Good evening.

Welcome to the regular meeting at the Blacksburg Planning Commission, which is held each first Tuesday of the month at 6 30 p.m.

in the Roger Hedge Path Chambers at the Blacksburg Municipal Building at 300 South Main Street in Blacksburg.

The public may address the planning commission during specific times on the agenda and are requested to hear adhere to the following.

Please speak at the podium, state your name and address, direct comments only to the commission.

Please limit your speaking time to a maximum of three minutes and speak only once during uh specific hearing or comment period.

Please silence all cell phones, show respect for all speakers, and allow all opinions to be expressed in a tolerant atmosphere.

So we'll call the meeting to order and have a roll call.

Britt.

Here.

Holly.

Herman.

Ford.

Here.

Jones.

Here.

Here.

Reinhard?

Here.

Walker.

Here.

We do have a quorum.

Okay, so first thing is our consent agenda.

We need to approve the Planning Commission minutes for January 6th, 2026.

Do we have a motion?

So moved.

Okay.

Thank you.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

All those opposed?

None.

And then we'll move on to our public hearings.

We only have one this evening, CUP 257, a request for educational facilities, the college educational facilities, college and university use in the RD research and development district at 1701 Craft Drive.

We'll start with a staff presentation from Nick Baker.

Good evening, Madam Chair, members of the Planning Commission.

For your consideration tonight, is a request for an educational facility, college or university in the research and development zoning district.

The parcel is 4.448 acres and is currently vacant, but has utilized office and research use types in the past.

And just for context, in 2001, Blacksburg Town Council did approve a conditional use permit for VCOM located at 2265 Craft Drive, which is on the exact opposite end of Kraft Drive for the use of educational facilities, college and university, where they currently operate today.

Uses would include laboratories, research, lecture halls, and classroom space.

So the primary criteria for evaluation for this request includes its conformity to the comprehensive plan and the zoning ordinance while also having a minimum adverse impact on the surrounding neighborhood or community for zoning ordinance section 1181.

So here is an aerial view of the site within the research center.

Typical uses here include offices and laboratories and light industrial uses that have minimal external impacts and are compatible with surrounding land uses.

This mock-up, this little sketch that I did, it just is meant to show you that in the blue here, where this arrow is meant to indicate that the existing bike lane requirement has been satisfied along craft drive.

And then this arrow here and here, where the green dotted line is, will be where the proposed uh trail connection is called for in the map itself.

Uh going back to that really quickly, um, the applicants have submitted uh connections, and I will speak on that more when we get to the concept plan portion of the presentation.

Uh here's a street view of the front of the property taken from craft drive.

Uh, just to show you all its current state.

Uh the building itself is two stories and was most recently occupied by block one, which is a software development company.

So for our proposed development, uh the proposed development in front of us tonight, uh, it seeks to modify uh the current site to accommodate medical education use.

So, along with renovations of the existing building, the applicant is proposing a new two-story addition to the north side of the building, which would add a total of 16,200 square feet of new usable space.

The addition will be similar in architectural style and building materials used in the existing structure and will be consistent with other buildings within the corporate research center.

Access to the site will be provided from the existing entrance location on craft drive.

And existing parking will be expanded with additional spaces added to fit the expected increased operations from VCOM.

A new public sidewalk will be provided along Craft Drive, an internal sidewalks will be added to connect to the building, uh, the parking areas and an outdoor amenity space.

Uh the outdoor amenity space is proposed for an expansion at the rear of the building and would also serve as a connection point for the amenity center to connect to the view apartments.

The applicant is also proposing to add two new signs to the site via a special science district.

Um, and I will talk about that more later on.

But right now I just want to show you all that the submitted existing layout and concept plan that was submitted to us by the applicant, just to give you all a better idea of that big chunk of information I gave.

So here is the current existing uh conditions layout sheet submitted to us by the applicant.