I call the order this March 5th, 2026 meeting of the Leesburg Planet Commission.

Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

And to the Republic for which it stands.

Indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you.

But the record reflect tonight that we do have a quorum.

We are missing uh town council uh member uh Mr.

Seinberg and wish him all the best and our vice chair uh Mr.

McAfee uh work responsibilities tonight and thank you all right right on time all right do I hear a uh a motion to adopt the agenda as submitted?

So moved all in favor say aye.

Thank you.

The minutes from our February 19, 2026 meeting.

Do I have a motion to uh approve the minutes?

Are there any changes, corrections, or alterations?

Second, all in favor, and one to uh two abstentions and one absent.

Thank you.

All right, any disclosures we'll start with Commissioner Tuck.

None never.

All right.

Thank you.

Uh I don't have a statement tonight.

Uh petitioners, are there any petitioners who are signed up?

No one signed up.

All right.

Well, at any point, we're always open to to hear from the public.

Uh as it's not just our responsibility, it's always our pleasure uh to hear from the public.

So uh public hearings tonight.

Uh our work session tonight is uh zoning ordinance rewrite, uh staff response to commissioner questions.

I'll turn it over to Director David to lead us and his team uh in their response.

Thank you, sir.

Great.

Thank you very much, Chair Campbell.

Uh tonight is the eighteenth meeting that we've had, or 19th meeting we've had on the zoning ordinance rewrite.

The commission has certainly been putting in a lot of work and effort, it's been appreciated, and the draft of the rewrite has improved at as a result of all the work.

So as we come to the uh close of our work on the draft, we have asked the commissioners for questions and outstanding comments on the latest draft.

So we did receive uh some good questions and some good concerns, and we're planning to respond to those questions and concerns tonight as well as in the March 19th planning commission meeting.

So uh first off, we got some questions regarding attainable housing from Chair Campbell.

And uh Mr.

Campbell asked one of his colleagues, uh, Mr.

Cronenberg, who is a specialized developer in attainable housing, who's had some successful developments in Maryland, to take a look at our draft and uh pose some questions for us to to ponder as we think about are we really creating all the opportunities we can for attainable housing?

And he also presented his attainable housing concept.

So you had that attached to your agenda packet tonight.

So my read of this type of housing development is essentially low rise multifamily, and the way it was described in the materials is this is prefabricated housing, not to be confused with manufactured housing, which is more mobile homes, but prefabricated housing that is situated on a common lot, one big lot, and it's all attainable and it's for rent.

And the way it was described in the materials is this is prefabricated housing, not to be confused with manufactured housing, which is more mobile homes, but prefabricated housing that is situated on a common lot, one big lot, and it's all attainable and it's for rent.

And the materials specified that it does meet HUD code standards, and that it's an innovative new approach.

And you can see from some of these pictures here that there's duplexes and triplexes and some singles as well, and they're sometimes situated around a private court with private streets and parking out front.

And the idea here is it's another chance for folks to get into the marketplace at a lower price point.

So as we look through this materials, of course, we asked ourselves the question would something like this work with our current zoning regulations.

So I'm just going to go back up to the site plan as I talk through some of this.

And the answer is not exactly.

So we would have to try and fit it into more of like a townhouse or um almost like a nicer mobile home park setting.

And so, you know, our our analysis kind of proved that no, we really don't have the tools, the definitions to support something like this.

And so that was the first question that was posed by Mr.

Cronenberg.

However, the second question, how can implementation occur in a measured and precise manner?

Well, I think that's the question before us tonight to discuss that Chair Campbell is posing, which is what could we do in the zoning ordinance rewrite if the commission so desires to potentially open the door for this to happen?

So what staff discussed would be potentially to create an attainable housing development option in the zoning ordinance rewrite for a hundred percent attainable housing projects, and this development option would be drafted for these types of for-rent, low rise, multifamily prefab housing developments.

Now, without those individual lots oriented towards public streets, the development option would need to consider building separation requirements instead of setbacks, private roads that meet fire safety requirements, and also uh we'd need to create some other terms of art.

Perhaps we would define this type of housing product with a new unique term of art.