I will call this meeting to order for the Harrisonburg Planning Commission for Wednesday, November 13th.

We have a quorum with all members present.

Wait, no.

But we are missing Vice Mayor Dent.

So we have a quorum with six members present.

Do we have any motions or corrections for last month's minutes?

I make the motion to approve the minutes.

October.

Aye.

Second.

We have a motion to approve the minutes from Vice Chair Byrd and a second from Commissioner Baugh.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Any abstentions?

All right.

Move ahead to there are no public hearings on tonight's agenda.

We will be moving right into item four A to consider a request to subdivide Port Republic Road for variances of the subdivision ordinance for Weston Park.

Okay, thank you very much.

Good evening.

So you all heard or those of you all who were on the planning commission had heard about Weston Park when the rezoning came to this body in early 2024, I think it was in March.

No, it would have been February, I think.

Um and so I'll walk through a little bit of background about the project and then uh talk about the specifics of the preliminary plat requests that we are considering this evening.

So this is a map, a zoning map of the site, and you can see it is currently zoned R8C, and then the land use guide map.

And then this is an aerial photo uh showing the development site with that area bounded in red.

These are some uh photos of the site as it exists today.

It's pretty much just a you know, you can see the the hills, um the the grade changes in and whatnot there, but it's mostly a field, and then there's a um structure in the middle of the property as well.

So a bit of background was that in April 2024, City Council had approved the rezoning of this property to R8C, the small lot residential district, um, and with conditions or proffers associated with it.

There were also uh special use permit associated with this project for town homes within the R8 district.

Um the special use permit condition uh that the applicant had uh suggested with that special use permit was that attached town homes, there would be no more than six units in a row of town homes.

Our ordinance allows up to eight units.

This is the concept plan that was submitted with the rezoning.

So again, as you all are aware, concept plans are not proffered except when a proffer statement references elements of the concept plan.

And so you'll see this concept plan reflected in the preliminary plat that I'm gonna uh show you in the next slides and talk you through so the preliminary plat this evening is to sub do a subdivision, and then there's also components of uh variances from the subdivision ordinance, but to talk first about what we are subdividing or creating lots for.

And then uh proposals for public street A and B, as well as a public street C at the in the top right corner uh across from uh Westmoreland Drive that I'll talk about in a little bit more detail.

The town homes for this project front along private streets, not along public streets.

So therefore there's a subdivision ordinance variance for parcels to not have public street frontage.

So the blue line there represents the private streets that would serve the townhomes within the development.

The other subdivision ordinance variants is associated with or the series of subdivision ordinance variants, or yeah, the subdivision ordinance variances.

The second request is for the subdivider to not construct public street C in the top corner of this property across from Westmoreland Drive.

So during the rezoning staff working with the applicant, and it was presented in the staff report, was that the applicant had proffered and committed to dedicating the right-of-way needed for a future extension of public street C so that it could serve future development to the north, so to the top of the page where there's vacant lands up there.

However, the applicant would not be responsible for it was acknowledged at the time that the applicant would not be responsible for constructing that.

Our subdivision ordinance requires that when somebody dedicates a public street, that they would, you know, the assumption is they would therefore follow with constructing the public street.

So in this case, the variance has to be requested so that they don't have to construct that.

So in brief, public street C will be dedicated at public as public right-of-way so that the future developer in the neighboring property could use public street C at a location that is aligned across from West Moreland Drive, which is a safe preferred location for that.

The remaining variances associated with this preliminary plat have to do with public street design standards.

And the there's a series of subdivision ordinance sections that I won't read them all out, but basically they reference the design and construction standards manual and says, you know, when you build a new public street, you are to dedicate it to the cross section that our design and construction standards manual requires.

Some of those are uh design requirements that are associated with vertical curves and um uh that with vertical curves and um horizontal curves associated with the streets, and so um our DCSM standards are uh a little bit more strict than what the VDOT Virginia Department of Transportation's requirements are.

Um so what they are going to design these streets to would be meet minimum standards of the VDOT requirements and public works department is has reviewed these and are comfortable with that.

Um the other deviations have to do with the width of public streets, um in brief the the width of the pavement, our DCSM requires a minimum of 15 feet, I believe is the minimum.

Yeah, 15-foot wide lanes.

Uh, and what the applicant is proposing to construct is 10 foot wide lanes where there would be no on-street parking allowed.

Um that also meets VDOT's minimum standards and is just less than what our city's design and construction standards manual uh would require as the default.

So staff is also comfortable with these deviations.

Um in the images there it shows the cross sections of the streets and then sidewalks on both sides of the public streets.

So they're gonna build everything else to standard.

The last uh variance request has to do with the end at Skylark Lane as it goes to the north.

Um, do the topography there.

Uh they are requesting a variance to allow the cul-de-sac to exceed what the DCSM requires in terms of like how flat that area is constructed, um, as they are considering, you know, that if they were to grade it to our DCSM's requirement of a 5% grade, it would create unnecessary amount of fill should the neighboring property want to connect.

So it's kind of balancing what you know uh the future needs are and to have that future connection into uh the adjoining property there.