Good evening.

Welcome to the October 6th, 2026 Planning Commission public hearing.

I guess this is the work session before the public hearing.

I

am Melissa McMahon, chair of the Alexandria Planning Commission.

We will begin with a work session to discuss proposed changes to parking regulations.

This is not a public hearing item, and the planning commission will not take any formal action tonight on this matter.

Director Stoddard, could you get us started off by introducing staff?

Sure.

Happy to introduce staff who are here for the work session.

Of course, we've got colleagues from both uh test and planning and zoning who are working on this together.

Um we've got uh uh Katie and Sheila and Sam uh here to present the proposed uh parking text amendment.

And just I think we're gonna talk about this in the slides, but I it this is as Bears repeating at the beginning that some of this is bringing the local city zoning ordinance into alignment with the state code requirements that were put in place earlier this year.

Uh and so a lot of this conversation is about what is the new state code requirement.

Uh how does that align or or not align with the city zoning ordinance?

And what are we proposing to bring the two uh to bring the local zoning ordinance into alignment?

Thank you.

Go

for it.

Great, good evening.

My name is Sheila McCraw.

I'm the parking and curbside program manager for the city.

I'm joined by Katie North and Sam Shelby, who we've been working um and Tony has also been working actively on this project.

Um so as was just mentioned, uh, this past spring, House Bill 888 uh passed, which set new uh minimums

for

residential off-street parking requirements in designated areas and an administrative reduction process for parcels outside of the designated area.

So we're gonna be discussing tonight what those new requirements are and how we are looking to incorporate those in the city.

Um a little bit more background, our current city multifamily parking requirements were last updated over 10 years ago in 2015.

So it's also been a while since we visited this topic.

Uh

we're gonna go through the details of what are in the state requirements and how we're looking to apply those, but essentially we're looking to implement the state requirement citywide, the designated area citywide, um, where current city requirements are uh and then keep city requirements that are lower than the state requirements.

Um so

where we are and what

we're looking from you all tonight is we're looking to get some feedback and refining our proposed zoning.

Well, we're looking on refining our proposed language to meet the state requirements and in getting your feedback.

Um so we'll go into the specifics of the off-street parking requirements, but um one of the big parts of the bill was these designated areas.

So on this map that you can see here, the state code applies the new minimums within a half mile of transit facilities.

Um that's what's all outlined in these gray bubbles.

So you can see our transit stops and then our metro stations.

These are all covered in that um in that bill language.

So you'll see the majority of the city is covered.

Um we have a couple areas uh you'll see in the light gray that are not covered, but for ease of administration and process, we are recommending to apply the state requirements citywide.

Um maybe I'll pause for a second here.

I have a question.

Sure.

How did you define those?

Yes.

So the the exact language from the bill is designated areas, means any parcel located within one half mile of the entrance to a mass transit or public transportation station or facility.

For the purposes of this definition, mass transit or public transportation station or facility means a building or enhanced structure where members of the general public board or disembark mass transit or public transportation.

So it's any um obviously our metro stations, but then any bus stop with an enhanced feature, so a shelter, things like that.

And that's how the language is interpreted, and that's where we get this map.

Okay, so those are where it's where it's the bus network.

These are all of our bus stops with shelters, essentially.

Cool.

Okay.

And if we added a bus stop with a shelter somewhere in the middle of that part, it's not included, it

would

and then it would expand the area.

Yep.

Yep.