This evening session of the Arlington City Council, convened at 18:15:00+00:00, focused on three primary major agenda items: the downtown Form-Based Code zoning project, the status and funding needs of street maintenance, and the restructuring of the HandyTran transit service. The meeting concluded with reports on neighborhood grants, external committee updates, and public discussions regarding upcoming agenda items and contract renewals.
Form-Based Code Zoning (Item 3.1):
Enhanced Mobility & Street Maintenance (Items 3.2 & 3.3):
HandyTran Restructuring (Item 11.1):
Okay. Oh Lord of Mercy. Actually, Andy did come in and she said 1215. I thought she meant it's 1215. And uh pursuant to VTCA Government Code Chapter 551.071072 and 087. Noon session back to order. We're gonna start with three point one. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council, John Chapman, Long Range Planning Manager here to talk about form-based code. We do have two uh big plans going on. The Innovate Arlington comprehensive plan that is not a zoning change, it is just a uh visionary document. However, what we're going to be discussing uh right now is our form-based code zoning project. This is a possible zoning change uh that could impact uh properties. Uh we're gonna be discussing the uh boundary and what the existing zoning is within that area, as well as our proposed regulating plan, which includes all of our subdistricts and frontage types, our proposed street frontage, uh as well as the subdistricts, and then we will talk about the code structure and how form-based code will nest within the unified development code, as well as the specific details or some of them related to our downtown form-based code, and then the project timeline as we're uh nearing completion of this project. Our December open house was a big uh big success. Uh we had our consultants there as well as a variety of uh Arlington city staff from public works, transportation, housing, um planning. Um a lot of great feedback, it was very positive. Uh we even had a great station there. You can see Thodony David Palmer there, the uh project manager assisting residents with n understanding what their existing zoning is, as well as understanding based off of the form-based code what their proposed zoning uh could be. And that helped residents who received the flyers that you see on both sides of the slide there, understand better what development standards if form-based code is adopted by council, uh, how that would impact their properties. So it was a very uh uh engaging and great meeting with uh stakeholders around the downtown uh form based code area. So with that, I'm going to uh welcome Jay Narina, the consultant for Form Based Code to provide more details and updates on the project. Um good afternoon, uh City Council members. Uh my name is Jay Narina, principal with livable plants and codes, uh the lead on the form based code. I really do appreciate the opportunity to come and speak in front of you. Um so this map really shows the existing zoning. Um a lot of the zoning districts uh are not just exclusive to downtown. You have commercial districts elsewhere in the city that the same standards apply here, so you can kind of see a lot of it is downtown business right in the middle there, but on the edges you do along the rail rail line, you have industrial, uh you have some corridor commercial, and you have your neighborhoods as well. So this would be the new regulating plan, which is just a fancy name for the actual new zoning map for downtown. And the reason we're calling it a regulating plan is it goes beyond just assigning zoning districts for properties, but it also designates certain street frontages because again it's about relating what happens on the street with private development. It's really relating the public and the private realm. And so the important thing of the form based code is going to be this critical element of not just writing standards for what happens on private property, but it also how does the development relate to the street in front of it. So that's really a critical element. So when you talk about frontage types, uh we have three different frontage opportunities that have been established through the code. The code would identify three different types of frontages. Type A frontage would be the highest quality frontage for the sidewalk. So if you think about a main street, right, where you have continuous buildings, continuous storefronts, possibly cafes, sidewalk cafes, that makes it the most interesting to walk on. That would be your A Street. You'd have wide sidewalks, you'd have shade, you'd have activated frontages, etc. Your B streets may be one of those hybrid locations where it's still still evolving, it's still redeveloping. You may have some small parking lots, you may have driveways, you may have you know drive-through uh issues, but the idea is that this is an area that accommodates both pedestrians, but it also accommodates some uh some kind of um uh parking and and automobile orientation as well. And the type C furnage is the least high quality furniture. Um it would be your alley furniture, you know, the back of house functions, uh utilitarian functions, possibly access to parking lots, etc. And the reason to do this is to kind of provide the development standards that's that actually addresses these frontages differently because we know that all four sites may not be your A frontages. We want to recognize that you want to treat different street frontages differently. Um so now we get into the actual sub-districts, which would be the zoning districts within this downtown uh form-based code. Uh one is the traditional neighborhood, which is a lot of the neighborhood that is to the north of uh uh downtown, and you can see those areas are highlighted here in red. So those are the yellow areas. And then the next is the urban neighborhood, and you can see the intensity and scale of development is also a little bit higher. It does allow for more mix of uses, offices, corner retail, etc. So you can kind of see those areas uh uh highlighted in uh this um orange ish brown.