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Home My Public Portal About2011_tcwsmin1128Council Work Session November 28, 2011 Council Chambers, 25 West Market Street, 7:30 p.m. Mayor Kristen C. Umstattd presiding. Council Members Present: David S. Butler, Thomas Dunn, Katie Sheldon Hammler, Marry Martinez, Ken Reid, and Mayor Umstattd. Council Members Absent: Kevin Wright. Staff Present: Town Manager John Wells, Town Attorney Jeanette Irby, Director of Planning and Zoning Susan Berry Hill, Director of Plan Review William Ackman, Deputy Director of Planning Brian Boucher, Assistant to the Town Manager Scott Parker, Zoning Administrator Chris Murphy, Acting Deputy Director of Capital Projects Tom Brandon, Parks and Public Space Planner Bill Ference, Economic Development Manager Marantha Edwards, and Clerk of Council Lee Ann Green AGENDA ITEMS 1. Work Session Items for Discussion a. Downtown Improvements Wells: As Scott Parker is working his way to the microphone, I wanted to take a moment before Scott goes into the presentation and the materials that you have in your packet to highlight where we are at with this project and maybe set the stage for some of the comments that are going to be coming forward in terms of discussing the project as it was initially envisioned by the stakeholders group, worked with by the Voices group. Council was presented with some suggestions for that and asked staff to go back, look at the costs, the build- ability, the viability and look at some of the options that were considered. What I'd like to start off by saying is that as we go through this, what you are going to find is that what we are going to be presenting tonight maintains the essence and the spirit of what has been worked at up through and including this point in time where we have heard from the stakeholders. We have heard from the businesses. We have heard from them as part of the initial process. We have heard from them through the voices group and the fmal recommendations. What you are going to find is a project that maintains improved and expanded public pedestrian area. It maintains and expands the mid -block crossings as was talked about. It provides for increased numbers of street trees. It maintains and creates the flex lanes with parking as the default setting in this project and it provides for increased aesthetics. How we get there and some of the details are different than as you saw it last time, but those basic elements are part of this recommendation. So, with that I'll turn it over to Mr. Parker. Parker: I'm going to go in a little bit more in detail on some of those aspects that John just went over. Good evening, Madam Mayor and members of Council. As you remember on June 14, 2010, the Mayor and Council endorsed the conceptual plan for the design of King Street as it relates to the Downtown Improvements Project. The plan was created by the volunteer group called Voices for an Amazing Place and the representatives that we have here today have diligently worked on that 1 I P a ,c Council Work Session November 28, 2011 project. After public gatherings, the group created a conceptual plan for King Street. This plan came about after opposition grew to the King Street portion of the September 2010 Council approved downtown improvement project as it related to the loss of 8 of 12 on street parking ... I know this is a little bit hard to see, but this is the ultimate work that came out of the voices for an amazing place. Because the voices plan was conceptual, town council asked staff to analyze the plan for cost, safety, approvability, construction feasibility. Staff was also asked to develop a parking management plan. Staff has completed that work with the help of our consultant as well as further input from the volunteer group and others. Given the effort of the voices group to create the conceptual plan, Staff made a determined effort to respect the work of the design volunteers. We have analyzed the plan and our focus was respecting and accomplishing as much of the voices plan and the spirit and concept as possible. As John said, we established this analysis of them and continue to be supportive of the key goals and elements of the plan, provision of wider sidewalk, parking as the default on the street, street trees, midblock crosswalks to improve the aesthetics on King Street. Even though some modifications are being recommended here this evening, these goals are intact. That being said, our analysis and evaluation was based on safety, cost, engineering, feasibility. It has played a critical role in our overall assessment of the physical aspect of the voices plan and we are recommending changes to our modified plan that we will be presenting, that I will be showing you a little bit here later. In conjunction with this plan, some recommendations regarding the parking aspect of this effort are offered as well. So, while it seems like we will be focusing on one particular thing, I have tried to keep in mind that there is a bigger plan that we have in addition to just the physical improvements that the capital project would build. There are some management aspects of it as well. It may seem a little disjointed, but will all come back together at the end of the presentation. The main key element of the voices concept, is being called a flex zone where street parking currently exists now on King Street. It would be delineated and managed by a series of bollards, approximately 84 by staff's analysis given the nature of the bollards and how they have to stop traffic. Distance is being recommended between not to allow cars to get through and so forth. They would be installed in a parallel line from Market Street to Loudoun Street. The concept is to allow the utilization of seven foot parking spaces along the road for pedestrian uses at designated times. The bollards would be moveable or removable in order to allow the parking areas to be used for parking. The bollards would have additional parallel receiving sleeves, i.e. the means of securing them into the ground in order to be moved to a curb line. The curb line orientation of the bollards would be utilized in order to create a barrier between pedestrians and when the flex zones are being used for parked cars or they can be used between pedestrians and travel lanes depending on how you are using this particular flex zone at any particular time. Staff analyzed this intriguing concept long and hard. We took a very long look at it. We analyzed it, we spoke about it a lot. We have concluded that as staff, we cannot support the use of bollards to create this flex zone, but we are committed to exploring various alternatives to achieve the concept of the flex zone, which we do find interesting and I will discuss that here a little bit as well. The reasons we can't support bollards is cited in the report that I have for you but primarily safety. But also expense, maintenance and . With 21Pa e Council Work Session November 28, 2011 regards to safety, King Street is a non - arterial roadway and will continue to carry large numbers of vehicles. We are to provide a barrier that will adequately deflect automobiles, as I said before, approximately 84 bollards four feet apart would have to be installed. After installation, children, bikes and baby strollers would still have the ability to get between them, potentially interacting with traffic in an unacceptable manner. Particularly when they are separating the flex zone from the traffic. Staff believes that this type of barrier will produce a dangerous, false sense of security when placed directly adjacent to a travel lane of a roadway. Also, installing the bollards adjacent to the travel lane creates a hazard for vehicles as well by putting obstacles in a clear zone as defined in Federal and State standards. With regards to expense, because bollards will be used to protect pedestrians, they must be designed to withstand collision from vehicles. Significant construction is required in the form of sleeves and concrete footers. The estimated cost of this type of bollard system is approximately $600,000. Utility relocation will need to be done as well. There is a water line in the street that will have to be relocated and quite honestly we have buried a lot of utilities out there and we are not sure if there is an acceptable relocation area out there at this time or not. But, water relocation line, if you have to build footers for the bollards is a likely consequence. With regards to maintenance, it is anticipated a significant expense will be incurred for the maintenance of the bollards as well. It is anticipated that the high traffic area bollards will continually be damaged and require replacement or repairs on a regular basis. It is also anticipated that the cars will veer into the bollards, which research has shown is a distinct possibility, numerous bollards on a regular basis will need replacement. Given the high profile nature of King Street, these bollards will have to be rigorously maintained and because they will be designed to withstand vehicle collisions, they will be heavy. They will be approximately 200 pounds each. Yes, there are other kinds of bollards. Until I went into this, I didn't know exactly how many bollards did exist, but there are a lot. In this particular application, they have to be able to deflect automobiles and they will be heavy. While an exact figure for the maintenance aspect of the bollards isn't available yet, it is anticipated that it could reach into the $1000s per year. It is the opinion of our design professionals as well that any four bollards long up hill grade on King Street would not be aesthetically pleasing as well. A rigorous maintenance plan would be required to keep the bollards aligned as they rise up the hill. They become loose or dislodged a crooked teeth effect of the bollards going up a hill could be unattractive. It is our opinion that these large numbers of bollards would also be visually distracting from the architecture along the road as one's eye is drawn to the line of bollards. However, even if staff and our consultant do not support the bollard concept, some alternatives will be discussed in a few moments. I think that's the third time I said that and I know you can't wait ... that relate to the spirit or the concept of what the bollards are trying to create, which is the use of this particular flex lane. So, I will get to that in a moment. First, though, I would like to briefly mention some other aspects of the plan that we have. Additional southern midblock crosswalk on King Street. We looked at this in great detail too. This would be a midblock crosswalk that would be up the hill in addition to the one that we already have approved, sort of at the bottom closer to Market Street where it flattens out. 3 Pane Council Work Session November 28, 2011 Reid: Can you show on the map, what you are talking about? Parker: This is the mid -block crosswalk that was approved and is still the focal point of the plan. Reid: That goes to the garage. They both go to the garage. Parker: This aligns with the alley that comes back towards the garage. This is what is called Leesburg Walk and this is Pearson's Walk right here, closer to Loudoun Street. This is the proposed new mid -block crosswalk. We have looked at it from an engineering perspective and we can't support that through the intersection because of the grade of the hill, the ability to carry across ADA compliance and sight distance coming across the hill, coming back down again. Also, we have acknowledged all along that this midblock crosswalk could accommodate and should slow traffic down through here to make it a more pedestrian oriented place. We feel that navigating two, this close together, is not acceptable. I will say; however, that their plan has proposed having another midblock crosswalk down here closer to the courthouse. We can support that and have included that in our modified plan as well, which once again I will get to in a couple of moments. So, this plan also shows bumpouts at the intersections here ... I know this is hard to see, but here and here as well. These bumpouts would prevent trucks, buses or emergency vehicles from turning to corners. The turning radius' just aren't there. We can't support a rolled curb aspect of it. It would have to be a regular curb and the turning radius analysis is just not there. It's a safety concern and has sight distance related to having trees right on the corner as well Y with pedestrians crossing. One of the other proposals that we have from the plan, the street lamps with LED lighting placed on or next to buildings. Once again, this is a concept that is problematic for us. Dominion Virginia Power maintains our streetlights and they will maintain our streetlights that we have per our approved plan, which are adjacent to the curbline with traditional lighting for them. If these were moved with alternative light sources such as LED and they were moved to buildings or adjacent to buildings, DVP will not maintain them for us anymore. That will be our expense. There is also an uncertainty and expense about easement acquisitions for that as well. There is also a concern about second floor residents of which there are quite a few through here about what the effect would be of having those lights directly adjacent to the building for second story. We have proposed leaving the lights on the street the way that they are per our approved grant that is being funded and will be maintained by DVP. One of the intriguing elements of the proposal that we have is for the decorative emblem to be embedded into the street right here. It's an intriguing concept that we have taken a look at. It is exciting and interesting. But we have a significant impracticality down there. There are a number of public facilities that run through this area, storm sewer and so forth. There are seven manholes in this intersection. I have counted them quite a few time. They are large. There are three big ones, and four small ones and they are all through there. Also, the pitch of the roadway given the drainage also makes it problematic. It is not conducive to having an installation that would not be damaged by snow plows and street maintenance, not distracting to motorist and not being feasible as we cannot move 4 Pahe Council Work Session November 28, 2011 those manholes as they actively serve our utilities in the area. Moving the fence further away from King Street at the courthouse... this area ... was another aspect of the plan we looked at. We personally as staff, and I think the volunteer group as well have tried to talk ... this needs permission of Loudoun County courts. We have had no success with this at this time. It has been our plan, although we have been speaking to the judges and so forth. It has been our plan to keep this out of the downtown improvement project... make this a separate initiative. We have been speaking with Judge Horne about this and we hope to have a common ground for aesthetics once we get further down the road with this project and we can show some success but to this date we have no support that we have received at all from Loudoun County courts to have any interest in moving this fence back at all. I don't necessarily think that's a bad idea and we have also ... we have actually spoken to Judge Horne on a couple of times as well about a proposal to move the fence back here on the corner and we are actively working with Judge Horne because it is our feeling that we need to keep this out of the realm of the downtown improvement project and have this as a separate issue and we will still continue to do so. Now, I realize that the audience here and to the Council that this sounds like a negative analysis of this plan. I get that, but I can assure you that it is definitely not the case so let me focus on the positives. What I would like to show you here is what staff and our consultants have come up with. What I am showing here is a staff modified plan. When I say a modified plan, this isn't just a physical plan because we do need a physical plan for King Street that we need to design, build and construct. But we also have a parking management aspect of this as well. But first, let me show you what we have on our plan now. We have taken this particular plan and we have gone and looked it for engineering feasibility, cost feasibility and so forth within the budget. On the plan, what we are showing ... I am going to start at Market Street to Loudoun Street right over here. What we have shown here is a delineated parking area as a defacto arrangement made out of the street print pattern. Then we are showing a bump out that comes out this length right here that has the addition of three street trees. Reid: That takes how many spaces away? Parker: What I am showing in this entire plan right here, what we have come up with, this takes one out of the 12. Not bad. We are also still showing a loading zone down here by the Vintner as well that could be used for a variety of purposes. So, we are showing 11 spaces, 1 loading zone. This area right here could be utilized for loading as well. We could actually work within this context to get another loading space if it was desirable to take another space down. Right now, what I am showing here is 11 of the 12 remaining with a loading zone. This is parking in a street print pattern. This is a bump out. This is the midblock crosswalk that we had previously approved that's in a centralized location, more street print parking, another 44 foot bump out, parking and loading. The one thing that has been a common theme is more pedestrian area, more street width. What we like about this is that I went ... we went back to the fire marshal and the fire chief and we discussed this concept plan with them. What we are showing here, and I know that you have heard over and over again is the fire department has to have 26 feet face of curb to face of curb no 51Page Council Work Session November 28, 2011 matter what in order to accommodate the dimensions of the vehicle. They actually sent us the specifications on a particular vehicle. They went over with us that if there is a fire on King Street, that they absolutely have to fight the fires from the roof, from the top, the outriggers have to be set. But this distance from here to here is 22 feet giving the conceptually they have approved this. They have approved it here, they have approved it here, and they have approved it here on the block of King Street Cornwall to Market and the reason is that we have configured this such that the trucks will have a way to park in order to get there. If this was any longer, they wouldn't approve it, but for this stretch and perhaps we may even have to move this a little bit through in here back and forth a little bit, we aren't sure yet. But they have approved us narrowing down the street to 22 feet there which gives us more room to give this area a sense of pedestrian area giving us that wider sidewalk that we feel like we need to do to give it that transformative feel with three street trees here and two street trees up here. Because this face of curb here to here is 22 feet as well. We are very excited about that, to be able to offer that. The street lights will be adjacent to the street the way that we have before. They cross the street in order to provide a uniform light throw pattern for pedestrians as well as the street traffic, which they are meant to do and they are planned in such a way to mitigate the light source going into second floor residences. Going down to the block of King Street from Cornwall to Market, we have maintained all of the street parking as the defacto element on this plan. Street parking, right here, we have expanded the pedestrian area out right here, again 22 feet. I want to make sure that I say 22 seven times that's a huge number. We have included an other midblock crosswalk right here with a distance of 22 feet. We have moved this parking a little closer to the intersection. All aspects of the plan, the ones that were possible to make, we are going to wide the intersections out with the street print ... I'm sorry, the pedestrian crosswalks are still going to be widened with the street print and so forth. Now, the parking management aspect of this plan. One of the primary tasks has been the direction to create a viable parking management plan through town and community efforts that determine how and when this particular aspect of the plan should be utilized as a flex zone and how it should be implemented. I have, as I discussed with you, stepping back a little bit, we have determined for safety, drainage, ADA we have to have a traditional curb as well, either granite or concrete. A rolled curb does not work here for us engineering or safety -wise plus the aspect, if you do have a line of bollards right here, you have a serious tripping hazard whether it is a rolled curb and /or traditional curb. So, how to move that flex zone, can it be implemented? Hammler: I'm sorry, Scott, to interrupt. What were the reasons why we can't modify ... we have ruled off the ADA, what were the other reasons? Parker: Drainage and tripping hazards because of the angle that it has to be. Butler: So you are more likely to trip on a rolled curb than a 3 '/z inch curb? Parker: Yes sir, because of the fact that you expect a traditional curb as a step up. I am talking also ... I'm talking about in the context here as well of having this area 61I'a4,`, Council Work Session November 28, 2011 blocked off ...having a seven foot space between a bollard /block /jersey barrier, whatever, and whatever curb that you do have. Hammler: Has someone actually analyzed the drainage costs? Parker: We have analyzed the drainage in the area, yes. I would have to bring an engineer up to discuss that with you, but with one of the curb options... Hammler: Or is it a non - starter, John, because of ADA issues. Because intuitively it strikes me that there is only an ADA issue because there is a curb, but maybe I am wrong. Wells: You have more than just ... you have ADA issues. You have the concern over tripping. If you set those aside, just go to the drainage issue about seven years ago when we all first came together, we had a capital project that dealt with flooding on King Street, principally in the area of the Stockman building and the China King area. We have been able to, without actually having to implement the capital project, have been able to handle some of the drainage fixes through maintenance cost that we have worked through our public works budget, but to this day we have a solution now that is working that requires a curb to make that work. There are ways to work around that in this project, but a rolled curb makes it incredibly expensive in terms of having to break and underground that drainage effort. In my opinion based on what we have been through to try to solve the King Street drainage problem, if you weigh it all together, you don't lose any of the concepts... when the Voices program came - forward, they gave us three options for curbs and didn't necessarily pick one. They had a preferred version that said any one could work and we have picked the one that we think is the safest and most cost effective and works the best with the drainage problem in town. Butler: So, what's the ADA issue? Parker: When the comes down like this, it is parallel as opposed to coming down like this. Plus, I think there is a percentage rate as well. Butler: But if someone is going down with a wheelchair with one wheel on the street and one wheel on the top of the curb, that's not going to work either, so I don't see an ADA issue. Wells: Again, even if you take the ADA issue out, that would be the lowest rated, in my opinion with these, your primary concern is going to be cost associated with storm drainage on that street through the main part of the downtown. That's why we have worked hard to clear the maintenance structures and set the curbs where we have. I think you have got some other practical considerations for how you can best use that lane. If you are looking at having a flat area, you are guaranteeing that it isn't going to be flat by tilting the slope of that area. I wouldn't say that we can't use those other curbs, all I am saying is to achieve the best use of a pedestrian area, the actual curb 7 1Page Council Work Session November 28, 2011 itself is acceptable. Again, if I go back to what options were presented to the Council there were three options and anyone could be used based on how the committee presented the information. So, I don't think the viability of the flex lane is dependent on which curb style you pick, as we heard the presentation. Butler: It certainly makes it look and feel more like a street than an extension of a sidewalk. Reid: But we are not using on the other streets, are we John? There is an inconsistency. We are not using it on Market or Loudoun with any of the other improvements. We are using a regular curb. Wells: And that's what we are recommending here. Reid: That's the other thing, is consistency. Wells: We were not trying to be consistent, I think that's Council Member Butler's point. We are trying to make this different. This is one where we felt the ... again, based on some of the feedback, we have also heard from a variety of folks that use the downtown, the curb seemed like the best option from a number of perspectives, but that doesn't detract from the ability to do the flex lane. It may detract from the view of how you might see it and that's debatable. I think everybody is going to have an opinion of what looks best and what works best and.... Parker: This particular curb, if you do use this as defacto parking or as a default position parking, the traditional curb is the more preferred mechanism for that because with the rolled curb, the vehicles when they are parked here, they are going to be on an angle and we don't feel that's the best, safest concern. Let me move on here a little bit. So using the flex lane. The concept of the flex lane ... using it as a park for pedestrians. We took it a step further and what we would like to propose and what we have come up with, we think there are a variety of alternatives that can be used in this entire area. One of them that we have looked is lets use bollards or other decorative barriers ... large planters. Part of the management plan, block off here and here similar to what we do for Flower and Garden and utilize the whole street. Use all of it as a . There are other alternatives as well. You could use some sort of barrier, that we could try as an alternative. We looked at this alternative as well. Take one whole length of traffic. So have traffic coming this way. It would be blocked off here then we could utilize the entire area as the open area for the pedestrian activity. We could utilize the entire southbound lane. There are also some intriguing concepts of which I have a picture of here that I would like to show you that they are instituting ... I have actually seen these myself with my relatives. Hammler: Scott, I don't want to preempt your presentation, but I am assuming that you need to put on the table that you are only talking about certain times. Very restricted times. I think that would be a key point before anybody gets heart palpitations. 8 a Council Work Session November 28, 2011 Parker: That is correct. Specific times, key times, times to be decided. We could try ... we could have alternates. One concept that is intriguing here as well is what they are doing all over Philadelphia, it's called the parklet. It is a platform that goes into the parking space. It has barriers right here that extends the curb that they utilize here. They are done on a temporary basis. We would actually try these. What our proposal is to get something physical built with the default position as the parking and given what we have just heard about eminent domain, without necessarily committing to a program that is going to ... that we are going to be committed to, such as the bollard option and so forth. We have the ability to try a variety of different things. We could start that now. We could start it for First Friday. We could see which option works best. We could even fabricate some of these if that was decided to be an option. We could give it a test drive. We could try the blocking of the lane. See which one of them works. See what we like. See what happens and then utilize that as part of the program while at the same time having a visible capital project here that we can create, that we can build that can be used as the default, defacto position, which is the provision of parking in these street print areas right here. Again, discussing the concepts and blocking the streets and creating flex zones that utilize parking, that eminent domain thing is extremely relevant here. It would limit our ability to do things such as blocking off streets and so forth and it may inhibit us to implement some of these scenarios which is a good reason why we shouldn't necessarily commit to an extensive alternative now as well. That's pretty much it from my presentation. -- Wells: If can just ... before Scott concludes. I just wanted to take us back to the flex lane and tie in the work on the parking management effort because that is something that's actively occurring. I am attending those meetings personally with the Voices group in terms of how the parking mechanics would work. One of the questions that has been asked of me is well, are you going to be proposing bollards or not? Are we going to be able to have the flex lane and the main point is what I have told the individuals at those meetings is, we are not wasting our time. The concept of the flex lane is here. In fact, it can be dealt with in a variety of ways. You can have the flex lane. You can have the wider flex lane by going one way. You can have the flex street by blocking it all off or you could not have the flex lane, but you can expand the sidewalk on a temporary basis and build it up which is something that is done not just in Philadelphia, but also in a number of European communities. The key point that I want to come back to is, we are not sure and I don't think anybody is sure which one really works best. So, many of these things can be done ... while they wouldn't look exactly ... they wouldn't look like they would look in their final form, we can block a street today. We can create the one lane experience with some rental equipment and not an over commitment in terms of the capital project. And, although the one lane garden barrier line of just the flex lane can be done ... that one is a little heavier duty. We can duplicate all three of the four things without a significant investment. The fourth one with the fabricated platforms is something we would like to look at. Those four ideas all make the flex lane concept work either as presented or in an expanded way. I think one of the things that we have all be concerned about, because there 91Pa�e Council Work Session November 28, 2011 hasn't been a uniform notion as to exactly how this could work, what we are basically proposing is to experiment. We have two years before this is going to be built. We don't know where eminent domain is going to take us which may make all of these moot. So, while we are in the mode of not being sure, we can experiment at not great cost. One of the things that the Voices group is in the process of working on is a final recommendation to you in terms of how to handle the flex lane. I think Milt is ... Milt is here, he can jump in and correct me if I am not paraphrasing correctly, but the notion that the group is coming up with and the direction they are going at this point is to do something that does two things ... one, relies upon the town process and ordinances dealing with street closures... so we have a special activity permit that you have to go through... it is reviewed by all of our agencies and that is something that ultimately I have to sign off on. I have to sign off for parades and those other things. If we want to close the streets or a lane or any one of these options for just First Fridays, that's something we could experiment with. You could try for one First Friday and see if it works. But what the Voices group is saying is start small, start limited and start predictably in terms of the notion of any of these. It keeps street parking in place, the default at most all times. No option that has been talked about takes away parking from 9 -5 Monday through Friday. So, let me get that out. Most of the time parking is there, but the idea was to experiment and look at how to ease into something and again, the group is working under the assumption that the bollard plan would work. This basically says don't think bollards, think flex lane. How you create the flex lane can be done in a variety of ways. The four that we have identified, there may be others out there. I don't want to say that it just has to be one of these, but again while we are ... I think to me the big concern is not knowing where eminent - domain is going to take us. We could make a significant investment in any one of these that might take us down a path that is not necessary. Mayor: John, have you briefed the Voices group on the risks of the legislation? Wells: Yes, I have and they are very aware of that. We talked about that actually at their very first meeting, I brought that up so they know that's a concern. But, the main idea with this plan is it's not about bollards, it is about the flex lane. How you use the flex lane, how you create the flex lane, is up to the business community. It's up to our entrepreneurs to determine how to use it. How we create it in a safe way. Again, we can think broader and make it the flex street. Make it the expanded by going one lane or either going with the one lane by moving a heavier barrier in or thinking in reverse which is to elevate the street by doing a platform. So, I wanted to make sure I reemphasize that. I know I am being redundant a little bit, but I don't want the Council or the audience to think that we are not looking at ways of making it work with the bollards. It shouldn't all live or die on bollards. That is just simply a means to create. We think that there are safety and cost issues that make these other options worth looking at to a higher degree. Parker: I think any more words from me would just ruin it at this juncture. What I would submit though is that we do know ... based on the cost estimates that we have provided that we know we can do this. It's buildable. Sight distance has been 101Pagc Council Work Session November 28, 2011 obtained. We know we can get the trees in. We have permission for the narrowed street in this area. We know that this particular plan has been given the go ahead for our capital project. It's feasible, doable, buildable. With that, that's my completion. Martinez: You are talking about an enhanced brickway that we would extend the street? Wells: It's basically creating a street print... or a brick print in the parking lane, so it gives the impression that it is brick and it also gives the impression that the sidewalk is wider. Martinez: Now you are also talking temporary platforms that can be a pain in the butt to move around. Wells: Oh, they are. I'm not telling you that these are the four best—four of these in any rank order. Martinez: So, my question is, have you thought about just digging holes for posts and instead of hauling everything in there, you just put a temporary fence in the holes along the edge of the street? Wells: You can do that if you go to a single lane. The capital costs of... Martinez: Why would you need to go to a single lane if you are only doing that on the edge of the enhancement? Wells: Because you can't put up a light temporary post where you have cars as close as me and you. You have got to have something heavy duty. You can create something called the clear zone by taking one lane of traffic, making that go away and you basically have got a full lane of traffic between the one lane that is moving and the widened pedestrian area ... you have got a wider area. That can be done with very little capital expenditure. Parker: And when we are drilling into the ground, we have to be really careful... it's like I said, we have utilities going all up and down there. Martinez: I understand that. But if I look at the temporary platform and I saw the height of the fence or the edge of the platform like you are saying, you are not talking about a very deep hole for a post. Wells: That's not necessarily the design we would go with, but conceptually you can see it's in reverse. Martinez: I understand that. All I am doing is looking at the different costs. The original Council plan was under a million. With the Voices recommendation, we 11 �Pa e Council Work Session November 28, 2011 have taken it almost to $3 million. With the modified plan, we are doing $1 point something. Reid: Marty, actually that's a good question because my notes from Options 1 and 2 actually had it at $600,000 each. This from back in March, $529 for alternative 2 and $577 for.... Butler: Isn't that just for the one block? Parker: Right, that was for the one block, first of all. Second of all, those were ... we have different plans than that right now. This concept is different from that alternative, slightly. We have the advent of a new crosswalk there. Martinez: So, we are adding $1.875 million to do it if we were to look at the Voices. Who is paying for that? That's not part of our capital improvements plan dollars. So, that's the question I have there. Then on the modified plan, we are looking at $1.347 million, which is almost $400,000 or $350,000 increase... that's not part of our capital improvement plan and budget. Who is paying for that? The question I have is ... I like the idea of the street print. I liked the idea of temporary structures, but I don't know if bollards are going to be that effective as much as a modified temporary platform kind of thing where you can just go in put in barriers, just drop them in and take them out without having a truck to haul all these platforms. Wells: The key point is first of all you are not being asked to make a decision tonight - or tomorrow. You don't have to make a decision tonight or tomorrow. I don't know that we should be making a decision necessarily on the one final way to create that flex area. Again, part of this may be moot if eminent domain is not fixed. The core base project as it sits can work under any of these scenarios. Those in and of themselves are not over budget. Second point is, we will be presenting some information tomorrow night in your closed session item that will help the bottom line to the capital project and I will go over that tomorrow evening, but that ended up being positive and that could probably cover some of the proposed options that staff brought up. But, to answer your question, who pays for this? These all would need to be funded by the Council. Hammler: Well, thank you very much for the report, Scott and John. As well as I know Milt and many people are here from the Voices group, so thank you very much for all of your time, effort, organizational skills, facilitation skills and perseverance. One of my, I guess, key points is back to that I saw the attendance list at least for the last meeting and I happened to run into Robin tonight, so in the back of my mind, I guess one of the key questions is ensuring that we are getting the feedback from those most directly impacted if we come up with any number of different scenarios and vary them over time. But, is there a short answer for any kind of quick feedback from Mike Carroll, Stanley, and others? 121Pagc Council Work Session November 28, 2011 Wells: The Council asked to have this information presented to you first. We have not shared this with anybody other than you all at this point. So, they are very anxious and have tried to figure out ten different ways to get me to answer the question, what are we going to be proposing. I have honored your direction to me, which is report to you on how that plan worked. I will be coming to their meeting on Thursday night. I am sure I will be answering questions Thursday and looking for additional feedback. But, I think the assignment that they were helping us on was how to best manage this and that's a continuing effort. I think, again their goals have been to keep it simple and predictable and honor the onstreet parking during business hours. Mr. Sisley has been looking at ways to best capture by ordinance some ways to structure things so I am not left interpreting a lot when these items come through the process. It should be more of a check list of this gets approved, this doesn't get approved as opposed to do I like Chili festivals compared to car shows or whatever it might be. The point is don't make it discretionary. Make it predictable and again, honor the notion of street parking as much as possible and ease into this and experiment. That's what, I think, we have tried to present as a companion to that. They have not seen any of it or gotten any feedback on any of the physical changes we have recommended tonight. Hammler: Needless to say, I feel that's the most important next step and my general frame of reference is that the downtown merchants know best about what will help the downtown. For example, I thought that the latest marketing ad that went out about a week ago with the big centerfold and Madam Mayor, you were in it. Caused me to change my vet and walk to the vet today. Things like that make a huge difference. Getting the feedback on this plan is going to be critical. The only point I will make in terms of reflecting on what's been presented is when I read the staff report, one of the first things I was thinking about asking was in fact, okay well if you are proposing that we kind of limit the restriction of cars and parking for a certain time period, be it 5 to 2 in the morning, are we going to be involving parks and rec on this additional kind of entertainment concept. What is it that's going to be the draw because the flip side of that as I was listening to this concept go was let's just focus on First Friday. Great idea, but you could argue that is something that doesn't need to be fixed. It's working so well. The idea is to create, again, a transformative way to bring people down to shop and interact on a permanent basis and I think that's ultimately the goal. Well: I think there is the parking plan and then there is the marketing plan and I think that's working with the Voices Group. That's working with LDBA to not just do what we are doing now, but ask ourselves how do we make the downtown different. I think that's a yet to be determined effort. I think right now there is a concern about putting toe into the water to be sure to be comfortable with this level of basic use. We are going to take it from here. Personally I think that is why the experimentation is important because much of this right now is being thought through in terms of what the impact might be. If we can figure out ways to experiment at low costs, I think the ideas will ... I think more ideas will come to the table when we can see it and feel it without having to be committed to it. That doesn't mean wait and 131I'a c Council Work Session November 28, 2011 see, necessarily, but I think that's going to have to be part of it because I don't know that if we went to one of the more significantly different options, who knows what other ideas might be out there, but yes we will be incorporating ... this will not ... capital projects will be glad to do this. I am not going to have Renee and the Capital Projects staff work with the businesses. This would be something more with our economic development staff and our parks and rec staff to look at different ideas. Parks and rec and economic development have been working with LDBA a lot on some of the holiday decorations and some of the events that will be happening over the month of December. Christmas time, I am sure that will be something that will be part of where we go in the future. Right now, we got to build it. Hammler: Right. So, I guess my bottom line is those things work wonderfully. We are protecting them, which is why we are fighting this eminent domain because that's such a quality of life element. It's something different once in a while. Can we achieve something more permanent and have people live, work, play in a much more permanent way. That's to me the bigger challenge. So my last question ... my last actual comment from a higher level ... just curious ... we are talking about drainage and the curb is driving towards these visions of how to transform and try to balance creating a pedestrian feel ... it being safe ... but can you literally bring up the street to the curb and still allow for doing ... if you will, these... whatever you said was the Philadelphia platform idea? Hammler: I suppose that's too expensive ... we can't just lift the whole street up. Butler: You meant the entire 26 feet? Hammler: Then you would have a 26 foot width, but... Wells: We would be putting in a very different type of drainage project not that we couldn't look at that, but I don't know that is going to fit within the budget that we are talking about. Hammler: That's what I assumed. But I thought I would mention what was going through my mind in terms of at least one person who is sitting in the audience's vision for a permanent transformative downtown. Butler: While this is interesting, I think we should go ahead and experiment. I think if Council Member Martinez' idea of the little posts ... if we attached a little curb on the bottom of them, then you would have to drill any holes and it would provide a barrier. So, maybe that's something that you can look at, but I think that we need to experiment and come to some conclusion before we approve this plan because a number of the options that we talked about wouldn't require us to print the street. Because if we close the whole street, then that one lane being printed wouldn't be useful and if we were closing the entire lane, you might want the print wider and etc. If we were putting up the temporary sidewalk in place, you wouldn't need to print in any case. But, I encourage that. In fact, I would encourage that maybe we whip up 14 a c Council Work Session November 28, 2011 one of these platforms that's as wide as one of the stores or one of the restaurants. You know, you could wheel it around and give them all an opportunity. Put it in front of... Wells: I think that's part of the idea. Now, if we are doing the platforms, what we really are looking at to all for the more safer passage of vehicles and pedestrians is you would probably be looking at a one lane situation to give you the wider clear zone between that lighter rail and... Butler: But if you put a platform in there, it's the same height as the curb, right? Wells: We can look ... bottom line is let us go back and design it. Butler: I'm not sure why you would need to get rid of a lane. Just make one side concrete and there you got a curb, right? I think that we need to have some extra emphasis on flexibility. We don't necessarily need to do something that's the absolute optimal compared to all the different regulations. I think we need to say, okay is this possible within the current regulations. Then look at it. Even if it's not the safest as this one, is it above minimum? Wells: That's why you have four options. You have at least four options, if not more. I think that the notion is the Council can provide that type of direction, we can go back and look at how we would change the capital project to make certain elements of it add alternates to the bid process so that you could still design and bid. Since this won't be built for a couple of years, you don't have to make a decision as to whether you add the street print in to the alternate until a later point in time, so I think the idea is experiment and see if the business community is comfortable with. Try different things. There are ranges of what's safer among these. We wouldn't recommend anything that couldn't be done. Again, certain elements may feel better or feel safer than others, but they are all going to meet that minimum threshold so as different businesses get different ideas of how they can use these areas, everybody may coalesce around a particular option. The idea is how to be flexible. That's the whole notion of the flex lane and what we have tried to do is take that... instead of looking at the dilemma of why doesn't the flex lane work with the bollards, the bollards aren't the issue. That's just one barrier. There is other things that you can use as the barrier so we can actually be more transformative by looking at ... maybe we look at the whole street, one lane, raising the street up ... I don't know which one is best, but the spirit is to try to experiment with different things to see what might work best and what the community might like the best. Butler: Well, as far as I am concerned, I think work with the Voice group and let's start trying some stuff. But, I'll tell you as I said right from the beginning, I'm not interested in moving forward with anything until I know that we are going to have on street arts, entertainment and dining because without that, I'm not sure what the whole purpose of the entire project is at all. I think that's something that's material. 15 Pa e Council Work Session November 28, 2011 Nothing else is material. They are nice, but I need more for $4 million and what we have seen without the arts, entertainment and dining on the street. Hammier: Madam Mayor, may I just support that point? That's really what I was trying to articulate as it relates to whether you are talking, John, let's separate the parking management plan from the marketing plan. Let's face it... our parking summit mentioned that it really boils down to, if you will, that which will draws residents, visitors, those coming to spend money downtown; however, another way to look at this ... in fact, how are we going to attract the kind of businesses that will bring down the kind of restaurants that will support paying for these added sidewalks. Butler: I think the Voices guys have done a great job coming up with a management plan. Now we just need to give them something to manage. Reid: I am afraid I have to disagree. I really appreciate all of the time and effort that went into this, but ... I felt that it was very novel when I first saw it last summer, but the price tag is just a real budget buster and all of the other issues that you brought up in terms of ADA, flood control, the other issues of the mid -block crosswalk... they are just really problematic but I am also concerned with even the staff proposal. That brings up my questions ... I am looking back on March 20, when we had the memo on the approved proposal which is basically to get rid of the parking. That's the current approved proposal. In your memo here, when you talk to Loudoun to Market, Market to Cornwall. Is that what you mean by the approved proposal, Scott? - Parker: No, the approved was last September. Reid: Which was? Parker: That was when the entire capital project was approved and we had the entire parking area taken off. Reid: That's right. Butler: Excuse me. I just want to correct that. You keep talking about that people have misrepresented it and said remove the entire parking... we actually look at it from Market... from Loudoun to Cornwall, we took away half the parking, so even the complete ... the approved one took 50% of the parking. Parker: You are correct. You are absolutely correct. Reid: In your memo, when you say original approved plan, that is the plan that included eliminating some of those spaces? Parker: That is correct, yes. 161Page Council Work Session November 28, 2011 Reid: Then why is it that back in March, you had it at $679, Loudoun to Market and how it's $697, then from Market to Cornwall, it dropped from $479 to $302? Parker: That's the one with the three different staff alternatives. Was it that meeting? Reid: I am looking at the original Council approved plan. What are you referring to? That's the plan that eliminates some of the parking. So, how come that figure now is $999,000 whereas back in March 2011, the memo I have is over a million. It's almost $1.2 million? Parker: I'm sorry. I don't... Reid: Yeah, you see ... take a look. This is what I am going by here. It's about $1,168,000. That's the approved proposal. In your memo here, you are saying approved plan ... the Market to Cornwall section is $302, whereas it was $479. So, in reality the original plan is more than a million, isn't it? Wells: I think what you've got, Council Member Reid, is you have to remember that while this process has been going on, we have been continuing to refine the project. I think the bottom line is the plan that we are working with now is cheaper than what it started out. Reid: Well, but the thing is though you have a plan here alternative 2 that was only $957,000. Parker: That's a pretty bare bones plan that we had, if I remember correctly. Reid: It's basically alternative 1 has the midblock crosswalk. That's only maybe a couple of thousand dollars more. So, the question I have is how much would it cost just to replace the brick and keep the curb? Do some of those improvements with the streetlights ... the widened crosswalks, the trees ... is that alternative 2? Wells: I think it's better to set that memo aside. What you want to do is basically say based on what is out there right now and our best cost estimate, you are saying take the bump outs out, take the trees out, take the street print out, do the crosswalks and the brick and upgrade the lights. We can get those numbers back to you, if you want. Reid: I would really be curious to see what that is. Then that would be ... then the brick is consistent with what we have approved for other parts of town because that's in motion right now, what we have done with the pie shop and what we have done on Loudoun Street... that's happening. We just haven't touched Market, if I remember correctly. Okay. So, there is going to be an inconsistency there with Market Street. Market Street is going to have the same old brick. But if it comes down to if the Council really doesn't want to spend the money, I would prefer going back to alternative 2 which was about $950,000, but if you are going to come back with an idea that we can just do ... like you just said the brick, the street lights, and... 17�'a�e Council Work Session November 28, 2011 Wells: We will cost that out. Yes. Reid: I would be interesting to see if some of that extra money could be put into Market Street, so we can have some consistency. Even some parts of Loudoun aren't going to be done. That's what kills me ... what we are doing here is we are piecemealing the plan. We have approved some aspects of it where there were no sidewalks and I think that was fine ... like the pie shop treatment. We are paying for a sidewalk in front of a building on East Market Street, which is supposed to do it's own frontage improvements, but we agreed to pay for that ... I think that's the deli, because there is a gap in the sidewalk there but we are not looking at Market and we are not looking at other parts of Loudoun, so we are not looking at the whole shebang. We are just looking at this one area. So, that's what kind of concerns me and whether in fact we can spread the money around in other places, but I don't know ... but when it comes to closing off the street for festivals or whatever, you know I don't have a problem with that, but I just think this has really gone on a little bit ... I mean we had to do the Voices thing. We had to get the input, but I think that we really need to get closure on this and come up with something. Then we have to start looking at what we do with Market and Loudoun and the other streets that aren't getting any of these improvements because there is that potential there. But I still think we are doing the hail Mary pass on this, that we have no real guarantee that any of this is really going to bring any kind of significant mix and change in downtown development. In fact, I personally feel that even though this is the worst recession in 30 years, downtown Leesburg has more restaurants and is more viable now than it was before 2008. Okay, and we didn't do any sidewalk improvements at all. But what we did was we changed our attitude at Town Hall and I think that helped a lot just in terms of regulation and we are a good market. We have very good demographics. So, that's where I am headed on this. Again, I want to thank the Voices group for all they did. I thought the bollard idea was a good one at first, but it is clearly going to be way too expensive and has a lot of practical problems and I am still very much against the midblock crosswalk, folks. Because I think that... if you think that bollards are going to be a hazard for a car, just think what happens when a human bollard crosses the street there and some guy is trying to get through the light at King Street goes over the hill and has to come to a screeching halt, so I am still very skeptical of midblock crosswalks. Dunn: Thank you to everyone for your hard work and efforts. When we last met, it seemed to be a parking versus no parking issue and there were a lot of different ideas at that time as to who we are going to take care of this. We went away for a number of months and we came up with a lot of more ideas and we still don't know how to take care of this. Personally, I don't like the experimental thing. I don't think that makes for good planning. I think you should plan it right once and move forward. I used to give out in my work what I called the wheel inventor award. Well, guess what. You didn't want to win the wheel inventor award, because it had already been done, so why go do that? I can't imagine that Leesburg is the first community in this great globe that we live on that has had to go through something like this that we 181Pagc Council Work Session November 28, 2011 can't do a little more research. I think staff is very talented and we already came up with a Philadelphia idea. Maybe what I saw in the street, looked a little wider than our King Street, but I can't imagine that ... you mentioned European cities ... that there aren't alternatives that have been already done in communities that we can find that are similar to ours, similar make up, thin streets. What did they do? Maybe they ended up just dropping back and punting and saying "can't be done ". But I would suggest that we don't out and reinvent the wheel. It has already been done. Let's find out a place that has tried it already and see what works best for us. I would rather plan once and move forward. Having said that, while we are doing this experiment, I noticed in here as Marty pointed out the difference is $999,000 versus $1.48 million and that is with the modified plan with the bollards. I would assume that would be part of the experiment. Wells: Actually the bollards ... you can't experiment with the bollards. Dunn: okay, through the experimental process, no bollards. So, that brings us to the $1.34 million. I did have one idea for the bollards. We talked about drainage. Is there a way without reducing the integrity of the bollards to actually use those holes that we have dug and putting slits into the bollards to use that as a drainage mechanism. Wells: I would let the engineers answer that one. Dunn: They probably have to do some research on that one. It may be if you are going to build a large bollard already, it would just mean making it a little bit larger by an inch or two and then put holes through it that then drainage could go down through those holes and go into our regular drainage. It may have a practical use of the bollards and while they are not there, the holes are still there or there is a covering that is put over them that has slots in it that drainage could also be used. Hammler: Is that because you want to modify the curbs, Tom, or are you just suggesting... Dunn: I'm just throwing out ideas like everyone else did that may never come to fruition, but something to look into. I have got other great ideas like you know those orange cones. Everybody follows those. We can go real cheap. Nobody crosses the orange cones. I was thinking we could have staff out there with John doing a slow stop sign at one end of the street. I would not be in favor of putting barriers up. We just got through dealing with barriers. I don't know if we want to hear anything more about barriers. I did have a question though, if we were to make the street one way during certain times a day, where would we be rerouting the traffic? Wells: If we just did the one block, we would reroute it on Wirt Street and take off the parking on a temporary basis. Dunn: Okay. Who owns the parking spaces? 191Page Council Work Session November 28, 2011 Wells: The town does. Dunn: The town does. Why then, are we concerned about eminent domain? If we are not going into somebody's property, then if we decide that we are going to cut off or shut down our parking spaces, we aren't into their property. Am I missing something here? Butler: Yep. Irby: You are restricting access to a business because of parking, putting up bollards and closing streets. That's where the issue of eminent domain comes in. Dunn: If we close the street, correct? Or if we don't close the street? Wells: If you take away the parking, which would be something that would be a partial street closure, that could be construed in the same manner as that parking is viewed as integral to the business, so... Dunn: So if the business increases after we close off the parking space, we get some of that money? Irby: We don't get to make that argument. Dunn: There are plenty of businesses that would like to have street parking and they don't have street parking. Their businesses are doing fine. Wells: I don't disagree. Dunn: Did anyone consider putting signs up that said no parking after such and such an hour? To me that seems like a very logical process that costs very little and we put it in between these bump outs and it says no parking between 5:30 in the evening and midnight. Wells: That doesn't protect the public that would be in that area. Right now, we have those signs up and they go from 2 a.m. to, I think 6 a.m. If you move that back to 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, just as a hypothetical situation, the effort that you are trying to do is to create the use of the flex zone by removing the cars. It's more than just removing the cars. You have got to create some type of safety... since the traffic is still moving both ways, you need some type of barrier or a curb to protect the public from the cars, so moving the cars is only part of it and the sign wouldn't be enough to do that. You can't open up the street without having some barrier. Dunn: You have limited trees in this, which I think that is one of the biggest disappointments in the project that I thought originally when we talked about this tree lined streets was what we were shooting for and now we have got ... just a token 20�t'�ri Council Work Session November 28, 2011 gesture to be honest. If those trees were enlarged planters that had the ability to be easily moved, could those then be used to roll into, say the center of that pedestrian area to dissuade traffic from... Wells: Possibly. That's certainly one of the ideas for barriers at the end of the street if you want to block the street instead of having ... no disrespect ... a jersey barrier at the end. We have referred to them as planters. Whether they are hedges, small trees-the challenge if you are using... Dunn: Well, I don't want them to block the street. I am talking about moving them... Wells: It's going to depend upon the width of the ... it's going to depend upon the dimension that we use. There are ways to do that. It could affect the number of parking spaces and it could affect the lane width. Again, that's ... when it was mentioned, the four ideas ... it doesn't preclude additional ideas or additional research to go back to your earlier point. The more green we make any type of barrier, the more aesthetically pleasing it's going to be as opposed to concrete and steel, so... Reid: How about those Christmas Trees? Dunn: Anyway .... I think those are private ... the other thing about going back to that platform idea. Again, this goes back to my first point is why reinvent the wheel. Somebody else has already done this, but since we are throwing out ideas, I'll just throw this out. If we had the ability... if we have to experiment, I would rather look into before we just go out trying it ... what would be the most likely options to be permanent. For example ... and which is least staff intensive. I think that if we have platforms that we have to roll out every Friday or potentially every evening to me that's too much like working. If there were the ability say in those bump outs that the curb was a little bit higher, maybe a foot higher than what it is now and there was some type of retractable platform that is actually inside that curb that can be pulled out and put into place because it's only six /eight inches high off the ground. Kind of like the gym whatever you call them, those seats in the gym. When I wrote this down, I kept hearing the Acme cartoon, that music in the back .... if we had the ability to look into this, the options that we chose are not just experimental to see how the community likes it or how this business likes it or that business likes it... says what is the option to be most likely to be one that we can work with going forward, then lets do that. I would rather plan better today than experiment over the next two years with all kinds of these different ideas. Going back to ... I don't think I got an answer to this question, I may have been throwing out too many things ... what portion of the $3.2 million or that $100,000 or $300,000 additional cost, what portion of that is going to be getting used through these experiments? Wells: That's something, Council Member Dunn based on which of these we do, there are some barriers that we have that are permanent that we can bring in. 211Pa,c Council Work Session November 28, 2011 Dunn: Such as? Wells: Such as jersey barriers that we use to block up the streets, temporary under street construction. You can rent jersey barriers. Dunn: And you are talking about these being still the ones that are blocking off the sidewalk, or blocking off the lane? Wells: Both ways. Again, even if we go to the one lane option, whether you like that or not, I am not weighing in on that or not. That has a very low capital cost because the barriers that you are using there don't have to have the same level of durability because there is a gap between the traffic and where the pedestrians are going to be. Bottom line is some of these things are rentable at a limited cost that if we tried it once or twice, would be something that we might be able to absorb within an operational budget. I haven't costed all of these out yet. Some of these would be ... a couple options would be very expensive. Some might not be as expensive. The construction of platforms, I would tend to not say we would build an entire set of those but do one section in front of one business and move it around and try that. Those costs could be handled from a maintenance budget as opposed to a ... an ongoing O &M budget as opposed to the capital budget itself. Again, it's going to depend on which options we try. Clearly, if there is something out there based on the public conversation that will likely follow this presentation, one or two options may become the more preferred option out there. We may do some additional research and find that maybe one or two of these are better to go with than the others. I don't know that we have to experiment with them all or there may be something that is a bundle list that we could go to, but the idea was we can find options other than bollards, again to go back to the concept of preserving the flexible area. Since we don't need to decide that necessarily today, we do have a little bit of time to do some additional work, we can tie in bringing back Council Member Hammler's point of how more aggressive can we be in terms of marketing and in terms of understanding how the management of this will work. We have time to do this and that's not inconsistent with what the Voices group brought back to you initially, is that you don't need to make these decisions now. You can build in... add alternates in to the Capital project itself and not introduce certain elements until you actually construct it. I'm not suggesting that we go that far, but it's in that same spirit that we do have the luxury of time to look, but we don't want to spend a lot of time not bringing closure to this because a lot of the downtown projects are contingent on having a plan and taking some action. That's why the notion of less talking about what versions and experimenting ... not ad nauseum where this is going to go on forever, but let's take a couple that look like they have a real chance and try them and see how they ... the business community reacts to them. The worst fear I would have would be to recommend something to you ... we build it and then find nobody likes it after it is there and we have made a significant capital investment. 221Pagc Council Work Session November 28, 2011 Dunn: Well, and again going back to my first comment which was we were parking, no parking. That's where we were. It's still where we are, except that we have more ideas on maybe how to phase in times for no parking. Wells: I think the theory of can we have both, the answer to that has now been answered and yes there is a way to allow for parking or not having parking with a parking management plan and the use of some type of barriers on the end of the streets or along the parking lane. So, there is a way to do this. In my mind, watching the presentation, not knowing whether the bollards would work or not, the question is to make everybody get excited about the project, there had to be a way for the business community... some members of the business community to see that parking is still going to be there and there also had to be a way to see that there was an opportunity to do something very different with the downtown. What carried the day with the Voices plan is both of those are possible by being able to be flexible. When we went back and costed out the plan that was brought forward, which was the Council's assignment, the version that was brought forward by the group had the right concepts in it, but it was more expensive and had some other buildability issues so we took those same concepts and figured out how to move them into a different set of options. So, we have had to move from bollards to something else, I just can't tell you what the something else is or what the best way is to get to the something else, but we ... I think we have resolved the possibility of saying we can do flexible space. That was something that we didn't have in the original plan but now is there that seemed to bring the community together. Dunn: Don't dismiss the orange cones. Nobody violates the orange cones. Just in closing ... if I want to be able to support this. I have been behind this project from the beginning and I want to be able to continue to be behind it. If this were being presented to me months ago for my original vote, I would have to say I'd be a little hesitant because of my point about plan right the first time. I'd rather know what we are going to spend money on before I am asked to spend money. So, I'm going forward with a little hesitancy. I still want to support this. I am just a little uneasy about the experimental process. Wells: Sure. We can talk more. Again, the Council isn't being pushed into making a decision tonight or tomorrow. This is a lot of new information that you have just recently received. I am sure there will be other questions. We will have other questions. You will have other questions. I don't see this going on indefinitely. But we can bring this to some quicker closure, I think. Dunn: It sure seems like it's going on indefinitely. We keep going back to the drawing board, it seems like. You know, it's sometimes you just aren't going to get the answer that's going to please everyone. Wells: The encouraging word I would give you is there are fewer moving parts now than there were before. There were some things that I think we have been able to say definitively that we can do. There are some things that we have been able to say 23 Pa e Council Work Session November 28, 2011 definitively that we can't do. There is really one big area that we are not sure of and that's the issue that we need to focus on. So, to try to sound encouraging... which again, you told me to stop selling what I have sold, so you tell me when to stop at this point. Mayor: Stop. Dunn: You can stop. Wells: There aren't that may moving parts. I'm done. Thank you. Mayor: First of all, I think the idea of not wanting people parking on a slanted surface is wise. Because especially those who like to park right in front of a shop, it is very difficult to open a door on the uphill side of the car. So, I think you'll have some problems for a number of your customers with a slanted surface. So, I am glad we are just going with the regular curb for that and other reasons, among them drainage. Just some discrepancies ... page 5 of the staff report where as Scott was saying we can retain 11 out of 12 spaces, page 5 says we are maintaining 9 out of 12 spaces, so we lose 3? If that is not what that means, then it needs to be clarified. Reid: That bump out is pretty wide, Mayor. You are right. It is going to take up more than one space. Mayor: Under modified plan and then go down Loudoun Street to Market Street. Maintenance of 9 of the 12 existing parking spaces. Parker: It's 11 of 12. Mayor: Okay, that should be corrected then. The bollard... depending on which figure for bollard cost, not that we are going in that direction anymore. We have two different per bollard costs that are about $2,000 apart. We have about $7100 for bollard for the 84 bollard plan and we have $5400 per bollard for the 15 bollards at intersections. So how much do bollards really cost? Parker: There is a variety of cost. The ones with the higher cost is a continuous concrete footer. The bollards at the intersection, we haven't gotten that far deep into it on exactly how that installation would work. That would be bollards. We don't think that they need to be as secure because we are going to have some other things with them. Mayor: I was impressed with what Marty said and what Ken said. I think Tom may have followed up on it. I worry about increasing the cost of this project. The Voices group have done a wonderful job. Their proposal would increase it by $1.8 million. Even the modified staff plan increases it by about $347,000 so it is a significant increase even if we are going to find savings or another revenue source. Revenue can be used be for many purposes and if suddenly we have a revenue source in the 24 age Council Work Session November 28, 2011 downtown, my concerns about cost are no way reduced by the fact that we have got another source because that could be used for another pressing project in town. Perhaps along the lines of what Ken proposed. How much do parklets cost? Philadelphia parklets? Parker: I have not had the opportunity to cost a parklet. That's on my radar screen. I was just confabbing with my engineer partner over here. I want to correct something about Loudoun and Market is 9 of the 12. Because we were taking a square footage area plus the loading zone that could be used for parking as well, if need be. Reid: So you are getting rid of three spots. Aha! Mayor: You are getting rid of three. Parker: The 11 out of 12 is on Cornwall Street .... it's the Cornwall to Market. You are maintaining 11 out of 12. Mayor: Okay, already I'm unhappy because I thought we were going to come up with a solution that only lost us one space, not three. Not your fault. Reid: You can narrow that bump out, Mayor. The bump out is just way too wide for that crosswalk. If you do that, you can save two spaces. Mayor: That's been the fundamental goal, I thought, was to try to preserve as much parking and I think we had assumed there would be a way to preserve all but one of the existing spaces from Loudoun to Market. I am very concerned about that. The other aspect is this moveable parklet or platform. One restaurant might have the kind of arrangement that would benefit from on- sidewalk dining but a restaurant one or two shops away might not, so because people will park wherever it is available you could have one restaurant putting out a platform to extend it's sidewalk dining area, but the people who go to that restaurant will park in front of the other restaurants and that's I know a concern of at least one of the restauranteurs downtown who already sees that happen on a regular basis plus many of our restaurants to have dinners, not just lunches, so if you are taking away parking from them during the dinner hour, which is what these proposals would do, then I have got an additional concern there. And even if you say, well this restaurant doesn't mind if it loses parking, it is impacting the restaurants on either side as well because the one will just park in front of the others, potentially. Hammler: Madam Mayor, may I add just a different angle on that point, which is in the other element of even the idea of a parklet on wheels, for instance, if it weren't say in front of one restaurant, suppose really other restaurants wanted to be able to have the onstreet dining, would their customers be able to use it if they decided to have take out or even if you wanted to go to Mom's Apple Pie and have a cup of coffee and something to eat could you still use it and how would we communicate that? Just 25111ane Council Work Session November 28, 2011 kind of on a practical level, not just the parking, but how would we use the actual space? Mayor: Good question. Finally, the Philadelphia parklet, the fencing area to me looked weaker, certainly weaker than a jersey barrier, but weaker than bollards would be so I wouldn't think that would enhance safety at all. I can understand the approach of maintaining some flexibility. I'm not as troubled by that as Tom is. But, the cost and the loss of three parking spaces to me is not a good selling point with me. That's just me. But, I appreciate all the work you have put in, especially you, Scott. Oh, hours, hours, of it. Reid: I just want to talk about this continuous process in terms of your proposal for putting bollards on either end and the one lane thing... wouldn't that lead to the creation of a downtown management association where basically you are having this joint business /government entity that is going to determine when to put the bollards up and do the lanes... Wells: What the Voices group ... first of all let me say I wouldn't want to use the word continuous in this process. It does need to have a beginning and an end. This is not a project with no end to it. So, just let me make that statement. Second, I think one of the important things that the Voices group has talked about is how can this whole effort be managed without relying on a downtown management group. The discussion that has occurred so far is to maintain that focus at the town level so the Council has some element of oversight whether it's through ordinances or I through implementing your direction would have those abilities to approve closures or not as we do now. So, it was envisioned to try to use the ordinances and the processes that we currently have, modify them to the degree that you need to based upon what is happening downtown, but the short answer is no, it does not .... Reid: what I would like to caution my colleagues that in order to reach closure, we have to make a decision on what we are going to put in the CIP, something or nothing. It has got to be within the budget because if we are starting the other projects, this is now been delayed by about... maybe eight months or more. Because of the concern over the original plan which got rid of the parking. So, I think we have to cut or fish bait. Fish or cut bait. Whatever. Something like that. Decide what we are going to put in the CIP. Then we can take the next step. I applaud your comments. I am glad you ferreted out that loss of the parking because I don't think that's a good thing. Hammler: Well, I'm not sure which mixed metaphor to pick up on because in fact our Hail Mary's, been back and punting and now talking about fishing, but John was mentioning a plan that is really about moving the ball down to get to the first down a couple of yards in terms of a few key points. When I reflect back on that last vote, I can say I personally struggled to find that swing vote because what I witnessed was a Council that had just received over the weekend a new set of Plan A or Plan B and we were going to insist on making a decision in 24 hours without having any input from 261 a Council Work Session November 28, 2011 anyone and the community came forward, particularly those most deeply impacted by Council's previous decision and said you know what, give us the time. Give us the gift of time for coming back with a unified plan and bring us all back together. And you have achieved that, which is huge. I don't know even how to describe how important that is. So, I fully appreciate that there will be an opportunity to make this decision. Just one comment, one question. You have worked very hard. John, you mentioned going back to the Voice group actually for the first time to present this information. What is the formal process by which, and again, I hesitate saying this because I know that those who have had the concern about losing parking have been through this already and we want to make sure we do get to closure, but when is it coming back to Council and how are we getting this input from the community. Wells: I think the first thing I need to do is get back from Richmond on time on Thursday to go to the Voices meeting. That will be my first opportunity to hear from them formally just in terms of the basic reaction to what's out there. I think that meeting doesn't necessarily... everybody has read the Council ... the meeting, those haven't been widely attended to date. I know there is a strong push on by those who did at the meeting try to encourage greater participation. My opinion would be at this point would be to try to narrow the list of options we have out there. Try to experiment with one or two on a very limited basis. It doesn't affect the parking in any way. Hammler: And get feedback to do that. Wells: Get some feedback and do that. I would tend to suggest and again this may take debate from another evening. I think you have enough information to move forward with other elements of the project that this can support one way, shape or form. But I think the key fork in the road for some members of Council is does this project have to have all elements up front worked out before you can move ahead with other parts of it. Hammier: I guess I was asking a much more direct question. Maybe you can't answer right now, but I think Council wants to know okay you are going to do A, B, and C. Come back on what date with here's the exact one and two types of options we will be trying so that we can vote on that based the input from the public. Wells: I think you have two things you need to do. One is we need to present the drawings themselves. My thought was then to experiment with some of the options on the ground to see how they work because I think the feedback you get may be influenced by actually seeing how some of these options will work. Hammler: So, like in January we will vote on what you are suggesting are the options? Wells: I could bring back a couple of options to Council in January saying these are the ones that we would like to experiment with. Here is the time we go forward with 27 1 Pa c Council Work Session November 28, 2011 them. I just think we need to have the sense of here are the next steps. In closure the only other comment I was going make is very tactical, which is one of the ideas you mentioned is this one lane. The added benefit of even experimenting with that is the opportunity to address bikes coming downtown on a very specific time. I think a lot of people would be very interested to come and do more things downtown if they knew they were going to have an opportunity to have a more safe passage right through downtown. Wells: I don't want to talk ... I'll stop now. There are lots of other options... b. Residential Parking in the Downtown Susan Berry Hill: We are going to continue the parking theme with the next item. The residential parking in the B -1 district. As you recall about a year ago Mr. Reimers approached Council and suggested that we look at our zoning ordinance to see if there are ways we could provide incentives for residential development downtown. Council initiated a zoning ordinance amendment and did so in a broad brush manner to allow staff latitude to look at different ways that we could do this. We went to ... explored some different options. Took them to the Planning Commission. They made their recommendation to you. As you recall, there were five different options that staff presented. The Planning Commission recommended that the Council not look at any one option but look at the issue in a comprehensive manner. So, this fall there were a number of meetings. One was a joint meeting between Council and the Planning Commission to discuss the various comprehensive approaches to this issue. Planning Commission followed up with two more meetings after that and they summed up with a series of recommendations. That's what I am going to report to you this evening. Okay, so the question is should the Town Council adopt any or all of the proposed zoning ordinance amendments and administrative changes which are recommended by the Planning Commission regarding residential development in the downtown. The first recommendation the Planning Commission has made is about Option 5. As you will recall, this is an amendment to the zoning ordinance which would permit residential development with no on site parking for lots of record that are 4,000 square feet or less within a certain area, which is the area represented by the red box here which is Liberty, South Street, North Street, and Church Street. Within that area, Option 5 would amend the zoning ordinance such that any residential development that is 4,000 square feet or less would not provide on site parking. The second recommendation from the Planning Commission was option 2 of the set of five options and that is to amend the zoning ordinance to extend the option of the Payment in Lieu which is Section 11.4.3 of the zoning ordinance to residential development in the H -1 Old and Historic District. Right now, that option is only available to non - residential development. The third recommendation that the planning commission has forwarded to you has to do not with the zoning ordinance change, but with an administrative practice, which is how we manage our parking fund. Section 11.4.3 allows for payment in lieu to a parking fund. That parking fund in the zoning ordinance is supposed to be dedicated for creation of new parking 281Pahe Council Work Session November 28, 2011 spaces, either surface lot or garage spaces. So, the Planning Commission has recommended that fund be dedicated to the use of creation of new parking spaces. Right now, in the last number of years, the zoning administrator had made a determination that the parking fund could be used at the discretion of Council for maintenance uses. So, what the ... this recommendation does not change the zoning administrator's recommendation, it simply says that it is an administrative practice, but what we should be doing is dedicating that money for creating new capacity. The fourth recommendation that the Planning Commission made was to increase the payment in lieu amount. As you know this was an item that came before you about a year ago and it was to increase the fee from the current amount of $3,000 and the Planning Commission recommended that it be increased to an amount that you deem appropriate. The items that came before you about a year ago on this, which did not seek resolution of that at the time, were to increase the amount per space up to the amount of $20,000 per space. Several of the attachments that I provided to you in the packet for this item tonight provided the detail of how staff arrived at that $20,000 figure. That's based on research of other parking garage facilities and this is a general average of parking amount per space. The planning commission did not recommend a specific amount to you. They just recommended that it is at your discretion but that it should be increased. In the zoning ordinance that amount is established through a resolution adopted by Council. The last time Council set this fee was 23 years ago at $3,000 per space. So to amend it, if you should chose to, that would be by resolution and then by adoption by the Council. One of the considerations that the planning commission discussed was whether or not we could establish a two tier fee structure, one for non - residential projects and one for residential projects. They did not come to a conclusion on that. I am just bringing this forward to you as an FYI that they did discuss that option. They did ask whether or not the code would allow us to do that and the town attorney's office has said yes, that could be done. They also discussed the issue of if we are to allow for residential parking allowances not to have on site parking, but allow for payment in lieu, how would we manage our parking garage. Right now, there is a 72 hour parking limit in the garage. Would we change that? Secondly, they discussed whether or not we would dedicate parking spaces for these residential uses. We don't currently dedicate spaces when we have parking payment in lieu for non - residential projects. The question is would we do such ... would we make that an administrative decision to dedicate spaces in the garage for these residential payment in lieu spaces. So, that sums up the recommendations made by the planning commission. In your packet there are three motions. Should you chose to address these tomorrow evening. The first motion, seeks to direct staff to amend the zoning ordinance per Option 5 and Option 2 as outlined in the staff report this evening. The second motion would be an administrative change to direct the Town manager to earmark payments in lieu in the parking fund to be dedicated for use only for the creation of new parking spaces. The third motion is to increase the payment in lieu fee through Town Council resolution. I put in this motion that perhaps you would want to schedule a public hearing to discuss that or perhaps you would want to direct it to a future work session to discuss what that fee should be if you want to consider that recommendation. In sum, that's the recommendations that are coming 29 Page Council Work Session November 28, 2011 forward to you from the Planning Commission and I would be happy to answer any questions you might have. Martinez: Along with the idea of the motion ... you wanted to ... the question I have on Motion 3, the payment in lieu fee .... if they are making payments in lieu of making a parking space, where are they intending people to park? I mean are they looking at the town ... this parking garage here as an alternative? Liberty Street as an alternative? Maybe anywhere else? It's up to the person who is.... Hill: It's up to the developer to either provide the payment in lieu option but then it would be up to the person who is buying the unit to figure out where to park. Martinez: So what you are saying is to help accommodate this, we have to look at how we are going to structure our parking regulations to accommodate an additional number of .. that's where the 72 hours comes in? Hill: It's a consideration that you might want to think about because, for example when we have the Flower and Garden show, that garage is packed on the weekends. Somebody who has bought a unit where it has been paid in lieu for would not be guaranteed a parking space in the garage in that circumstance. Normally, we don't have ... the parking garage is not that full, but we do have times when First Fridays are very popular. That garage is often packed and for other instances like the Flower and Garden Show. Martinez: So, when you say 72 hours, 72 hours of continuous parking. So, they could leave and come back. So, say something like that could be ... we would just say we will use the top floor of the parking garage for residential parking if people need it? Hill: That could be an option. Martinez: Now, we are looking at $20,000 per parking space, versus residential and commercial. Where does the impact lie. For one, I wouldn't go $20,000, I think that's a pretty stiff jump, but somewhere in between. My question is, who should be bearing this burden of a two tier? I think that's where ... I'm not going to sit there and say residential pays $5 and commercial pays $10 until I get some more information. think that's what we need. Hill: The planning commission did not go so far as to ask for that research. They just looked into whether or not it could be permitted under code. Martinez: They are depending on if we can make it equitable. I wouldn't have a problem with a two tier system, because I know the difference between a residential and a commercial, do we make a differential? Hill: Yeah, the $20,000 is just estimated what it costs to provide surface parking but... 301Pagc Council Work Session November 28, 2011 Martinez: Another question. Is the $20,000 just your upper limit or can we go higher? Is there a limit to how high we can go? Hill: You can set that fee as you deem appropriate. We have researched a number of different garages in the area. It all depends ... the cost really depends on a lot of variables. It depends on the land costs, the geology, whether you are doing a substructure, the architecture, all of those things. Martinez: I think it should be expected that we should increase the fee from $3,000 since it hasn't been increased for 23 years, but I want to let people know I am not looking to increase it to $20,000. I want it to be more equitable. Hill: There are members of the planning commission who agree with that. They felt like a jump from $3,000 to $20,000 is a big jump at one time. Martinez: That's just guidance more than anything. Hammler: Well, thank you for the report. I appreciate all the staff's time as well as the planning commission. I know Kevin, Kristen and I attended the meeting that we were invited to attend. One of the key points that was made early on was the assumption about the actual number of lots that would be impacted and the assumption about the number of lots that would be impacted. In fact, it may have been significantly overblown in terms of that number. Perhaps its not in the area of 300, it's more in the area of 20 given a different assumption which is some of the uses would never move over to a residential redevelopment anyway. When I start kind of peeling away some of those concepts, I guess what I am asking myself just basic questions, which is what are we trying to achieve. We are looking at something very comprehensively but we may be able to address very tactical issues as they come up. I won't name names, but I am sure John knows what I am referring to in figuring out how do we encourage the right kind of tactical development on a case by case basis without some of these sweeping possible changes and along those same lines, even as it relates to in theory it makes perfect sense to direct what would be a reasonable amount for an in lieu set fee and certainly even $20,000 given how costly it is for structured parking is not unreasonable, but that's no way going to amount to anything that would allow us to ever build a parking garage and having the next logical question is you know what research have we done. Are we trying to have a goal of a certain amount of residential units because that facilitates bringing more foot traffic on a permanent basis, how are we fixing that problem. Nothing here I think helps us with that, so I really feel I need to think about how I am going to support each of these individual motions given some of those individual points. It seems so obvious that _ no problem, just keep doing what we are thinking about doing, but I do think we need to try to realize that we are going to keep struggling with something pretty basic, which is if people live somewhere permanently, they need to have somewhere to park and we don't have an answer yet. So, I think number 1 seems if anything the most straightforward. 311Pa gc Council Work Session November 28, 2011 Butler: I am good with all the motions. Reid: Thank you. This has been a long process. So, it's great to see that you have been bearing with us and everything else. What are the total number ... I know it's in here ... the total number of lots that could be built of 4,000 ... 4,000 square feet or less or is it just based on total inventory? Hill: The number is 86 would be eligible... that doesn't mean ... that includes vacant lots as well as lots that might be redeveloped for residential purposes. That does not mean necessarily that 86 lots would be, it's just that's the number that would be eligible. Reid: And how many proposals do you have right now from any of them? Hill: None. Reid: You have none. How many are less than 4,000 square feet? Hill: Well, the 86 is 4,000 or under. Reid: How about over 86. You have a lot of lots in that perimeter. You don't know? That's all under 4,000? Going to the parking garage examples that you gave here, do you have an idea when this Manassas VRE lot by the garage was built for $12.7 million? Hill: We can find that out. I don't know. Reid: But Village at Leesburg was built within the last three years wasn't it but they only spent $11,000 a space? Hill: That's without land costs. Reid: The ideal place that the town would build another garage would be Liberty Street, most likely, even though there are environmental issues. Have we ever costed out what a garage would cost there? Wells: I spoke with different companies about three to four years ago prior to the advent of the project that Jan Zacharisse was bringing forward because I think there was some interest in maybe looking at a public private partnership was being considered from an unsolicited basis. The short answer to the question is at that point they were looking at if the town were to partner and provide the land, they were looking at the $10- 15,000 range which would match. Again, this was without any due diligence. Hammler: Million? Or is that per space? 321 P a ; c Council Work Session November 28, 2011 Wells: It was 10 -15 thousand per space for a structured parking facility. That's kind of the rule of thumb. Reid: But how many spaces? Wells: At that point, they were looking at possibly 250. They weren't looking at going below the surface because of the environmental possibilities. Reid: Yeah, there are certainly a lot of environmental issues, let's put it that way. That still requires a phase I or a phase II environmental? Wells: Probably at least a phase I if you are building above grade depending on how the footers would be built. You might need to do a phase II. Reid: So, you are talking about three ... about four million dollars for a garage. Wells: That's... again, the town would have to be willing to partner with the land. Reid: You see according to your little chart in the back here, you basically are saying that you have two approved site plans where Church Street owes 14 spaces, but some I think are going to be on site, I believe. That's the property that Beck Dickerson was working on. Then Courthouse Commons, 25. Where is Courthouse Commons again? It's a site plan approval. Boucher: It's on East Market Street. Reid: And the deli has to do 14. The bottom line is that you are looking at 196 spaces and if you charge your 20,000, that's going to give you $4 million by my calculation, okay? But the thing is though, these are virtually all commercial projects, aren't they? You see the thing about the small lots is that they are scattered. I don't have a problem with exempting the property owner from providing on site parking, but I do have a concern, as Mr. Martinez had about charging them $20,000 a parking space. Because I think what is going to happen is if we jack it up that much, you are not going to get the infill development. So, we are not going to get the development and we want those small, historic buildings. I think that we want infill development. So, if we jack it up too much, it's just going to be another problem for the people ... not just the residential people, but also be a problem for Jan Zacharisse and all these other folks who can't even find an anchor to build their project. They are approved, they are ready to go and they can't find an anchor. I am also not confident that the money, even though it says in the report "put it in a fund to create new spaces ", where those new spaces would be. I remember when I was talking to the owners of the ... is it the Norris House on Loudoun Street? They said that a lot of their tenants really don't want to park on Liberty Street. They are afraid to walk back there. There is something about that area that concerns people. So, we could build a big garage there, but that may not be where people need to park. I think that where people want 33 Pagc Council Work Session November 28, 2011 to park is on the street. When I was talking to the chairman of the Planning Commission today... is it still Mary Harper, the chairperson of the Planning Commission? She was saying that maybe what we should be looking at is one waying some of these side streets. That's outside the scope of this regulation. I know a lot of people talk about one waying Loudoun and Market and I am against that because then we are going to have the Leesburg freeway in downtown Leesburg. I don't want that. But one waying some of these side streets could create that onstreet parking. I know that there are going to be issues. You have gotta have a public hearing. There has to be something here that is not going to discourage people from building. You can raise the fee, but it has to be something modest or it has to be something pegged to the market where it is not going to sit there in an ordinance for 23 years. I think in many respects, it was a shame that staff didn't bring this up five years ago and realize that the payment in lieu fee wasn't producing any new parking. It was being used to pave the existing ... it was going into the general fund or your maintenance fund. So, I think a lot of things have to be sorted out, like Katie said. You are going to have to figure out what is an equitable scale. You are going to have to figure out where you are going to put the parking. Because I don't think you can put it all at Liberty Street or the garage even. It's going to have to be in areas where people want to get to. Of course, a lot of these property owners don't want to build right away, but we want to encourage that development, we don't want to discourage it. That would be my take away message from this. Thank you. I think that you are going to find that even with that amount of money coming in, you aren't going to have all that money at once to build a parking garage, even if you wanted to put it at Liberty Street. Something has got to give here. We have some lots that have ... there are some areas right downtown where they have plenty of parking but they are private lots. There is nothing we could do. Now, something could be done with the Times Mirror property. That's a possibility, but even then is that going to be close to where the residential folks are going to need parking? I don't think so. Dunn: Well, I'll actually... I'll support these motions. I was actually leaning more towards Option 4, which is an onstreet permit parking program which I always felt would be beneficial not just to new development, but again going back to some of these people who have ... looking to put metered parking out, given the ability to have meters outside their house, but with a permit they can park there without having to feed the meter. It gives us the opportunity during the day to get revenue from meters and still have a permit process that gives people... that's something I'd still like to see us consider in the town. I'll go with these, but I do have a couple of questions. Uses of the parking fund. What are those funds being used for now? Wells: The short answer is nothing because we have no monies in the fund. The last use of those funds was to repave the Liberty lot in the early 2000s, before I got here. Dunn: So we have not collected any fees since when? Wells: We haven't used any funds and I don't believe if we have collected any, it's been very minimal. Any monies that we would collect, even though they were used 34 a c Council Work Session November 28, 2011 for maintenance uses at that time and that was a zoning official determination that was a legitimate use ... I don't have a pot of money in a parking fund... Dunn: It just went into the general fund? Wells: No, it went into ... well, it was probably tagged ... I can't speak to what it looked like back then, because it was a long time ago, so I am assuming it either came into a separate fund or it came into the general fund and was identified for a specific use and then tagged for just specific parking uses, which again the maintenance use of it at Liberty Street ... in looking back at it, my understanding was that when that lot was repaved, it allowed it to be restriped so additional spaces were garnered from that even though you didn't necessarily expand the lot. So, for those who think that maybe those funds weren't used to create additional parking, I think that you ended up with a few more spaces, but not in the manner we are thinking of tonight, which is any funds that go into ... any dollars that go into that fund would go directly toward the expansion of additional spaces on the ground or in a structure. We as a staff' and Council have not had to deal with that issue because we don't have any money. Dunn: In reality, there is not going to be a separate fund set up. It just goes to the general fund, knowing that you have so many dollars earmarked for... Wells: I believe that the zoning ordinance actually calls for the creation of a separate fund. By ordinance you can create a fund. It identifies it separately. I am going to track it definitively whether it would be in the general fund or a separate fund... not getting into detail with accounting, but if the ordinance says to do it as a separate fund, I'll bring it back to you. Dunn: So, this fee wasn't even being collected for years because? Wells: Nobody has come forward. Hill: Actually there have been some monies collected. Murphy: Actually there was money that was separately collected as a payment in lieu fee that we have gotten through rezonings right now and .... Wells: But they are not here yet? Murphy: Yes. Hill: They would be due at site plan. Dunn: I definitely would want to see this motion that the funds definitely be used as earmarked. I also agree that the $20,000 seems a bit high. I was just doing some basic math. If you take an average rate of inflation of 5% per year, it would be more than half that amount would be an acceptable level. Close to maybe $9,000. You 351Pagc Council Work Session November 28, 2011 may want to also consider a provision that ties it to a certain percentage inflation rate so that you are not coming back to us every year and we don't have something laying on the table that okay, we make it $9,000 and then another Council other than the Mayor will still be here in 23 more years to change it from $9,000 .... no matter where you leave it at, whether it's $9,000 but that it's tied to a certain percentage rate increase each year. Wells: Tied to something that makes sense now and then tag it to inflation moving forward. Dunn: Right. The other thing too, I think that's what's evident is you didn't have a lot of these funds coming in because the market wasn't dictating it. The development wasn't there. By the way, whatever we set that number at, the developer has a choice of either keeping it ... trying to keep the cost within the market values at the time or tries to pass it on to the buyer. This isn't a fee that is going to go to ... we are not just hitting the developer with this, but it is going to go to the buyers. I know developers like I know developers, generally speaking if there is a $9,000 cost or a $20,000 cost, it is going to come out of the buyer somehow. Whether they lose value in some of the materials that they use or something goes on with that. The developer just doesn't eat $20,000. So, whatever we decide to raise this to, we are raising it to our neighbors. The parking fund ... okay, I would suggest ... I'd like to make a recommendation that instead of putting a $20,000 fee in there, that we lower that down to a $9,000 fee attached to a 5% inflation increase. Hammler: I think it's just for directing the advertisement so that there is leeway while we are hearing public input up to a certain range. Dunn: When are we voting on this? Tomorrow? Hammler: It's just a direct to get the feedback to determine the advertising. Butler: Just an initiation, right. Dunn: It wouldn't be saying $20,000, though? Butler: But if we start at $20,000 then we can actually do less, but if we start at $5,000, we can't go more. Dunn: I would be hesitant to pass something that says $20,000. Butler: We could just say initiate an amendment to raise parking fee up to $20,000. Hammler: That's exactly what it says. Up to. Dunn: $20,000 indefinitely until we vote on it again in 23 years? 361 Page Council Work Session November 28, 2011 Wells: I think that's where you would want to amend it to provide for an escalator clause. This motion may need to be modified. Dunn: But, yeah. That's all I have. Again, I'd really like us to consider some type of permit parking program too, especially in conjunction with our new meter program which we are continuing to work on. There you have to keep selling, John. You don't stop talking on that one. Mayor: Just a few comments. At the planning commission meeting, one of the requests that I had that I gave to staff was to find out... and I don't think you guys have had time to do it because I don't think John ever got the message, but zoning ordinance does say there is supposed to be a separate parking fund. We have never had one, it has always gone into the general fund. It has been tracked by staff to be used for parking. The question I raised at planning commission is there a financial reason to have it as part of the general fund? Do you get better interest rates if it is part of a larger fund or could it do as well as a separate fund? Wells: I can answer that. If there were interest rates worth investing in, what we do is we pool our investments, so even though it is kept in separate funds, we would invest it in total and then track the allocation back by fund so we still get the benefit of the larger number. Our bigger problem now is the value of what we are getting for any amount. But, irregardless of what that is, any money invested ... we would still pool it and it would be tracked so that if $10,000 came into the parking fund, $10,000 with the appropriate interest would go back to that fund. We would follow it, but lump it together so you could get your maximum interest rate. Mayor: Alright, very good. On the issue ...I know planning commission wanted to only go with new construction and acquisition for the use of the fund. I don't tend to agree with that because in any endowment, you want enough to maintain what you are building. Certainly having everything go into disrepair in 10 years is not good and you are going to need to put money into maintenance as well. I'm not sure I was persuaded by the planning commission's position on that. We are looking at on option 5, it looks to me that we are looking at this at the two extremes. Either we require residential on site parking to be provided, or we are saying okay, we won't require it at all. Why not a middle position? Maybe you could provide a reduced number of spaces, but I continue to be concerned about this lack of spaces because I have seen ... like I have said before, what happens when people do not have a space to park. Now, I could understand the developer of a small parcel might say well if I provide two of my four units with parking spaces and I don't provide it to the other, then I am going to have a war between the various homeowners there. But still I think I continue to be worried about eliminating the requirement for on site parking because it shoves everybody elsewhere. Now, theoretically, if the market were to recover, we would have the private sector providing four separate parking garages in the historic district. We would have Waterford providing one at the W &OD and King. We would have, I think, a second parking garage at their other project next to the Liberty Street lot. We would have the Barber and Ross, which was approved for, 371 Pane Council Work Session November 28, 2011 I believe a parking garage and then we have got the Loudoun Times Mirror site, so you could put all this taxpayer money into building a parking garage just at the time that the market recovered and everybody is building parking garages at which point, why are we charging the taxpayers for something that is going to be provided by the private sector. I think when the chairman of the planning commissioner talked to the vice mayor recently on the issue of whether we should build a Liberty Street parking lot, and I agree with him if this is what he said ... well we are bumping up against our debt service limit, we don't have the funds now, we don't want to see a tax rate increase and these things cost a lot of money, so not before 2017 is I think how that conversation was described to me. I tend to agree with that. Hammler: Did he mention the garbage underneath? Mayor: Well, the garbage underneath has been a problem forever and who knows how many millions that would cost to meet EPA requirements to clean it up. Finally, on the move from $3,000 to $20,000, I think we do need to raise it. If the development community doesn't pay for it, even if it is passed on to the buyers, then the taxpayers at large pay for it. So, is it fair to someone living in Country Club or Woodlea to pay that money for a parking garage that they aren't going to use? I don't know. But I do agree with Ken's statement, people don't want to park at Liberty Street and walk to the shopping areas. So, if we put a garage there, my fear is we will spend however many millions it is and people won't park there because they don't want to walk that distance. I think they would rather walk from Barber and Ross. They'd rather walk from the Loudoun Times Mirror site, possibly from a Waterford site, but I do agree that there is a perception walking from Liberty, it's kind of dark and you are nervous. Reid: Madam Mayor, I know this outside of the scope of the regulation and I won't be on this council to discuss this, but I think it's something, if we are going to encourage this kind of development, and that's what I want to see, would you support Ms. Harper's proposal, her idea to one way some of these side streets. In fact, she even mentioned North and Cornwall? Hammler: I would suggest, I think it's an excellent point and it has been a really important discussion that we have had tonight, but one amended concept for the vote tomorrow would be, to your point Kristen, if we all agree that being so specific that we are going direct the use of a fund to something we are not sure we either afford, or is going to solve a problem because people who don't want to use one lot and and /or we have others coming on line where there could be some flexibility or negotiations for using them overnight and /or the desire to use some metered /permanent on street, or creating more on street parking... could we not just edit this fund so we don't have to say it's for new parking spaces in surface or garage rather payment in lieu is directed towards parking, then it could go towards maintenance. Then, we determine the additional way to handle on street parking closer... 38 a Council Work Session November 282 2011 Reid: I think it's got to be specific, Katie. Because that's the problem... for the last 20 years or so it has been used just for maintenance. Hammler: But even your point, Ken, about looking for other ways to solve the problem whether it be one waying streets or putting up meters. Reid: If you want to say something like a partnership with existing private lots, like for instance, I know some folks on Loudoun Street, they have plenty of spots for commercial, they are not using it. If we came in and said we are going to pay to resurface your lot if you will let it to be used for residential parking at night. You know, those kind of things ... I know they bring up legal issues. Hammler: But if you just edit it to allow ... you are suggesting that somehow the money would go towards ... yes, if it parking, it's parking. Butler: it could say, only for use in the creation of new parking spaces... Reid: Great. Hammler: So new spaces could be metered or on street. Reid: Beautiful. I'm good with that. Hammler: That works. That's what I was trying to do. Reid: You might actually get my vote tomorrow on that, but I am still concerned with charging people who have a small lot of 4,000 square feet the same $9,000 as somebody who is going to have a big commercial development or mixed use development. There has got to be a scale. Hammler: you could argue the complete opposite. Ultimately, we are trying to create incentives for additional commercial downtown. We don't know. Reid: I was just saying to Dave earlier, one of the things that I think we want to do in downtown Leesburg, at least I want to do and I think maybe Dave wants to do, is move more people towards bike and walk trips. Okay? We are going to moving towards an urban village in this downtown, especially when the economy recovers and you see Times Mirror and other development occur. Hammler: That has been the main theme for every blooming plan that has been published since ... but it was a good idea that you came up with! Reid: The reality is that you want to have more density and mixed use. You want to encourage this development. You don't want to discourage it. 39�P<��c Council Work Session November 28, 2011 Dunn: And that's a novel concept. It is something to strive for. If you really want to push that, you wouldn't allow any parking garages and I don't think anybody can propose that because while we want that, the citizens show that they don't do it. So, I would still recommend leaving the motion as it is because it does say for the use of acquisition and construction of new parking spaces which is just what you are talking about. So... Hammler: what about the meters you were mentioning? We could have a fund for it. Dunn: I think the concern, in talking with the chairman of the planning commission myself, the concern was is that the funds are definitely being directed, that they are being collected and have a direct use for creating new parking. Not just ... now it's some other project that we are going to find that's parking related. But, I'd still recommend leaving it as is. The other thing, too, to the Mayor's point about the citizens paying for it, which I am not proposing; however, it isn't just residents that use these parking garages that you mentioned. It's for businesses. It's also parking to provide those residents who are not living downtown come on in town, there is plenty of parking for you to spend money in downtown. It's more than just residents that are going to use these parking spaces or these garages too, so, I recommend leaving things as they are. It's what the planning commission brought forward to us. Other than the $20,000 number. C. Form Based Code Butler: We were thinking that since Kevin is not here, then maybe we would defer this item. Mayor: Okay and given how late it is has nothing to do with that, perhaps? Reid: He is the father of Form Based Code, we think that he should be here. Mayor: I think that makes sense. We will have to decide ... we have a limited window in which to make a decision as to whether we are going to do anything to derail it prior to March. Martinez: The only comment that I had, that I gave to you earlier was that we ought to put this back with the new staff recommendations, have the form based code committee reconvene and review the staff recommendations and give us their point of view. Hammler: That sounds like a good idea. Butler: That's a good idea. Sure. Mayor: If they can do it fairly quickly. Hammler: Could they have it by next Tuesday. 401Page Council Work Session November 28, 2011 Reid: After I leave here in January. I don't want to have to .... form based code. Mayor: So, we are going to defer that, theoretically to the next work session? Hammler: Do we need to make a motion tomorrow night to direct it? Wells: I was going to recommend a short motion tomorrow night based on what was suggested about bringing the committee in to review the... Hammler: And give us the date you need us to ... have a decision by.... d. Preliminary Budget Update — FY 13 Wells: Very briefly. Let me ... very quickly on the preliminary budget update this is the second year of a two year budget. You have already adopted your budget in concept for the second year. What I just wanted to make sure everybody... this is the first time we have all done a two year budget together so I just want to relay what I think that means and make sure that matches up with what your expectations are. What we will do is bring back the budget for FY 13 that you have endorsed by resolution and also includes a six year capital plan that now turns into the five year plan because we have already taken out the first year. I would only bring to you issues that I felt needed to be amended into the budget, for I would think very compelling reasons for a major change. Since your budget is already in place, we know the tax rate should be a dollar .... no, I got... it would be unchanged. Unchanged. The budget is unchanged. Still following the same plan. We have no new information that would cause us to think differently in terms of FY 11 audit information or year end information for FY 11. You will be getting your audit information at your first meeting in January at the latest. That's the likely date. The preliminary numbers I have seen leave us in a positive financial position. We will have met all the targets that we set out in the long range plan. The big concern I think we all share is what is the state going to do to us. That's something that we have to watch very closely from a couple of different angles. The only other thing I think is a major variable that we don't know what the final number will be and that is going to be assessments for next year. Obviously that could have an impact, but all the information we have been tracking in terms of sales in the town compared to assessments indicate small to modest increases as we had thought they would be. Other than the uncertainty of the state, I am not aware of any information that would cause us to have to make any major changes. There have been some things that the Council has added in the CIP that we need to bring forward. There may be a couple of issues in the operational budget, but again I would expect us working by exception rather than going into the details since you have already looked at the detail last year. Obviously it's your budget. You can look at it as however you would like to review. We would expect to present the budget at your first meeting in February with potential wrap up in the end of March or early April at the latest, but again I think with the fact that we would be working by exception, we could wrap things up a little quicker. That was your intention of what you wanted to do the second year. For 41 1Pagc Council Work Session November 28, 2011 then, the new biennium is the full blown project. You can look at the FY 13 budget in your document that you have right now. Again, that's the base document that we will work from. I think I am ahead of my ten minutes, so I'll stop since I am way over. Hammler: Just a comment that Ken, we expect you to lower our county taxes. Reid: Well, I will. Butler: Instead of cutting the schools. Feel free to reduce the salaries of the Board of Supervisors. Hammler: I wholeheartedly support that. Butler: No questions. Reid: Not that I am going to be here, but are you still going to provide the books with all the details or not? You don't need to? Wells: We don't need to, but obviously any council member can go into as much detail as we like, but the print out that we have from last year is still valid as the adopted budget. What I would tend to focus on would be what's the assessment information, what have we learned from the state in terms of revenue, are there any specific things that are occurring in the operating budget that we didn't anticipate? A -- particular fuel line item has gone up abnormally high or something that we felt we needed to bring forward to make a recommended change. The intention would be to maintain the tax rate the current level. If we are over in some areas, I would look at reductions in others to compensate for that. Again, we have a plan that carries us through 2017 and that's the plan that we are going to stay on unless there is something bigger out there that we are not aware of. Reid: Are you proposing any new increases in fees like cigarette tax or anything like that? Wells: No. The only thing that we would have would be the typical items that we have started to do now on a regular basis. Council Member Dunn suggested in terms of tagging certain things with inflationary increases. You have already done that by policy, but we would bring those forward, but nothing different than you would normally see. Reid: The only thing I would encourage my colleagues to look at would be the utility fund and CIP. There is a lot of concern that a lot of these projects have been put off for another year. We are still going to have the Linden Hill situation. I actually have been talking with Johnny Rocca about that. He says there might be a way to do a light, but I don't know ... I haven't gotten the details from him yet. Also, the utility 421Pa�e Council Work Session November 28, 2011 fund. You have to look at that carefully. But, I think the two year budget is a good idea. I am glad you did it. I am looking at it for the county as well. Dunn: I was not thrilled about doing the two year budget, but I would like to get detailed numbers. Mayor: Very good. Thank you, John. e. Process for Filling Council Vacancy_ f. Date of Special Election Mayor: Jeannette, you need a vote from us tomorrow night? Irby: Yes, I would appreciate a vote just authorizing me to file a petition with the circuit court on the date of Mr. Reid's resignation or the effective date, no later than January 1. Hammler: If we waited two weeks so that we could get the word out and try to get as much input from the citizens as to what they would like to do? Irby: That doesn't affect the special election process. There are two separate things. So, whoever you want to fill the vacancy is fine. My request as far as a motion to move forward is with respect to the petition for the special election so that the court can set that date so potential candidates have as much time as possible to figure out whether or not they want to make a run. Filling the vacancy is a separate question. Hammler: Okay, were we planning to discuss tonight, Kristen, what we actually plan to do short of not having any comments. Marty, do you have any thoughts on what you would like to do in terms of how to fill the vacancy and when? Martinez: I would like to fill the vacancy as soon as it becomes available. I don't want to go through and review everybody. I want to take the next runner up from the last election. Hammler: When do you want to have the special election? Martinez: The special election, from what I read, we can ask, but I'm fine with it being in November. Hammler: Okay, well my personal opinion is that we would benefit from having a full and open transparent interview process and anyone interested to fill the seat could come forward and do so after this is fully advertised. I certainly would like to hear additional input on the timing. My gut reaction is this is an elected office so the sooner that there is an opportunity for all citizens to vote on filling the office, the better, it would strike me. But, I am certainly open to additional discussion. 43 Page Council Work Session November 28, 2011 Butler: Yeah, I think we should have the special election as soon as possible for two reasons. One, having it in November it's highly likely to simply create another special election. I do believe one potential clarification ... you have down here say if the special election is held on the same day as the general election, the candidates can run for both offices ... blah, blah, blah. If one candidate wins both elections, then the candidate will have to make a choice of which term to accept. Now by win in the general election, you mean finish in the top three? Irby: Yes. Butler: So, I think my best guess is everybody who would want to run in the general would run in both and so the chance of the person winning the special election finishing in the top three of the general election would be very high, in fact I would be willing to bet a large amount of money in that case and then that person would probably certainly accept a four year term rather than a two year term, so the bottom line is we would have another special election. If we wanted to hold it in the next general election, basically what we have ended up doing, is we would end up appointing a person for two years. Hammler: And everyone will have forgotten this whole process... Butler: Not a single person for two years. We would have to make two separate appointments, but basically we would be taking two years worth of council member more or less as an appointment rather than as a choice of the people. So, I think that if we have the special election as soon as possible and I would like to have that in the memo if at all possible to say that this reduces the amount of time that we are appointing somebody to the minimum amount of time possible and give the most authority to the people. It looks like the earliest we could have the special election would be like a week after the time that we would finish the budget, so we wouldn't be switching people in any case in the middle of a budget. Once we get done with the budget, I am not sure that it matters what the timing is. I know that it would cost another $18,000, but instead I can't imagine we wouldn't spend way more than $18,000 just trying to explain to people that A even though hypothetically it could be Dave Butler, or Tom Dunn or Katie Hammler on that ballot, and trying to explain to everybody to vote for us twice. Every time you see my name, vote for it. Martinez: I won't be adverse to having the special election as early as possible. It's just that if it happens that's great. If not, what we get. Butler: Absolutely. We live on what the district court says. I just think it would be extra confusing to have it in November, so the $18,000, I think is hardly worth the aggravation. Reid: As one of the protagonists for the election change, I think it should be in November. I think that should be the recommendation to the court. The court will decide what it wants to do, but I hope that the Council will support it in November. 44 a ,c Council Work Session November 28, 2011 In terms of the gamesmanship ... gamesmanship at least when I was talking with Jeannette, can be occurring also with the spring election. Any of the incumbents here could run for those seats and you know if somebody thinks they have a better shot in April, they will run in April. If someone thinks they have a better shot in November, they can do it in November, so I would hope that the Council would save the money and go with the November date in their recommendation. I am not going to comment on how my successor should be picked for the interim, but... Hammler: Here is the name of the person ... just kidding. Reid: The process is yours ... it's yours to decide. The thing that I was concerned about is what would happen to my various boards and commissioners and it says here in the memo that they would stay, but it's just that if someone was elected to a two year term, are you really going to deny him or her the opportunity to pick their own boards and commission members especially when the whole council changes over in January? It's something that I think you all have to think about. Because a council member may very well want to have the same opportunity to at least pick folks for those two years instead of just ... I mean it's really up to you. But I think the bottom line is I think we ought to save the money, we ought to do what the voters intended and that is to have recommendation to the court to do it in November in terms of interviewing process, the way we did it with probably four years ago, I think was fine. An open interview process and everybody can apply. You don't get any kind of preferential treatment to someone who is going to run for it or not, because the attorney general's opinion said that the council cannot factor that in at all, really. You can't deny someone the opportunity to take the interim slot. I think it would be much better to have the new council all take over at the same time rather than have somebody who starts the middle of 2012 and then goes on for the 2 '/2 years. Butler: If we held the special election in November, they would take effect at the first of the year. Reid: Yes, but they would be sworn in at the same time as all the other council members. No? Dunn: I believe that ... I guess Jeannette, I didn't see this addressed in here but I believe that it's the state code mentions something to the effect that you cannot be on the ballot for two different positions. Technically this would be two different positions because it would be a council position four years and a council position two years, so I am questioning some of the comments that have been made that I could put myself on the ballot for my normal term that would come up, if I chose to run for my normal four year term, but then I could also get myself on the ballot for a council position for a two year term. Irby: Because, and I called the attorney general's office. It's considered a separate and distinct election. So, it doesn't matter when you have it, because it's a different election... 45 Patie Council Work Session November 28, 2011 Dunn: Even if they are both on the same day? Irby: Yes. Dunn: And I guess it's up to however the board of elections wants to handle the ballot. Irby: Yes. And I went on line and looked at sample ballots. There is a little box that says special election for a term ending ... and that's how they treated it on some of the ballots. Dunn: Okay. I imagine there might be two sets of petitions they would have to get filled out? Irby: Not being an expert in that particular area, but because of the way the petitions are drafted and the little leeway they give you, it would be in my opinion two separate petitions because it's for two separate elections. Dunn: Makes sense. I would not be in favor of the runner up approach. Council has already shown that they do not do that runner up approach. I guess it depends on where the political winds are and who that runner up is, whether you want that person sitting there or not. I wouldn't be in favor of that myself. I would rather also try to find somebody who is more qualified, maybe knows our budgetary process, has also been somebody who may have been reviewing the budget ... maybe used to looking at the CIP, knows about our planning issues in town and who has been more attuned to that over the years than just saying you got the fourth number of votes... Hammler: which is what we did last time as well. Dunn: Yes, that's correct. Also, while I do agree with Supervisor -elect Reid ... would it be possible just looking at some of your rules here, I would agree that it would be better in November meaning we would have an appointee and then an election; however, if it were possible to get somebody elected sooner and not have to have an appointee meaning that could we have the election sometime in March that does not interfere with the other dates that you mentioned that we put a recommendation to the state that says we would like to look at a date in March that will allow that person to then take office March 31 or March 30 or April 1 and thereby we meet our 90 day timeline and still have the people pick that person. That way, we don't have an interim appointee, we just have an election. I was just wondering if there was a Tuesday in March that it would work. Irby: Because of the primaries and the requirement of the 45 days for absentee ballot that is supposed to be available after the petitions have been filed, we can't make March. The soonest we can make is April 10. That's a Council meeting and the following Tuesday is April 17'. 461Pagc Council Work Session November 28, 2011 Dunn: Okay, my view then would be if we cannot meet a one election ... one elected official thereby foregoing us being involved in the appointment process, let the citizens chose the individual and they would serve out the whole remaining "three year term ", then barring that, I would rather see the election be going in conjunction with what the citizens have mandated that through referendum of a November election, we go ahead and appoint somebody who is most qualified to fill the position until an election in November. Butler: Just two quick points. One is that this is a special election, not a general election. The electorate did not mandate special elections be done at the same time as the general election. Special elections are almost never done in November. That's why they are called special elections. The second thing is I remember last time when Supervisor Burk left the Council that using the runner up was discussed, but I recall the first runner up, who only lost by a very few votes, had been elected to the school board so was ineligible and then the next runner up was ineligible because he was in Iraq. Then once you moved down the list after that, the vote totals were so low as to be considered nonrepresentative of the electorate, so I think it perfectly reasonable choice four years ago, but that's not necessarily the case here. This is a different case. So, it's not easy to dismiss it out of hand. Mayor: I think that first on the process. I do support an open process with advertisements. Ken will be taking office January 1St. Swearing in is the 91h of December, but you won't take office until the first of January. How early could we advertise in the paper for people to apply for the appointment. Irby: As soon as Mr. Reid submits his resignation, we can advertise. Mayor: Ken probably won't submit until January 1St, is that your intention? Or are you thinking of submitting a letter saying it will be effective January 1st Reid: Probably that. Mayor: So, Jeanette, then the question is if Ken submits a letter in advance, is that enough to start the advertising process? Irby: Sure, and it's also further for me to file the petition. I have 15 days when he submits his resignation to file with the circuit court. So, as soon as we receive that letter, I file the petition, we can run the ad and perhaps then by the first meeting in January we might have enough of a field to chose from. Mayor: Okay, that would be good. The other aspect, my assumption is that regardless of what we recommend for special election, the circuit court would chose the earliest available date. Simply because that's what they seem to have always done which is why for special elections nobody has more than a couple of months of campaign time because I think that the judicial interest is in getting the seat filled as 47 Page Council Work Session November 28, 2011 quickly as possible. So, I expect it will probably be an April date since that's the earliest legal date. Reid: Can't the Council suggest.... Mayor: I don't think the court will care what the Council suggests. I think they are going to figure let's get the seat filled. I do agree with Dave's point that this is a special election that is apart from the regular town election, so I don't think the voters have an expectation that it will be November or any other month for a special. Specials are never held in November. They are always held very quickly. So, I think that is what we will get from the court, so I think we will be looking at April and I would prefer having somebody in case we deadlock on anything... somebody in place as quickly as possible. So, I think the sooner we can advertise after Ken submits... Hammler: So Ken when are you resigning? May I ask... Reid: When would the petitions ... if the court sets the date in April, what would be the deadline for candidates to submit their petitions? Irby: February 24th would be one deadline. I mean, I don't set the dates. February 24 ", February 17th would be one of the two dates that the Board of Elections could say you need to submit because that gives them the 45 days prior to April 10 or 17 to get that absentee ballot prepared and out to those who are voting absentee. Reid: I will say this much, there is a presidential primary, what March 6? Irby: There is a republican primary in March and then there is a senate primary in June. Reid: So, you see there is a potential for that ... how should I say, that interference... Butler: I thought you had that all figured out. Reid: But the candidates... the candidates could be out there doing their campaigning or something... Hammler: I think the only hypothetical interference this Council may want to consider, assuming Madam Mayor, you are correct which is perfectly logical that the special election is as soon as possible... that it would be an unfair advantage if the Council choses somebody who is running for that seat. It becomes an interesting dynamic if we have already selected who could be running within a very short period of time. Mayor: But legally we can't require... 48 Pa e Council Work Session November 28, 2011 Reid: But I do think that somebody who is interested just in the interim position, maybe one of the questions we could ask is ... we could ask that question but I don't m know whether it would be more to prevent something like that if they were serving a longer interim term or a shorter interim term. I think that's something... Hammler: I think the only thing we can control is understanding when you plan to resign so we can get the process started, so do you know when you will be doing that? Dunn: So, I had a question about that to Jeannette. You had mentioned that, I think when I spoke to you that you could not start the process with the court until the resignation is provided to you; however, if we were having a process, why could we not advertise knowing that at the latest, April 1st that we want to seek people interested in fulfilling the unserved term that would begin... because it won't begin any sooner unless you decide to resign before your term ends or your term begins as supervisor January 1St, why couldn't we go ahead and start advertising saying that we are looking for people to fill a term that could begin as early as January Ft until a special election is determined somebody to fill the seat. I am not sure why we can't at least put that announcement out because that doesn't involve the court. Irby: It doesn't. It's just kind of rude, but there is no legal impediment to say that we are going to fill this vacant seat, but the seat is not vacant because Mr. Reid hasn't submitted his resignation. Dunn: I guess unless he chooses not to take his supervisor's seat. Irby: No, certainly and I sent Mr. Reid a mock up, so it will be in your email ... he could submit a letter tomorrow saying effective January 1, I will be resigning a position on Leesburg Town Council. Reid: You need a resolution for this tomorrow. There is no resolution in here. Irby: No, if you were going to tell me a specific date, I am going to draft a resolution. I get a sense that more folks are leaning towards April, so I will have a resolution available tomorrow. With respect to how you are going to fill the vacancy, that can be done by a motion and anybody ... I can draft a motion just saying as soon as possible we are going to direct the town clerk to run an ad for those who may be interested in fulfilling the unexpired term of Mr. Reid, should he so resign, but I don't want Mr. Reid to feel like we are pushing him out the door in running ads for a vacancy that technically doesn't exist, but is there is a legal reason we can't do that? No. Hammler: Madam Mayor, too late to begin this now, but I think the other part we have to vet is if we so chose as a council to go the open interview process, what will the process be. Short of everybody sending information, then what? Are we having subcommittee? Are we going to have a Saturday devoted to ... what are the questions? Do you decide that, maybe that's the easy answer? 491Pa c Council Work Session November 28, 2011 Mayor: In the past, what we have done is we have had people send in resumes. We each get a copy of every resume. We go over them. We have a special meeting. We can interview those we think are the best qualified. Then we vote. Dunn: I think Ken's point as far as existing commission members, that really we have set in our town code. They maintain their position. Mayor: Absolutely and that was their expectation. Hammler: Could you send out an email to Ken's appointees even though they have been appointed by all of us, because that was a question that came up to me as a liaison at a particular meeting so I think some of Ken's appointees aren't sure what is happening. Dunn: I would make that as reassure them that your position is secure as you just accept it not oh, by the way, Ken is leaving ... you want to stay? You gonna eat that donut? Let them know for sure. 2. Additions to Future Council Meetings There were no additions to future council meetings. Wells: It's not a new item. I don't fit under any of the categories. Unfortunately, I have some disappointing news to share with Council and this came up after the packet went out and I didn't get confirmation on exactly how to word this, but I will have somebody here tomorrow night, but after 25 years of going forward with our First Night Leesburg program, Bluemont has asked to take this coming year off due to some unforeseen circumstances ... so, we will have somebody here from Bluemont tomorrow evening to bring a little more detail just as an informational discussion. Hammler: No more summer concerts? Wells: No, this is just they can't do First Night, New Year's Eve. I just wanted to let everybody know that. We need to start getting the word out to the community. They want to start letting people know that if they made donations, they will not be able to follow through and I wanted you all to know first. 3. Adjournment The meeting was adjourned at 10:27 p.m. �tux � QJ-X�� Clerk of C n it 2011 tcwsminll 50 Pa c