the next installment of our spotlight series. Uh so oftentimes when applications are coming forward, we get questions about different uh sort of elements of the plan review. A couple months ago we did a spotlight on transportation planning and how city staff approaches uh that very important need. Uh tonight we're going to talk about landscape review and how we approach landscape review uh in a in a systematic way uh and apply rigorous review standards to each application that we sue. Uh then we'll do an update on development activity that's coming up over the next couple of months at the planning commission and council hearing. Uh, I don't know that we have any zoning ordinance updates uh for you tonight, but we will always want to keep that in the uh the agenda as a placeholder so that we don't miss anything that is coming forward. Uh and then we'll actually close the meeting with our QA session. So uh as we go to make sure we get through all the content, uh, we're gonna save all the questions toward the end uh until the end of the until the end of the night. Uh and we do ask that you use the QA box. Uh if you uh move your pointer down to the center of your center, sort of center lower portion of the Zoom screen, uh, you should see the QA icon uh pop up. Uh you can click into that uh and type your question in, uh, and then we'll read out your question for everybody's benefit and provide an answer at the end of the night. Uh any uh questions we don't get to tonight because of time, uh, we'll of course post the response to that uh in our uh in our FQ document, uh, our QA document that goes up uh after the meeting. Uh and just to flag uh so that everyone's aware, the recording from tonight's presentation as well as the slides and the answers to the QA will all get posted to our uh uh to the web page for this meeting service. Um go to the next slide. And then this uh uh graphic uh we use in all of our presentations. Uh as I mentioned the agenda, we're going to cover a range of different topics. And this graphic helps explain how all those different topics are connected. So uh community visioning begins uh on the left arrow, the SAP small area plan area arrow. Uh that's where city staff, community council, planning commission, other boards and commissions uh work together to identify a common vision for the future of the community. Um at the small area plan level, we're often talking about the future of a neighborhood. Tonight, for example, we'll be talking about Duke Street, the Duke Street land use plan. Once those plans get approved, or only if those plans get approved, just then staff work on updates the development regulations, the zoning regulations to stipulate the kinds of land uses, heights, building spaces, open spaces that are required for each development application. Once those regulations are in place, then developers' applicants can apply for permission to build things. Most often people are coming through with a DSUP, a development special use permit. And that's where there's specific information provided around the density that's proposed, the architecture on the building, the heights of the buildings, what are the uses inside of the building?