HomeMy Public PortalAbout2015_tcmin0714 COUNCIL MEETING July 14, 2015
Council Chambers, 25 West Market Street, 7:30 p.m. Mayor Umstattd presiding.
Council Members Present: Kelly Burk, David Butler, Thomas Dunn, Suzanne Fox, Katie
Sheldon Hammler, Marty Martinez and Mayor Umstattd.
Council Members Absent: None.
Staff Present: Town Manager Kaj Dentler, Deputy Town Manager Keith Markel, Town
Attorney Barbara Notar, Director of Parks and Recreation Richard Williams, Director of
Plan Review Bill Ackman, Director of Planning and Zoning Susan Berry Hill, Deputy
Director of Parks and Recreation Kate Trask, Police Captain Carl Maupin, Community
and Events Manager Linda Fountain, Preservation Planner Tom Scofield, and Executive
Associate Tara Belote.
AGENDA ITEMS
1. CALL TO ORDER
2. INVOCATION: Council Member Fox
3. SALUTE TO THE FLAG: Council Member Dunn
4. ROLL CALL: Showing all present.
5. MINUTES
a. Work Session Minutes of June 22, 2015
On a motion by Council Member Butler, seconded by Council Member Dunn, the
work session minutes of June 22, 2015 were approved by a vote of 7-0.
b. Regular Session Minutes of June 23, 2015
On a motion by Council Member Butler, seconded by Council Member Dunn, the
regular session minutes of June 23, 2015 were approved by a vote of 7-0.
6. ADOPTING THE MEETING AGENDA
On the motion of Council Member Martinez, seconded by Council Member Butler, the
meeting agenda was approved as presented, by the following vote:
Aye: Burk, Butler, Dunn, Fox, Hammier, Martinez and Mayor Umstattd
Nay: None
Vote: 7-0
7. PRESENTATIONS
a. Winner of the Patriot Cup
On a motion by Council Member Martinez, seconded by Council Member
Butler, the Patriot Cup for best Independence Day float was awarded to Loudoun
Fair and Associates, Loudoun 4H Clubs, and Loudoun Extension Service.
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b. Proclamation—25th Anniversary of Ida Lee Park Recreation Center
On a motion by Council Member Hammler, seconded by Council Member
Butler, the following was proclaimed and presented to Parks and Recreation
Commission Chair Rob Fulcer and Director of Parks and Recreation Rich Williams:
PROCLAMATION
Ida Lee Park Recreation Center
25th Anniversary
WHEREAS, in 1986, the Rust Family donated 138 acres, formerly known as
Greenwood Farm, to the Town of Leesburg for perpetual use as a public park to be
named in memory of Mr. Rust's grandmother, Ida Lee, in order to preserve the
historic link between the Lee family of Virginia and the Town of Leesburg; and
WHEREAS, construction of the Ida Lee Park Recreation Center began in the
fall of 1989 and was completed on July 14, 1990 when the doors were officially
opened to the public; and
WHEREAS, in 2002 the Ida Lee Park Recreation Center underwent an
expansion, essentially doubling its size in order to meet the growing recreational
demands of the Leesburg community; and
WHEREAS, since the time of the Rust families generous donation, the Town
of Leesburg has gone to great lengths to improve the recreational opportunities
available to its citizens through the use of Ida Lee Park; and
WHEREAS, on July 14th, 2015 the Ida Lee Park Recreation Center will
celebrate 25 years of serving the community.
THEREFORE, the Mayor and Town Council of the Town of Leesburg, in
Virginia, congratulates the Department of Parks and Recreation on 25 years of
providing quality recreation facilities and programs at the Ida Lee Park Recreation
Center to the residents of the Town of Leesburg.
PROCLAIMED this 14th day of July, 2015.
c. Environmental Advisory Commission Watershed Plans
Environmental Advisory Commission Chair Joe Sanchez and Commission
Member Neely Law gave a brief presentation on the Watershed Subcommittee's
plans.
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Key Points:
• Seeking Council support for the watershed plan.
• The town, as part of its mission does have goals and objectives to preserve
and improve the environment as it grows.
• Within that framework, Total Maximum Daily Load(TMDL)requirements
must be met.
• TMDL requirements were designed to protect the health of the streams, the
Potomac River(our biggest drinking water source) and the Chesapeake Bay.
• A proactive, strategic plan is important to develop the necessary
infrastructure.
• Three watersheds in town—Tuscarora Creek, Cattail Branch, and Big Spring.
• Headwater streams are the smallest drainage areas (less than 10 square miles).
• Chesapeake Bay drainage watershed is 64,000 square miles encompassing
multiple states.
• Increasing impervious surfaces cause water to flow more swiftly into stream
channels which in turn causes erosion.
• Best management practices try to capture the run off and slow it down.
• Rip-rap or stone can help eliminate erosion, but stormwater management
ponds hold water and allow sediment to filter out before entering the stream
channel.
• About 7% of the Public Works budget is dedicated to repairing stormwater
problems.
• Chesapeake Bay TMDL regulations created additional requirements for
jurisdictions in the watershed.
• By adopting the suggested resolution, the town is accepting and furthering the
town plan objectives of adopting a watershed approach that will treat the
source of the problems, rather than the symptoms.
8. PETITIONERS
The Petitioner's Section was opened at 7:50 p.m.
Tami Bredow, 42815 Delphinium Circle. "I have been a volunteer for the Loudoun
County Volunteer Rescue Squad since 2008. I would like to actually give up my time to
Tony Mino."
Tony Mino, 706 Evard Court, SW. "I am the operational chief of Loudoun County
Volunteer Rescue Squad. What we wanted to come here and talk to you all about tonight is
something that is basically our expansion and our desires, our plans with regards to the
rescue squad building facility and how that relates to the skate park property and the sand
lot next door to us. We have talked to a number of you in a number of instances and we felt
it was probably time to talk to all of you at once so you can all hear the same message. We
realize this doesn't come up for vote for another few weeks, but thought it was a good
opportunity tonight to talk about this—give you all an opportunity to either ask questions
this evening or generate questions and have us come back prior to that vote and hit home
whatever issues or thoughts you might have for us. Okay, so our goal tonight, like I said, is
to talk about the skate park and where we want to go with that. The bottom line, I put it
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right in front, the first part of this chart is to obtain both the skate park lot and the sand lot.
Both of those lots that are immediately adjacent to us at no cost to us. We will talk more
about that as we go along. Now, reason being, there are two things key to this. We are
landlocked right now. We need to expand out our facility in order to meet community
needs and operational needs. Obviously obtaining land allows us to do that. It allows us to
add parking that we are already currently space limited on. Operationally, back to my job,
operationally we are a rescue squad that has kind of evolved into two groups. Talk to Chief
from Frederick County—Chief Owens last week and one of his comments was everything
around us is changing and we need to evolve with it. Looking back to—not here, but in
rural Connecticut in 1984, what we were then is certainly not what we are now. Likewise
some of the people who have been here early on when Loudoun Rescue started, what we
were then is not what we are now. So, we want to be able to expand to meet these
operational needs. We also looked at working the skate park people. Obviously, the first
line is we want their property or we want their access. Well, yeah we do, but we don't want
to displace them at the same time. We want to work with them and try to figure out what is
the best solution for all of us. Again, we will talk more about that as we go through all this.
The bottom line—we are trying, I think we have identified a win-win situation for all parties
involved. Just a little bit of history. Loudoun Rescue was one of the first rescue squads to
form in Loudoun County back in 1952. Twelve members, one vehicle and a few calls a
year. That grew and grew. Very, very basic levels of equipment. Very, very basic levels of
training and that is the way it all started. Since then, things have changed. Like I said a few
moments ago. Training has advanced. Training requirements have been levied upon us.
We certainly have more equipment now. There is more technology available to us that we
need to be able to house and use and train on. From a crew standpoint itself, we need more
people for the job. So, building and housing equates to people. We need to accommodate
that. What hasn't changed over time is the commitment of these folks behind us here.
Some of these folks have been doing it far longer than I. Some spend a lot less time than I,
but the commitment of people behind the scenes to do the volunteer EMS and rescue job is
kind of why we are standing here today. Our motto is right up there in the middle—when
you need us, we are there. It really is. That is kind of why I am standing here today and
why we do what we do. When we first started out—like I said, we were the first rescue
squad. We were combined with what now is Hamilton Rescue. So, our name, Loudoun
Rescue is because we were the first squad in Loudoun. We kind of just kept that name as
we have gone. So, a bit about our history. We consider ourselves a town of Leesburg EMS
or emergency services organization. We consider ourselves that now and want to continue
doing that as we go forward. Just briefly, our relationship with the town—some of this is
probably old news. We have been here for 52 years. The Council provided some funding
1979. That continues to go on today. We talked about that a few weeks back. The land
parcel that we are currently on, the town sold us that for I believe it was $10 back in the 73.
Again, that no cost thing that we were talking about earlier—the town gave us the parcel. It
reverts back to the town if we were to leave it. Leave that building or not to provide rescue
services out of it. So, we have the lifetime lease agreement that reverts back to the town
should we do that. In 1975, the building was occupied. Like I said, it was designed to
handle the calls at the time, 500 to 1000 calls. We are not there any longer. We are
climbing over 4500 calls a year. What started as serving our needs doesn't any longer.
Early on, it housed three to five pieces of equipment. Now we have 12 plus others in
station. We provide the rescue 911 services here. We also provide coverage for a lot of the
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Leesburg events like 4th of July at Ida Lee and things like that. So, again, we have been and
continue to want—will continue to be a town asset. Current issues—some of this is similar
to what we have talked about already. In the 80s, we expanded our building. It met the
needs at the time. Mid 2000, a year or two after I came to Leesburg, the station was
undergoing expansion. It did expand it out. In the 2000s, we expanded back. We added
one bay. We also extended forward as close to the street, I think, as we could go to add
some living space, office space, and things like that. We really can't go left to right. We
have north and south, whatever direction you want to call it because of the car wash and the
current skate park. We currently are, obviously space limited. One of the things that just
recently came to fruition is the heavy rescue truck that has been at Fire and Rescue almost
forever. The county is going to relocate that, company 20 to Leesburg Fire. They are doing
that at our request because we don't have the space available, not necessarily just to house
the truck but to bring the crew in. We need to have additional crew. Whether it be paid or
career crew or volunteers, we don't have space to house those crew members. We don't
have bunk room space, we don't have locker space. We could squeeze them in, but that's
not the right answer. So, as a result of the space limitations, operational impact of it is we
are relocating—or the county is relocating that truck. The desire is to eventually bring it
back to us. That's a few years down the pike when we can accommodate the needs of those
additional crew members and things like that. So, increasing call levels, increasing
technology, increasing things that we need to do as an organization is kind of where we are
at. You know, 4400, 45-55 calls last year. We continue to see that growing around 10
percent a year. That kind of ebbs and flows. The facility that we are in currently does not
support our needs. What we are going to talk about next is what is our rationale? Why do
we want the skate park? What other analysis have we done to get into why that's the best
facility for us and what we think are some good options for the skate park. I am going to
turn over the remainder of my time to Lt. Skinner, who will kind of go through the rest of
these".
Doug Skinner 430 West Market Street. "It is funny,just stating it and going
through...the analysis of the cost process was my part to put into it. We started looking at
the cost factors that would go to an expansion or an addition which is about 3-4 million as
we took it upon ourselves as a non-profit organization to do that. We looked at it also if a
new station needed to be built. A new station is going to need more acreage than where we
currently have and the cost of about$25 million plus dollars is because we also look at it at
the county is mostly be [inaudible] we would have to go to them to bond it and then we are
going to have to pay it back over time. The average station right now, the size of ours or
bigger than where we need to go, about 25,000 square feet, you are talking about$25
million, is what you are looking at to obtain land, build. The expansion, as we take the
project in order for the lenders updating the loans and fit it within our operational budget to
pay back the mortgages, the operational budget funding comes from, as we already know,
we talked to you guys about our funding before, the county, the town, and fundraisers.
Okay? We do that. We did it before for our current building now and for the expansions
that we have had. The additional piece is paying for the new station, the new location and
due to the high cost, I don't think we are going to be able to come close - $25 million—we
are not going to be able to finance that. We would turn around and ask county to take over
that cost of the project. The location— [inaudible] cost factor. The location is another thing
we looked at and you will see her in a second, the rationale for our current station location
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in the middle of response area that is Loudoun County Volunteer Rescue's cover, which we
call first due and therefore provides the most rapid response. Everybody, and guess what?
The first due is the town. The town of Leesburg, very specifically. There is a little bit on the
outreaches that we do. Loudoun County response standards based on the suburban zone,
BOS is 10 minutes and ALS 10 minutes, 80 percent of the time. We at company 613, which
is Loudoun Rescue Squad average 7 minutes response to scene from time of call. The
national, which is the American Heart Association train of survival, outline actually how
we do the response along with NFDA for [inaudible]. The American Heart bases it on
cardiac arrest, CPR needs and people having cardiac events. The sooner we get there, the
better chance people have to live. So, you are seeing a 7 minute response time from that
location on the average throughout the whole district and really more than 80 percent of the
time. That is our whole average over all our calls. This is the actual map showing our
response area. We are station 613 or 136 and our primary response area. It is right in the
middle. Catoctin Circle. We looked around to other spots. We looked at other pieces of
property that we would be able to put a building on the size that we need. And this area, in
the Catoctin area, especially the Crescent area and everything else in this part of the town,
you are talking maybe we have to move out to the airport area. Something like that, which
would take us out of that response area that makes us right in the middle. So, it is very hard
to find it. It is also the cost factor. The cost factor of the piece of land. Right now, you are
looking at a piece of land—the one we are on currently with our building—the building is
estimated over about$2 million and the land is estimated over $1.2 million, the land and the
property improvement so you are talking about other people's land you would have to
purchase and the cost factor. Our plan was, is and has been set in place. We have looked at
it extensively, we have analyzed everything and put it through is obtain the skate park at no
cost because like we are talking to some of the staff and other people they are coming back
with us about$200,000 and move things and all that, but it is the funding, we have to go
find that or mortgage it also. Under the lifelong agreement we currently have with the
building that sits there now with the town. Expand the current building and services,
provide parking for the rescue station. Work with the engineer and the architectural firm,
fire and rescue services, of course, because they are going to have some say with what we
are putting there and we agree with 99% of what they are talking to us about so with the
expansion and structure. Obtain low interest loans to pay for the expansion and one of the
options is to go back to the revolving loan process at the county also so we have talked to
them. Build to expand services to meet community need. We have a nonprofit public
partnership that we have had and continues. It is, you know, nonprofit. The public entities
work very well together and usually save some good money overall. [inaudible] the current
skate park and where does it go? We looked at this and went to the meeting. We went to
the skate park meeting with the designer. We sat there, myself and Tami Bredow and
[inaudible]. We just listened. It was great to listen. The thing is, we think it really needs to
go to Ida Lee Park. The gentleman who sat here earlier tonight, from the park commission.
It is your model. It is the thing that stands out in the community—Ida Lee Park. You have
a good piece of land there and allows for a future park expansion. These people at the skate
park, they want to expand it. They want to go out and make money, hand it to the town
like they did when they first built the skate park to expand their skate park. It was like when
Mr. Clem and that group was in here sitting here at this Board and said okay, let's vote for
$40,000. [inaudible] and they said to Mr. Clem and that board they said we are going to
pay you back that money and they did in three months. [inaudible] these kids are saying it
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again and it ain't just the kids. There are some kids that are grown up our age now that are
doing that. That's what they said [inaudible] about. [inaudible] is sitting back there smiling
because we watched generations change. Young kids and older. So, they really looked at it.
It is a positive constituent service being out there and allows the better use of the park
control center. You already have people out there. You have to hire more people to be
down there on Catoctin Circle versus out at Ida Lee. That is a savings for you people right
here. Our town. There is staff already at Ida Lee right there that can handle it additionally.
It is on your property and you have staffing right there. You don't have to have separate
staffing, okay? What's the impact if the town moves the skate park to Ida Lee and gives the
property to us? It is very positive. It is a win-win. Okay? We move the skate park to Ida
Lee—you've got everything above. It provides ability to the rescue squad to meet the
community emergency services growth needs and then the opposite is going to be a costly
affair because the opposite when you look at it or not as a town park or a county part, it is
still going to affect our taxpayers either way. What is the impact? The town moves the skate
park and provides us with adjacent property is very [inaudible] in our analysis we looked at
it. Skate park has no future expansion capability if you leave it there, it is going to be kind
of hard. The skate park does not have logistical support like Ida Lee Staff. We have to go
and turn over and go through the county about obtaining land and asking them to build a
new station because the cost is going to be outside our revenue capability. Land availability
would likely change our first due area. We are going to end up somewhere else so that
response time of 7 minutes is going to go down. The town is going to have to pay us out for
that land. Under the agreement that we have, it says that we leave that piece of property,
you are going to have to buy us out at market value to get that piece of property back.
Market value is the agreement. Market value on that property is about$2 million is going to
cost the town again something out of it. So that's another cost factor that is negative.
Obtaining that current skate park lot and the sand lot is our overall goal. Let me restate this.
To continue to provide timely, quality emergency services—EMS and rescue for the town of
Leesburg while also standing to meet the 50 year needs looking forward investment for
everybody involved. We are talking$3-4 million to do that to expand on that lot. If we are
talking elsewhere, we are talking$25 plus million, so we are working with the skate park
community to help them because we listened to them. We are asking the question, we put a
thing up on their facebook to ask if they want to come to Ida Lee. What did they say about
that? Is it all positive, pretty much and that's what we are looking at. In regards to location
of the park, it is going to be a positive for them. We look at this and they have done—for 52
years working for the town plus, we want to continue to do that and provide you with the
services. Our people who work in our volunteer group believe it or not. They have other
jobs. They are educated people. We look at this. A lot of us have time and [inaudible] put
into this as volunteers. We don't get paid to do this. Including things like this in the
analysis. They have got the technology to put it together and bring it to you to show the
positives and negatives. It is just like when Mr. [inaudible] and his staff put something
together. They do the same thing—positives and negatives. We do the same thing sitting
there at our meetings. We are here to show that and give you our presentation of how the
[inaudible] get that piece of land to move forward with our expansion. You had copies of
this sent to you. There is back up material that is all connected to show things to you—our
mission as it goes. If you have any questions, myself and various members of our
department and our board members are here too."
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Monica Lopez "Good evening to all. I am Monica Lopez. I am here to support
Andrew Borgquist's position. For that reason, I yield my time to him".
Andrew Borgquist "To start off on a different note, before I begin on what I came
here to speak about,just goes to the skate park that is something I find interesting too.
Sounds like a pretty good plan to me. As an avid skater still, I skated Lake Fairfax skate
park now. I don't really frequent the town of Leesburg park anymore, but I remember very
vividly when I first became a town employee back in 1999 and I found out—because at that
time you guys charged for the skate park. As a town employee, I could use the skate park
for free. I was ecstatic. So, I do hope you guys will put another one in and I think that one
at Ida Lee Park would be [inaudible]. But, anyways, I am here on a much issue that I have
been speaking about on many, many occasions. So, with that in mind, I will continue to
speak on that issue. Madam Mayor and Council members approximately five years ago, I
visited this Council Chamber for the first time. I was here to receive a service award for ten
years of service within the town of Leesburg. Shortly after that time, I became aware of
something within the town of Leesburg that I thought we could do better on. I wrote up a
letter to the Council describing the situation and what I thought would be a better way to do
things in this particular situation. Prior to sending the letter to the council, I brought it to my
direct supervisor, Jay Allred and asked for his opinion. He read the letter and advised me
against sending it. He commented that a Council member might not appreciate my
comments on the situation since I was a bit critical in one part of the letter. Not necessarily
of the council, but just of the policy that was in place for this particular thing. He advised
me that my job could be lost over the letter. I remember it so clearly because I responded
that this does not seem right—that the Council could not possibly be so petty as to fire me
over the letter, especially since I felt I had a very valid and reasonable point to make. Mr.
Allred advised me that I needed to remember that Virginia is an employment at will state
and that I could be fired for any reason including no reason at all. This bothered me at the
time, but I decided it was best to stay quiet. I never sent the letter. This was about five
years ago. So, fast forward to now. This was also the first time that I took note of the
employment policy of the town of Leesburg. I had never really thought about it much
before and honestly after some time did not think much about it again. Let me read for you
again the excerpt from the Supreme Court decision regarding free speech for employees
employed by public entities. I read this previously but I wanted to read it again real quick.
So, again this was from a case that was decided—excerpts from Justice Thurgood Marshall
of the Supreme Court Rankin vs. McPherson "vigilance is necessary to ensure that public
employers do not use authority over employees to silence discourse not because it hampers
the public functions but simply because superiors disagree with the content of employee
speech. One of the other things that had been noted in various decisions involving this over
the years has been that the court has also said "the threat of dismissal from public
employment is a potent means of inhibiting speech". So, with that in mind and again this
isn't necessarily the main central theme to what I am talking about because ultimately
whether the issue that I have been bringing up whether, you know, something is legal versus
not legal, it is more about the policies and procedures in place to ensure that what happens
is supposed to happen be it legal or just good management practices. So, anyways, not too
long ago at a Council meeting, I asked you about employees voicing concerns—this is
[inaudible] Madam Mayor. I recall that you commented that you would not answer the
question but then added, of course, that I always have the right to free speech. Well,
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Madam Mayor, your words ring hollow and untrue. Your statement is an empty promise
because as I was warned five years the Town of Leesburg may terminate an employee for
voicing concerns simply because they disagree with the content. As I have learned from my
most recent experience with management, the town of Leesburg has absolutely no
accountability whatsoever with respect to adverse employment actions. Mr. Williams,
director of parks and recreation, took adverse employment action against me for words and
actions that occurred on my own time, outside of work and that clearly have little or no
bearing on my employment within the town of Leesburg. Furthermore and worse yet, my
disagreement with the Leesburg Police Officer was not over whether I was [inaudible]. I
disagreed with the actions of the Leesburg police officer and chose to comment on the
actions indicating I did not agree with. The officer in question would have a strong and
obvious motive to suppress my comments since they may have been reflected negatively on
him. When I voiced my disagreement, I noted that I was also a Town of Leesburg
employee—a decision I have since learned gave the officer in question a clear line of action
to retaliate against me for the comment on his actions. Mr. Williams asked to meet with me
due to my choice to voice my concern. In a meeting with Mr. Williams and Mr. Allred
present, I was told that I was being suspended indefinitely. I asked if Mr. Williams was
aware of my disagreement with the Leesburg police officer and Mr. Williams refused to
answer. It also appears to specifically named what it was that I had done wrong. Mr.
Williams advised me that I did not need to say anything. Mr. Williams noted that per
Virginia employment law, he could fire me for any reason including no reason at all. In his
words, the meeting was just a courtesy. Does this sound like someone doing the right thing?
To me it doesn't. Not knowing what it was specifically that I was being accused of having
done, I described the events as I remembered.them because I felt that I should not be
suspended. Mr. Williams noted his disagreement with my choice to voice my concern with
the Leesburg police officer's actions. Mr. Williams also noted that he did not agree with my
comments. In Mr. Williams' opinion, voicing my disagreement with the actions of the
Leesburg police officer made me, and I quote "a smartass". In fairness to Mr. Williams, he
quickly corrected himself to say "smartaleck", but regardless. I defended my position and
insisted it is going to be reasonably determined that it was necessary for me to voice my
concern. I left the meeting with Mr. Williams' assurance that I was only being suspended
and could try to have the suspension lifted at an unspecified future time with no direction as
to any action I could take that would lift the suspension. Mr. Allred, with the approval of
Mr. Williams terminated me the very next day without notice. Madam Mayor, I object to
Mr. Williams opinions of my comments. Furthermore, I disagree with and reject the
adverse action taken against me. I also disagree with and wish to complain about the
manner in which the action was taken, which clearly indicates a significant deviation from
the stated employment policy of the town of Leesburg. Madam Mayor and Council
Members. I do believe there is a certain argument that could be made that at best the
actions of Mr. Williams represent poor judgement and management and at worst the actions
of Mr. Williams represent a hostile and retaliatory environment against employees that
chose to voice concerns and create an environment where free speech may be suppressed
and other federally protected rights may be violated through unaccountable adverse
employment actions. So, I have been coming and petitioning Council to do something and
hold management accountable and not let this be the way the Town of Leesburg operates.
For the record, I have been trying to speak to Mr. Dentler about this and he has continued
to refuse to meet with me to discuss this issue. And Mr. Dentler, as town manager, inaction
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is just as significant as action. Though it is true, you do not make the decision you also did
nothing and refused to speak to me when I tried to bring this concern to you. I believe this
is unacceptable. How much time do I have left? Oh, okay. So, I guess what I would like to
know is—obviously I have said some pretty strong things here and you know I would like to
get some resolution in this and I know it is a somewhat complicated and thorny issue with
actually getting something done, but what is it I need to do? I would very much welcome a
meeting with Mr. Dentler to discuss this issue because I do believe and as I am saying strong
things that would probably be better discussed in private, but I had no choice but to come to
these meetings because I have no access I mean other than coming and speaking to the
Council Members and speaking to you, but I would say that management has made it very
clear that you know, and from the beginning I mean I was treated—I think we could, you
know, sometimes you could say like contempt might not be too strong a word of how I was
treated. I could read to you the letter that I have from Mr. Wells after my meeting with him
and I just—I am a little bit flabbergasted the way the town of Leesburg has behaved over
this and as someone who has worked for the town for what would have been going on 15
years—I worked for 14 1/2 years ever since I was 16 years old, I am very sad and
disappointed to see the Town of Leesburg do this. I really think that there could be a
reasonable and productive conversation that could be had about how we could do better
because I just don't see how this is good management. I don't see how this is the right way
to do things. So, you have got my number and my email. I am open to meet with you at
any time you should choose to do so."
The Petitioner's Section was closed at 8:20 p.m.
9. APPROVAL OF THE CONSENT AGENDA
On a motion by Council Member Martinez, seconded by Vice Mayor Burk, the following items
were moved for approval as the Consent Agenda:
a. Approving a Northern Virginia Transportation Authority(NVTA)Standard
Agreement for the Route 15 Bypass/Edwards Ferry Road Interchange Project
RESOLUTION 2015-079
Approving the Standard Agreement with the Northern Virginia Transportation
Authority for Fiscal Year 2016 Funding of the Route 15 Bypass at Edwards Ferry
Road Interchange Project
b. Approving a Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) Urban Project
Construction Agreement for the Route 15 Bypass/Edwards Ferry Road Interchange
Project
RESOLUTION 2015-080
Urban Project Construction Agreement with the Virginia Department of
Transportation to Authorize that Agency to Administer the Route 15 Bypass/Edwards
Ferry Interchange Project
c. Approving an Agreement with the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT)for
Primary Extensioni Paving
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COUNCIL MEETING July 14, 2015
RESOLUTION 2015-081
Authorizing the Town Manager to Execute an Administrative Agreement with the
Virginia Department of Transportation for Fiscal Year 2016 Primary Extension
Paving Program Funding
d. Awarding a Contract for Comprehensive Engineering, Architectural, Surveying and
Related Services
RESOLUTION 2015-082
Awarding Continuing Services Contracts for Comprehensive Engineering,
Architectural, Surveying and Related Services
e. Remote Participation
MOTION 2015-008
I move to allow Council Member Butler to remotely participate in the Council Work
Session and Meeting of July 27 and 28, 2015
Aye: Burk, Butler, Fox, Dunn, Hammier, Martinez, and Mayor Umstattd
Nay: None
Vote: 7-0
10. PUBLIC HEARINGS
a. Appeal of the Board of Architectural Review Decision: Demolition of Homes
on Edwards Ferry Road, N.E.
The public hearing was opened at 8:23 p.m.
This is an appeal by the County of Loudoun on the Board of Architectural
Review's final decisions on TLHP 2014-0115, TLHP 2014-0116, TLHP 2014-0117,
and 2014-0118, which authorized partial demolition of structures owned by the
County located at 106, 108, 110, and 112 Edwards Ferry Road, N.E.
Procedure for the BAR Appeal Public Hearing is as follows:
1. The preservation planner for the town will give an introduction and present
his staff report.
2. The County will present its appeal.
3. The BAR will make its presentation.
4. There will be an opportunity for county rebuttal, if the county wishes to take
it.
5. The Council may take additional testimony from the County or the BAR.
6. Public Comment.
Tom Scofield: Preservation planner for the Department of Planning and
Zoning. I present to you, summary of the 11 meetings that transpired beginning
August 4, 2014 with a courtesy presentation by Loudoun County and following up
with the application submitted in November when the public hearing started by the
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Board of Architectural Review in December of 2014 with a conclusion May 18,
2015. The certified records as presented to you by the Board of Architectural Review
— 1375 pages. I promise my presentation will not be that long, but I do want to cover
some bases in regards to the BAR's review. You probably recall this diagram—the
options were presented to you in 2014 with input requested of you. On August 4,
2014, the design team presented its concepts for the new district courthouse to the
Board of Architectural Review. This design alternative concept#3, was selected and
that was the basis for conceptual elevations. Submitted at the August 4 presentation
was a footprint of the proposed county building, indicated here with this red x and
the four historic buildings on Edwards Ferry Road indicated by the red outlines
along here. At that time, five different elevations were presented to the BAR. This is
Concept 1, Concept 2, Concept 3, Concept 4 and Concept 5. Comments from the
BAR at the August 4 meeting provided to the Courthouse design team. A somewhat
[inaudible] challenge to convince this body that demolition of all four building was
justified and an absolute necessity. Currently that argument is now being seen. The
very least is a compromise position exploring the idea of keeping portions of one or
more of the four houses. Alternative solutions to the stormwater management
needed to be considered. This is a backdrop of one of the historic houses being
served to mitigate the size and scale of the new courthouse along Edwards Ferry.
The concept currently represents a stark change from the existing courts campus to
the historic fabric of Edwards Ferry—it's a large object. There is a lot in alternative
five that positively reflects the guidelines from [inaudible] gables and a three part
configuration. Courthouse Square was specifically cited at the time for a review
method in process. Significant modifications were made during the work session
before Courthouse Square resulting in unanimous approval by the BAR. The BAR
stated they were willing to hold those special meetings as needed, at the time. So,
serial applications were submitted on November 17, 2014 for the four houses
indicated here in this photograph on Edwards Ferry Road. Here is an image from
the.Certificate of Appropriateness application. As you can see, it shows the existing
courthouse campus along Market Street with massing option#3, shown as
previously viewed by the BAR and the Town Council. An additional image
provided in the November 17 application was this footprint of the proposed
courthouse building showing these red, kind of egg crate type structures here. This
was, at the time, denotes the stormwater treatment facilities that would be needed for
the courthouse project. Also a wide view of underground utilities are also being
noted at this time. In concept 5D was presented. This was not from the earlier list of
concepts. This is a modified concept that was submitted to the Board of
Architectural Review and it was submitted on February 2 once the public hearing
was opened and the application was under review. So, the procedure for review of
demolition requests is on a case by case basis. The BAR is to evaluate whether or
not the demolition of any primary building will have a detrimental effect on the
immediate context of the Old and Historic District. And there is a three part test that
is basically provided in the Old and Historic District design guidelines. The first
criterion is regarding historic significance and architectural integrity. Is the building
designated historic in the architectural survey? The resulting answer to that is yes,
for all four buildings. Our historic inventory conducted in 1999 identified all four
buildings as historic. So, in regards there is kind of a part B aspect of criterion
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number one, historic significance and architectural integrity—if the answer to the
first question is yes, then is it a resource that contributes to the historical significance
and architectural integrity of the property, neighborhood, and historic district? A
property is considered to be noncontributing if it does not have or retain the integrity
of any of the following and here are seven criterion to be used and were reviewed by
the BAR for all four of these buildings. The BAR does have the ability to determine
whether a building is contributing or noncontributing when demolition is requested.
So, here are the four buildings on Edwards Ferry Road. This blue line denotes the
property boundary of the county owned parcel. As you can see, the county parking
area behind the four buildings— one, two, three and four. This is 106, 108, 110, and
112. Just a brief summary on the background of these four buildings— 106 Edwards
Ferry Road was definitely built by 1875 as far as we know. There may be evidence
that it may predate the Civil War and constructed 1954. It is a framed, vernacular
style building with Italianate architectural style influences. By 1874, the house on
this lot is purchased by the Slack family. At 108 Edwards Ferry Road, we definitely
know it was constructed in its current form by 1935, but it appears there may be a
portion of this house that may have been constructed as early as 1889, not exactly
certain. This house would be characterized as a framed vernacular house and by
1880, a house on this lot is occupied by the Slack family. At 110 Edwards Ferry
Road, constructed circa 1860—this portion of the house right here and earlier one
room over one room type structure—very vernacular. Similar to other homes in
town. Additions—substantial additions were added in 1890 and 1910. It is a
framed, vernacular style building with Queen Anne influences. By 1876, this house
was owned by the Slack family. So for 112 Edwards Ferry Road, N.E. —this
building right here—this is constructed—a brick portion of this, the brick first floor
was constructed circa 1813 —sometime between 1813 and 1820. A major frame
addition including the second floor you see in this photograph and the rear alley was
added circa 1875. This building is of the Federal architectural style. This was
purchased by Elizabeth Snyder in 1857, who was a sister of Catherine Slack and this
building was occupied by the Slack family. So, you get kind of a pattern going on
here—the Slack's owned for over 100 years most of these buildings. In regards to
112 Edwards Ferry Road—the brick first floor—it's construction date only 10
percent of the 513 contributing buildings in Leesburg's historic district are older than
this building. Buildings of the federal style typically built between 1780 and 1830
comprise about 10 percent of the contributing resources in the historic district. The
federal style is one of the primary character defining attributes in the Leesburg
historic district. The Leesburg National Register nomination identifies this building
at 112 Edwards Ferry Road as a representative example of federal style urban form
dwellings in the historic district. In addition, the original masonry porch on the
building is contemporary with the Bank of the Valley building shown on the right
here. It is on the County courthouse property. The Harrison House at 19 East
Market constructed circa 1820 and the Harrison law office right on the corner of
Church Street—you probably all recognize this building here. They are all
contemporary with 112 Edwards Ferry Road. The Slack family, an Irish immigrant
family—kind of a classic American story—comes to Leesburg in 1857. Four
generations of the Slack family lived or owned these buildings over time. A Slack
Lane, as you know in town here is named after the Slack family. Edward Slack was
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a prominent furniture dealer and undertaker in the town. So, it is associated with
kind of an up and coming, emerging family that some—it's not George Washington
or Lafayette or anything like that, but it is a family that definitely made their way in
Leesburg in all these four houses for over 100 years. The 1854 Yardley-Taylor Map
shows two properties in the vicinity of this area—right here. The 1878 map of
Leebsurg—by 1878, there are four buildings now on these different properties,
[inaudible] Slack is identified as the building over here—there is a small building at
108, here is 110 and here is 112— 112 was at one time part of a much larger parcel of
land, as you can see associated with this property here. As of the 1899 Sanborn Fire
Insurance Map provided by the Balch Library shows these four buildings. Sanborn
maps are wonderful historic tools. They show a very detailed configuration of
precise dimension and the number of floors. In 1899, here are all four buildings with
associated outbuildings that are long gone. As you can see, each building sits on an
individual lot at the time. By 1930, the Slack family, which owned all of these
buildings consolidated all of these three and 112 stays separately under a separate
parcel ownership. I don't know exactly the reason, but that was the condition in
1930 as shown in the Fire Insurance Maps prepared by the Sanborn Company. So,
taking into account historical significant, the BAR reviewed the various factors with
a look at the integrity of the property. The four buildings are obviously in
association, owned by the Slack family on this land parcel. Edwards Ferry Road,
these buildings play an important role on Edwards Ferry Road. Edwards Ferry
Road represents a really interesting cross section in town. These four buildings
represent the earliest residential construction— 112 Edwards Ferry Road being one of
the brick front portion is part of the first annexation beyond the Nickels-Minor
subdivision as part of a tract of land added in 1812—the house was built soon
thereafter and it becomes one of the first houses along Edwards Ferry Road and then
as Edwards Ferry Road progresses, we have the wonderful timeline of construction.
These houses tend to be 19th century. These are earlier 20th century and these are
around the mid-20th century. So, it is a wonderful little timeline that we see along
Edwards Ferry Road that extends well beyond the historic district in terms of just
architecture in town. Also, important to note is Dodona Manor—right here. I
thought that the Loudoun County Heritage Commission brought up an interesting
point here that as our early national historic landmark in the boundaries of the Town
of Leesburg, that George C. Marshall and his wife, these buildings kind of represent
a context that George C. Marshall would have known at the time that he lived at
Dodona Manor. So, here are the buildings along Edwards Ferry Road. Here is 106,
108, 10, 12 and you can just make out 114— 114 is not a part of this application
process. It is privately held, but is definitely part of that streetscape. These five
buildings, four of them as you can definitely see are very close to the street type
streetscape along Edwards Ferry Road. In regards to the historic district, here is a
map that shows the brown shading is the old and historic district that is locally
designated. This dotted line denotes the national register historic district. As you
can see, the national register is not exactly coterminous with the old and historic
district—there is a larger area covered in the brown by the old and historic district.
When you look in detail at this corner of the historic district—in blue is the land
parcel where the courthouse is to be constructed. As you can see, the four houses
right here on Edwards Ferry Road—we applied for a grant to try to evaluate the
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period significance—the period significance in the historic district ends in 1950.
Now that we have 50 years of the old and historic district, we can potentially extend
it into 1960. We applied for a grant to explore expanding that boundary. That
would also take another look at the National Historic District. If these four houses
are demolished it is very likely in that boundary adjustment—this is a
noncontributing structure—that the historic boundary would likely change because
the historic national register historic district boundary—not the historic local district
—would be adjusted probably if these buildings go away because we no longer have
contributing properties here. So, that is a potential impact that is represented in these
demolition applications that I think is worthy of note and consideration and was
considered by the BAR in the review.
So, back up—procedure for review of demolition requests. Quite currently,
historic significance and architectural integrity. Is it a resource that contributes to the
historical significance and architectural integrity of the property—of the
neighborhood, of the historic district. The applicant has stated that they will not
contest this finding. In the presentation provided in February, this is a slide taken in
that presentation. As you can see, the county is not contesting the historical status of
these buildings. This is also a copy of a letter included in their application package
that their historic preservation consultant basically said that these buildings should
remain as contributing properties and their status should not be disputed. So,
criterion 2, if the answer to criterion 1 is yes, which it is, then is the building in a
structurally sound, weather-tight condition. To document the building's physical
condition, the BAR may ask the applicant for a site visit, the testimony of expert
witnesses, and/or a structural engineering report. A site visit was held on January
16, 2015. The buildings appear in sound condition and two of the four buildings—at
least at the time were in use and occupied. Testimony of expert witnesses state that
the buildings are in sound condition. Therefore, a structural engineering report was
not asked for by the BAR based on this expert testimony. So, is the building in.
structurally sound, weather-tight condition? All four buildings —the answer is yes.
The applicant is also not contesting—provide evidence or testimony to dispute this
fmding.
So, back to our procedure and criterion #3. Building reuse and alternatives to
demolition. Is it feasible that the building can be rehabilitated and reused? Support
[inaudible] provided by County department heads. At that time, those county
department heads, the Sheriff's Department and the like pretty much supported the
idea of demolishing totally these buildings. The BAR came up with a statement that
the applicant is to distinguish between what it doesn't want to do and what it can't
do because of site limitations and code requirements—not just a matter of
convenience. So, that direction was provided at that time. The applicant -also the
applicant stated that authorization would be needed from the Board of Supervisors in
order to explore development alternatives. That authorization was granted in a
limited form on March 4, 2015. So, as this application went forward, you can see
there is kind of a step by step approach and aspect of this with authorization required
by the Board of Supervisors. So, back to our criterion#3, is it feasible that the
building can be rehabilitated or reused? No study to identify possible rehabilitation
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scenarios has been prepared. Town staff analysis revealed that certain rear sections
of each of the four contributing historic buildings are not historic in construction or
have been altered such that historic integrity has been substantially comprised. The
BAR then asked the applicant is it feasible to construct the new district courthouse
and save historic portions of the contributing buildings. Staff did an analysis of each
building—the green showing what is historic integrity. Blue is altered in the recent
past and red is a non-historic addition or where historic integrity has been lost. So,
for each one of these properties and with an elevation analysis showing what could
be removed, was provided by staff(myself) and I will refer to these later. Of course,
we have these available for additional discussion.
So, based on the applicant's footprint of the historic buildings, this is the
proposed courthouse—new district courthouse building in green—I just outlined.
You see the red outlines of the current footprints of the historic buildings on Edwards
Ferry Road. In my analysis are the solid green polygons that you see right here that
are the historic portions of the building with non-historic portions shown in white
within this red line here. Also, the applicant was authorized to do a feasibility
analysis. They looked closely at— and this was at the.Board of Supervisor's direction
—of removing 106 and 108 Edwards Ferry Road, whether that be through demolition
or, in their opinion, relocation and then 110 and 112 were examined to keep the
oldest portions would stay in place. You can see in this diagram, the little tiny little
rectangles that represent 110 and 112 Edwards Ferry as the County defined the
oldest portions, not as my analysis defined those oldest portions. Then they came up
with some cost estimates in association with that feasibility analysis.
So another factor—another fourth variable, if you will, are post demolition
plans. The ordinance specifically states that the BAR shall consider—the applicant
shall be required to provide post demolition plans for any site governed by this article
and the appropriateness of such plans with the architectural character of the district.
Specifically, six things were identified by the applicant in regards to post demolition
plans that create kind of difficult conditions that with the [inaudible] of these four
historic buildings in place, it makes development of the site more difficult than if it
was cleared. That includes stormwater treatment facilities, the upgraded utilities for
the new district courthouse, fire code issues, the Virginia Courthouse Facility
Guidelines provide guidance on permimeter security—there was a concern expressed
there, the constructability (i.e. construction staging for the new district courthouse)
and the appearance of the new district courthouse. In regards to stormwater
treatment facilities, this is the old original submittal back from November and as you
can remember, that kind of red rectangles are shown right on top of 110. You can
just make out the blue outlines of the former historic buildings here. The red
rectangles are on top of 110 and 112. In the revised image that is included in the
May 6 Board of Supervisors Agenda Item, you can see those red rectangles have
been removed and in their analysis, they kept the historic portions—in their opinion,
the oldest portions of 112 and 110—are shown in this diagram, although there is
some overlay of the stormwater management facilities on top of 110.
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So, BAR review, after a lengthy discussion, the stormwater treatment facilities
associated with the proposed district courthouse, conclusions were reached. Soil
conditions in the area around the building at 110 and 112 are not conducive for the
installation of stormwater infrastructure so that is one reason why you see these red
boxes moved. The soils can't handle the installation of stormwater vaults at these
locations. Secondly, the applicant stated that it is likely that one of the stormwater
vaults on site will not be needed. Third, it is entirely feasible to address both quality
and quantity stormwater requirements off site so that both vaults are eliminated on
site. Also, off site stormwater treatment may be the preferred approach as per town
department of Plan Review staff and may actually cost less. So, it is conceivable a
final decision has been made that there is no need for these two stormwater vaults.
In terms of stormwater quality, credits can be bought in the mitigation bank and for
stormwater quantity, it is very likely that it could be treated on the Pennington Lot.
Overtreatment on the Pennington Lot would help the Courthouse lot in regards to
stormwater. In regards to utility upgrades, on this diagram, you see some blue lines
and green lines where water and sewer lines are shown a need to enter the property
for the new district courthouse. Also, there is some discussion about putting
underground some electric utilities, but other commercial projects in the historic
district face similar type utility issues so the BAR concluded that utility upgrades is
not a requirement for the demolition for the courthouse. In regards to the fire
prevention code, this is a page provided by Dewberry and is included in your appeal
application, as exhibit 4. It shows, if you will note, the four historic buildings there
in their current footprint configurations. So, these distances, right here I am
denoting with the red check, are distances that do not consider removal of those non-
historic rear portions and so therefore it seems likely that you could create a much
greater fire separation. Also, in regards to fire separation issues, what we see in the
private sector projects that involve historic resources such as Courthouse Square and
Courthouse Commons, you increase the fire rating of that wall that is near the
historic resource and it is possible that the wall on the courthouse building could be
increased to the fire rating just like we see in private sector projects. Specifically,
decided by the BAR was Courthouse Square. The old Times Mirror building being a
historic resource facility attached to the rear and also the Courthouse Commons, we
have a little frame building that is in the middle of the larger office complex that is all
new construction around it. So, the BAR finding on fire prevention code issues, is
that the applicant did not provide convincing evidence that fire requirements require
demolition—more of a matter of convenience. Other commercial projects in the
historic district face the same issues, was also a conclusion they reached.
In regards to perimeter security, the Virginia Courthouse Facility Guidelines
were used as part of the security [inaudible] prepared for the project. I will elaborate
more on this issue. You see this diagram provided by the applicant. You see a
yellow dotted line -two—yellow dotted line. This represents—the one closest to the
courthouse building is a 50 foot standoff zone and the second yellow line—the
second tier represents a 100 foot standoff zone. So, if you see on the side of the
property, you can just make out the footprints of 106, 108, a piece of 110 and here is
112. You can see this yellow line— 112 doesn't quite make it outside that 50 foot
distance zone. So, the BAR findings in regards to perimeter security issues is the
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design of this courthouse, it appears that the 50 foot standoff distance recommended
by the Virginia Courthouse Facility Guidelines, is being treated as a requirement, not
a guideline. If it is a requirement, the BAR expressed concern about several privately
owned contributing buildings that violate this distance with existing courthouse
facility, let alone proposed courthouse facilities. If it is a guideline, the Virginia
standard provides alternatives, some of which have already been proposed by the
applicant and includes increased policing and the like. The BAR did not receive any
information from the Leesburg Police Department and it is my understanding that
the Leesburg Police Department do not view the buildings as a threat. Here is—if
you project that 50 foot boundary around all of the four facilities, potentially, you
know what is within that 50 foot standoff distance, the applicant—let me be clear—
the applicant stated it is not their intent to acquire these properties and clear the site,
but at the same time it is an issue the BAR looked at. Why is it germane to here, but
not, for instance, here but not for 114, which is right next door. In regards to
constructability for the new district courthouse, we have a list provided by the
applicant here in terms of what is needed to stage construction. Again, the BAR
found that in regards to information, that all complicated commercial projects
downtown face similar type of staging issues. Hearing some of the details required
for Courthouse Square, large projects downtown require complicated staging with
construction issues, but the building could be constructed with some semblance of
the historic buildings in place.
Okay, now with regards to appearance for the new district courthouse. Here
is concept 5D, which you saw earlier. The applicant provided 42 images of the 5D
concept. The BAR findings on the appearance of the courthouse, first of all was
going to be reviewed under a separate certificate of appropriateness application,
which has not yet been submitted. The BAR was hesitant to provide detailed
comments because of the design of the courthouse depends on the presence or
absence of the contributing historic buildings. So, until that is figured out, they did
not give the applicant a whole lot of important information other than expressing
some general concern about the massing and scale—the massive size of the 92,000
square foot courthouse building. In here is some brackets provided by the applicant
that show that this is a very large building from an aerial point of view. Here it is
from a ground point of view. The applicant did provide a photoshop rendering of if
the four houses were to remain in place in relationship to the courthouse building
and this does kind of communicate what the BAR's goal was—is to maintain the
integrity of the streetscape of the historic Edwards Ferry frontages, at the same time
reducing mass, size, scale by the smaller buildings being in front. The massiveness of
the smaller building behind it is mitigated in the opinion of the BAR. Here is
another perspective drawing provided by the applicant and here is an aerial view
showing the Pennington Parking Garage proposed in the background here. As you
can see, on Edwards Ferry Road— one thing I want to point out, here is the Bank of
the Valley building. Here is 114 Edwards Ferry Road and you can see how they are
up against the street and without those buildings, the streetscape is diminished
substantially from a historic perspective. Also, the applicant provided if these
buildings were to stay, what it might look like. Now, please understand the BAR is
not necessarily suggesting that the courthouse look like this with the buildings in
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front, but we did not reach a conclusion in regards to that issue. Also, understand
that the non-historic portion would require removal of that portion of the building as
the BAR approved selective demolition.
Other considerations, public versus private projects. The BAR concluded that
nothing in regulations or guidelines adopted by the Town of Leesburg allow
preferential or separate treatment for public sector applications different from the
private sector application including the additional cost typically associated with the
preservation and rehabilitation of historic resources. Furthermore, the zoning
ordinance explicitly states to apply to all properties for the H-1 including private and
public structures. The Leesburg Town Plan and the appellant's letter—there is
reference to the Town Plan about the courthouse. There is also a whole chapter on
the H-1 and heritage resources in the historic district, specifically objective 3, to use
the review process of private and public development to ensure that heritage
resources are identified and preserved. Insure that potential impacts are mitigated.
Relocation study—there is a lot of discussion on the applicant's side about relocating
several of these buildings. The applicant can address that more, in detail because the
BAR determined that the importance of the four buildings proposed for demolition is
the historic context that they provide in association with the Edwards Ferry Road
streetscape and the old and historic district. The BAR concluded that relocation of
the buildings to another site is the equivalent of demolition, so they did not request a
relocation study. Just so as you know, I am stating that explicitly—the BAR did not
ask for, although the applicant did prepare one for each building and actually
submitted a request for interest for any party that might be interested in the buildings.
A possible compromise was an option 4. You won't hear about that this evening and
for a reason, I'll tell you in a minute, but option 4 actually included, if you can just
make out here the retaining of 112, and I think there was agreement from the BAR
standpoint and the design team that it seemed conceivable that 112—the historic
portion—could be retained in place. Here are some cost figures and issues associated
with that scenario. In fact, the county staff recommendation to the Board of
Supervisors on May 6, 2015 for their action item—the recommendation was that 112
remain in place—at least the historic portion of the oldest portion. Retain that in
place. Option 4 was not approved by the Board of Supervisors.
So, as I previously stated back to the review, on a case by case basis, the BAR
will evaluate whether or not the demolition of any primary building will have a
detrimental effect on the immediate context of the old and historic district. Criterion
1, the applicant has not met the standard for demolition approval. Criterion 2,
structural/physical condition—the applicant has no met the standard for demolition
approval. Criterion 3, building reuse and alternatives. It is apparent that alternatives
to demolition exist the BAR concluded. In regards to post demolition plans, the
proposed plans—by removing all four buildings, the BAR concluded that it will have
a detrimental effect on the architectural character of the old and historic district and
the historic integrity of the Edwards Ferry Road streetscape. Therefore, and this is
pretty much verbatim of the BAR motion. There was two motions made by the
BAR. One is for 112 Edwards Ferry Road, i.e. TLHP 2014-0115—it recommended
approval of demolition in modified form— selective demolition—with the following
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conditions. There was a condition regarding removal of the rear portion and how
they go about doing that. Condition #2 dealt with conditions that were included in
the old and historic design guidelines. Those conditions have to do with an intensive
level architectural survey, an archeological survey, and keeping the site in a good
condition until construction begins. I do want to add that an intensive level survey
has already been prepared by the applicant on all four buildings and that an
archeological survey is 75% complete. So, they have almost complied with the first
two parts of Condition #2. The remainder of the 25% of the archeological survey,
and they will be in compliance. I do want to stated that. Condition#3 stated by the
BAR—the demolition may occur only after receipt of the applicant of both a building
permit for reconstruction of the courthouse and final approval of the submitted
rezoning under application TLZM 2015-0002. Condition #4, [inaudible] the areas
that you saw in my analysis—defined as the red area and the green area—is
identified as exhibit A in the final staff report—that exploratory investigation be
performed to identify historic or not historic materials and that would be done under
my purview. Number 5, the applicant will return to the BAR with post demolition
plans for rebuilding portions of the building being exposed—just seal up that rear in a
what that is consistent with the guidelines. Condition #6, the approval shall not be
construed as authorization, approval, or endorsement of the design or appearance of
the new district courthouse and #7 that a statement of findings, generally, for all four
buildings and specific to each building was prepared in the BAR's review and that is
included in your agenda package.
There was a second motion. The second motion basically dealt with the other
three properties with the same conditions and with the same conclusion—that the
historic portion be retained and demolition be allowed for the non-historic or
substantially altered rear portions of the buildings. In regards to options, ahead of
the [inaudible] we do have it on the power point here. When you get to that point to
affirm, wholly or partly, the decision, reverse the decision or modify the order. You
can take this action individually through the four individual actions or collectively
under a single motion or a combination thereof. We do have some draft language
for the alternate motions as well. This is included in your agenda packet as well.
This is verbatim with what you have.
Council Comments/Questions:
• Dunn: Just for clarification—if the nonhistoric portions were removed, it
looked like the only issue that was still remaining, potentially, would be the
fire safety issue, which would be mitigated by increasing the wall on the
courthouse—the depth or the fire safety. And then the only other one was the
50 foot safety zone. Where do we have clarification as to whether that is a
guideline or a requirement?
Staff answer: It is stated by the state as guidelines.
• Dunn: Okay, so we do know that it is a guideline.
Staff answer: Right and the BAR interpreted it as a guideline. The applicant
did provide information to—just like in the state guidelines, they suggest if
you can't meet this guideline, then provide alternatives, which they propose
like security cameras, additional policing and the like.
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• Dunn: And where the current courthouse is, there are current properties
within that 50 foot security zone, were any additional security measures
installed— [inaudible] you mentioned?
Staff answer: I don't know the answer to that question. That is something to
ask the county.
• Dunn: When the courthouse was expanded previously, did the courthouse
have to demolish any buildings or take over ownership of any buildings?
Staff answer: The Leesburg Inn was demolished originally for the site of the
courthouse. In the latest iteration of the courthouse expansion, there were
two buildings, as is my understanding, that were moved as questionable. I
don't know if the BAR determined them to be noncontributing, but they were
not of the stature that these four buildings represent. They were small
residences.
• Dunn: Okay. Not that this would happen, but it has happened in the past
that conditions for preservation have been set and then oops, accidently we
bulldozered the house down. The fine for that, I believe is $5,000 or$2,000
or something like that for that accident. It is not a lot and there is really no
provision other than oops, send us a check. Correct? Once the bulldozer
makes the wrong turn and knocks the whole house down, there is no putting
it back or recourse. I mean, it's demolished, basically.
Staff answer: Not that I am familiar with, but I believe the County would
operate in good faith.
• Dunn: As I said, it would an accident. I'm like the Godfather, I don't believe
in coincidences. But, we want to make sure that doesn't happen. Is the
county going to provide a presentation? So, I'll hold off on any other
questions until they do that. Thank you.
• Butler: Just like to say thanks for the presentation. It really helped my
understanding after reading through.
• Burk: I had two questions and one statement. Am I correct in understanding
that the BAR is not asking for the buildings to be incorporated into the design
of the courthouse. They are simply asking for them to be preserved or
portions of them to be preserved?
Staff answer: The historic portions closest to the Edwards Ferry Road right of
way.
• Burk: So you are not asking to change the design per se, and have them
incorporate the building around them.
Staff answer: Right, it is not supposed to be integrated into the design of the
courthouse. That is not the intention of the BAR, as I understand it.
• Burk: It is just a matter of leaving them standing.
Staff answer: Yes.
• Burk: The last two applications that were in the downtown for buildings were
the Courthouse Square development and is it Courthouse Commons that is a
little bit down from this on the other side. Both those applications, we
insisted that the developer keep the historic aspect of those—one of them kept
the whole building and the other kept the frontage of the historic Loudoun
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Times Mirror building. So, we requested that of the developer, but we are
having issues requesting the same thing of the county?
Staff answer: I guess it is an approach. The developers were seeking inputit is
my understanding with Courthouse Square, although I was not your
preservation planner at the time, went through many, many special meetings
and that design was substantially modified with the project architect to reach
a conclusion thereof. The Courthouse Commons project was actually a
project that occurred earlier at somebody else's imperative and then was taken
with the BAR's work done previously and just inherited and accepted it and
was moved forward.
• Burk: But my point being that we expect developers to maintain and save
historic properties, but there is no —there is nothing in the guidelines that
suggest that we shouldn't ask the same thing of the county.
Staff answer: Both public and private projects are treated the same.
• Burk: The last thing I would like to say is that your presentation was
excellent and I think the BAR most certainly has proven the historic
importance of these houses. I love when you did the little green line showing
that these houses were in this era and these houses were in this era, but most
certainly the BAR has done its job. It has done what it is supposed to do and
it has proven that the historic importance of these houses and their relevance
to the history of Leesburg and we are in the historic district and I just think it
is important that whatever happens that we recognize that the BAR has not
only done their job, but done an excellent [inaudible] of this job because look
at all the work you have done and I really appreciate it.
• Martinez: In your presentation you made a comment that the applicant
would not contest the findings of the BAR.
Staff answer: Would not contest the findings that these are contributing
historic buildings in the historic district, that the integrity of that historic
significance and architectural significant remain and that the buildings are
structurally sound. They would not contest the fact—they cannot prove that
they are unsound.
• Martinez: So, are they adhering to that? Are they doing that?
Staff answer: They are not contesting the criteria. They are not providing
evidence that—normally the BAR could use to justify the motion.
• Martinez: As Tom mentioned, with the firewall break—the security 50 foot,
where, you know, you have that surrounding the building yet there are some
instances where that 50 foot is not going to—we can mitigate all that and still
have the same design?
Staff answer: The County will have to address that—they have the same
design they might have —the fire rating has to be increased. In terms of
appearance, I don't know if we would have the same design. I think the
thought would be that there might be some redesign, if the buildings were to
stay.
• Martinez: Just the appearance aspect, but the design of the building itself...
Staff answer: Oh, in terms of the function, you know, kind of the square foot
print?
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• Martinez: They would still be able to play that design that they mitigated out
of the historic issues that the BAR presented?
Staff answer: Yeah, in terms of function of the courthouse, yeah, that should
be able to remain. [inaudible] for explicit about courthouse modules and
provided the BAR with a lot of information.
• Martinez: So, if all that could be done and there could be exceptions made on
how things are constructed, why are we here?
Staff answer: You will have to ask the appellant that question.
• Hammier: Tom, great presentation. I think you get the record for the largest
file size, crashing my computer when trying to open it in Sharepoint. I
certainly concur with Kelly on the great job of the BAR relative to its
guidelines and also just appreciate all the time and effort at the County. I
know you have had to sit through probably a really lengthy process, so I
appreciate all of that. I do have questions for the county. Quick question as
relates to a couple of points you made first. You mentioned that the cost to
accommodate the BAR request specifically for 112 was about$1.1 million. Is
that correct?
Staff answer: The information I provided was the information provided by
the county and I would let them address that question. The cost is not a
factor for the BAR.
• Hammier: Just so we can get on the record if there is more quantitative
analysis relative to keeping even that portion, 112, as well as the additional
cost that would be incurred for accommodating all of the related items to be
able to keep, you know, based on the BAR recommendations, such as the
perimeter security, stormwater management and so forth and the reason why
I am going to ask that is what is interesting to me visually was looking at the
fact that if you retain the houses with the front façade, you basically mask the
very large building and in doing so maybe it is a cost benefit analysis relative
to going back and forth trying to get to the right mass and scaling that is going
to be required without those buildings there. So, it is almost a numbers game
at that point. It would be useful just as a reference because we know it is a
challenge for infill development from stormwater perspective down that
street, because Pittsburgh Ricks had a really difficult time building that
building for that very reason. I don't know if at some point you can mention
Kaj to have planning look it up, but I think that's a good reference point that
is just really is a huge challenge to accommodate the cost associated with
stormwater management. One question that wasn't raised, as you know, the
Council has modified, you know, our purview relative to dealing with BAR
appeals. It used to be it had to be arbitrary and capricious. Now, we have
much more broader authority so given that has staff done any analysis relative
to if the BAR decision is not overturned, and if based on the assumption of
what we have heard, certainly based on statements from Board of Supervisors
that if the courthouse moves from the downtown, what the economic impact
would be to the town without the courthouse being here. Has any of that
analysis been done. Okay, those are my only questions at this point. I look
forward to hearing from the public.
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• Fox: Thank you, Tom, that was very enlightening. I do have a few
questions. One—my first one has to do with 112 too. You had set 112 apart
from the rest of them. Can you tell me again, why 112 is different from 110,
•
108 and 106. You said it is a part of a first annexation of some sort?
Staff answer: 112, the brick portion of 112 —I am flipping that image back up.
But, the brick portion of 112 was constructed circa 1813-1820 and that
building was built right at the time of the annexation of the add on to
Leesburg at the time. It was originally the Nicholas Minor subdivision and
then then two annexations happened in 1812 where 112 Edwards Ferry Road
was located was one of those annexation areas added onto the corporate
limits of the town of Leesburg at the time and the brick portion of what you
see in this photograph was standing at the time or right immediately
thereafter.
• Fox: My next question has to do with 112 too. During some of the BAR
process, there were questions about whether we could move the stormwater
treatment tanks closer up to Church Street and thereby maybe preserving 112.
Is that still on the table? Is that still something that can happen?
Staff answer: I believe this conversation is still in flux. Mr. Ackman is here.
He weighed in on some of these details.
Ackman: Yes, that is still on the table, as well as other options. The last time
we met with Dewberry, they had indicated that they may be able to do the
majority of the stormwater under Pennington and maybe be able to eliminate
that tank all together or at least reduce the size of the one that would be in
that location. Then as far as water quality, because of the size of the project
and the new stormwater regulations, they would have an opportunity to
purchase their stormwater quality credits from a qualified bank approved by
DEQ, thereby eliminating one of the tanks all together.
• Fox: Okay, thank you. I just wanted to clarify that. My second question has
to do with 106 Edwards Ferry Road. Dewberry did a study and it said the
subject structure is contributing to the historic district which they don't deny;
but however the structure has been significantly altered with very little
original or historic materials remaining based on the current documentation.
So, with that statement does it make it a contributing structure still?
Staff answer: There is an issue with statements like that made by Dewberry
and their historic resources consultant, JMA, Inc. JMA, Inc's opinion—a
professional architectural historian are that all four of these buildings should
retain contributing status in the historic district.
• Fox: Okay, so there are two different opinions there.
Staff answer: Right, one is an architectural historian and the other is an
architect.
• Fox: Okay. And my last question just has to do with proximity. You went
over some distances. You said the distances from the homes to the structure
would present a public safety—or at least I think that's in the appellate. I
guess I should wait until later, but I was just wondering if you thought that
was an issue as well—the proximity, as they stand right now and as they
would stand if we took the non-historic portions off. Would that be a public
safety issue?
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Staff answer: When you say public safety—you mean security or fire
prevention or both?
• Fox: Security. Yes.
Staff answer: There are solutions in the fire prevention scenario that you see
on the two private sector examples cited where they just have to beef up the
fire rating of the wall that is closest to the historic buildings, so there are
solutions there. Also, the perimeter security, there are alternative solutions
and I think that was the conclusion that okay we have alternatives here. We
don't have to—it is not required to demolish the buildings for that reason
because there are alternatives.
• Fox: Alight. Thank you, those are my questions.
• Mayor: Tom, very good report. A couple of questions. There has been
discussion during all the debate going on on this about the possibility that if
the County had to accommodate the four structures and still accommodate an
adequate stormwater management system that they would have to potentially
decrease the footprint of the new courthouse and build it higher to provide for
their needs. Do we know what the status of those conversations is right now?
Staff answer: There was a lot of things in play. I am not sure currently what
the status of that situation is. There was some talk about moving 110 forward
to give more clearing in the back. There was a lot of back and forth, but
nothing that was ever firmed up in terms of a proposal.
• Mayor: Okay,just personally, I don't want to see this building any taller than
it is proposed for at the moment. Other question—in relation to moving some
part of the stormwater management system onto the Pennington Lot, does
that require any invasion of any private property between the old courthouse
and the Pennington Lot.
Staff answer: My understanding is that would not be required. Pennington is
a large lot and it could be accommodated.
• Mayor: Alright. And then I think the third question at this time I would have
is not one of these four buildings is attractive in its current condition. I would
assume that is because we cannot require the county to maintain them other
than, I believe, according to the zoning ordinance if they fall into greater
disrepair, we just have to make sure they are boarded up so we don't get
animals living in them. I don't—I mean right now, they don't look great to
me. I would think we can't force the county to make them look better than
they are. I don't see the appeal of these buildings if they are going to continue
to look the way they do now. So, that's just my take on what it is we are
trying to preserve right now. I appreciate your very thorough analysis.
Staff answer: Just for the record, it was my understanding that the County
has always pulled a COA as required by our ordinances for changes to the
exterior. Maintenance is a different issue, but alterations and changes, the
county has complied as per my research.
• Mayor: Alright, I think the County is in complete compliance, but they still
look pretty bad. County gets a shot at this now. I don't know Mr. Rogers or
Mr. Hemstreet....
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Tim Hemstreet: For the record, my name is Tim Hemstreet. I am the county
administrator for Loudoun County. I am here to present the appeal that has been
submitted on behalf of the Board of Supervisors and therefore by the county. You
have already read the title and the actual appeal, so I am not going to go into that.
What my presentation is going to do is kind of highlight what was in the letter and
hopefully bring a little bit of different perspective from that that your town staff
presented to you. I told the County Attorney that I was going to go out on a limb a
little bit, so he might get a little uncomfortable when I say this, but Mrs. Burk knows
this, but I have nine years of historic preservation oversight in my background and I
can tell you that one of the things that I have observed and my observation tonight as
well as throughout the process is that your staff has really done a good job. I mean
they have done a great job and you saw it in the presentation and we have seen that
in terms of quality that they have brought to the table throughout the process.
Additionally, I think that your Board of Architectural Review came to the
conclusions that they needed to come to based off of what your ordinance says and
the purview that you, as a town council, and your ordinance on the books tell them
that they have to come to. And some of those things are for the reasons that came
out in some of your questions and some of the answers that were provided to you
already by your staff. The other thing I would say along those lines is the reason
why we are here on appeal is directly related to those issues. So, the appeal from the
Board of Supervisors, is really an appeal from a fellow governing body to you as the
governing body for the town of Leesburg asking you to look at this from a
perspective of a taxpayer organization and asking you to look at this as if you were in
their position to some degree as to the decisions you would have to make if you were
sitting in their shoes. So,just as a backdrop, I do want to point that out as I go
through the county's presentation.
Certainly, this is the site. Mr. Scofield has already oriented you to where the
location of the site is, how it fits into the downtown area— so I am not going to go
over that. You know exactly where we are talking about. One thing I do want to
highlight and Mr. Scofield kind of danced around that in his presentation—he also, I
guess, explicitly stated at times, but this is a project that has gone back for a number
of years. Okay? The courts have been at this location or a location just to the west
since the founding of this county. There is a desire by the Board of Supervisors to
keep the courts complex here in the town and here at this location. It makes a lot of
sense for a lot of different reasons, most of which are operational and convenience to
the taxpayer. It makes a lot of sense to keep the courts at this location. There are;
however, some reasons why the building and operation itself requires, in our
opinion, the demolition of those structures. What this is getting into—the chart in
front of you is getting into a little bit is that this has been a long discussion. Okay?
The discussion here about locating an addition or expansion of the courts complex
at this location goes back to at least 1998. In 1998, the structure was supposed to be
smaller, was supposed to 60,000 square feet. We know based off of the population
growth that we have had in this county over the past, I guess, 15 years or so, we need
a larger building, so we are looking at 92,000 square feet as opposed to 60,000 square
feet, but one of the things we are trying to highlight in this chart is the fact that we
have been talking to your staff or talking to the town council directly for at least the
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last five or six years talking about this expansion and what would be required to do
that. We talk about security. We know of four main issues that our appeal is based
on. Okay? One is security and the second we will talk about is constructability. The
third are the site utilities, primarily stormwater and some of the changes that need to
be done there and the fourth element is cost. To some extent, I need you to look at
this from the perspective of a public entity. Okay? We are not a private entity. If
you look at the projects that have been referenced, they are fine projects. They are
projects that were made better because of ordinances such as your historic
preservation ordinances, your old and historic district ordinances. They were made
better by the work of your staff. They were made better by the work that the Board
of Architectural review does. But, in a lot of ways, the job of those ordinances and
the job of the Board of Architectural Review is to get those projects to fit into the
vernacular that the ordinance requires and the vernacular of the surrounding
neighborhoods. If they can't do that, they need to change their program or they need
to change the size of their structure or they need to change what they thought they
were going to do originally on the site. As a public entity providing a court function,
we do not have the luxury of being able to do that. So, in a lot of ways, we have got
to build the courthouse and we have got to meet the functions of that courthouse in a
manner that we believe are prescribed by law and in a manner that we believe is most
responsible to our residents and the people who have to go to this building. So,
security from that perspective is probably our most important problem with these
buildings and our largest challenge with trying to locate this structure on this site
with these buildings. This is the same chart that Mr. Scofield showed you earlier. I
am going to give you a little bit of perspective about it, but primarily from the
perspective of we are a nation of laws. We govern ourselves based on the law. In
this building, in this structure,just like the one to the west of it, what happens there is
people engage in [inaudible] proceedings each and every day. Someone has a
difference with each other, they don't go settle it on their own. We are not supposed
to—if they do they get in trouble with the law and then they end up in the courts. If
they can't do it peacefully, they take it to this building into this structure. What that
means is while we would like to be in a world where everybody does settle it in a
civil manner in the courthouse, not everybody is going to do that. Okay? There are
going to be some people, who are bad people, intent on doing bad things. So, what
the courthouse guidelines from this Commonwealth of Virginia, that Mr. Scofield
referred to are designed for us to try to build a new courthouse in this location and
try to meet as many of those guidelines as possible. The reason why they are
guidelines and not necessarily requirements is because in order to meet the
guidelines, we would have to condemn property on the surrounding buildings
because we would have to demolish them in order to meet that. So, the guidelines
don't require us to do that, but in order to be responsible and to meet the security
requirements that we need to meet, we should probably address those buildings that
we own that are on property that we control. Okay? So, from our perspective we
can't do anything about 114 Edwards Ferry Road. We don't own the property. We
can't do anything about that. The Commonwealth is not going to tell us that we
need to condemn that property or acquire it in order to meet the guidelines. The
other residential buildings that are also to the west of this property. We can't meet
the sight line, but the state is not going to require us to condemn those properties
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either in order to meet the guidelines. Okay? So, what we are talking about is the
ordinance— a public entity trying to vacate our liability, we need to deal with the
properties that we control— 106, 108, 110, and 112 are properties that we control.
So, if we want to do the job that we need to do, we need to address that. So, to
answer a couple of questions, in order, and Tom has already explained the yellow
line and the 50 foot setback. There is no way that these properties could be located
on the site and comply with those sight line requirements. They have to be removed
in order for us to comply. There also for those reasons—we are not—we obtained
ownership of the property, we are not going to allow a third party to go into those
structures. What it essentially means for us is because of the size of operation that
we have, or the size of operations that we have and the types of operations that we
have, it essentially means that these buildings will be empty. They are not usable for
us at the moment. Two of the buildings are presently vacant. Our operations are
just too large to be accommodated in the size of these buildings and once they are cut
back and made smaller to comply with the Board of Architectural Review's decision,
they become even more unusable to us as a government organization. So, the first
issue we have is that if they were to remain, they would be empty. Okay? The
problem with an empty building is now they become all of these things that are on
the right side of this sheet, which means you are providing concealed areas for
anybody who is intent on doing something bad—hide themselves there. Yes, if we
do the security systems and yes, we could do cameras. Of course we could,but that
doesn't, in the opinion of the sheriff, in the opinion of the Board of Supervisors, meet
the level of security and safety we need to provide for this site. All of these things are
hazards that we are deeply concerned about. All of these things are things that
cannot be mitigated as long as those buildings are there. We did talk about fire code
concerns. We do continue to have concerns about that. Yes, the side of the building
can be hardened. They absolutely can—it means new glazing and new glass. It
means we have to close up the side of the building because these buildings— 106,
108, 110, and 112 are wood frame structures. They do not have any type of fire
suppression or capability in them, so if they do catch on fire, we need to construct
the courthouse building in a manner that it will not harm the building behind it if
they catch on fire. So, that is another concern that needs to be addressed. It is a
concern not from the perspective that it can't be done—it is a concern from the
perspective of cost, which I will cover.
Second issue is constructability—I do want to talk a little bit about our
concerns with constructability. When you talk about constructability, again, it is not
that the buildings can't be constructed, but there is an issue of convenience and an
issue of, I guess concern that we would have for town residents as well as people
trying to do business in this area. As you can see, it is about a 1.8 acre site. The
building is 92,000 square feet, which is a little over 2 acres, itself. So, we are putting
a very big building on a very compact site. Which, you can see from the chart, we
cannot locate heavy equipment or stage construction materials to the east to
construct the building. We cannot really do it to the north, because there is a
cemetery there. So, if we are going to construct this building, we have to do it from
the Edwards Ferry Road side, the Church Street side, and a little bit from the
Cornwall Street side, coming south from the Semones Lot. The concern back here
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are a couple. One is there is a tunnel that needs to connect the two facilities that
goes underneath Church Street, so we are talking about an 18 month closure of
Church Street to begin with. We need to do that just to build a tunnel. We have to
have a secure way to move prisoners between buildings that does not involve them
going out into a public area, so there is a need to construct that tunnel for that
purpose. What that does mean is now you have two divided sites. Okay? So, you
cannot build the south side of the building—transfer materials from the south side of
the building using Church Street. You are going to have to do it from the Edwards
Ferry Road side. What happens also is in order to build the building of this size, we
are going to have to use a couple of cranes. If you look at where the footprints of
those buildings are, and you look at where the crane would be located, which is the
only place you can locate the crane, unless you are going to close Edwards Ferry
Road and put the crane in the street...what that means is there is almost no ability to
stage on the property, which means in order to bring in large equipment and
materials on the south side to build this, we will have to close the road. How long
that road is closed, I don't know. It would be up to us working with your staff as
well as the with the contractor. The cost, there is a cost to doing it that way as well.
Additionally, we would have to shore those buildings and protect it somehow
because when you get to the next slide, you know this is kind of a circle where the
cranes will operate—you can see that a portion of time, we would want to take
materials over those buildings because we would not want to have an accident. We
would have to come around the other way, but it becomes a very compact site. It
becomes very difficult to work around those buildings, which again gets to cost. It
also gets to inconvenience and issues that you know will have to deal with town
residents and those doing business in here and around the courts building. The
construction duration for this project is about 24 months. For that amount of time,
our perspective is we would not want to have to close Edwards Ferry Road. It just
creates other issues, I think, for you as a governing body. We talked about most of
these things. I think that is all I wanted to mention here.
Again, this shows the site utilities. Again this shows a better drawing, which
is again another evolved stormwater concept from the two charts that I think Mr.
Scofield showed you. One of the challenges that we have is that stormwater right
now this early in the project is somewhat of a moving target. Conceptually, could
we deal with stormwater off site? Maybe. The challenge that we don't know that
from the town staff until we get to the very end of the process. Is it possible to deal
with water quality issues offsite? We think probably. Water quantity becomes a
different challenge. Our preference would be to deal with water quantity issues
onsite. But, the main point that I am making here is we are not at the end. We don't
know what the stormwater requirements are going to be for certain and if you will
listen closely to the vernacular of the town staff, they were saying things like
conceptually we think it is possible to do this,but you can see just in the time
between February and May when a couple of those drawings were shown to you,
this one I think is from February, the concept of stormwater has changed throughout
that time period and is still evolving today and again until we get it—the reason why
it will continue to evolve is we don't know yet what the BAR is going to require of us
of the main building. The only discussion we've had with the Board of Architectural
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Review and the staff is about the proposed demolition of these structures, so the
concept for stormwater will still change as we get into the design of this building.
The one thing we can't touch the program, but the architectural elements and other
things may change. We did go through several discussions, as was alluded to
regarding drainage. The other thing that I do want to point out that wasn't touched
on is we do need to deal with sanitary sewer in this area. The low point happens to
be the corner where 112 is, so we do have to somehow deal with sewer connections
in and around the structures, should they remain and we are dealing with a gravity
system. So that does become a little more challenging. Again it is not an issue of the
possibility, but it does impact cost potential.
Which brings me to the last item—the piece of our appeal, which is cost.
Okay? This sheet—you can't read it. It is in your packet if you want to take a look
at it. We can talk about it if you have some questions about what is on this sheet.
This sheet is the best estimate that we could get from Dewberry as to what the
potential impact was or is to the county if the Board of Architectural Review
decision stands and the Board of Supervisors were to agree to follow and not do
something else. It is a minimum in their estimate of$4.5 million. It could be as high
as $4.9 million, but again as county staff, we have some concerns about this number.
Some of the things, I have already alluded to. First thing we need to consider is
overall project cost. The construction for this project is $57 million, so right out of
the box before we have had day one of conversation with the Board of Architectural
Review of what they might want us to change or do with the structure itself that
affects cost, we are already at a nine percent cost overrun assuming that Dewberry's
numbers are correct. Now, we do have concerns about these numbers. One of the
things that Mr. Scofield talked about was what happens to the four existing buildings
—the four existing structures if we start to implement the decision of the Board of
Architectural Review. First thing we do, is you cut the buildings in half. Before we
could do that, we have to go to the expense of creating drawings of how we are going
to cut those buildings in half. Once we do it, we have to stop. We have to stop, the
town comes out and does an inspection. They look at what we've cut in half and
determine if any historic elements have been revealed that were not visible prior to
the selective demolition. If they determine that there are any elements that are
historic in nature and have value, the project stops. We have to go back to the Board
of Architectural Review. We have to prepare a presentation. We have to have a
dialogue with the Board of Architectural Review. They have to direct what happens
to further preserve these now exposed elements. The reason I mention that is
because it is an unknown cost. It is not factored into this $4.5 to $4.9 million
number. Everytime you get into that, we are looking at, in our opinion, at least a 30
day delay because the Board of Architectural Review—it is not like you call today
and they meet tomorrow. Number one. Number two, it is not like we can prepare
the appropriate back up and documentation for that type of body the next day. We
have to converse with the staff, we have to talk to them about what may be possible.
We have to then issue a task order,just like you do. We have to issue a task order to
the architect or engineer, ask them to come up with whatever the town staff has
asked us to look at. We then have to ask the architect to come back, go to the BAR
meeting and after we are all done with that, we have to execute a change order with
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our contractor to go implement whatever has been decided upon. All of that is
completely appropriate, but it is a cost that is not identified in these numbers and that
is a concern to the Board of Supervisors. It is also an issue that I don't think
anybody at this point in time can say, this is what the cost of that is going to be. So,
the concern of the Board, as a governmental entity, is we are already looking at a 9
percent cost overrun starting out the gate, how big of a cost problem does this
become? In our opinion between stormwater elements, between what is likely to be
experienced going into the BAR process on building, and also what could happen
with these structures, we could very well be much higher than we already know—
already the cost overruns. That is essentially the basis of the Board's appeal.
Hopefully that brings the letter that we sent to a little bit of light and provides a little
bit of a different perspective to the situation that we have here. Again, my purpose
was to present the Board's perspective and to also appeal to the town council from
the perspective that these are the things the BAR and the Town staff can really not
consider. They are not things that you charge them in your ordinance to consider.
With that, I will end my presentation. Mr. Rogers and I are here for questions.
• Dunn: Could you bring up the main slide you are using showing the
boundaries of the building. Yeah, that's good. What—I guess a couple of
questions. It deals with how big the building is, what is actually needed and I
am sure the answer to that is we need even more, but I don't want to go that
direction. Sure. What if the building were moved north the distance that is
needed to keep the historic buildings and still fall within the security
boundary. How much further north would the courthouse have to go? I mean
how much square footage are we talking about.
Male voice: [inaudible] we really can't move the building that much north
because of the setbacks that are required by the town. So, we also have a
transformer that has to be located back there as well. We also need access
around the site to address a variety of issues.
• Dunn: If the setback is the only thing being able to preserve it, it is a matter
of getting it approved or not we will work on setbacks, but the question I am
asking is how much distance is there between the building and the deepest
historic building. If you draw a straight line. You've got that purple line on
there right now— on the south side of the building. You see where I am
referring to? Okay. Now, that is probably pretty close to the furthest line of
the deepest building. The deepest historic building that is set back from the
street. How far—right there is your security zone. So, and I would say that
most likely in most of those buildings, let's say it is at the bottom of the
numbers, 106, 8, 10, 12—let's just say that's where the historic side of the
building. What is that distance? How much further would the building have
to move north to be within that security zone.
Hemstreet: The challenge that you have is on the north side.
• Dunn: Right, you can't bounce into the cemetery, I understand that.
Hemstreet: Here is the 50 foot line, which is in the cemetery.
• Dunn: Right, but I don't think that the cemetery is going to cause you
security concerns as much as the buildings are unless somebody is hiding
behind the tombstones.
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Hemstreet: I understand what you are saying, but I think from our
perspective, we need to say that we still have a problem. Our position would
be not to make it worse. Is it possible to just [inaudible] if we move all the
way up I guess to this —it would be right here, is the edge of the right of way?
I am not sure that, Mr. Dunn, that there is enough space there to meet the
circulation requirements back here in this area. Because we also have to
move people, don't forget. So, you've got parking up in this area and so
people are coming through here to go to the existing courthouse as well as to
the front of the courthouse, which is right there.
• Dunn: I guess the question I am trying to get to is two have the homes where
they sit currently, don't move the homes at all—the historic buildings—how
much would the building have to be moved north or reduce the size of the
building on the south side to have this fall within the 50 foot security zone. I
don't think those houses are more than probably 40 feet deep on the historic
side.
Hemstreet: I don't believe we can move the building enough to get the 50
feet.
• Dunn: So, we don't know what that is?
Hemstreet: Just eyeballing it, I don't believe we could move it enough to get
a full 50 feet. Now, we did early on do some volumetric exercises in trying to
get to 92,000 square feet with a thinner building and try to give us some more
space, but that puts us 20 feet above your height limit, which in talking with
your staff requires a text amendment, which is like a two year process, so that
we wanted to avoid that.
• Dunn: But we right now don't know how far we'd have to move—we are just
guessing whether we took ten feet off the building or 20 feet off the building or
moved the building 20 feet north or 30 feet—we don't know what that
number is.
Hemstreet: I don't know what that number is. I don't think Peter does either,
so...we are not taking 40 feet off the building, Mr. Dunn. If we did that, we
would not be able to meet the program needs that are in that structure. And
you are still dealing with$5 or more million dollars in the other issues in
terms of cost.
• Dunn: You could build the building over the tunnel. Anything is possible,
right?
Hemstreet: You are suggesting that the town is going to close the street?
• Dunn: I'm just asking you questions. I am not suggesting anything.
Hemstreet: Sure.
• Dunn: So, in other words, we could build the building over the tunnel, if we
needed. In other words, the tunnel would not prohibit us from building the
building over it?
Hemstreet: It would not. It would require a vacation.
• Dunn: On one of your proposals, months, it might be years ago now. I
remember going to some of your first meetings you holding at the government
center. The extension that is on the north side —at one point that wasn't even
there in one of the proposals. And, what would be the possibility of gaining
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additional space by extending that even further north through that parking
area—if we needed the square footage, could the square footage be made up
in that arm.
Hemstreet: I am going to ask Peter and Melissa to get into that. It is difficult
to add space going that way because the configuration of the size that is there,
it is very difficult to get your hallway space in, the size of your offices in.
Male voice: The proportion of the building was based on courtroom size. So,
if the building takes on shapes/scaping because of required courtroom
proportions. That kind of sets why the building looks the way it does on the
site. To the immediate north, right now, to the north we have the [inaudible]
area around, we have parking [inaudible]. We have transformers that are
located there. We don't have any other place on site to put those types of
items. If we move the building in that direction, we would have to find an
alternate location. I am not sure we can do that.
• Dunn: The reason I'm asking these questions, obviously, is because if the
decision of Council is to leave the historic buildings where they are, cut off
the backs and just go with the historic portions, then there is going to have to
be some type of agreement going forward that it is either going to be "we are
going to move out of town", which I think that has already been decided by
the Board of Supervisors that it is not cost effective to do that—then it is going
to be we got to work within the situation that we have. Are we willing to
work around the security issue and what can we do to mitigate that and if we
can't, and that's a major issue, then what are we going to do as far as the
volume of the building—where can we put that square footage that we
desperately need—which by the way I don't think we need over the next 20
years. It takes—until we get to max out use of that building. It doesn't make
sense to also build today and then build later on—I understand that idea.
But, we need to come to some type of agreements, otherwise it is just okay.
Everyone pack up and we will keep the buildings and the courts go out of
town, which I don't think is going to happen so I am trying to look for other
ways you all may have considered alternatives, but if you hadn't, then we
may need to start. So, and I don't know if we can get that done tonight,
obviously.
Male voice: I want to touch real briefly on the distance between the building-
our building—the courthouse building and the structures. That is really going
to be based on the architect and the architect sits down and we have an
understanding of what is going to be there—they have begun to calculate the
distance—measure that distance and that is going to determine the amount of
openness —as Tim alluded to earlier—the amount of openness in the building.
Based—because these are wood structures, it is either fire rating in the wall or
openness, or both. So, when you are trying to make— develop the front of
your building—your predominant view of the building from Edwards Ferry
Road, that openness is going to close up and you are not going to have the
internal light that you are trying to have for the offices and things like that.
With respect to security, the county sheriff came out and said that the
buildings really should go. That was their decision.
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• Dunn: Yeah. This is the quandary that we have in being in a historic town.
We are the stewards. I appreciate—I did also take some historic preservation
classes in college, myself. We are the stewards today. There will be more
stewards later on in history, but if we continue to just decide well they don't
look good enough today, I don't like the looks today, that it is worth tearing
down history today, then it is going to be even greater destruction later and
eventually you won't have a historic downtown. You'll have maybe just one
street and we will call that—this is what we were able to preserve. If you
don't think that is possible, look at Centreville. There used to be a town
called Centreville. There is no Centreville. There is one or two buildings up
by a new fire department and that's about it. And it is just townhouses and
single family homes and a bunch of stores. So, I think that it is important for
me that we look to try and preserve these buildings as best we can and look
for ways to work within the possible restrictions that we have but not just say
we can't do it—there is just no way around it. I think that we owe it to our
future and to the historic preservation aspect of this to look for ways to make
it work. I will yield to the rest of the Council. We will see where we go from
here.
• Butler: That is an intriguing idea that Tom had that if you could leave the
buildings and let the dashed yellow line go behind the buildings—the historic
buildings, then you could sell them and that eliminates a lot of problems and
probably eliminates the fire problem as well. So, but if you had to make the
building taller, the Mayor would be upset. She would probably be worse than
that, but not something I'd say on the dais. But, most of my questions are
around the cost sheet. Right on the bottom, it says $57 million and then there
is two green boxes and it says $2.5 million is the low end cost and$4.86
million is the high end cost, but I can't seem to get to those numbers based on
the other numbers that are on the page. So, maybe somebody can help me
there. I do see a$2.6 million dollar number and a $2.968 million dollar
number that don't make any sense, but I am still...
Male voice: The difference is the escalation number—the escalation cost,
percentages factored in. That is how we got to that$4.5.
• Butler: So, you are taking$2.6 million and then escalating it for six months.
I am trying to figure out where the 4.5 and the 4.86 come from.
Male voice: Yeah, that's correct.
• Butler: What is correct?
Male voice: It is based on six month escalation.
• Butler: Six month escalation or$57 million?
Male voice: No, where it says total cost- $2.623, the number escalated by—I
believe the percentage that Dewberry used was 10%. And that's how it got up
to the $4.5.
• Butler: So, that number escalates at 10% a month for six months to get to
$4.5 million?
Male voice: [inaudible] a month.
• Butler: Well, if you take $2.6 million and you go a half percent a month, it is
not going to get to $4.5 million. You could take $57 million maybe and go a
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half percent a month and get to $4.5 million or some portion of$4.5 million,
but the $2.6 million doesn't make a whole lot of sense either because what
you are doing is adding $1.5 million in capital costs to one year's of
operational costs to get to $2.6 million.
Male voice: I'll have to go back and get the spreadsheet and see how it was
calculated.
• Butler: Okay, well I know that's where you got the $2.6 million because the
number adds up— 1.478565 in capital costs and 1.145250, which is one year's
of additional operational costs, adds up to the $2.623 million, but basically
what you have done here is sit here and claim that the cost impact is $4.5-4.9
million. You have absolutely no credibility because I can't see where the
number adds up and you are adding capital costs to operational costs, so the
number looks to me to be completely bogus until we get more detail behind it.
Male voice: Well, it wasn't bogus. I can guarantee it.
• Butler: Well, then you need a different spreadsheet than this one to show that
it is not bogus.
Male voice: Well, the spreadsheet itself...
• Butler: Okay, but I have seen a lot of spreadsheets come out of the town and
the county and developers and that is what happens to a lot of them is they
add up apples and oranges and they get pears and then they say, see, there is
this many pears and that's why it's a bad idea.
Male voice: I would be happy to provide you with that.
• Butler: That would be great. We had a similar discussion last night. Thank
you. Okay, so I understand. The project costs 8-9 percent, okay. Again,
until we get another spreadsheet, that has no credibility, with me at least. So,
is there any—I mean this is a significant impact of the streetscape. There is
no question. So, was there any consideration to—you are looking at keeping
part of it. I know you brought at least one building to the Board of
Supervisors and they shot it down. Sounds to me like—I'm looking for some
interest in some kind of a compromise here because when I talk to some
people, they look at the old courthouse and the old courthouse is a cool-
looking building. Then they look at the addition on the back of the old
courthouse—the new courthouse— and that doesn't look any way nearly as
pretty as the original courthouse. Then you look at these enormous buildings
here and people are saying, well, okay—we have got an enormous county
parking garage, and we've got an enormous county office building and now
you are going to put in an enormous courthouse and in the meantime, you are
getting rid of all these historic buildings which is one of the main reasons why
people like living in Leesburg, including people that never go downtown,
which is surprisingly. They say, oh, I really love the historic downtown. I'm
glad I moved to Leesburg because of the historic downtown and I ask them if
they have ever been downtown—well no, but they still like the fact that we
have one. So, this doesn't look right—we are taking a not-insignificant
portion and removing it and putting up a building that while I understand, the
building looks a lot better than the old new courthouse, the scale doesn't look
any where near as historic as the four other buildings. Anyway, that's all I
have.
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• Burk: I, too, have trouble with the numbers. So, I don't know if we are
planning on doing something tonight on this, but I am uncomfortable doing
anything without having more additional information. But, I did want to—
there is a couple of things I want to ask about. You talked about the building
being empty, and that would be a safety problem. Couldn't you allow some
non-profits to go in there. I know there is a number of non-profits that would
love to go into a small space like that.
Hemstreet: Again, the concern that we have from the security perspective is
not having anybody in those buildings. Access, again, is [inaudible] that the
county performs. If you are going to put a court building there—but
unfortunately not—the position of the sheriff is that those buildings need to be
vacant and all security risks need to be mitigated fully within that 50 foot
setback.
• Burk: So the sheriff says they need to be empty?
Hemstreet: We would not put anything in there, Mrs. Burk. We don't have a
use for it. We cannot guarantee or control who a third party allows into the
structure. We cannot control who a third party allows into the structure and
who has access. Again, dealing with a court building. Dealing with a
building which is adversarial in nature. So, that's the position of the board.
• Burk: Okay. On slide six—could you pull that up, sir. You have little circles
indicating where the cranes would be reaching and you have that one down
here at the bottom reaching over Edwards Ferry Road. You most certainly
would not be having a crane moving material back and forth over cars that
are driving by, I would assume.
Hemstreet: We would have to be there—we would have to close the road.
So, what would happen is —because we can't rotate trucks or having any pull
off area because the buildings are there, we have to park the vehicles on
Edwards Ferry Road and then the cranes would have to move it from the
vehicles onto the site itself.
• Burk: And do you have an estimate of how long you think that's going to
take?
Hemstreet: At this point we don't. It is just an issue that needs to be
addressed during the construction phase. The other problem that we have is
because Church Street would be closed for a period of time, and because there
is no place to really stage material on the south side, we may have to close the
road a portion of the time just to stage materials, if we can't fit them on that
section of Church Street south of[inaudible]. I really don't want to say that is
a significant period of time, but we will have to deal with intermittent closures
kind of how, the town is dealing with it now on Loudoun Street as you are
building the sidewalk and stuff going up—you close lanes at night. It is kind
of the same situation—we'd have to close Edwards Ferry Road whenever we
needed to do one of those movements.
• Burk: Well, I hope that you will consider doing it at night as opposed to
during the day.
Hemstreet: Well, the problem with doing it at night...
• Burk: Is that it is going to cost more money...
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COUNCIL MEETING July 14, 2015
Hemstreet: It costs more money. The other issue is you do have residential
properties. You also have this on Loudoun Street, but night construction,
although you address the traffic factor, as you know, you can't deal with the
noise factor...you end up with a noise factor. But, that's a discussion that
we'd have to have. I don't know if the board is willing to have that
discussion, but if you are talking in the theoretical sense, that should be
[inaudible].
• Burk: You talk about the fact that if you started taking down the buildings
and you found that there were historic aspects to the buildings that we didn't
recognize, that it would slow the process down. But, then that to me says that
you recognize the fact that they are historic buildings.
Hemstreet: Absolutely. He have not contested that at all. We have said that
they are contributing historic structures. We have not suggested that they are
not. We have not provided any argument to the contrary. Again, the appeal
is based off of factors that the BAR and the staff really are not committed to
really use as reasons to allow the demolition of the buildings.
• Burk: I understand that cost is a component, but this building is going to be
there for a 100 years, maybe. Hopefully, if it is built right. And we are
looking to take down historic buildings in the historic district, which really
causes me to pause and think about what we are doing. That building will be
there, but those other buildings won't. There used to be a jail right there and
it was a really neat building and they tore it down. There were prisoners in
that jail up until about six months before they tore it down. And they used
the argument then that it wasn't cost effective to keep it so we needed to get
rid of it, so we lost that building. I don't know at what point cost overwhelms
the historic significance of things. It is going to take—I don't know, I'll have
to listen to the rest of the comments, but this is something that is going to be a
hard vote. It is going to be really hard to do this—to do something that is
going to have such a negative impact either way. Either vote will have a
negative impact one way or the other and what is our role. I think Mr. Dunn
was correct in that. That's all I have for right now.
• Martinez: So, let me ask the gorilla question in the room. If we don't
approve this and you go further and this doesn't get approved, are you going
to move the county building out of the Town of Leesburg? The Courthouse?
Hemstreet: That is a discussion that the Board still needs to have. I believe a
number of the statements that Board members have made off the cuff and
statements they have made during the discussion of this application.
Throughout the Board of Architectural review process, as staff, we
continually brought compromise proposals that were raised by the Board of
Architectural Review as well as town staff back to the Board of Supervisors
for consideration. The Board was not comfortable with entertaining any of
those discussions for the reasons that have been articulated as part of our
appeal.
• Martinez: So, the reason I say that is that, you know, when those off-the-cuff
comments are made, all of a sudden we lose the ability to really collaborate
and work together. Because I think that long term wise, we could have come
up with a solution if people weren't backing themselves in a corner. I think
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we have got to this point because of some of those statements and not
wanting to compromise —at least on the county side. I know that I was open
to whatever we can do to make this work. I am finding that I am really
disappointed about—for example Dave and Kelly already talked about the
numbers —if you are going through and just doing it quick—I do finance and
business investment analysis for the FAA and their huge numbers. When I
look at these things, I do at first glance, you'd like to have a little bit more
data behind the numbers and where you are getting those. I haven't looked
any further into that, but that's the first thing—a flag. When you talk about
the empty houses and security. Everybody knows that an empty house is less
secure than one that is having somebody in it. Kelly had a great point
because one of the things I was going to mention is the fact that not only are
there non-profits, but there is the Loudoun Museum that could probably use
those buildings and they would be a great asset because not only would you
have the county facility in having those buildings, but security wise, I would
think that would be a little more on the safer side. Not only that, I am now
looking at 114 and you talk about security— 114 Edwards Ferry Road is in
that 50 foot perimeter that you have. It has a parking lot in the back of the
building. For me, that would raise even another warning flag that well maybe
you need to make sure that those kind of security issues are taken care of
before you worry about a building that you own. Now, again, that was
something I was looking at. One of my first things when people ask me how I
thought about this—I told them I was going to be very open minded and that
I wanted to make sure that those buildings had historical significance and the
town staff had to prove it to me. The BAR had to prove it to me and you had
to have some way to prove that they weren't, but you didn't. So, now I am
looking at myself as being—when you talk about historic significance, it is
just like when you sell public land. Once you sell it, it is gone and you no
longer can take care of it. You no longer can put things in there that your
residents need. You can't have something that your residents need. When I
look at these historic buildings—if you are saying that they have historic
significance, our BAR and staff are saying they have historic significance, all
of a sudden that element for me kind of goes in the town's favor. Once you
give up those buildings, they are gone. So, I'm still kind of in limbo as to
where I want to land, but I know I want to keep that courthouse building
here. I know that even though we say there is not a whole a lot we can do
with that, I think there could be some construction things done or some
redesign done that could do something to help us alleviate this issue. Now,
you talk about construction and you showed that one slide—I understand a
lot of those concerns but you know, I work in DC every day and they are
doing all kinds of constructions creatively and avoiding those kinds of traps
that you think you are in or you feel that you are going to be in.
Hemstreet: No, they have avoided by paying for it and that becomes a cost
issue. That is part of the discussion when you are talking about public
[inaudible].
• Martinez: I'll be honest with you. Right now, I'm not—I have still got to do
some thinking and I would still like to see some data. I would not like to vote
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on this tonight if we can avoid that. If we are forced to vote—Barbara, are we
required to vote?
Notar: Not tonight, no. There are two more meetings before the 75 day
period ends.
• Martinez: Okay, I would like to have some more discussion on this and see if
there is some collaboration— some things we can work on to get this thing to
work. I would like to not have to worry about as we go through these
discussions, that you are going to take your courthouse and go play
somewhere else. You know what I mean? So, I want this to work, but I want
it to work where it benefits both the town and the county.
Hemstreet: The Board's position is this project cannot go forward with the
buildings that are here. That is why we are before you with the appeal that
they directed us to submit.
• Martinez: Well, from what I saw and from what staff has presented, you
could. There would have to be exceptions to be made, but it could be done.
Hemstreet: I don't know that I agree with you, sir.
• Martinez: Convince me that it can't be done. I will be honest with you. I am
not really convinced right now.
• Hammier: Thank you, Mr. Hemstreet. I really did appreciate your
presentation. You did answer a number of important questions that I had.
Just kind of to follow-up on a couple things, though,just for the record. Has
it been established what the cost would be to move the courts to the Sycolin
area if they don't stay in the downtown?
Hemstreet: We have not done that yet. The Board has asked us to start doing
that depending on how tonight goes, so that is something the Board has asked
us to start looking at. They have asked us to look at two different models, one
is to actually—the concept that has been around for about 10 years now,
which is to move these court functions into the existing government center
and to move the government center out of Leesburg. So, we are costing that,
looking at that, because there is a lot of operational challenges with splitting
the court functions. You have attorneys that represent people in the circuit
court and then in district court. You always have people that show up at the
wrong court, so you don't want someone—we wouldn't want someone to
show up at the circuit court and be told that they have to go somewhere else
in the county for the district court, so one of the things we will look at is
trying to keep the courts downtown, but then move the government center.
That is one of the things we are looking at. Also would be to move one or
more courts out of the downtown. We just haven't done those processes yet.
• Hammier: So, I appreciate how you answered it, but what it does frame for
us as a Council is that something negative will happen relative to the overall
operations and I think it is critical that this council move forward tonight on a
decision just based on all the information that is presented. Along those lines,
well we have to make a decision once we have all the input, which is why we
are having a public input tonight. You didn't more tactically address—just
for the record, we would appreciate—did you do any cost analysis about
keeping 112, which is one of the recommendations? Quite frankly, of the four
houses, probably the most attractive and is off to the side. Is that even a
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I know the Board has kind of weighed in on it, but any thoughts
possibility? g Y g
on somehow maintaining that building?
Hemstreet: I believe Mr. Scofield did refer to that. If you have a packet that
we brought with us. I don't know if that has been handed out to you or not—
the last page is a cost analysis for 112 if that would remain by itself.
• Hammier: Okay, I'll look at that in a second.
Hemstreet: The presentation document has alluded to, we will give you a
more complete analysis, not just the presentation slide. The cost of
maintaining that building, obviously is less than the cost for four buildings.
The other constructability issues, a lot of those are mitigated by dealing with
one building as opposed to four.
• Hammier: Gotcha. We can continue talking about that...
Hemstreet: The Board of Architectural Review did not accept that.
• Hammier: I was going to refer back to that. I understand that the County
sent out an RFI requesting any information about anyone who would be
willing to move the buildings and that you received a couple of responses.
Can you just talk a little bit about any reaction from the Board or where you
think that will go relative to if the decision is overturned, what the possibility
is to save them and move them somewhere else?
Hemstreet: The Board sent out a request for letters of interest—which is
seeing if there were interested third parties that would want to take the
buildings. We did get two responses to that, so that we do know that there is
interest, but what we did not really gauge is a hard and fast how the cost
would be split up, so you know certainly the Board's perspective is that if
someone wants the building, then it is 100% on them to go ahead and move
and do the construction. Now, I will say that there is a lot of things that have
to happen in order for that to occur. We would have to be authorized to
demolish the building, but I think the Board is open to having that dialog as
to how the buildings are disposed of. There has been plenty of discussion on
that by the Board of Supervisors. But, we haven't had a good strong direction
from the Board, because they really haven't gotten into that debate, is if they
are willing to participate and if so to what extent.
• Hammier: Unfortunately, Marty has just stepped out but to this point, I
think there is just sort of this general frustration between the two boards
because people are talking from the dais and we haven't had the opportunity
to really have a good,joint meeting or even a task force kind of structure to do
this in a real relationship building way, but I think we have to take joint
responsibility for that and realize that we can still make all of those things
happen, so that is where I am coming from. If I may, if I can just take 10
more seconds of your time,just because I would like to keep this on the table
about moving the buildings. Tara, can you just pull up the picture of the
Exeter Mansion. I am just going to use this as an example. This building was
the original mansion associated with the Exeter subdivision, which was torn
down and demolished when Walmart came in. You know, lo and behold,
that whole area became a whole big box. You know, we probably could have
done a lot even saving that part of Leesburg history. This—the original owner
was related to George Mason. It was eventually sold to General George
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Rust, who expanded the house. It played a major role in the American Civil
War when the battle of Balls Bluff was fought on its plantation lands and
Confederate General Jubal Early actually used the house as his headquarters.
There was an opportunity to somehow keep that within the framework of
what is significant to Leesburg. I would just like to as part of my comments
and questions, and thoughts to you to bring back, you know, if we can fmd a
way to move those buildings so that we can retain, you know, them
somewhere I would appreciate that discussion.
• Fox: Thank you, Mr. Hemstreet. I just want to reiterate something you said
earlier, that the four buildings in question would remain empty and no third
party would be permitted to occupy them if they were to remain there, is that
correct?
Hemstreet: I'm sorry. I didn't hear all of that.
• Fox: Would the four buildings remain unoccupied under county control—no
third party would be allowed?
Hemstreet: That is correct.
• Fox: The second question I had had to do with the 50 foot security buffer. I
am in the courthouse a lot as it is and I can reach out on those—there are
some houses on North Street that are very, very close to that courthouse.
Closer than it seems than these would be to the proposed building. That
hasn't been a problem. I was wondering why this is a problem?
Hemstreet: Again, the reason why they are guidelines and not requirements
is because we can't deal with things on a property that we don't control. So,
the issue for us is mitigating the security risk on our property.
• Fox: The third question I had, why so big? 92,000 square feet. Is it really
needed to be that big?
Hemstreet: Yes.
• Fox: I guess my last question has to do with 112. Is there a way that— sorry,
let me take a look—is there a way that you could work with keeping 112.
Would it be too much of a problem to try to keep one of the historic homes
there?
Hemstreet: Again, that was kind of a compromise that we carried, as staff, to
the Board for the Board's consideration. The Board did consider that. They
did specifically deliberate about that possibility and the Board chose not to
explore that option. The reason was very much along the lines of all of the
reasons that are in their appeal, which is it still represents a security risk, it
still represents a cost, it still creates an ongoing cost in terms of having to
maintain it, and it is something that would not be occupied or utilized by the
county.
• Fox: Okay. Thank you.
• Mayor: Mr. Hemstreet thanks for hanging out here so long.
Hemstreet: Absolutely. Happy to do it. It's what I do.
• Mayor: My concern is that there is no way to keep those buildings—there is
no way for the town to require that those buildings be kept in what would be
an attractive state. So, what I see happening with those four buildings is they
will deteriorate and as long as they are boarded up and the windows are
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sealed up and the doors are sealed off, we face the likely possibility of four
eyesores over the years. In trying to determine what the $1 million of
minimum yearly anticipated maintenance times 75 years is, I assume that is
not a million a year, but over 75 years to maintain those four buildings, it
would be a million or a million dollars a year over 75 years.
Hemstreet: That's a 75 year long.
• Mayor: Okay, so a million dollars over 75 years. As I said, I don't want to
see this structure go any higher and I think County staff has done a pretty
good job trying to keep it within the current limits, so I appreciate that. I
appreciate all the outreach County staff did to the community—the meetings
you had for the community and I think you listened to the community
especially when you found a way to keep Church Street open. I am very
concerned about the loss of, I think, Mr. Hemstreet, you had said about 400
employees in the County government center. The potential loss of those
should the Board, and I heard several members of the Board say that they
would need to look at moving either the County government center out of
Leesburg's downtown or the Courts. I think the consensus at the one meeting
that I attended on that was that they would look to move the County
government center out of Leesburg and then they would put the courts into
the Government Center for their expansion needs. I think that would
traumatize the businesses that are in our downtown and I think we will lose a
great deal of commerce in the downtown, if we lose either element. Now, I
know that economic development is moving out of the government center
and we are not thrilled about that, but I certainly don't want to see it
aggravated and I don't want to see more county functions move out of the
downtown. So, for me, the scenario I see is we are going to look at four
buildings that have historic value that are going to fall into disrepair as the
years ago by. There will be probably minimal upkeep because the Board of
Supervisors will see no real purpose. Can't use them and so we have four eye
sores on Edwards Ferry. I don't see the benefit to the town in that. I would
be ready to vote tonight to overturn the BAR even though I think the BAR
did a very, very good job under their mandate of what they are supposed to
do, but I don't see it is in the best interest of our downtown to lose any more
county functions and if I felt these buildings —if I felt some private owner
would buy them and restore them, I could see a purpose to maintaining them,
but I don't think that is going to happen. The non-profits don't have the
money to do it. These buildings will be high maintenance and expensive and
I just don't want to see our downtown merchants lose any business. Other
council members have asked for more information, especially in relation to
the spreadsheet and I would certainly support their ability to get that
information. But, I think it is time to move on. We do have, I think the BAR
gets an opportunity and I think Ned is here. So, Ned, if you wanted to give a
presentation, we would welcome it.
Ned Kiley, Chair, Board of Architectural Review:
One way to solved the—attractiveness is not an appropriate guideline when
you are dealing with demolition in the historic district. It is not something, we can
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under the law, consider as a relevant fact. When we look at inaudible
[ ] all four
buildings. Then it would be off their hands and [inaudible]. If you look at his cross
figure, despite what Mr. Hemstreet says, there is a figure of$320,000 to $360,000
improvements to four structures. If they are not going to do anything with them,
why is that in there? The capital costs, I don't have a problem with, but when you
look at the ongoing operational costs, which is not$240,000. That's a 75 year figure,
that has been added to the overall cost. Same with ongoing maintenance. That
$905,000 is a 75 year figure.
• Hammler: Madam Mayor, I don't think that's the way the spreadsheet reads.
It's times 75 years.
The BAR spent a lot of time on this time, the last time yesterday, to figure out
how many BAR member and staff person hours went into this project and this total
was 330 hours. We actually spent more time on Courthouse Square for better
results. I don't understand the county's basis in this appeal. They are in effect saying
"we're special. We're the county. You can't apply the same rules to us as you do
everyone else". But this is a "nation of laws" and the law in this town applies to the
county as it does to me. As it does to any citizen, or company, or property owner in
the town. And the county has admitted they do not satisfy criteria under the law for
demolition of these buildings. The security issues and the fire separation issues have
been dealt with. Tom's presentation demonstrated that categorically. To say that we
are going to let these buildings become demolition by neglect, I think it is an affront
to this Council and to this town. I would suggest you all take as much time as you
need within the 75 day period. Take a hard look at this. Mr. Hemstreet said the
standard in the shoes —whose shoes? Which Board of Supervisors? The one that is
sitting there now or the one that will be sworn in in January. It is the same with your
shoes—the Council member sitting here now or the ones in ten years. If you decide
to let these buildings come down, they are gone forever, not matter how many
iterations of the Board of Supervisors or the Town Council come and go—those
buildings are gone forever.
Leo Rogers, County Attorney: Prior to coming to Loudoun County, I
worked for nearly 25 years for James City County, part of the historic triangle,
Jamestown, Williamsburg, Yorktown. Historic preservation and the
accommodation of public structures and public facilities in historic areas is certainly
not something new to me. I think the issue that you have tonight is you are trying to
keep a courthouse downtown on a very small site that is very constrained and the
county being the owner of the site is trying to follow the rules of law as identified by
the BAR. We are not disputing that the BAR followed the criterion as are
established in your ordinance, but there is another provision that is in your ordinance
and that's the discretion that is given to this Council as a legislative body to make
decisions, as stated in your ordinance, as ought to be made and there are purposes
for which you have an historic district. You want to have that historic district so it is
going to promote economic vitality. You want to have the value of community
resources, contributions to the town's unique character. A courthouse does that. A
courthouse is a very unique public, civic space. There is no more traditional public
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forum than the grounds of the courthouse. It is the place where people go to conduct
business, to get information, to resolve disputes. Keeping that courthouse in
downtown Leesburg is what the county would like to see happen. The county is also
the property owner of four structures, residential in nature, that do not fit into a
courthouse campus. They have no purpose as part of that courthouse campus and
the county being a public body is looking at the expenditure of taxpayer funds to
keep four structures that have no use to a courthouse facility and those structures are
going to detract from the purposes of the courthouse, the design of the courthouse
and the security of the courthouse. That is what Mr. Hemstreet said when he asked
you to put yourself in the shoes of that property owner—another public body that is
looking to expend public funds for that purpose. What we are doing tonight is we
are coming to Town Council as a legislative body that has the discretion to consider
all of these factors and to consider the factors that should you not make a decision to
overturn the decision of the Board of Architectural Review, which we are not
disputing. They operated within the criterion you all have established by ordinance.
But, if you don't do that, the county is going to have to make a decision as to what it
is going to be doing with its public facilities.
Mayor: Dieter, at this point, you are, I think the only BAR member here, but
the Council may ask additional questions or take additional testimony from either
the County or the BAR. So, if Council members have any questions, would you
prefer to answer or would you prefer not?
Meyers: I would answer.
• Dunn: Yes, actually. So, I have a historic building in the historic downtown
on any street and I decide I need to put boards up on the windows. Do I need
to go to the BAR? Because I think that would fall under window treatments
and I know that I have heard Dieter and the Board on a number of occasions
deal with people about what construction materials they can use for window
sills and windows and window panes, so would I have to go to the BAR for
approval to start boarding up a historic building?
Staff answer: That would be an alteration that perhaps would have to go to
the BAR.
• Dunn: So, anything I want to do to that historic building, I have to go to the
BAR, externally.
Staff answer: Unless it is maintenance. As long as it doesn't change—using
like kind materials. As long as it is maintenance and you are keeping in the
same condition, you do not have to go to the BAR. [inaudible].
• Dunn: Thank you. And so far there hasn't been any discussion from the
county. I think that the County is obviously headed in a certain direction.
The direction has been we want to get rid of the buildings, otherwise you
wouldn't be asking for it. I think that if, and maybe part of the future
discussion would be if the buildings do end up staying, is and there with
outside of possibly that security zone is what could be done with those
buildings as far as offering for sale or using them for another government
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purpose, but those are discussions the board and the county really hasn't had,
is that correct? Have you all discussed any alternatives?
Hemstreet: If you are asking, have we had a discussion, as staff, with the
Board of Supervisors about uses for those structures, the answer is yes. We
have had those discussions with the Board at length about whether or not the
Board was interested in compromising through the process with the Board of
Architectural Review. If the Board were interested in talking about
maintaining one or more or four of those structures. The answer has been
consistently no. The Board has not been interested in entertaining that
discussion. Again, our biggest concern is for security. We would not allow
or permit a third party into those buildings because we cannot control who
goes into those buildings if they are under control of a third party. That
means that the only use then for those buildings would be for a county
operation. The buildings already are too small for any of our county
operations. If we were to implement the direction of the Board of
Architectural Review, we then would have even less use for those structures
because they would be even smaller than what they are today. So, again, we
don't see a viable use for those structures on the courthouse grounds.
• Dunn: Okay, so there has been no discussion of alternative uses. Basically,
we would not use the buildings and we want to demolition.
Hemstreet: There has been no discussion of alternative uses because we will
not permit a third party on the courthouse grounds to occupy those structures.
• Dunn: Provided we still have the courthouse grounds where they are.
Hemstreet: Yeah, we are talking about keeping the courts downtown. That is
the whole point of the discussion.
• Dunn: Right. And let's see. Got that answered. I guess this just to carry on
a couple of comments that were made about public use and the county has
employees, correct? And you pay them? Of course, and they provide services
and the public pays for those services. What is the difference between a
private business that were going to do the same thing? They have got
employees, they provide services, the public pays for those services. Now, we
know obviously that there is a difference between the public sector and the
private sector, but when it comes down to it is the real main difference is the
public is forced to pay for your services, but they can decide whether they pay
for the private services. The difference is that we are being asked to provide a
different standard for the public sector, which in fact the public is actually
forced to have to pay for. So, there is [inaudible] way, whereas the private
sector, they can decide whether they want to pay for it or not and get that
service or not. It's hard for me to say well because we are the government, we
deserve a different standard because if it were a private sector, and I think the
BAR just talked about Courthouse Square, right across the street from here
having to deal with nearly the same issues, yet the private sector in fact they
are not building yet. They can't necessarily afford to just put it up because
they are not going to have $55 million to do it. You are going to get$55
million, whether we like it or not. It is going to happen. So, I have a real
tough time saying you know the public sector deserves more consideration
just because we are public, but then again you are providing the same service
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as a private sector individual would be doing or company just being funded in
a different way. Anyway, that's just my point. Nothing you have to respond
to. Thanks.
• Butler: Just a couple of small items. One, let's say theoretically, we could
move the main building so that the four or move the four houses or a
combination thereof so that the four houses moved outside of the yellow
dashed line. That would eliminate the security problem and presumably they
would be far enough so that the cost of the fire rating of the south facade
would go away, but that doesn't seem to be a very high cost. Would there
then be any objection to selling the houses and allowing anybody else to live
there if it wasn't that close to the courthouse. Yeah, somebody from the
county assuming that they are outside the yellow dashed line.
Hemstreet: Again, the structures themselves are on the courthouse property.
We do not have the use, whether they are a few feet outside of the 50 foot
buffer—I mean there are two zones —the 100 foot sight line, which we
haven't spoken about and then the 50 foot set off from any other structure.
To begin with, I don't know that we can move the building enough to meet
the 50 foot set off. We certainly can't move the 100 foot sight line with the
structures there and it again becomes a situation where we are sacrificing
what we believe are our security risks on that property. I do not see a
scenario where the board would go to the cost of redesign to move the
structure and allow a third party to occupy those buildings.
Hemstreet: I think that is a hypothetical question that I do not believe we can
practically get to and again, there is no way to meet the 100 foot guideline or
sight line and if we were outside the 50 feet it would only be by a few feet. I
don't believe there is a way given the configuration of the site just based on
what I know about it to move the building enough that we can be completely
outside of the 50 foot line and make all the operations of the court work. It
also creates an additional problem on the north side of the building,which we
are also not meeting the 50 foot setback, but again that is not a property we
can control. I don't believe that is a realistic solution. If you are asking me
my opinion tonight on July 14.
• Butler: I understand. Now, what is the deal with the 100 foot line because
there seems like there are a zillion properties within that 100 foot line.
Hemstreet: 100 foot is a sight line. [inaudible speaking from the audience].
Again, we are trying to control—meet the guidelines on property we control.
We cannot meet—obviously, if it is not property we control we cannot meet
the guidelines on other people's property, but the 100 feet is a sight line. We
want to have 100 foot distance of unobstructed sight line. We definitely
cannot meet that to the road. The structures are in the way. You cannot
meet the 100 foot sight line from the building to the road. There are two
guidelines. We did not talk a whole lot about the 100 foot sight line. We
talked most of the time about 50 foot building set back line, but there is no
way to meet the 100 foot sight line. Clear sightline where the buildings are.
• Butler: It doesn't feel like the county has exactly gone out of their way to try
to meet us somewhere in the middle. It doesn't feel that way. I know that
staff has taken their direction from the Board of Supervisors. I get that. So,
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maybe it would be more accurate to say that it doesn't feel like the Board of
Supervisors is giving staff enough discretion to compromise with the town
and try to do our best to preserve the heritage that we have while we are
meeting with the county's needs. I certainly would like to do both and there
are always engineering solutions to things. In my opinion, it would be more
helpful if the Board of Supervisors was a little more flexible. Thank you.
• Burk: I just need some clarification on this sheet. I thought we were
supposed to be asking BAR—I didn't realize we could ask. Is it okay if we
continue to ask?
• Mayor: The council may take additional testimony from the county or the
BAR.
• Burk: Okay. Then,just a couple of things. The ones in yellow where it says
additional security staff—it says roving security staff and full time employees
at$32,000 per year times 75, 10 %. You understand what I am—I don't even
understand what that number means and then the one underneath is the
minimum yearly anticipated maintenance for 75 years. So, are you adding
something that is a 75 year cost to something that is a yearly cost? The two
yellow lines.
Male Voice: That was a number estimating what it would take to add
additional security for 75 years to patrol around the houses.
• Burk: So you have added into this $4.5 million is costs that are spread over
75 years.
Male voice: Yes. It is a 75 year building, so that was why we do 75 years.
When you design a building, you typically design a 75 or 100 year building.
• Burk: Okay, that's all I've got. I still don't see where you are getting your
numbers from.
Male Voice: I can break out the numbers in more detail and provide it all to
you.
• Burk: That would be very helpful.
Hemstreet: If the presentation slide is not working for you, we can break it
out [inaudible].
• Burk: I'd appreciate that.
• Martinez: [inaudible] Ned is still here because he is speaking for the BAR.
Dieter, can you respond? I just had two questions.
Meyer: I couldn't hear.
• Martinez: What was the BAR vote?
Meyer: It was unanimous, 7-0.
• Martinez: And why?
Meyer: Because it was determined by the BAR that the guidelines really
didn't give us any additional flexibility. There was just no way we could vote
to have those buildings fully demolished and not only that, what we tried to
do was come up with a compromise in allowing the rears of the buildings to
be demolished, which would then greatly increase the fire separation distance
between the existing building and the new courthouse. That created quite a
perimeter there, you are getting awfully close to if not at the point where you
can get a zero hour fire rating on that side. I am skeptical that you can't make
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something work from a fire rating standpoint. Security issue—I have my
opinions on that, but I am not going to go into that.
• Martinez: I just wanted that clarification. Thank you.
• Hammler: Just to reiterate, I think a couple of us on Council have already
mentioned and so has the county administrator that we completely appreciate
everything that the BAR did and we agree that according to the guidelines,
you did an enormous amount of work and came to, you know, a very logical
decision, unanimously. So, I don't think that's the issue. I know that you
have already mentioned citing the historic significance of the building. I do
think that Tim made a very good point and addressed certainly something I
had heard from a few people—why is it fair that the county gets to possibly
have this broader scope, which we are looking at, which includes what would
be a significant economic devastating impact if certainly the courthouse
moves or any other major government function moves out of our historic
downtown. I think that point has been well made as well. I appreciate what
Kristen said about the actual buildings in terms of the state of repair they are
in and so I guess my question for Tom, we have several buildings in the
downtown that really are in bad disrepair and quite frankly you could ask
yourself why on earth, like are those tin can buildings even allowed in the
downtown? So, I don't know if it sort of rhetorical at this point—it is late, but
I think we need to keep that in mind relative to what for me is going to be an
important guiding factor in my purview as a council member and what we
can take into account in this decision whether to overturn or not, which is the
broader economic impact. If we agree with the assumption that some major
portion of government functions of the county will move out of town if we do
not overturn this decision, it is going to be very negative. And, you know, do
we sacrifice four houses and ultimately have the significant negative
economic impact to the rest of the historic downtown to save them. I know
the issue of politics came up relative to the timing of the demolition. So, for
the record, I would also appreciate knowing if we overturn this decision
tonight or whenever we may within the 75 day window, when would the
actual demolition take place relative to what is on the timeline? What would
be the timing of that?
Hemstreet: It could be years.
• Hammler: It could be years? So, there is the opportunity for that to just....
Hemstreet: [inaudible] and buildings we would have to have approval with
permits for the new building [inaudible] before we do anything.
• Hammler: So, it really just keeps the options open to have a really positive
dialog because this is a very complex construction project that we have to
work closely with the county on, streamline the process, address things
ranging from stormwater management to parking to you know all of the
things that we have discussed tonight. I am looking forward to finally hearing
from the public. We have gotten ahead in line of what you are probably
talking about— so anticipating that.
Staff answer: One of the conditions that Mr. Hemstreet mentioned was that
make sure that the rezoning is approved and building permits pulled for the
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construction of the courthouse before demolition is to occur. Also, we would
like to clarify that the vote by the BAR was a 5-1-1 vote, not a 7-0.
• Hammler: Oh, thank you. And of course no matter what the decision is from
Council...well, I shouldn't say that because if Council doesn't overturn, then
some—we may not be looking at the courthouse architecture, but if it does
then that, of course, is coming back to really be the—the architectural review
board will be very closely looking at that and we look forward to working on
that as well.
• Fox: I just have two things— one, if we are going to vote on this tonight and I
don't know whether we are going to—I have some observations or some
remarks. No extra questions for Mr. Hemstreet. No extra questions for the
BAR. The second thing I'd like to do is acknowledge this gentleman. Very,
very patient gentleman sitting here in the front row for 3 1/2 hours. I think he
has something he wants to tell us, so I just wanted to put that out there.
• Mayor: I agree. I would just make one comment because I think Tom and I
would disagree. Tom Dunn, not you Tom down there. The county is not
asking for anything that an individual homeowner couldn't ask for or an
individual business owner couldn't ask for. We have had notable appeals
from BAR decisions that have come to Council. The county is exercising it's
legal rights just as individual home owners and businesses exercise their legal
rights. I don't think there is anything special about what the county is doing
right now in appealing. But, we do need go now to public comment. We
have got a gentleman who has been waiting.
Joe Scanlan: My name is Joe Scanlan. I live on Rickenbacher Square in
Ashburn. I grew up in Leesburg and am a Loudoun County resident. Currently in
the process of selling my home. My wife and I are moving back to Leesburg. One of
the main reasons coming back is the atmosphere of downtown Leesburg has been
greatly enhanced over the years with new restaurants, businesses, and residential
projects all being added to the historic district. The ability to offer a walkable
community with restaurants and shops downtown creates a unique and exciting
experience same as moving in and around the town. It sets itself apart from a
regional filled with suburban sprawl and strip malls. We should be allowing projects
such as the Loudoun Courthouse Expansion to move forward for the survival and
betterment of the quality of life for downtown. This is an essential project for the
businesses and jobs already located downtown and those that will be created in the
future. Allowing the courthouses to relocate out of downtown Leesburg would be
devastating for all of the work put in over the years making downtown a destination
for history as well as restaurants and shops. It would truly limit the continued
transformation into a community where people want to live and businesses want to
be located. I would urge the council to work and allow this project to move forward,
substantiate their hard work and work with others over the years to create the
project. Thank you.
Mayor: We do have the possibility of having a vote tonight. My perception
is a majority of council have questions that they want answered, but now would be a
time to make a motion, if anybody wanted to.
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COUNCIL MEETING July 14, 2015
On a motion by Council Member Hammier, seconded by Mayor Umstattd the
following was proposed:
MOTION
I will move to reverse the decision of the Board of Architectural Review was rendered on
May 18, 2015 and approve the county's request for total demolition without the
modifications issued by the BAR.
Council Comments:
• Hammier: Just very briefly to reiterate the key points —the BAR did a
tremendous job for all the reasons that have been mentioned, following the
guidelines. This council has a broader purview relative to the broader
economic questions about the viability and sustainabiiity of the downtown
and the what the impact would be. I, for one, believe that there is significant
reason to believe that this BAR decision is not overturned, that a significant
portion of government, Loudoun County Government operations would be
moved outside of the historic downtown. I certainly welcome the
opportunity to work closely with the county moving forward on some of the
real important [inaudible] discussions including how we can possibly have
someone who is interested move the historic houses elsewhere as well as
things like parking and very important things that are extremely important for
the future of the downtown. So, in summary, it would be economically
devastating to have that courthouse or any other major Loudoun County
government function blocked and in addition the specific refinement of the
architectural details is definitely coming back to the BAR so that gives me
extra pause. So, the issue of fairness has been addressed. This is not a typical
office building. This is a courthouse with very specific complex needs that
you require and I think it is important for saving taxpayer money to move this
forward effectively and use this as an opportunity to work better moving
forward as two governing bodies. So, I would say that is sort of the
[inaudible] but this council should not be throwing out our baby, which is our
historic downtown, with the bathwater.
• Mayor: The only thing I would add to what I have already said and what
Katie has said is that talking to individuals who have invested and want to
invest in the downtown, the possibility that any more county services might
be moved outside the downtown has made banks and other investors
extremely nervous and I think we are going to see a ripple effect if we do not
secure the courthouse expansion for the downtown. I think there will be a
negative impact on the downtown—on the existing businesses there as well as
the existing restaurants and I think we will lose the possibility for additional
investment in the downtown. That is all I would have to say at this time.
• Fox: I do have some comments. I do support my colleagues ability to get
answers to their questions. I don't mind whether we vote tonight or not. I'm
good with that, but I do have some things that I would like to put out there
because I am liaison to BAR, I have been privy to the conversations that the
BAR has had and I have agreed with their assessment and their
recommendations given their purview. However, my job is to look at this
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COUNCIL MEETING July 14, 2015
issue through the political lens—that is what most benefits the people of
Leesburg and for our citizens what is most important. Keeping the
courthouse in Leesburg or keeping the four houses in place, which learned
tonight will remain empty. There are two issues that I have. First of all, I
don't feel like we have the entire picture. We have been given a little actual
empirical data as to why the expansion needs to happen. We have also heard
from the county that if we don't consent to demolition, they will strongly
consider moving the courts. I think we probably need to take that seriously. I
was at the hearing at the Board of Supervisors with you, Mayor. Tonight's
County appeal rejects the compromise set forth by the BAR—that of saving
the historic footprints of these buildings, so in essence, I hate to say it, we are
kind of being held hostage in a way, given our commitment to preservation of
history and I think that is unfortunate and I don't think it accomplishes
anything but hard feelings, but that said the county courts and the
government center are a major part of this town's economic engine and
without them, I believe the town will suffer economically. The courthouse, in
my opinion, is important to the preservation of the town. Prospective
business and prospective residents are watching us and they will respond to
how we address this issue this evening. My major concern is that if approval
is granted for demolition of the four buildings without ensuring approval of all
elements of this project such as a parking structure, building design, etc., the
town will feel pushed and compelled to finish this project because we went
ahead and consented to demolition and I don't want to see the town stuck in
this situation. Once we demolish, we can't undemolish. If we approve
demolition, I would ask that we do so with the condition that the demolition
may occur only after receipt of the applicant of both a building permit for the
new construction for the new district courthouse and final approval for the
submitted rezoning application TLZM 2015-0002.
• Burk: Well, I have to express my disappointment that we are going to make a
vote on something that we don't have all the information that some of us had
asked for. I would just like some more information. I think that we are
making a decision without having all of the numbers and all of the
information we have asked for. I don't think it is unreasonable to ask for it.
The county has agreed to give us the information. I hate to vote on
something when I don't have all the information. I also think it would give us
a little more time to find out if in reality that this is an idle threat, or if it is
really true. But, for me, the biggest thing is that I need the information to be
able to make the decision that I think is accurate and correct.
Vice Mayor Butler made a motion to postpone the vote on this subject to July 28, 2015.
The motion was seconded by Council Member Butler.
Council Member Hammier offered a friendly amendment to form a subcommittee
between Council members and Board members.
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COUNCIL MEETING July 14, 2015
• Hammier: What has been missing is any dialogue between Council and
Board of Supervisor members and there would be value in having that
discussion.
• Mayor: You haven't seen all the emails I've seen, apparently.
• Hammler: I think we need to have somebody sit down together so that there
is joint learning and that could come back by the 28`''
• Mayor: There has been a fair amount of dialogue back and forth, I think. At
the Board meeting where this was discussed, I think we heard where the
various members of the Board were on it and Mr. Reid certainly has not been
shy about sharing his thoughts on this, but Kelly and Dave have to decide
whether to accept that as a friendly amendment.
• Burk: From my point of view, we have had quite a bit of discussion. I think
that meeting was pretty clear how they were going, but I understand what
Council member Hammier would like to do, but I think it's probably already
done. I'm thinking. Wait a minute.
• Butler: I think the time for a task force was a while ago. We can decide on a
task force at the next meeting if we don't want to vote it up or down.
• Mayor: We are going to run out of time. We will have, what, 75 days,
Barbara and that ends in September?
Notar: In August, so you have two more meetings to discuss this.
• Butler: So back to comments. One, I would like to see a spreadsheet,
obviously. That is one thing I—bring my intensity on the spreadsheet. I
come from an industry background and you could have gotten 50 slides on
your presentation and 49 of them are confusing. The one that needs to be
very, very clear is the one with the money. So, anyway, I would like to see
that and I also would like to get the town staff's input on whether it is possible
to do a combination of moving the main building to the north and some
combination of the historic buildings to the south and see if we can pull them
outside of the yellow dashed lines. That may be a fairly easy question to
answer, but I think if they are outside the yellow dashed lines, it gives a lot
more flexibility to the county. I don't believe for a minute that the county is
going to move anything out of Leesburg unless they absolutely have to. Thee
was some numbers, I seem to recall a spreadsheet that they came around with
preliminary numbers and it was about$20 million more to move the courts
down Sycolin Road. I can't see the judges and the court staff wanting to
move into the county building. If it was moved out, it would be for political
pete and not for any rational or economic reasons. So, I trust the Board
enough that they wouldn't do that, plus it wouldn't be very many months
before it is likely that at least some number of the Board members may
change. So, it would be rash for the board to make a decision based on a few
million dollars and a couple of houses that would negatively affect the county
for many years. So, I am confident that is not going to happen, although
there has been rhetoric on all sides. I am a little bit disappointed that we seem
to have a number of Council Members that are all scared of the county and
taking threats more seriously than they rationally should. That's okay.
That's their prerogative. I'm just not buying into it. So, I am more than
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COUNCIL MEETING July 14, 2015
happy to postpone for a couple of weeks so that we can get some more
information and look at a couple more alternatives.
• Dunn: I would be interested in postponing because I do have a few questions.
I don't know if you are able to answer those now, but I wanted to know what
the cost estimates were of moving the courts to the County government
building, the cost estimates then of moving the government center to another
location—what that is. Slso today's point what that could estimate was to
move the courts out of town. As you remember, there was number floating
around about that at one point. Also, to know what should the courts move
to the government center and the government center move out of town, or
maybe in town to another location, what would you do and what would be
the estimate—what would you do with the current courts complex. I
imagine you would sell that because if you are moving the government center
somewhere else and the courts are in the downtown, you don't need the court
complex, so what would you do with that. The courts complex would
remain? Why don't you get back to us on that one. Unless you have an aswer
now.
Hemstreet: The courts directed us at some point to bring the answers to those
questions back. We are not talking about moving the 230,000 square foot
structures that are there right now. The circuit court would remain where it
is. When we are talking about—what the court is talking about is an
extended building—is a 92,000 square foot structure. What would happen is
the existing government center would be repurposed for the district court and
for the expansion of the juvenile and domestic relations court, so they have
moved into the government center building. So, there wouldn't be any
property to sell.
• Dunn: You'd just have different court functions in the current courts complex
and then other court functions...
Hemstreet: The existing court functions stay.
• Dunn: You'd just be expanding into the government center.
Hemstreet: That is correct. They have outgrown the size of that building.
The size of the new courthouse building at 92,000 square feet [inaudible].
• Dunn: Okay. And right now that expansion into the government center
would be how many new employees, because they got to be somewhere now,
right? Or you have to have new employees if you are expanding.
Hemstreet: There are two issues—one is we have a number of functions that
are in leased property in and around this area as well as two functions that are
in two of the Edwards Ferry buildings today, but they have outgrown that
space. So, there is also changes to the Valley Bank building, okay? That
hasn't been talked about too much here, but what we would like to do is
remove one of the rear additions on that building, so what happens is a lot of
staff gets moved out of existing space and moved into the new structure. We
also would be adding, I think there are some additional courtrooms that are
called for as part of the district court plan and we certainly have already
added another circuit court judge, which there is no space for that circuit
court judge. Also, for different security reasons, would like to no longer have
to use the historic court building as an active courtroom so it allows us to
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COUNCIL MEETING July 14, 2015
discontinue the use of that structure. I don't know that it is as much an
expansion as it is a bringing everybody into the same campus, if you will.
There is some expansion, that would be up to the supreme court to add
additional judges for those additional courtrooms.
• Dunn: So, if that scenario were to happen, would you then find uses for these
historic buildings, or do you know that?
Hemstreet: Those are leased space, so we would no longer occupy those
buildings.
• Dunn: The four buildings we are talking about in question. You don't know
at this point? That's fine. So, the other thing I had was just a quick comment
on the need for preservation over restoration. There is a difference between
restoration and preservation. Regardless of how you feel something looks—
you may not like the looks of the pyramids, but you are not going to bulldoze
those down either. So, you know some people don't like the pyramid that is
in front of the Louvre, but there it doesn't look good, but out in the desert it
does. So, again, you can't be basing your historic preservation on how you
feel it looks, but I would be in favor of postponing this. I actually did have a
question on that. The 75 days, if you don't come up with a decision, is it an
automatic approval?
Notar: Yes, it is an approval of the BAR decision. An affirmation of the
BAR decision.
• Dunn: It's automatic. If we don't make a decision, it is an automatic
alignment with the BAR decision?
Notar: Yes, and it would trigger the county's right to appeal.
• Dunn: Again?
Notar: Appeal to the circuit court.
• Dunn: Oh, alright. Very good. I am in favor of postponing.
• Mayor: Suzanne, did you get to give enough comments for the postponement
motion?
• Fox: I did. I have questions, but I feel like these are questions that could be
addressed if we postpone.
• Mayor: Katie, did you have anything else to say on the motion to postpone?
• Hammier: Just was wondering if Council wanted to do a work session or if
we are just planning to put this back on the dais. While I have the mic, I just
would comment on Dave's earlier point—it is not a question of being scared
about thinking the county is moving out. It is understanding that it is a
rational decision based on taxpayer money and the current financial picture.
The county is at its debt limit,just like we are. I think the $200,000 and they
are at$199.9 so a million dollars here and there makes a difference so I am
just cognizant of time being money. I will certainly support my colleagues—
obviously this is an extremely important decision. But, I just think we have to
be as careful on the dais about what we say out of respect for the Board's
decision as we expect them to be for us.
• Martinez: Since what I want to say is not within the scope of the
postponement, I will not. Not like others who just like to keep going.
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COUNCIL MEETING July 14, 2015
The motion to postpone until July 28, 2015 was approved by the following vote:
Aye: Burk, Butler, Dunn, Fox and Martinez.
Nay: Hammier and Mayor Umstattd
Vote: 5-2
It was noted that the public hearing is closed.
11. RESOLUTIONS AND MOTIONS
a. Amending Resolution 2015-001 Making Councilmanic Appointments to Add
Liaisons to the Diversity Commission and Leesburg Rescue
On a motion by Vice Mayor Burk, Council Member Martinez was nominated to be
liaison to the Diversity Commission. The motion was seconded by Mayor Umstattd.
The motion was approved by the following vote:
Aye: Burk, Butler, Dunn, Fox, Hammier, Martinez, and Mayor Umstattd
Nay: None
Vote: 7-0
Mayor Umstattd declined to serve as a liaison to Leesburg Rescue.
Council Member Hammier moved to postpone a vote on a liaison to Leesburg Rescue
until July 28. The motion was seconded by Council Member Martinez.
Council Comments:
• Dunn: I don't feel we need to postpone it because I don't feel we should be
appointing anybody to the rescue squad. I think that adds way too much
politics into their situation and I just don't think it is productive. I would not
be interested in postponing. I would be interested in not having any
councilmanic reps.
• Butler: I kind of agree with Tom. I don't see this as a whole because it is not
a Leesburg Commission. It is a county thing and so I don't know. We may
at some point, but I don't see a need.
• Martinez: Sorry, I jumped in there Kelly. I think the reason why we were
going to put somebody on the rescue squad was there was a lot of questions
on the money we give them and the fact that we have no visibility into the
rescue squad at all. Not that I am volunteering and not that I think we need
that. I think that was the reason why this whole thing came up, so if we want
to find an alternative to get some more accountability, I think that would be
better than putting somebody on their board.
• Burk: Well, I just remember when the Board of Supervisors put two board
members on the water board and how political it made it at that point. It
wasn't a county committee and it was pretty disastrous and so just from
having experienced that, I would be reluctant to do it.
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COUNCIL MEETING July 14, 2015
The motion to postpone was by the approved b following f g vote:
Aye: Fox, Hammier, Martinez, and Mayor Umstattd
Nay: Burk, Butler and Dunn
Vote: 4-3
12. ORDINANCES
a. None.
13. UNFINISHED BUSINESS
a. None.
14. NEW BUSINESS
a. None.
15. COUNCIL MEMBER COMMENTS:
Council Member Fox: I don't have much to say. It has been a crazy few weeks
leading up to yesterday, so I have done a few things and most of it has been with my
daughter, but the one thing I did accomplish was the ability to get to the Legacy Farms
event back in June, which was amazing. There is a special program going on for the autistic
kids and it was quite a treat to be able to attend that. But, everything else has been daughter
centric, so I will just leave it at that.
Council Member Hammier: Well, speaking of autism, Jennifer Lassiter is joining a
small group going down to VAVF, the [inaudible] school of music, which is an
education/performing arts center in downtown tomorrow, so I will report back on that. If
another council member would like to come—Kelly can't—so we can have one more
council member join us tomorrow. Heading down about 5:30. A couple of quick
disclosures. I had a call from Bob Sevila on June 29th about Mr. Saghafi's letter and Banyan
Cove. I did have the meeting with Kelly and a large group joined on the 29th about the
performing arts when we had [inaudible] Levine and Tina Dove and the gentleman who is
in charge of music at George Mason here and I also did attend lunch with a small group.
The value of that was $20, I'll disclose that. I had a call with Shye at ProJet on July 2nd and
a call with Dave and Eric Major yesterday. I just wanted to —on a different note, please
have everybody mark your calendars, it will be coming up. I am really excited that
Makersmith is opening up officially with its ribbon cutting— our maker movement
organization, the first in Loudoun County on August 1 at 11 and there will be an article in
the VML magazine so thank you, Marantha for all your help with that and happy
anniversary, Ida Lee.
Council Member Martinez: I had a lot of fun at Legacy Farms and got to see
peacocks chasing people, which I thought was fun. But, I honestly enjoyed [inaudible]
fourth grade and was glad to be part of it again and that is all I got.
Vice Mayor Burk: Just a couple of things. I want to congratulate the National
Conference Center for their reopening. They opened on the 24th and invited people to come
in and see it. They are booked all the way through September, so it is really a dramatic turn
around for the National Conference Center. On the 26th, I participated in Law Camp for the
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COUNCIL MEETING July 14, 2015
first time and that was pretty neat. I really enjoyed that and I was very impressed ressed with the
kids and one of our staff people, his daughter was one of the lawyers, Callahan, so that was
kind of fun so he was in the audience and threatened me if I didn't vote for her. That is
beside the point. I need to acknowledge I attended the Potomac Station pool party, which
was a nice event, but they did talk about their project to me and I didn't realize that was
what they were going to do. Welcome Mesh Omnimedia that just opened in Leesburg.
This is a public relations kind of media new business in town and it is a great addition. I,
too, talked to Shye Gilad on the 2' and I attended the Performing Arts meeting. Then,
along with Marty and the Mayor and attended the Little League softball tournament. They
had out of sixteen leagues around the state of Virginia, fourteen were there and it was a
really neat event and it was a lot of fun. I was delighted to be asked to attend.
Council Member Butler: Just a couple of things. I do have a disclosure. I was also
on the call with Katie—she called me up on it with Eric Major yesterday. It looks like we
won't end up getting to see any of the all star game last night even though I wore my tie. It
is now the bottom of the ninth, national league is behind 6-3. At any rate, that's all I've got.
Council Member Dunn: I normally don't make very many comments during
Council Member Comments, since everyone was so brief and yielded the rest of your time
to me, I would like to say have a good evening.
16. MAYOR'S COMMENTS
I've got one disclosure, which is I had a phone conversation with Bob Sevila about
Banyan Cove, which is on Edwards Ferry Road and is looking at a potential rezoning. It is
currently zoned for townhouses. It was rezoned to that use and they are looking at
potentially rezoning it back to a commercial use. He mentioned that he had been calling
Council Members to talk about that possibility.
Butler: Does he need a Town Plan amendment?
Mayor: That's after all the discussion on who gets to initiate those, I assume.
17. MANAGER'S COMMENTS
Mr. Dentler had no comments.
18. ADJOURNMENT
On a motion by Council Member Martinez, seconded by Council Member Butler, the meeting
was adjourned at 11:36 p.m.
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