Welcome to the May 5th, 2026 Planning Commission work session.

Tonight's work session is a discussion of the draft Duke Street land use plan.

Planning commissioners will have an opportunity to comment and ask questions.

The planning commission will not receive public testimony, and we will not take any formal actions at tonight's work session.

Members of the public are welcome to listen to this discussion, to comment on the draft plan or tonight's work session discussion.

Please email plancom at Alexandria VA.gov.

Immediately following the work session, the planning commission will hold its regular monthly public hearing beginning at 7 p.m.

or soon thereafter.

It information on public hearing items is available on the table outside of chambers.

Staff may now begin the presentation.

Thank you.

Excellent.

So I will I will kick us off and and just for the record, Jeff Farner, Deputy Director, uh Planning Department, and good evening, everyone.

And this is a um really an update since we last talked to you in January.

Uh at January, I think we talked about a framework and then coming back with sort of next steps.

And so there's a lot to talk about tonight uh relative to a plan, and so we're excited to do that.

I'm gonna turn it over to Carrie.

We're gonna talk about um sort of the overall concepts.

Uh she's gonna talk about a new platform we're using that we're excited about to get community engagement.

Uh and then hopefully have a good discussion along the way.

So again, thank you for having us.

I'm not sure of this.

Good evening, everyone.

Um, so let's see.

Let's uh we will have kind of two sections to our discussion tonight.

First, we'll kind of remind you about um the process so far where we've been and what we've uh been working on since we last talked.

Um and that will lead into Jeff talking about the draft um framework elements that we presented to the community in April, just a couple of weeks ago on these four main um land use topics.

Um then we'll talk about next steps and then hopefully leave lots of time for questions and discussion among the planning commissioners.

Quick reminder, this is the corridor that we're talking about, Duke Street from Old Town to uh the former landmark mall, about three and a half miles or West End, as Paul reminds me to call it.

Um it uh this is um a large plan area for the city.

It's um it's uh three and a half miles, as I mentioned, about ten percent of the city's land area um overall.

And so you can see on the bottom there we've done a lot of community engagement to make sure that we're reaching out to all the various stakeholders in the area.

We've had um ten different community events, we've reached out to 250 businesses plus, we've had a ton of pop-ups.

Um we estimate uh more than 3500 residents, and we're also making a big push um with this project to reach out to students um at ACHS and uh the local elementary schools.

And that has been um uh extremely rewarding and fun and hopefully fun for the students as well.

And then in our kind of phases two and three, we developed several different kinds of work products we uh with the community.

Our draft guiding principles, our draft land use themes.

Then we took a lot of time evaluating all the ideas that developed out of those land use themes.

We came up with corridor districts and had multiple opportunities for engagement online and in person on all of those different elements.

And so where we are now, as I mentioned, is we're talking to you tonight about the draft framework plan.

And then next up in the italics, there are the draft recommendations where we really start putting pen to paper about what this means for the future plan.

And then ultimately in the fall, we'll have a draft plan for the public to review and ultimately go to public hearing in December is the is the anticipated schedule.

So this is a reminder of what you you've already heard from us a bit.

But we want to we thought it um made sense to kind of go over this again because this is really what has driven the development of the framework that Jeff is going to talk about.

So we heard from lots of folks saying, you know, I feel like I feel like this corridor is a bunch of pieces that don't really fit together.

And so what can a plan do to look at ways to address that kind that sense of kind of disconnection?

Um, I feel like we have great um large open spaces, but we don't, they're hard to get to, and we don't really have access to smaller kind of neighborhood type of parks.

So we've looked at that in our open space um approaches.

Um always a consistent um message about making sure that we have enough affordable housing, um, lots of different types of opportunities for affordable housing, making sure that whatever we plan, um, we have studied the infrastructure, we've looked at um we've looked at traffic and sewer and all of the things that we need to make sure our city functions well.

Lots of folks who say, you know, I love the retail that we have in our community.

I'd love to have more of it.

I want it to be more convenient, I want it to be easier to get to.

I want to keep supporting small businesses, and so those are things that we've also woven into our framework plan.

Um, safer connections for everyone getting around has been a very consistent theme.

You know, um, parents saying, I want my kids to be able to be more independent out here.

I want to be able to walk them to school safely, I want them to be able to get to school safely, I want to be able to get to the businesses and people talking about you know, the crosswalks are not safe enough, or I I wait forever to cross the street.

Um, so those are the types of things that we are weaving again into the framework plan.

Yes, of course.

Yeah.

Um just how wide is it?

I mean, I I get it's three and a half miles long or whatever, but how how far too?

Good question.

So um in the next few um maps that Jeff is gonna start talking about, he will show you the the scale, the scope of what we ultimately have kind of gotten to in terms of the the breadth of the of the plan.

But good question.

Um just as a quick bridge before we get into the the themes and the framework plan.

This is how we started to take what we were hearing from the community and kind of organize it into, you know, how is this going to become a plan?

And so I I think you've seen this sketch before.

Um, but really this was okay, what are the existing conditions out here today?

What have we been hearing and how do they begin to how can we create a plan out of this?

What are the what are the um what are the great resources that we have, like the big homes run trail and the the large parks, what are the challenges that we're trying to address?

We've got the you know the small business areas along Wheeler and Colvin, we've got the city campus, we've got these great um housing affordable housing resources, we've got um some steep slope conditions.

So, how do we take all of these various elements and begin to both break it down into more understandable and and um elements that make more sense, but then also have a cohesive whole for the whole plan area.

And with that, I'm gonna turn it over to Jeff to talk about the land use themes.

So that really led us.

Which is where the opportunity sites, i.e., where can potential development happen.

And one of the things we looked at is a couple things.

One is where can development happen, sort of generally up and down the corridor.

What is the relationship to transit stops?

And is that development displacing existing housing?

So that's another piece that we looked at really carefully because, as Carrie pointed out, this is one of our largest collection of committed and market rate affordable housing in the city, and it has been a conversation that we have been having sort of throughout this process.

The other thing that's really unique, sort of up and down this corridor are the civic uses.

Some of those are fire stations, some of those are libraries.

We have a large city campus there.

We're going to talk about that.

So that's sort of the civic and city campus, affordability and growth.

I think one of the things this plan is acknowledging is that if we're going to keep committed or market rate affordable housing there today, we need to accommodate some amount of growth to do that.

That's one of the tools we have.

We're talking to some of the large property owners right now about ways and strategies to do that.

It's a really challenging kit of parts that we need to piece together to make the economics work and hopefully achieve some of our city objectives.

And that really led to what you're going to see in the future slides because of the length of this corridor, we're going to zoom in east and west to sort of zoom into parcels because in the conversations with the community, they they wanted to know what about this park, what about this site, what about this trail?

And to do that, it's really requires us zooming in.

So when you look at sort of east and west, you're going to see that sort of differentiation.

But before we do that, I think this sort of takes all of those opportunities and begins applying a land use category to each of these elements.

So sort of the pink areas are the opportunity sites.

And I think what's really important to point out is one of the things we've heard from the commission and council is the importance of flexibility within a framework.

So as conditions change, we have some amount of flexibility.

So that the pink area is residential and commercial.

We think the overwhelming majority of development that's going to happen here is going to be residential, but having the flexibility to have commercial uses in the future.

So things like that as we're thinking about building this plan.

The other thing Carrie alluded to, and I think we discussed this with the commission and certainly with City Council of how do we integrate small businesses?

That's the sort of light blue area.

And by a large margin, that is the most affordable commercial space and industrial space in our city by a significant amount.

And so we've we've had a lot of outreach.

Yes, go ahead, Susan.

Is that Wheeler?

That is Wheeler Avenue, yes.

And so we have done, I'm pretty proud of this.

We have done a lot of dialogue with our businesses, and we've heard lots of things out there.

One is if the rent goes up, I don't know if I can stay in the city.

Two is I started as a food truck, and then I moved into brick and mortar, and I was able to do that because of cost.

So lots and lots of conversations with the businesses out there, and they are very sensitive to rent, which is again, this is one of the last areas where we are sub-30 dollars a square foot in the entire city.

So what what we're gonna try and do is sort of zoom into this and then talk about sort of from east to west the different land uses, and we're gonna do this with land use, height, street network, uh, and open space so we can see the entire system, but then also zoom into individual parcels.

So starting on the east, just to orient everyone, the King Street Metro station is sort of on the far right-hand side with Union Station and the Masonic Temple is sort of the dark blue.

Um so a couple things you see.

Uh we are we are still working with our partners in other departments.

Um Duke Street in Motion is a plan that has been approved and will is in the process of being implemented.

This plan is not changing that.

Um the other thing that we're gonna talk about is how we are coordinating with our housing department with housing 2040, which will be coming before the planning commission very soon.

So sort of starting right to left, the pink parcels are really redevelopment uh opportunities.

Uh again, you see residential or office.

We think it's mostly residential.

Um you also see in there some asterisks.

Um the sort of big green one is the city's uh wants to continue working with that property owner to explore ways to get more open space.

You also have some small ones, which are additional density and height.

As we think about these affordable sites, how do we keep them affordable?

And that's probably going to mean some opportunity to redevelop to get committed affordable units.

And I think you know, we were just looking at a statistic today of how much rent has increased in Fox Chase, for example, in the past 10 years.

It is substantial.

So as we are thinking about over 2,000 units in a place like Fox Chase, what does that mean for the city and what does that mean for this plan?

And then moving left, you see the retail node, and then you see Colvin.

And just to point out, one of the things I think the commission is very much aware of this.

I think we talked about this even as part of a work session.

City campus.

And I'm very excited about this.

So rather than just piecemeal things happening, there's an overall strategy for the city campus.

I think the turquoise color is really the area where it's going to need to be functional.

There's a lot of functional things we need in our city.

Bus storage, salt domes, dump trucks, various things we need in our city to operate a city.

And sort of the gray area, sort of the police facility and the area around it.

We think there might be some opportunities.

So there's actually two options in there.

One is potential redevelopment and potentially addressing Luckett Field.

The other is keeping Luckett Field.

So there's opportunities and options in there.

So that's again land use options as we think of.

Whoops, I'm sorry, moving forward.

So moving farther west on the bottom, still still on Wheeler Avenue.

You see small business.

Then in the middle part of that corridor are again opportunity sites.

These are things like the existing Verizon building, the Kidney Dialis Center, the Enterprise Car Rental, just to orient everyone sort of up and down Duke Street.

The other big one is Fox Chase shopping center.

We have been talking with them that there's of course a grocery store there, but also additional connections to the adjoining parks and additional open spaces, and then moving farther west.

You see the library site, again, potential opportunity and civic site, and then places like the Honda dealership, etc.

So those are opportunity sites as we sort of think about moving sort of up and down the corridor.

So building heights.

So most of the properties that are opportunity redevelopment sites are 85 feet.

We do have taller heights on City Campus.

And that is really just in case we need things for functional reasons.

I mentioned assault dome, other things that are that are just taller.

And that functional areas adjacent to the rail corridor.

There's also a pretty significant amount of grade from Duke Street down to Business Center Drive at City Campus.

So as we're thinking about height relationship to Duke Street, it's certainly less because of topography.

Can you show us the areas that are changing, the areas that are staying the same in terms of height?

So the areas that are hatched are changing.

Everything else is fundamentally staying the same.

So where do we have interventions and where do we keep things similar to what they are today?

So again, sort of zooming in to sort of talk about heights, east to west, metro station on the right.

You see the areas that are changing, the opportunity sites, city campus, witter park, the two options for the Lucket Field and Police Facility.

And then again, moving west, changes, opportunities.

The one thing I would point out in the affordability and growth thing that there's sort of three asterisks are really important.

Is this has come up in a lot of the community questions?

Are we looking at more height and more density?

I think the answer is we have to.

As we're thinking about retention and preservation on those sites, and we're currently talking about when and where and how we integrate that into this plan.

So we don't yet have that solved yet, so that's still sort of in in process.

So mobility.

So for example, we heard a lot of Wegman's is currently located in Eisenarch East.

I can't get there.

I can't walk there, I can't bike there.

And maybe I can, but it sure doesn't feel safe.

And so one of the things we're also thinking about is how do we connect to existing planned improvements outside the plan area.

I think as the commission knows, one of the big barriers on this site is the rail corridor.

And there are a limited amount of north-south connections.

The other challenge is there's not a lot of street grid, and there's not a lot of connected connectivity sort of in and around Duke Street.

And so one of the things as you see in this sort of zoom in, we're trying to give people options.

So as you're sort of moving, whether you're walking, biking, driving, giving people options sort of in and around the corridor.

And with each of these redevelopment options, one of the things you see is new street connectivity happening.

And we're trying to provide as much connectivity as we can.

But as it's a challenge, we're trying to sort of balance existing development with new development and connectivity.

And so the other thing we're really also focusing on is sort of those red dashes are pet and bike connections as well.

We've heard a lot of community comments is I want to get to the library and I can't get to the library from this location, or I want to get to the park.

So we and our transportation staff have really been focusing on connectivity and safety.

Park open space.

Quite a few of the community members said, hey, we have all these big parks, but we really don't have neighborhood parks.

And we really can't, we really don't have connectivity between the parks.

And so one of the things you'll see when we do the zoom-ins is really with redevelopment, getting more neighborhood parks and connecting those neighborhood parks.

So within a reasonable walk of each neighborhood, there's a community park.

The other thing, just to share that we've heard a lot on the open space and the parks when we zoom in, and we've heard this on all of our smaria plans, is we want to pick out the use at this location.

We want to have this use or that use.

And what we are trying to do that in this Maria plan is have these neighborhood parks be flexible enough, adaptable enough to have multiple uses, because when they come in in a year or five or seven years, there's gonna be a whole process in front of the planning commission to talk about how do we program it.

So zooming in, uh, we spent a lot of time with uh the community and our staff talking about connectivity.

Uh I'm pretty proud when you think about what's out there today versus what we're proposing.

And I want to point out one example that's a sort of a park test combination discussion that we've been having, sort of under telegraph.

So one of the things we heard is when I'm at the park, I really want to get to the metro station.

Is there a better better way to get there?

Is there a better way to walk there?

Is a better way to bike there?

So one of the things this is showing is you can actually go under telegraph, uh, and then there will be a new greenway which will connect to the signal at Callahan, which will connect to the metro station.

So things like that of how do we provide better, safer connections sort of in and around the neighborhood.

The other connection you see is we've heard many, I've heard many, many, many people talk about how do we get a better crossing across telegraph.

Um so this shows a potential way to do that.

Um the other thing you see here is connecting the new greenway.

So as you have a park and a park, there are way to get between the parks.

So that's another thing we've heard from the community.

Of I'm I'm in I'm in this park with my family or my kids, and I want a safer place to get home or get to another park or another neighborhood.

And is there a better way to do that?

Uh so this is moving farther west.

Um, you see lots of different diagrams.

Hopefully, we can jump into this more of tying into the big systems, but also in that middle piece of Duke Street, adding a lot of neighborhood parks.

And also thinking about we intentionally showed the former landmark mall now, West End is showing how that park system relates to what we're talking about on Duke Street as well.

So with that, I'm gonna turn it over to Carrie, and she's gonna talk about an exciting new tool we're using.

So ready, Ted.

So we're gonna try and do this live.

Hopefully this will work.

So this was our way of, as I mentioned earlier, you know, this is a pretty um large corridor with lots of different stakeholders who have different um needs when it comes to engagement, and so we've been trying to provide a wide variety of ways for folks to engage.

Um this is one of them, this online engagement tool.

Um it's also important, particularly for this discussion because that framework plan has a lot of detail to it, and it's such a long corridor that it's really important for people to be able to zoom in and be able to really see how it's all working and what the details are because it can be a little overwhelming otherwise.

So if you scroll down, Ted, this first um part of it kind of is just the welcome.

It kind of explains what the tool is for, how you can use it, um, what the resources are, what's coming up in the planning process on the right, you've got um some documents for further resources, um, and then if you scroll a little bit further down, you've got those five tabs.

So the first tab is the districts and themes map, and this is the one that we talked about at the beginning of the presentation, where you can essentially you can use that slider to go back and forth to say, like, okay, here are the districts, and how does that relate to what the the land use themes or the the land use strategy is for the plan area and how do those fit together?

Um and those land use themes uh really are related to what we eventually propose in the land use framework, but this is a way to kind of look at those in in all together.

Um, and then the other four tabs at the top there mobility, parks and open space, land uses and building heights are the four main framework maps that Jeff was talking about.

And say, for example, we go to um parks, uh no, let's go to land use um Ted.

And at the beginning of each of these, you'll see um a kind of an introductory video, and this is meant to be as kind of plain language as possible to help folks understand like what do you mean by a land use framework and what's the point and what is land use anyway?

Um so this is an opportunity for folks to kind of get a really high-level understanding of how what the how these four topics work together to create a whole plan.

Um if you scroll down a little further, you get to the actual land use framework map.

And on this map, you can use the plus and minus tools up at the top right to zoom in, zoom out, um, kind of see the different areas of the plan.

You can also on the top left enter an address and Ted, let's enter in 4641 Duke Street.

This is the Fox Chase shopping center.

So, say you want to say, like what happens to Harris Teeter.

So, this you can see is an opportunity area.

It shows you um what the land use is.

If you scroll, actually scroll down a little bit, Ted, if you don't mind to the um legend, yeah.

This so you can look at the map in combination with the legend to say, okay, it's residential commercial two there, okay.

And they scroll back up and you can see that there's new proposed open space on that site that would happen with redevelopment.

That um you could say, oh, I see it's being proposed next to all Veterans Park or Homes Run Trail to kind of build upon that, etc.

So it really gets gives you the opportunity to zoom in and see what's what's being proposed.

Um and then uh you can add a marker, so you click on that little red button on the right, and you put it on whatever you know area you want to say, like, oh, I wish the open space was I don't know, on all of it should be against the existing park, or whatever.

You could provide any comment you want, and you pop it in there.

Um and the the nice thing about this tool is that everyone sees everyone's comments.

So you get to see, like, oh, I see a lot of people really don't like X or really love Y.

Um, or I'm the only one who has this comment.

Interesting, or whatever it might be, but you get the opportunity to see what it is.

Then if you scroll down, you can also either ask a question, like you have just a basic question, or you can see other people's questions and see the answers.

Or if your idea doesn't really have a sort of a geographic point, you can just on the right hand side just add an idea on the on the right.

You're doing really well.

That kind of thing.

Um but we do ask that everybody has a username and um submits their comment that way.

Uh I think that covers it.

So Ted, if you don't mind um going out of this and back to our next steps, we'll cover that real quick before we um have discussion.

Um so essentially the month of May, I'll start talking.

Um, is uh kind of our get the word out to all the various boards and commissions and community groups about what it is this framework, what this framework plan is.

Uh, make sure everybody kind of is up to date on the planning process so far.

Be going to uh city council at the end of this month and several other boards and commissions, as you can see, plus the ongoing um pop-ups and engagement online engagement.

We're also hosting office hours, those are posted on the um the Duke Street project page, which people can just basically at the appointed time go into this Zoom session and ask any questions that they might have.

Um then the next big things are uh community meeting at the end of this month and at the end of next month to talk about a few different topic areas in particular, housing and health, transportation parks and sustainability.

Um, and then in um early July, we hope to release the draft recommendations, um, followed by in the fall the draft plan, followed by public hearing in December, if all goes according to plan.

Um I think that covers it, and we would love to hear your thoughts or questions, um discussion.

Thank you, Carrie and Jeff.

You want to go ahead, Commissioner Manner?

Um first of all, thank you very much.

It's obviously you've done a lot of homework on this.

For some reason, it strikes me that the area in side the like the roundabout where you're exiting off of Duke Street.

Why not develop that land?

If you're looking for places to park buses or vehicles, why not put it there?

I forget the topography there.

I think it's a little bit sloped, but but couldn't that be addressed and couldn't that space be used?

So that's a good question.

That's a good question.

We um we have heard that, and it is one of the things we're we're currently looking at.

So there is some topography, but it's probably manageable.

But that's uh that's a comment we've heard, and and we're looking at that.

Okay, cool.

Thank you.

Yes, Commissioner Dubai.

Yeah, thank you.

That that's you guys have done a lot of work on this.

Like obviously it shows.

Um, could you speak a little bit about the so the streetscape is kind of the thing that's gonna tie this whole thing together from one end to the other, right?

Yes.

And I know we've had we talked a little bit about bus lanes or bike lanes, and is that going to be a push by the city to do that, or is that gonna be a developer piecemeal as it gets built out, or a combination of all the above?

I think um I think short answer, it'll be a combination of all the above.

So as part of Duke Street Motion, uh the city will be improving streetscapes where we have right-of-way.

And with this plan, as with all of our plans, there'll be recommendations where if we don't have the right-of-way for that streetscape, when redevelopment happens, the developer will have to provide that.

Um so it's a combination.

I I appreciate what you just said about sort of the connective tissue on the corridor, because coming back to what Carrie was saying earlier, we've heard a lot of how do we make this um feel more cohesive.

But also how do we also have variety?

And so one of the things we've been sort of leaning into as part of this conversation, uh, I said this to you guys many times.

I I think the strength of our city is we're a collection of neighborhoods, and as you're moving throughout our city, you feel the difference of moving from this neighborhood to that neighborhood.

And they're connected by our streets.

And so we're envisioning a very simple because of the the length of um this corridor.

We've talked about different districts having different character.

Uh we've heard a lot from the community.

We don't we don't want it to feel the same, we don't want it to feel homogenous, we want it to feel sort of different as you're moving up and down the the um corridor.

So there's a way to maybe have continuity on the streetscape and then variety in the height and built uh environment as you're moving up and down the corridor.

That's good.

Um I can ask specifically about two spots right on the entrance, I guess, right past the train station.

There's a little gray section that's shown there, and and in the previous slide it showed that as an opportunity, I think.

Yes.

Is that the gravel parking lot?

Yes.

Okay.

So that is yes.

So that is the city owned parking lot that is next to Union Station.

Uh it is narrow and shallow, uh, but it is deep enough to have some potential development opportunity there.

There are some, I will say there are some utility challenges on that site because of the proximity of the rail corridor.

But as we're thinking about this site long term, we think that is a site, particularly adjacent to uh the Metro Station Union Station that uh is an opportunity site.

Excellent.

Um finally the the old right on the other side of the street there, the old um water treatment or what was that American water building there?

Virginia American water, yeah.

What's up with that?

So we have a big asterisk there, so we are um so in the currently in the open space master plan, it says look at acquiring potential using some of that site for additional open space.

And so we are in conversations with uh that property owner, and so it's still sort of in process, so these are sort of uh current updates.

Um so I'm hoping as this progresses, we can we can share more information, but in process.

Um I have a couple questions.

What I know that this plan is designed to create opportunity sites, which which are targets for redevelopment, they provide incentive, they provide focus.

Um, but one of the challenges we sometimes encounter in reality after a plan is created is when those sites that aren't an opportunity site come to us for with a proposal and the proposal is a good one, and and then we're stuck with uh differing opinions across the community about whether it's okay to go forward with that project because of its based on its merits, or whether it's not okay because the plan didn't foresee that being an opportunity site, it was on an edge, it was not colored orange or whatever the color of the plan is.

Um do we have a strategy for handling that in this plan in any different way than we have in the past?

So that is that's a great question.

And um, when you were talking, I was thinking maybe to be really clear about that is we have principles in this plan and we have a vision.

And to me, ultimately, I think when we look at projects is is it consistent with the intent, vision, and principles of the plan?

And maybe as part of this plan, we can clarify like it might not be on a map or the property ownership changes or something happens, but ultimately there's a vision intent and principles, and I think those are those are elements we really focus on when we bring something to the commission is is it consistent with these things and less about sort of individual pieces, and is it consistent with the sort of overall direction of the plan?

And I think communicating that in the plan and um uh I see Carrie's taking notes, so we will we'll definitely look at that.

That's a great point.

Yeah, just so that we don't get hung up on the like the map doesn't show it, which is something that we have encountered in the past.

Um but I I like your your framing of that because I do think that's generally how we've tackled it when it comes up.

Um but to be maybe more explicit about it, so that when the community's going along with us and saying yes, we support this, they're supporting that principle too.

Um I have a two-part two-part question, and this relates to maybe the heights imagery you had in there, and that sense of how much um so we we we know we need more housing density, we talk a lot about more housing as the mitigation to market rents increasing and keeping them as stable as possible, but I don't have a sense of how much density it takes to achieve that in a given neighborhood.

And so the part one framing of the question is that like do we have a sense of how much density it takes to achieve stabilization of market rents in a given neighborhood?

And then related to that, the height the height imagery was talking about you know where the market is today, the 85 foot, the wood frame buildings, and I know that we have constraints in what the market wants to do today, it maybe financially can do today, but I'm a little concerned about creating maps that cap heights, and I say cap, use it, imagine it however you like, but the if the community thinks it's an 85-foot height, plus minus bonus density, it's still laying out this expectation, which is more in line with what the market is saying today, and not necessarily what it might say in 10 years.

And um, and those two things might be related, right?

Like if we can't build enough housing in this corridor, we won't see the dampening pressure on market rates that rent rental rates that we'd like to see.

But if it's the plan itself that is constraining density on some of our opportunity sites, do we need to just think a little bit more flexibly about that?

Yeah, I think um very good questions.

I I'll take the first one first.

We we've done a lot of work on um and when we were doing Alex West, this is something I was very proud of because we were talking about supply and impacts on affordability.

And so we did a bunch of work, and then we also brought in Urban Institute and asked them to say, do your own work, see if you come up with the same answer.

And their answer was more supply, not eliminated, but decreases the rent escalation pressure on market rate product.

And I think if you look at if you do a Google search of our jurisdiction, our region, there's a lot of documentation that sort of supports that.

I I don't think there's good evidence to say is it 600 units, 300 units, a thousand units.

I think it's probably substantial enough that it's taking away pressure on uh a lot of these units.

So on Duke Street corridor, it's probably a pretty sizable amount that we need to take pressure off of existing units to be candid.

And so I think we're gonna need some amount of development in those opportunities to do that.

Um in terms of the flexibility, great point.

I think I think we need to look at that on on building height.

I have a follow-up.

Um, how many units are there do you calculate on on Duke Street?

And you're talking about on the north side of Duke Street, right?

Or the problems are.

Do you have that, Carrie?

It'll take me a second, but I have it.

Yeah, kind of handy.

I mean, just I I think it's really interesting just to so just to talk about Fox Chase while she's pulling that up.

Um 2,000 units and 90 acres.

So 90 acres is the size of North Potomac Yard.

Just Fox Chase.

So as we think about scale and importance of of some of these resources, it is ginormous for our city.

And is is Fox Chase considered affordable?

Well, it is market rate affordable.

There are some committed units, um, but it is it is almost predominantly um market rate affordable.

And the ones that are farther to the east then so almost so all of the uh this is a stat we also pulled, all of the uh rental units on Duke Street are market rate affordable from between 60 and 80 percent AMI.

Okay, and so that include the housing on the on the south side of the street?

Uh south side, those are ownership, uh, like Wakefield Tarleton, for example, south of Fox Chase, those are ownership units.

We have some condos on Duke Street, we have garden apartments, we have townhouses, it was a pretty diverse amount of amount of units.

How many total?

So it's it's around 11,000 units total, north and south.

Wow.

Um I don't have it separated by north or south.

Um 11,000 um about 11,000 affordable.

No, that I thought you were asking how many.

Oh, I'm sorry, yes, that's right.

I was asking that.

Oh, okay.

I do have affordable too.

Oh, great, perfect.

Um, but it might take less.

Okay.

Um we have roughly 1,275 committed affordable units.

Um, the majority of those are rental, some of them are condo.

Um there are also uh around 450 more in the pipeline, and I believe that does include the Witter project.

Um but we calculate it's roughly 10 to 15 percent of the city's market affordable rental unit stock is in this.

On both uh north and south sides of the street.

Yeah, the south side has some uh like Mason at Van Dorn, for example, as a is a source of a lot of market affordable housing.

All right, thanks very much.

You clearly have done your homework.

Vice Chair Kannick.

Uh thank you, Madam Chairman.

Um two things.

One is just a continuation of the discussion about heights.

So in that scenario, we were saying that uh the projected heights are kind of um are targeted at what you think the market will um will sustain at this point and what the technology does at this point, which is 85 to 90 feet in wood, and that kind of those things kind of align, and that's sort of the baseline that we're setting.

But the question of how long into the future that baseline works or is relevant, I think is uh is a great question.

And if it if the scenario that was implied there was that if things uh move along at the point where uh property owners and and developers want to come in and are interested in making taller buildings.

Is there then an upper bound that's controlled by other things like either considerations in the mobility plan or overall infrastructure constraints that would have to be looked at to make sure that yeah, sure, if we build 550 foot buildings in this corridor, that all fits and it's great because it's greater density, but there's some point at which either that affects the transportation um aspect or some other infrastructure limitation that we have to keep an eye on.

Yeah, I I'm sorry.

I I would say, you know, one of the things we we are sort of doing up and down the corridor, and Carrie alluded to this.

Uh we're still working on it, by the way, is looking at all of the infrastructure impacts.

Um so we're looking at traffic right now.

Um we're looking at things like sewer capacity, which is both pipes and plant capacity.

We're looking at stormwater.

So one of the things we can do when we're yeah, schools exactly.

So one of the things that um as we're going through that, we can do like a sensitivity analysis, like what if XY happens above or below that?

So we can build that into our model.

So let us look at that.

Uh and on another subject, you um you mentioned the fact that one of the big advantages of this is the two sizable retail centers that are already there.

And in terms of um Alexandria Commons and the Fox Chase Center, and I don't know if we might be able to switch to one another your closer diagrams.

Yes.

If I was observing correctly some of the diagrammatic work that you've done there.

Uh perfect.

If you go, yeah, either one.

So the thin red line on the is that addressing both the question of trying to get improved connectivity and trying to get retail that redevelops in a more street-oriented and less parking lot frontage mode.

Yes.

Okay.

And how do you actually what mechanisms go into the plan to help either identify, require, or encourage that?

So, yeah, so uh this is Alexandra Commons.

Uh and I think one of the things for a site that large, uh, what we've seen generally is um a property owner wants to phase it.

They'll probably build a building, another building, and then they'll keep some of the because the other issue I think is the commission is we're well aware of existing leases, and then timing those out.

And so our thought is you phase it, you build a more urban piece, you introduce the street grid, you allow the market to catch up, you build the next phase, and then ideally you have retail facing retail.

Um and I think the other thing we've heard from the community are the importance of neighborhood serving things like grocery stores.

And while we can't really require that with redevelopment, we're uh allotting a significant amount of retail and the required retail with the hope that to do that we can um get those bigger uses, those community serving uses that uh that we've heard to be important.

Thank you.

Um couple more questions.

These are about corridors.

So I wanted to um this connects back to Commissioner Dubai's comment about the streetscape and how it all connects throughout this this area.

My travel experience through this corridor is not one of being immersed in a neighborhood.

It's very stressful if you're in a car, if you're on foot, if you're on a bike.

There's really it's really kind of just it's it's kind of like noise that you're trying to block out of your mind for this period of time while you have to get from point A to point B.

Um I know that's not what we want it to be, and that's not what the people who live in the corridor want it to be.

Um do we have any comps from other parts of the country in breaking up a street of this size and a corridor of this length into bite-sized chunks into places that are more meaningful experiences and like what that transformation looks like over time, because I think that something like that um would really help me understand what it's gonna take to get us to a place where as you're traveling through it you care about the fact that this neighborhood is different from that neighborhood.

I think that's a really good question.

I think how we phase this is gonna be really hard.

And I I think the challenge is this is um this is decades worth of decision making to get us to where we are today.

I I would say that um I think of the streetscape in front of Potomacyard, the main body of Potomac Yard.

I walk that way a lot.

I we talk about this internally.

When you walk over the bridge, I would urge anyone to look at the how fast people are going over the bridge versus the street in front of Potomac Yard.

It's not posted speed, it's the trees are creating that side friction, the lanes are narrowing a little bit, the buildings are on one side, and inherently people are just slowing down.

And and and Route One was as many of you remember, a really hostile street.

And parts of it still are uh around Potomac Yard.

And so it was it was a new sidewalk on Potomac Yard, then it was new street trees, then it was a new transit way, then buildings happen.

I think the challenge is how do you phase that to make it um be appealing in the short term?

It's gonna be a little uh jagged in terms of implementation.

So we're just we're we're gonna have to piece it together.

And ideally, we get bigger segments that then build, you can build on sort of core segments.

Um, but it's probably gonna be tied to redevelopment because I think you're gonna need those buildings with the streetscape to start feeling that friction of like, wait a minute, I should be slowing down if I'm driving, at least visually.

And it happens a lot in our city, so there's a lot of great examples, I would say, where people are doing that, um, where new streets have are doing that.

That's a really helpful comparison because what you're describing is that we what I'm visualizing while you describe it anyway, is that we need to start having the urban fabric components that stop you from looking three quarters of a mile down the street as you're driving, because a lot of the the tendency to drive fast is like looking three three lights ahead type of mentality.

But if but with North Potomac Yard and where where you were just describing, the build the buildings, the trees, and the stuff actually prevent you from seeing very far, and they force you to look at what's right next to you and to look at the people on the sidewalk instead of the the lights that are three quarters of a mile away.

Um yeah, no, that's a good that's a a good way to think about it.

Uh my last corridor question is um when it comes to parks in open space, um, and this is a bit of a pet peeve I have with the way land use plans have to be when we do them as neighborhoods.

Intentionally you're focusing our eyes on what's in the plan area by graying out everything else.

But um the there we go, that the full one is good, the yeah, full area.

Um, but the thing about open space is that it is a network that extends beyond the plan area, and so uh my my comment would be two part.

One is um to what extent is the plan going to talk about these as networks.

They're both like ecological networks, they're trail networks, they're open space functionality networks, they're part of how the community fabric is providing different uses across them, right?

To your earlier point, we're not gonna program each pocket park to have all the things, but we but if they are part of a network, and like a good example might be that little part I see of the new parks that connect to the proposed linear greenway that sort of make their way into existing park space, that none of that exists yet, but we don't we don't know what exactly will be in them, but they it will it will need to relate to what's accessible by them as you travel through them.

And so I just think that the plan to the extent possible may want to provide some imagery about the connections, like what does the rest of that greenway network look like.

Um we've we've had um ecological challenges with maintaining the connectivity because of flooding, right?

And trails coming apart and maintenance of those trails being difficult.

We've lost connections, we've had to rebuild connections.

So it's both about mobility, but it's also about ecology, and I think that this plan is it is such a corridor plan over here.

West Taylor Run is an ecological connection, right?

And it's just totally grayed away.

So you don't even get to appreciate that this part of the plan could have some connection to what's going on ecologically with West Taylor Run and the things that we choose to do with our streetscape and with some of even some of the nuance of those um transportation and mobility changes could relate to the this as a bigger network of open space.

I I would just comment to that.

I'm glad you raised that because we didn't talk about sustainability, but one of the things we've been talking about are things like tree canopy.

We we have looked at the entire corridor in terms of urban heat island impacts, and to be candid, there are a lot of areas in this corridor that are disproportionately impacted.

And so as we think about the network sustainability, there are flooding, there are RPAs, there are other things in here we need to look at.

So we are looking at that.

So but but we hear you.

Yes, Commissioner Manor.

And then Commissioner Ramirez before we finish.

We briefly touched on it, but what what's the deal about Virginia America water?

That's a big piece of property.

Yeah, it it is uh in the plan.

We're we're just right now we have an asterisk.

So in the open space master plan uh for the city it says work with the property owner explore additional open space.

So we are currently working with the property owner to do that.

So uh until we sort of get a little bit farther along in that conversation, we're not showing anything specific on the site yet.

Do you know does it have to stay where it is?

Because there's a big pool up there, right?

Yeah, I think that's part of the conversation, which is um they do need to be in the city.

Obviously, they maintain facilities for the city, so where and how that happens is is part of the conversation.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

All right, Commissioner Ramirez.

I just wanted to add also, first of all, thank you.

This is I think really lovely seeing all the different layers and the way that we see this kind of I almost feel like there is this kind of pulse that goes along the corridor of Duke Street in agreement with the chair regarding the fact that Duke Street is this long linear factor that is very it's a strong vein in there.

Um and then the idea as well as the analogy that we're drawing right from um Potomac Yard and how with the tree canopy and the the softening of the edges, um, I'd like to make sure then that we also do acknowledge that kind of softening of the edges and looking at this Duke Street plan in this relationship to its adjacent neighbors, north and south.

Um and also I want to make sure to then, and I am in absolute agreement as well, that when you do soften those edges along something that's very long and linear, you can actually bring a little bit of that feeling of you know slowing down to the traffic that that traverses Duke Street.

Um, and that uh I want to make sure that we we are able to build in some requirements in a way um to to get developers once they do step in and say, hey, I am gonna develop this to bring in that softness where it hits where their properties hit Duke Street.

Thank you.

Yes, Commissioner Harris.

Yeah, um I want to agree with Commissioner Ramirez and also say that I think that that um that ability to remove Duke Street as a barrier.

You talked about the rail corridor being a barrier, but Duke Street itself is a barrier, and that ability to tame that and soften those edges and and kind of that all of your connectivity and really the success of this plan, I think depends on on being able to do that.

I know some of that's out of your hands, that's transportation, but uh I do think that's a an important focus.

Thank you for that.

Thank you very much for the presentation today.

Thank you and the discussion.

Right?

Sure.

Five minute recess before we convene for our hearing.

All right.