Um hello everyone.

So it is 712.

I think we're gonna go ahead and get started.

I know I'll clean up the screen before we get started.

Don't worry.

But I before we get started, I just wanted to say thank you to everybody for joining us for the student work showcase.

If you are a student who joined us, I want you to raise your hand.

Yeah.

And I also want to say thank you to our two wonderful teachers, Mr.

Fitzpatrick and Ms.

Gill, whose classes we worked with.

It was really exciting to be able to have this opportunity, and we are really grateful for the time the students and teachers spent with us.

So we are about to get started.

We have to do a little bit of internal housekeeping before we get started, but I'm going to turn it over to Carrie, who will lead us into the meeting.

And I'm going to clean up our screen so that it's easy for everybody to see.

But in the meantime, feel free to grab more food.

Feel free to grab some more drinks.

And we'll get started in like a minute.

All right.

Good evening, everyone.

We're going to go ahead and get started.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Again, I want to uh acknowledge the students and the great job they did.

That was really, really wonderful to see the good work they did.

So thank you so much.

Um we will figure out a way to memorialize their work and make it um available for others to see.

So thanks again for coming for that.

Um we're gonna go ahead and get started.

Can I have the clicker?

Okay.

Next slide.

Um so thank you for coming.

For uh is everyone in here, anyone first time coming to a Duke Street meeting?

Has everyone uh been here before?

Okay, first time, great.

Welcome.

Thank you so much for coming.

Everyone else, we're so glad you're back.

This is our sixth meeting in the Duke Street land use plan uh process.

We're we're glad to be working with the community on this really important plan.

Uh we will um first give you a little bit of background reminding everyone of where we are in this process and where we're going next.

And then we will launch into the two main topics.

The first is housing, and the second is community health.

Um then there will be opportunities for uh comments and questions, and we'll wrap up with some next steps.

Next slide.

Are you able to minimize that?

Okay.

Great.

Thank you.

So this is a reminder of our plan area.

So we are the plan area runs on the east side from Union Station along Duke Street to the west and the new redevelopment happening there at Landmark, the former landmark mall.

It's about a three and a half mile corridor, and we're including some land on either side of Duke Street that is part of the context of the corridor.

And what we're doing here, we're improved uh future transit way that will be constructed in the coming years.

And the the benefit of doing this plan now, we often get that question: why are we doing a plan?

Like what's the point?

And the reason we do these plans is to be proactive about creating a vision that the community has helped develop about what they want to see in the future for this corridor.

And that's important because there will be increasing uh redevelopment pressure on this corridor, and we want to make sure that we get ahead of that and be proactive about preserving some of the important things here, enhancing some things that that could be better.

Next slide.

A quick reminder of what we've accomplished so far.

As a reminder, we started back in June of last year.

Um we've been through a lot with with all of you, and we appreciate all of the time and effort that folks have uh shared with us over this time.

We've developed a couple, a few key things over the course of this planning process.

Draft guiding principles that we worked out with the community, um, draft land use themes, districts, a draft framework plan.

And now we're at that stage where we've invited people to provide their input on the draft framework plan and um through a variety of online or in-person um events.

And uh next up will be uh building layer upon layer.

The next step will be the draft recommendations and then a draft plan in the fall.

Um, and you might have heard me say draft a lot in that um in that series of steps we're taking.

Nothing is final until this gets approved by council.

Um, but what we want to emphasize is we're we're constantly seeking your feedback, making this a better and better plan.

Um and we want to encourage you to feel that that the door is not closed on on what we're working on.

We want to encourage you to participate.

Um, and so next up, I'm gonna introduce Tamara Yovovic.

She's with our office of housing.

She's gonna help us launch into the um one of the um topics that we'll be focusing on tonight.

Thank you, Carrie.

Good evening to everyone.

My name is Tamara Yovovich, and I'm in the office of housing.

Uh, Christian, if you could just advance the slide.

Um, so housing is one of those complicated topics, right?

It impacts us personally, it impacts our well-being, our access to jobs, our services, right?

Um, it impacts whether or not we can stay in a community as our life changes, right?

As we age, or maybe our family grows, or if we want to move from um being a renter to being a homeowner, right?

It also impacts a neighborhood and our city, right?

It impacts our roads, our open space, our schools, right?

And it's also a regional issue, right?

It's it's important to the region's resilience, it's economic competitiveness.

So, as we kind of think about housing holistically, it also means we can't look at it in a vacuum, right?

We can't look at it through one narrow lens.

So there's a lot of intersection between housing planing, the work that our health department does, obviously the work that our colleagues in planning and zoning do, and um the Department of Transportation and the Department of Community Human Services.

The plan in particular, though, that I wanted to highlight today is our housing 2040 plan.

Christian, if you wouldn't mind advancing to the next slide.

Just a quick show of hands for those of you who have heard about the housing 2040 plan process.

Okay, wonderful.

Okay, so for those of you who hadn't had a chance to follow us, no worries.

I'm going to bring you up, bring you up to speed.

So housing 2040 is the city's update to its current housing master plan.

So the current housing master plan has been in place for just about a little bit under a dozen years, and it looks to address housing needs in the community.

We've now taken a fresh look over the last roughly 18 months, and we've developed a vision, guiding principles and 10 goals to help guide city council decision making as we move through the next 15 years.

So, what do I mean by decision making?

These types of decisions can impact the development of new housing programs, refining new housing or refining existing housing policies, um, and potentially guiding new investments in housing projects over the course of the lifespan of this plan.

So I won't necessarily touch upon each one of these goals, but as you kind of look at them up on the screen and you hear from Carrie and her colleagues in neighborhood planning, start to think about how some of these goals are going to manifest themselves in the Duke Street land use plan, right?

So how are we advancing housing supply?

How are we helping to expand committed affordable rental housing?

And by committed affordable rental housing, I mean housing that has income and rent restrictions.

How are we helping to support um aging Alexandrians?

What type of housing choices and services might be available to them?

What types of partnerships can we continue to strengthen to support um Alexandrian uh Alexandrians with different needs?

How can we also help to improve housing quality?

So the Office of Housing works really closely with the health department and our office or department of code administration to work proactively with landlords to help address situations in which housing qualities are not what we'd like them to be.

We also, as part of housing 2040, have taken a really fresh look at supporting our condominium communities.

The plan refers to them kind of with with a more legal term common interest communities, but these are really our condominium communities and condominium communities in the city constitute almost a half of all of our home ownership stocks.

So what are some ways in which we can continue to support governance, building up the capacity of existing boards, and then starting to figure out what types of partnerships at the state level might help to expand the financial resources and tools that those condominium communities can tap into to address deferred maintenance.

So they're really a range of different issues that the housing 2040 plan addresses.

Um I could probably talk for an hour about this, but I'm not because I know we need to get to some other slides.

But I did want to note that housing 2040 is in the final stages.

Um, it is going to planning commission to public hearing next Tuesday.

So if you are interested in learning more about it, um, please find me after this meeting.

You're also welcome to provide um feedback to planning commission as they consider the plan.

Um, if they refer the plan to city council, it will go to hearing on uh June 13th.

And I think I'm passing the microphone on to Andra.

Thank you so much, Tamara.

I'm gonna stand over here and not stare at the projector light.

Um, so Tamara gave an overview of housing 2040 and how the city as a whole is looking towards housing needs in the next 10, 15 years.

And so we're gonna bring that back to the Duke Street corridor.

Um, before we get into kind of diving back into the housing strategies of what we're we're looking at with this land use plan, I do want to paint a picture of the community and the housing stock that's out there today.

So the slide behind me, um, if we keep in mind Duke Street um data uh about the community that's up out along the corridor today is in green, or the items on the left.

And the data on the right represents citywide.

So you can see um essentially looking at different characteristics of your neighbors, residents, people that live in and around the corridor.

Um there is definitely a um uh a diverse community out here today.

So that's something we definitely heard from people.

They love um interacting with their neighbors and doing things locally in the area.

And so given the diversity that's out there today, this is definitely a driving asset of the plan.

This is something we want to keep.

This is something we want to preserve and making sure that we're meeting the needs of the community out there today, as well as considering folks who may be calling Duke Street their home in the future.

Um, one thing to know uh about the the community out here today.

Um, so essentially, with everyone knows we've all been feeling and seeing the the rising the housing costs in the area, so not just in the city, but especially in our area here.

Um, and that this is definitely impacting um uh more steeply this area because of um the amount of disadvantages that are also out here as well.

So uh next slide.

So given that um community um looking into Dew Street housing, the context and why it matters.

Um, so there's I don't want to go exactly piece for piece for every one of these items, but there's over 11,000 housing units out there today.

And while the split is about 6040 uh renters versus occupied owner housing, um there is a lot of affordability out there today comparatively to the city as a whole.

So just briefly touching about three quarters of garden apartments in the area are affordable, up to 60% of the area median income or AMI.

And so what that kind of roughly translates to is for about a family of one that's about 70,000, and then a family of four, it's upwards to about 100,000.

So just to um give people some context.

Out of these 11,000 housing units, about 3300 are market affordable in the plan area, meaning they're not legally committed, they just occur naturally, that the more affordable given the region, given the neighborhood context and things that are happening in and around there.

And an interesting thing to note is that's about almost half of the city's market affordable housing stock as a whole.

So we have a lot of more market affordable units that are concentrated along the Duke Street corridor.

So that's definitely a huge asset in this area and something we are keeping in mind as we go forward with the housing strategy for this plan.

Um wanna touch really quickly about rent escalation.

So while there are other parts of the city that have seen huge rising rent spikes over the last few years, um the rent escalation in this year area has been steady over the last 10 years.

It's incrementally growing, but it's been steady.

Uh but given that it's outpacing growth and household incomes and of course inflation, um, this is still disproportionately impacting this area.

A lot of people are feeling the uh heightened costs.

So that's something we um put into consideration as we go forward with our affordable housing strategy.

So with that, I will pass the mic along to my colleague Melissa, and she'll get a little bit into why this matters and what can the plan lay out to help assist with housing.

Awesome.

Thank you, Andra.

Awesome.

So you've heard a little bit from my colleagues about uh all the community engagement we've doing, we've been doing throughout this process.

Um, and one of the things that we've been hearing a lot is that people are really worried about um, you know, how rents are going up in their community and things like that.

But we've also been hearing a lot about what people really love about living in in the Duke Street area.

Um, and so we've we've heard all of that and um kind of taking into account all of the data that Andra was sharing on the past couple of slides, we developed these guiding principles for the Duke Street land use plan, which is something that we've shared a couple of times, but we just wanted to um reiterate these again.

So just to quickly summarize, um, these principles are to increase the supply and diversity of housing uh in the Duke Street corridor, expand committed affordable rental and homeownership opportunities, improve housing quality, safety, and long-term stability, and then prioritize anti-displacement and preservation strategies.

Um just as a reminder, these were developed with the community.

And so as we've been going through the planning process, we've been returning to these principles as we're starting to develop recommendations to make sure that what we're thinking about for the plan is in line with all of these principles.

And we've also been working uh really closely with our colleagues in the Office of Housing to just make sure that what we're um thinking about and proposing for the plan is in line with these principles.

Um this land use themes map uh is something that you've probably seen before as well.

It's um something that we've shared in uh previous meetings, but um, this map shares the affordability and growth strategy for the corridor.

And um, you know, one thing that we want to reiterate and think about as we're developing this plan is that um we really want these um affordability and growth areas to preserve as much housing as possible.

Um, but we know this can be difficult because we have limited tools to actually preserve existing housing.

Um but one thing that we do have one of the tools that we do have is density.

So these uh affordability and growth areas might give us opportunities to pair preservation and density and strategic strategically redevelop these areas.

Um you know, one thing, one example of that might be that we can develop new buildings on some of these properties uh in in vacant areas or uh areas of the property that are currently sitting empty and to ensure that we're not kicking anyone out or demolishing any existing buildings.

Um that's just one thing that we're trying to keep in mind with these affordability and growth areas.

Christian, next slide.

So this is just a quick profile of the existing housing stock in these affordability and growth areas.

Um, so there are about 6,500 total residential units that currently exist in these areas.

Um, there's about 1,200 committed affordable units in these areas, and then there's about 3300 units at uh below 60% of the area median income.

And then there's 2,000 units at 61 to 80% of the area median income.

So you can kind of see that all of the residential units, all of the rental units in these affordability and growth areas are relatively affordable.

And we just want to highlight that there's a concentration of units in the western part of the corridor.

Um, so Fox Chase has about 2100 uh units, and then Masonat Van Dorn has 1200 units.

Um, so these are just really large communities that we want to make sure that we have a strategy for moving forward, as well as all the other communities that are in the affordability and growth areas.

So another one of our land use themes is the opportunity areas.

These are all the areas that you can see in blue in this map.

And most of these areas are existing commercial sites or sites that are currently sitting vacant that we think could be a great opportunity for redevelopment into mixed use or you know, retail uh and residential units.

So, Christian, you can go on to the next slide.

Um, so by focusing new development in these opportunity areas, um, we may be able to get things like net new committed affordable units.

And since a lot of these uh opportunity areas are currently sitting vacant, um, we won't be displacing any current residents that live at those sites.

Um, and then just kind of an overall um, you know, takeaway is that um building more housing at these sites will expand housing supply just kind of overall and um by increasing housing supply, you know, that may help us stabilize rents a bit along the corridor.

Um, so I think that is all I have.

Um, we're gonna move on to health, but we will be uh answering questions about housing at the end.

Thanks, Melissa.

I just wanted to introduce Natalie Tallis with our um Alexandria Health Department.

She is going to talk a little bit about an initiative that her group is working on.

Thank you.

Good evening, everyone.

Thanks so much for being here.

It's nice to see some familiar faces of some folks who have also participated in our community health improvement plan or our community health assessment process.

So uh over the last year, we had done a really comprehensive assessment to figure out what health looks like in Alexandria.

And we found out a few things.

One, when we asked people directly, what do you think the biggest health issue is in our community?

The answer overwhelmingly was mental health.

And we analyzed that data by zip code, by race and ethnicity, by age, by income, all these sorts of different slices of the data.

And for the most part, mental health was number one of an answer across Alexandria.

The other thing that we found out when we looked at the data was that there are differences in health depending on where you live in our city.

In some neighborhoods, we found that there were higher rates of chronic diseases.

There were higher rates of people going to the emergency room for things like asthma or diabetes or high blood pressure, all things, all conditions that if managed effectively, you should not be going to the ER for there are treatments, there are ways of dealing with that.

So if you are going to the ER repeatedly for those concerns, there's an issue that we need to address.

So we saw high rates of those conditions.

We also found that even in some of those areas, it was physically hotter in some of those neighborhoods.

Like the landmark Van Dorn area is one of the hottest, literally hottest neighborhoods in Alexandria.

And so when we think about your health, we think about how healthy can you be.

It's not just about do you have access to a doctor?

Super important to be able to access an affordable doctor when you need care.

And at the same time, do you live in a place that makes it easy for you to be healthy?

Right?

Like I can tell you about diet and physical activity, but if you live in an area that is physically extremely hot to be outside in, or you don't have good accessible grocery stores near you, it's not impossible to be healthy.

It's just harder, right?

We're adding extra burden, extra layers of work for you to be healthy, unnecessarily.

So again, when we did that analysis, we found a lot of concerns in the landmark Van Dorn area as well as the Arlandria neighborhood in the zip code 22305 in the northeast of our city.

But because we are talking about the Duke Street land use plan, I wanted to talk about this landmark Van Dorn area because there is actually geographic overlap with the Duke Street corridor.

So we didn't just do this whole assessment and then say, okay, that's nice, that's great, whatever.

Instead, we are working to develop a five-year plan to address these concerns.

So for example, we had are working to facilitate the development of a five-year plan specifically to make the landmark Van Dorn neighborhood healthier.

And so, how did we do that?

We did not just sit in a room as the health department and say, well, I think they should do X, Y, and Z.

No.

We wanted to really involve the people who live in this community.

So this is our map of what we're considering the landmark Van Dorn area corridor.

Um, and we selected that map because people told us that that was the map.

People identified with living there, and it's also the census tracks that we looked at when we were looking at that data.

Does anyone here live in this area?

Yeah, few folks.

Anyone drive through this area on Van Dorn?

Yeah, a lot more people.

Okay.

So you might have experienced some of the things that we saw in the data, right?

You might have experienced that there are fewer trees in this area, a lot more instances of pavement, a lot uh fewer, safer pedestrian crossings across a very busy, scary streets.

You might also notice that in this area, there is no recreation center.

Here where we are in Patrick Henry, that's a little further.

Out here, up there.

It is not walkable if you are in most of that neighborhood, unless you want to go for a really long walk with no shade in a very hot day, which again, as we've already said, nobody wants to do.

There are fewer playgrounds, there are fewer play areas, there are fewer opportunities for youth.

And there is also a higher demand for wanting to feel safer in this neighborhood.

So when we put together this coalition, we brought together community members to say, what do you want to see in this neighborhood?

What would you think would make this healthier?

And the community selected, actually, in this very room we were voting a few months ago.

And the community select, again, not the health department selected, but the residents, the community came together and voted on these three priority areas, creating more opportunities for youth outside of school, improving community safety and preventing violence, and increasing green space recreation and safe places to be active.

So again, these aren't like get me to another doctor.

They are not, you know, teach me about diabetes.

They are how do I change the physical environment around me so that I can feel more comfortable and confident being in my neighborhood, feeling safe, reducing my stress and being able to gather with others and stay busy for our teams that really need to stay busy.

So that's what we are doing.

I have these super cute door hangers.

You will hopefully see these popping up across the neighborhood because you can still get active in this work.

We will also have yard signs going up as well.

When you scan this QR code, you can get added to our contact list.

We will not spam you, I promise.

We will not sell your data to anybody.

This is really just to let you know about opportunities to decide on future projects for this neighborhood and to get involved with those projects yourself.

So it's again, it should not just be us deciding what is happening in this neighborhood.

That will not work.

It's been tried before, it does not work.

We need you all to be active.

If you would like some of these and you live or work or are near those area, I would be happy to give them out to you so that you can help spread the word as well.

All right.

Thank you so much.

Pass it over.

Thanks, Natalie, and thanks to you all for being here tonight.

Uh so I'm considering everything Natalie had just said and uh the three focus areas that the landmark uh Van Dorn coalition had uh chosen.

Uh the built environment uh has a pretty substantial impact on uh community health.

And I think other than geography, that's sort of where our two plans uh most overlap.

Um, so I think we have these guiding principles here that I think uh encapsulate uh what we want to achieve with this plan and health and in it in addressing community health and public health uh issues.

Um they're really centered around uh improving access and opportunity to live a healthy lifestyle, things like uh having community gathering spaces and having places uh to experience social connection, uh providing opportunities for physical activity, either actively through recreation or just in your day-to-day life, get in from point A to B.

Um also expanding uh access to affordable goods and services, uh building out walkable communities, uh, and communities that don't require car ownership as a prerequisite for getting to those uh daily needs.

Uh you can advance the slides.

So those are our health-oriented principles, but we also have these other principles that we've shown you all.

And um health is this cross-cutting issue, I think in this plan.

Uh, we we have a category for these principles, but a lot of the other principles we showed you that were categorized uh by land use, uh, by open space, by mobility, they all had uh health-related impacts.

And some of those uh include access to parks in open space, uh the ability to walk and take transit and bike, uh the feeling safe in your community, um feeling safe, getting from point A to B.

Um having um tree canopy and shade and having some resilience to some of the heat stresses that Natalie had uh talked about earlier.

So with this plan, we're trying to uh influence the things we can influence uh through a land use perspective.

I think Natalie and uh the chip, they're looking at things more holistically.

Uh they're looking at every facet of health, but um, we have to, as planners, uh focus on the built environment, but there's still a lot that we can do uh within the built environment.

And the plan uh that we're uh working with you all on currently, um, it proposes a number of actions uh to address some of these uh public health issues.

Um I think uh we we talked about opportunity areas earlier.

I think those are some areas where we anticipate um or we most anticipate where redevelopment could occur.

And with redevelopment, uh come reductions in surface parking, uh additions to the open space network, smaller parks that serve neighborhoods and are better connected to one another, um tree canopy expansion, uh building out these areas based on uh tree canopy standards of today rather than 40 or 50 years ago.

Um also uh streetscapes, uh improving streets and adding shade to you know areas where folks are walking, biking, using transit, and really building out the infrastructure that people uh need to get to point A and point B, you know, with with a variety of modes.

Uh so yeah, health is if it sounds like I've been repeating a lot of common themes.

I think uh that's uh that's kind of the nature of the beast here.

Um yeah, health is this cross-cutting issue, and uh we I think we're trying to address it in the plan uh through as many different angles as possible.

Um yeah, so you'll you'll continue to see health uh you know in each of the elements of the plan as we continue to work with you all to uh get the plan uh together and uh to coming to fruition.

Um yeah, with that, I'll hand it off to Carrie and she can close things out.

Thanks, Kevin.

Uh next up, we are going to open up the floor for questions um and discussion.

Uh we also have folks online.

Um if you could make the rounds, raise your hand if you have a question and we will um pass out our note cards.

That seems to be our most efficient way of getting to everybody's questions um in a quick in a quick manner.

So um if you could write your question down, um, folks online, go ahead and type your question into the QA portion of the uh Zoom panel, and we will um read off your questions and answer them here tonight.

Um if for some reason, I don't anticipate this to be an issue, but if for some reason we can't get to everyone's questions, we will um respond to all of them and post the document online.

So if you have a question ready, please raise your hand and we'll grab the card.

Okay.

Okay.

We have um a good question online, which will just get us warmed up.

So the speakers, if they could please introduce themselves and what is DSLUP.

So we did uh some of us forgot to introduce ourselves.

I'm Carrie Beach, I'm division chief in neighborhood planning and community development.

Melissa, can you introduce yourself?

I'm Melissa Sims.

I'm an urban planner in neighborhood planning and community development.

I'm Andra Schmidt.

I'm also an urban planner with neighborhood planning.

Kevin Kask, also an urban planner with neighborhood planning.

Awesome.

Thanks.

And you um heard already from Natalie Talas and Tamara Yovovic, who we did introduce.

So and then the second question was what does DSLUP mean?

And that is the Duke Street land use plan.

And we are sorry, we tend to uh use way too many acronyms.

So thanks for somebody calling us out on that.

Appreciate it.

If there's any other question, you know, like that that's um kind of tell me what you were talking about, please don't hesitate to ask.

We're happy to answer.

Anyone have a question ready?

People are writing long questions.

Anything else online, Christian.

Okay.

Um, Jeff, I'm gonna answer uh ask the first question, which is online.

Are there tools the city can use other than zoning to sustain small businesses in the Duke Street corridor?

For example, we offer bonus density to developers for affordable housing.

Can we do something similar to preserve small business spaces, but also make land available for housing?

Jeff.

Oh, excellent.

Um Jeff Farner, uh planning and zoning department.

So the the question really was what can we do to help small businesses?

And um of the things we've been talking about, we've heard from many of you, we've heard from our council is the importance of a of the small businesses sort of up and down the corridor.

And uh one of the things um that we've also heard from the business owners is affordable affordability of the space.

And uh, which is how much they pay per square foot generally.

And so one of the challenges, so the question was hey, can we add more density to subsidize some of the existing users who are in there?

Um theoretically, yes.

The the challenge with that, however, is that with new construction, it's generally the highest square foot per uh for rent because it's new construction.

And so we're we're generally trying to put affordable space into new construction, which you could do, but the challenge is that you would probably tear down some of that existing space to do that.

So one of the things that we're proposing in this plan, rather than adding new density, um, is to do the opposite is to actually not add density.

And so what we're proposing is to really keep what's out there today, uh, which are the existing spaces, they have existing zonings, so there's some ability to expand within, for example, Wheeler Avenue or Colvin or Business Center Drive.

Um, some of the businesses that are out there today.

So long-winded answer, but it's a very complicated subject.

We care deeply about the businesses who are out there.

Uh we've talked to over 75 of them.

And the universal theme we've heard is make sure it's affordable so we can stay in our city.

Excellent.

Um framework plan said that you are continuing to work with owners of Mason at Van Dorn and Fox Chase on potential housing development.

Are there any updates you can share on that?

Um they are very much in progress.

Um, so one of the things uh I think we really wanted to do as part of this process.

I think we heard from many of you very early on.

Bring stuff to us before it's baked.

So one of the things we're very much trying to do is share with you where we are before decisions are made or decided.

So we're sharing with you work in progress, which I'm very proud of, by the way.

We don't have all the answers.

So we're still working with the owners of affordability and growth.

We're not there yet, uh, but probably in the next couple months, you're gonna have more information on that.

Um reading this one.

Are we considering charging drivers to pay for parking to de incentivize driving on Duke Street?

Um that is a pretty detailed question, and uh that is a um a detailed recommendation that may exceed the ability of a land use plan to um regulate private ownership.

So I don't believe that that will be one of the recommendations of our plan.

We're looking at other opportunities to deincentivize driving on Duke Street, like making a more robust transit system, making uh uh crossing the street safer and easier, making biking safer and easier, lots of other ways that we can do that that we have control over as opposed to um uh being able to be involved in charging drivers for parking.

Uh okay, we have one online given the city council's priorities on affordable housing.

Why does the draft plan not propose building high density housing, either fully affordable or mixed income on the city-owned land south of Duke Street, which is proposed to be a 150 height limit?

Um now this one is related to the height framework, which is not necessarily a part of this plan.

So uh sorry, of tonight's topic.

So folks don't have the ability to see it per se.

But Jeff, do you want to take a stab at that?

Yeah, that's a really good question.

So uh that is a that's a sort of a nuanced question.

So in the Christian, if you can point it out if that's okay, in the middle of this plan area, the city owns about 55 acres.

We call it the very creative name, we call it the city campus.

Um, so it's a collective area from Witter Field to Wheeler, essentially, uh, that's owned by the city.

And um, and and so the question was can we build more housing there?

Um, so I think I think a combination of yes and no.

So one of our challenges is we're looking at this city campus, we as a city, this is really our functional area for our city.

So when all of you were experiencing the snowstorm recently, where we store dump trucks, where we have salt domes, where we have sort of functional things we need to operate as a city, um, this is our location.

So we want to make sure as we're thinking about the functional areas that we have space to do that because we're changing and growing, evolving as a city, so we need space to do that.

However, um on the left-hand side adjacent to Wheeler, we are proposing opportunities for more housing and stacking uses um sort of adjacent to the police facility as well.

So sort of a combination of keeping functional uses near the rail corridor and then adding some housing as well.

Potential housing.

Why would we not upzone most of the single family housing along Duke Street?

Um it's a good question.

What why are we not changing that?

I think one of the things we were sort of focusing on as part of zoning for housing, and Tamara's here, she can speak to that in detail.

There's a there's a very long process the city went through to look at um changes to existing zoning, including single family housing.

There is some ability to do that through zoning for housing.

Um there's also a discussion of is there a phase two of zoning for housing?

So our thought is all any sort of discussion of what may or may not happen should be citywide and not part of an individual corridor.

So if there are changes, that would happen as part of a citywide conversation.

Okay.

Um a couple of the awesome development proposals from students were for sites in the small business preservation areas.

Does that make you think differently about how to plan and regulate these areas?

Agreed that we had some really great um proposals from the students out there was wonderful to see their creativity and their um kind of thinking outside the box and just fresh perspective.

Um, as Jeff was talking about with the um uh with the areas that of small business, um I Christian, can you point that out on the map along Wheeler and Colvin?

Um, those are areas of the city where we have um some of the most affordable rent for small businesses, and that's a pretty precious research resource, much like uh affordable housing in the city.

And so really um uh density is one of our best tools there.

That doesn't mean that there can't be um different proposals in that area um consistent with existing zoning, um, but but that is the um the general approach that we're taking in that area.

Uh let's see.

I have been I have been following these meetings for a while.

Great job.

Are there currently any zoning regulations or parking minimums preventing some of these plans?

Or do you have a clear path forward?

Um preventing some of these plans development areas that we're talking about.

Okay, I'm not sure.

So the question was are there zoning barriers in place to limit what we're discussing with this plan, which is which is a great question.

Uh short answer is no.

So one of the things, uh, whatever plan gets adopted uh by city council, hopefully this December, uh, one of the things we would have to do is make recommendation zoning changes and have tools to implement changes that are in the plan.

Um so we're actually in the process of talking about how do we implement the plan right now?

So uh there will be tools in place.

They're not there today, but they will be once uh depending upon what council approved.

So not today, but there will be, and and we have enough tools in the toolkit to do that.

Uh next question Have there been any studies that show more people and homes add more eyes on the street and therefore more safety?

Um that's a great question.

I think the answer is yes.

I I can't necessarily specifically point to one right now, but certainly one of the things that we think about when we are um uh creating a plan for um new area uh for areas of the city is how do we make the street more active?

How do we um activate different uh the the street frontages make it more welcoming for people to walk and um gather along those spaces?

And that is absolutely one of the strategies that we can use to think about safety and security as well.

Let me know if you want to jump in.

Um areas on the corridor are really hot and lack tree canopy, especially the western end, as noted by staff.

How will the updated urban forestry master plan address this?

Great question.

Um I don't think that plan has launched yet.

It is um coming up on the uh long range planning work program.

Um so I can't say for sure.

Um we are certainly as part of this land use plan looking at every opportunity possible to improve tree canopy along Duke Street and along any um areas that redevelop, um private areas when they redevelop will have requirements for tree canopy, for street um trees, and um we're looking at other ways that we can incentivize shade as well as in um the city's parks and open spaces um uh uh in the corridor as well.

Next question what is being done to connect Duke Street with Vandor Metro?

Uh that is a good question.

Do you know the answer?

So Duke Street to Vandor Metro.

So one of one of the things that we've talked about in the past is uh we are coordinating with a lot of departments.

You see some of them here tonight.

The other one that is not here tonight is our transportation department.

So they are in the process of designing, I think as many of you know, a new transit way on Duke Street.

And so, as we are thinking about getting folks to and from the metro station, one of the best ways to do that is to improve connectivity, walking, biking, and transit.

So as we're thinking about transit on Duke Street, that's going to facilitate folks being able to get to the Vandor Metro station in a better way.

Um I will just, since I have the mic, I will I'll mention one of these that was given to me.

Have you considered a second layer bonus height for affordable housing similar to what was done in the Alexander West plan?

Um I think that's on the table.

Um of the things that's in our zoning ordinance today is that um, so there's an opportunity for bonus density for the provision of affordable housing.

And the zoning ordinance says if it's adopted in a small area plan, you can do more than 30%.

And I I can tell you one of the things we're considering as part of this plan is having the option for more than 30%.

I think one of the things you heard tonight is if we're going to save units at scale, one of the tools we're really going to need for some of these affordability and growth areas is density.

Um density, and so here is density.

Um yes, it will be on the table.

And if there are thoughts of how we do that, happy to happy to talk to you uh more about how we do that.

And this is a follow-on to um that same question.

Will you be increasing the percentage of CAUs, committed affordable units in new DSUP DSUP, Duke Street development?

The city has been getting higher percentages over time from 3.4% to 10.3%.

And um I think the answer follows from what Jeff just talked about.

We have the opportunity to um utilize bonus density in a in a uh in a get more units with more bonus in this corridor, which can bring up that percentage of committed affordable units with development.

So that's one of the tools that we would be considering.

I don't have any more questions.

All right.

Um two more questions.

Uh rooftop open space.

Sorry, I can't read the word, is less effective for extreme heat mitigation than surface level open space.

Can setbacks for large buildings be increased to pre-2016 levels?

So a couple of things I would say is if you go on our website and there's a there's an access point, it's called social pinpoint.

You can zoom in to all the open space that's being proposed.

So our approach is to do both.

We think there should be new public accessible parks uh open to all of us.

Um the benefit of that is uh again, it's open to everyone in the city.

I think that's really really important.

The other piece that's important is private open space.

So it is different.

Um, those are generally probably for the residents, but having a combination of public and private.

The one thing that was in here I want to stress that you heard tonight, which I feel very strongly about is heat mitigation.

Um, so one of the things we have been talking a lot about with many of you, you heard this from Natalie, is we need to do a better job with shade.

And um, and that can be simple interventions like a bus shelter.

It can be things like street trees.

And one of the things we're also sort of talking about is a lot of those uh heat areas are on private property, parking lots.

Um, so is there an opportunity maybe to work with some private uh property owners to plant trees on private property?

We would need the consent of the owner to do that.

But as we think about shade, as we think about usability, as we think about safety, street trees can play a very big role in all of those, and it is not the most expensive intervention that we have.

Uh, we as a city, because we plant so many trees can buy them pretty inexpensively, we can install them pretty inexpensively.

So that's a really big thing for us as we think about shade.

Are there any incentives to add neighborhood serving retail in already high density residential areas?

So great question.

Um, one of the things we've heard, I think universally is we don't want to lose our grocery stores.

Um Fox Chase and Alexandria Commons have two grocery stores.

So we are, if you look at the land use plan, they are shown as retail, uh, and they both have a pretty significant amount of retail.

I will say the city can't regulate a grocery store going back to those locations, but what we can do is say that retail needs to be provided here and give them enough square footage and value so those uses can come back.

Um grocery stores, we heard are huge community benefit and amenity for I think everyone I've talked to.

So really important to keep those in the plan area.

Do we have any other questions or comments?

Oh, great.

Thank you.

Some estimates show the region has a shortage of have uh of having over 300,000,000 units.

Does the plan take this into account?

Is that number of units?

So one of the things I think um one of the things we've talked about in previous discussions is housing supply.

Uh, and so this directly relates to affordability.

Um it is not um a hard concept to understand that if we don't if if you have less stuff and people want to buy it, people pay more.

And so that's what we're dealing with with how our housing market right now.

We don't have enough units for people who are living here, and so the prices have gone up, which has affected affordability citywide, region wide, and that is a livability issue.

Natalie talked about sort of a social issue.

Um, it's also candidly a regional compet and a national competitiveness issue for us.

So, as we are thinking about attracting and keeping the best and brightest, which I think we have done as a region, we need to think about housing supply.

And we have we have not, as a region kept pace in terms of need, and that's what we're seeing in terms of rent escalation and cost escalation in our region, not just our city.

Any other questions or comments?

Okay, the next question is on housing 2040.

What will inform how the new housing targets are set?

That's an excellent question.

So we're going to be embarking on that journey likely during the second half of this calendar year.

So in particular, we're going to be focusing on housing affordability and housing preservation targets.

So we're going to be looking at our current committed affordable stock, what units are a risk of expiration, what are market affordable housing trends speak to.

So a market affordable housing again is naturally affordable housing up to 60% of the area median income.

And then we're going to be comparing that to need.

So looking at our quantitative housing needs analysis and the findings from our housing survey and the community engagement that we did as part of housing 2040.

We're also going to be looking at the resources that the city has at its disposal projected out.

And then we're going to look at what types of public private partnership, what type of financial tools might over the medium to longer term, you know, what type of what type of units could be generated through all of those different tools.

So it's going to be it's going to be kind of an amalgamation of looking at need current and projected, what our resources are currently versus what they might be, what partnerships in the future through, you know, leveraging city resources, so tapping into state funding, federal funding, and other private resources might be able to generate in addition to kind of maximizing the use of regulatory tools and regulatory tools are the ones that Jeff was speaking to, right?

So that's in particular the use of bonus density and bonus height as well.

So working with the private sector.

So to stay tuned for that process.

We are going to be coordinating that with the Alexandria Housing Affordability Advisory Committee.

Those meetings are open to the public.

They typically meet on the first Thursday of the month.

Excellent.

I think that covers all the questions.

Anyone else going once?

Okay, I'm going to turn this over to Christian to talk about our next steps.

All right.

Yeah, can you do that?

Carrie and I are going to do a switcheroo.

So we have lots of other ways that you can still plug into this process.

So today is not the uh last chance.

We have some ongoing pop-ups, including actually, we had a pop-up tonight at the same time as this meeting somewhere else.

Um, but we will keep doing these pop-ups at the farmers market at grocery stores on Duke Street.

Um, so keep your eye open for that.

Um the engagement hub, which originally was uh going to close today, we are planning to keep open through June until the next meeting, which will be on um June 29th.

Um, and then you can always invite me to your condo board meeting, your community meeting, your civic association meeting.

I know I've talked to some of you about this.

My email is here.

If you would like to have us um at your meeting, we will say yes.

Um, and someone will be there.

Um, we our next community meeting is on Monday, um, June 29th at 6 30 p.m.

We are still trying to figure out that location.

But like normal, we will be having that on the other end of the corridor since we had it on this end of the corridor today.

Um so that meeting will focus on transportation, mobility parks, open space, and sustainability.

So if those are topics that you're interested in, that is the meeting for you.

Um in addition, you can also just send me your feedback via email.

So if you would rather uh write me directly, you can do that as well.

Um there's lots more resources on our project page, which is just Alexandria VA.gov forward slash Duke Street plan.

All of our meeting materials, all of the other stuff that we've been talking about is there.

Uh the one thing uh that I do want to plug, which we have some flyers out for it on the table out there, is that last week we finally officially launched the Duke Street Passport Program.

Um the passport program is a really, I think, really cool, fun initiative where we are working with some Duke Street businesses.

Right now there's 19 signed up, and there will be more moving forward to where they have like a little decal in their um uh business window or on their counter.

And if you go to that business, you can scan that decal and check in.

And the community member who gets who goes to the most unique businesses by the time the passport program is um ends, which is the end of September, gets a 100 gift certificate.

So not small potatoes here.

This is this that can that goes a long way.

Um so uh there's prizes for second place and also third through 10th as well.

So check that out.

Information's on our project webpage, but um, there's also a flyer about it out on the table.

Next slide.

This is a little bit more of the same, but just a little bit of a sort of lar longer look into the future.

Um, so on July fifteenth, we're planning to, or June 29th is when our next community meeting is.

July fifteenth, we are planning tentatively to release the draft plan recommendation.

So these are things that we're working on now based on the feedback we're getting from you in this process.

Um in September, we will be having another community meeting to release the draft plan.

And then um, after both the recommendations and the draft plan, there will be um a review period for community members to provide official public comment.

And we will be continuing to do pop-ups during those periods as well.

And then our goal is to take the plan to public hearing with the City Council and Planning Commission in December.

So that just gives you a little bit of a sort of look forward into the time frame that we're working with.

So thank you for joining us.

Um my email is here.

It is everywhere on the website, so it's sort of hard to miss.

Um, if you have any questions or if you want to be in touch about anything related to the plan, feel free to shoot me an email.

Thanks, everyone.