HomeMy Public PortalAbout2021_tcwsmin0412Council Work Session April 12, 2021
Council Chamber, 25 West Market Street, 7:00 p.m. Mayor Kelly Burk presiding.
Council Members Present: Ara Bagdasarian, Zach Cummings, Suzanne Fox, Vice
Mayor Martinez, Kari Nacy, Neil Steinberg and Mayor Kelly Burk.
Council Members Absent: None.
Staff Present: Town Manager Kaj Dentler, Town Attorney Christopher Spera,
Deputy Town Manager Keith Markel, Director of Finance and Administrative
Services Clark Case, Director of Public Works and Capital Projects Renee LaFollette,
Director of Planning and Zoning Susan Berry Hill, Director of Economic
Development Russell Seymour, Airport Director Scott Coffman, Management and
Budget Officer Jason Cournoyer, Senior Management Analyst Cole Fazenbaker, and
Clerk of Council Eileen Boeing.
Minutes prepared by Executive Associate Corina Alvarez.
AGENDA
ITEMS
1. Items for Discussion
a. Sycolin Cemetery: Memorandum of Understanding with Loudoun
Freedom Center
Mr. Markel provided historic information regarding the Leesburg
Airport Runway Protection Zone and the improvements made to the site. Mr.
Markel also presented the land transfer process and the draft memorandum of
understanding between the Town and the Loudoun Freedom Center.
Council and staff discussed the item.
It was the consensus of the Council to move forward with the Memorandum of
Understanding as presented by staff, without the inclusion of drainage improvements.
b. Town of Round Hill's Accessory Dwelling Unit Ordinance
Ms. Susan Berry Hill introduced Ms. Melissa Hynes, Town
Administrator and Zoning Administrator for the Town of Round Hill. Ms.
Hynes presented Round Hill's Accessory Dwelling initiative.
Council and staff discussed the item.
c. Affordable Housing
Ms. Berry Hill gave a presentation on Affordable Housing per Council's
request of March 9, 2021.
Council and staff discussed the item.
d. Airport Ad Hoc Committee Final Report
Mr. Coffman gave a presentation of the Ad Hoc Committee's
recommendations regarding the structure of the Airport Commission.
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Council Work Session April 12, 2021
Council and staff discussed the item.
It was the consensus of the Council to move forward with the Town Code changes
to the Airport Commission.
e. American Recovery Funds & Community Project Funding Request
Mr. Case gave a presentation on the American Recovery Funds and the
Community Project Funding Request.
Council and staff discussed the item.
It was the consensus of the Council to prioritize the following projects as the top
three for submission to the Community Project Funding request:
• Police Department Expansion
• Lawson Road Pedestrian Crossing
• Town Branch at Mosby Drive
2. Additions to Future Council Meetings
Council Member Fox requested a discussion on accessory housing.
It was the consensus of the Council to add this item to a future work session.
Vice Mayor Martinez requested a discussion on the establishment of a sub-
committee to determine if a Police Advisory or Police Oversight Commission is
needed.
It was the consensus of the Council to add this item to a future work session.
Vice Mayor Martinez requested a discussion on the creation of a Main Street
Program for Leesburg.
It was the consensus of the Council to add this item to a future work session.
Council Member Cummings requested a Proclamation for National
Preservation Month.
It was the consensus of the Council to present this proclamation at a future Council
meeting.
3. Adj ournment
On a motion by Vice Mayor Martinez, seconded by Council Member Steinberg, the
meeting was adjourned at 9:21 p. m.
Clerk of Council
2021_tcwsmin0412
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April 12, 2021 — Town Council Work Session
(Note: This is a transcript prepared by a Town contractor based on the video of the meeting. It may
not be entirely accurate. For greater accuracy, we encourage you to review the video of the meeting
that is on the Town's Web site — www.leesburgva.gov or refer to the approved Council meeting
minutes. Council meeting videos are retained for three calendar years after a meeting per Library
of Virginia Records Retention guidelines.)
Mayor Kelly Burk: I'd like to call to order the Town Hall work session for April 12th, 2021. I'm asking
everybody to please remember to move your mics close to you. With our masks on it's very hard to
understand us. I would appreciate it if you would move the mics closer to you.
Council Member Neil Steinberg: Madam Mayor?
Mayor Burk: We have-- Yes.
Council Member Steinberg: I was wondering if we could move item D forward so that Mr. Boykin doesn't
have to sit here through all the rest of this discussion.
Mayor Burk: I think we need to stay with the agenda.
Council Member Steinberg: Okay. Thank you.
Mayor Burk: Thank you. The Sycolin Cemetery, we have nobody that's remotely participating. Everybody's
here today. The first one is the Sycolin Cemetery.
Keith Markel: Good evening madam Mayor and Council members. I'm happy to be back here tonight before
you to share an update and get your recommendations as we move forward with the land transfer process
of the Sycolin Cemetery out on Airport property. This evening, we'll be discussing the memorandum of
understanding between the Loudoun Freedom Center and the Town of Leesburg as part of that conveyance
process.
Just to give you a little background and for those watching this evening about the parcels that we're talking
about. The Town purchased five parcels about 30 years ago in 1994 for support of the Airport. This was
land that was needed for the Runway Protection Zone, the RPZ, and this is land that is required by the FAA
at the ends of the runways and this provides protection for folks on the ground should there be an air crash,
inadvertent landing, early landing. We've had issues out here on the site. We've actually seen in our true
fashion where RPZs are necessary and have come in quite beneficial in this specific area.
The Town has mowed and maintained the upper field which is part of the RPZ, and we'll show you here on
a map in just a moment. Up until 2015 the Town had not gone into the woods and done any work within
that space, so everything was up on the upper levels, up on that mowed area. Here you can see on this
image, you can see up in the top corner there the end of the runway, the Leesburg Executive Airport's
runway, and then you can see and I'll draw here to show you just that area of the RPZ, that Runway
Protection Zone.
You see this mowed area of these five parcels that the Town owns. Outside of the RPZ is natural woods.
That's the way that the Town purchased the land back in 1990 and within the wooded area are two separate
burial areas associated with the Sycolin Baptist Church and that church is located on the southern side of
the photograph here along Sycolin Road which separates this RPZ land on the east side from the Airport
on the west side. Everything in green outlined is Town -owned property.
Here, just to give you another angle as orientation shifts here 45 degrees but it's the Airport Master Plan. It
shows you the existing RPZ, which is that red trapezoid and you can see how that's marked out with that
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mowed area. Then in those red boxes, the burial areas outside of RPZ down in the woods, and then a
rough alignment of the future Sycolin Road widening.
Currently, Sycolin Road is two lanes in this area, and as it's expanded out to four lanes, as the County's
plan. We don't know the timeline but we know that they will be expanding out at some point to four lanes,
and it will tie back in with Crosstrail Boulevard just to the south of the Airport. We expect the County will arc
that road in a fashion similar to what's being shown here on the master plan.
A bit of parcel history, the Town parcels that were purchased 30 years ago, originally back after the Civil
War were known as Egypt Farm, and it was subdivided and was divided out and sold several times before
it's purchased by members of two families of the Sycolin Baptist Church. The church itself was established
in 1884 meeting at homes and different locations in that general area. The church building that you see
today was built in 1899.
The known burials that happened on the property that's currently owned by the Town took place, from all
the records that we found and from the records created by Mr. Koenig who wrote a detailed report on the
project, and as well as other research done by Rivanna Archeological Survey, those burials took place
between 1913 and 1954. There's nothing in the historical record that suggested this as a slave cemetery,
but these were all folks living and worshiping there at the lower Sycolin Baptist Church and were from all
records members of that community.
Just to give you a little background on the great partnership that the Town has had with Loudoun Freedom
Center over the past several years. We've undertaken several projects together, some jointly some
independently. We've done grave identifications using GPS and ground -penetrating radar. We've done
numerous site cleanups and clearing of the site from trash and debris that was put back there decades ago,
long before the Town bought the property, but the Town did play a big part in cleaning this up. We've
installed signage and fencing. We've created paths that provide nice clear access down to the burial areas,
which did not exist before. We also took part in large tree and vegetation removal, so a lot of down timbers
and things in this wooded area, and cleaning up the space. You can see just some photographs of some
of the projects that have been undertaken over the past several years, as well as the informational signage
at one of the path trailheads there. It tells a bit of the history of this community and the folks that are known
to be buried there.
Just to give you a little visual depiction of what you'll see out there today, these photographs were taken
after the work of Rivanna when they came in to do the cemetery delineation work. You can see the paths
that were installed, the clearing that took place, the fencing around the burial areas that the Town installed
to demark the burial areas to make sure that there was nothing to be disturbed inside.
Now back in 2019 you all passed resolution 2019-105 and that called for the Town to move forward with all
necessary work to take place to transfer this land to the Loudoun Freedom Center. That included the
delineation survey, the survey plats, land development applications, all of those documents. We've been
working on that since that time and we're happy to report that much of this is complete today. We've
completed the cemetery delineation study with Rivanna Archaeological Services at just over $50K. We've
paid for the plat and the survey work with Christopher Consultants, which is a total of $20K.
Then the Town has in kind provided all of the legal work and did research from our legal team and from our
land acquisitions team to develop the MOU to provide all the documents and all the negotiations and
detailed workings with Loudoun County to make sure everything is in order. We are falling under the
County's new cemetery subdivision process. That's added to some delay, added to some of the obligations
of the Town to create this, but things are moving forward and we are near the finish line, which brings us to
this evening with the Memorandum of Understanding.
The land as we are proposing to be carved out and gifted to the Loudoun Freedom Center would look like
this. There on those red areas, you'll see the existing cemeteries as they were fenced off. The County is
requiring now, as part of the new cemetery delineation and subdivision process a 25 -foot buffer zone
immediately adjacent to the burial areas and an additional 25 -foot preservation buffer.
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In a sense, you've got 50 feet of buffer, non -disturbed area there between the cemetery and any future
activity. Not that that's a big deal because the Town has no plans of doing any construction in this area.
The whole purpose of the purchase of this land is to be runway protection zone, so there is no risk of the
Town having any future development in this area.
What we're proposing for you is a subdivision carving out what the County would call an outlaw, to carve
off this 1.6 acres, everything in blue, and outlined in red, and gift that to Loudoun Freedom Center. We've
had numerous discussions with the Freedom Center staff and director and they are in support of the
configuration that you see here on this map.
We're also proposing that, at the request of the Loudoun Freedom Center to designate the space between
the two existing burial areas as cemetery space. There is interest on the Loudoun Freedom Center's part
to have future burials. There is nothing in the current draft of the MOU that would prohibit any future burials,
and the Town is not proposing any prohibition on that. What we would do by calling the space in between
cemetery would allow them to have that option in the future should they wish to do it and they're able to
meet any County or State requirements for burials on this site.
Few of the high points of the MOU as it exists in draft form today. Again, we have sat down with these folks
from Loudoun Freedom Center and discussed this. There is full agreement on all parts except for site
drainage and the MOU does call out the maintenance. Ultimately, you will be conveying this land free and
clear to them, and the maintenance on this parcel would be their responsibility from that point forward. The
mowing, tree removal any of those things, anything that they want to do would be at their costs and their
option.
They would be responsible for the maintenance, as well as for the trail that would lead down to the existing
burial areas. We would take care of the mowing, and the maintaining of the Runway Protection Zone up on
the top, up on the field. We provide that access and it'd be a temporary access until such time as the road,
the realignment takes place with Sycolin Road, and at that point, they would firm up the exact location of
the permanent access agreements. There has been some concern raised by the Loudoun Freedom Center
on drainage on the site and so that is the one outstanding item here that needs to be decided which we
bring forward for your consideration this evening.
The drainage is an issue according to the Freedom Center. We do note this as a wet area. It has wet soils,
there are natural springs on the site. The Town has done nothing in its ownership during this time to change
the grading on the land but the burial areas do fall at the bottom of a steep slope from that field. So, the
Town hasn't contributed any rainwater to it, it's just been the natural flow of water down to these areas. In
wet weather, as you know, those grave shafts, depressions do collect and hold water and so there are
some moisture issues there. Here are just some photographs they have taken in the past year showing wet
weather in the wintertime, where the standing waters in the burial areas, as well as some of the muddy
areas near the spring on that southern burial location.
The drainage modifications would be significant disturbance to the area. We've had our staff go and take a
look at this and get quotes from contractors looking at possible modifications to the site. We've got a number
of issues to contend with here- and if I could just have a few more minutes to go through these details we'll
wrap it.
Mayor Burk: Go ahead.
Keith Markel: Thank you. We have three options for you. These are just estimates in cost so we do not
know the exact number. Once we get into it these costs could increase but these are based on a rough
estimating of what work would be required for the site. We have the ditch option at $125K, a French drain
option, and a French drain with the wall option at $210K.
All of these would require a significant land disturbance, removal of trees, removal of roots to allow this
work to take place. This is something the staff feels is not a guarantee of solving the drainage concerns
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that were raised by the Freedom Center. We do know it's a wet area. Again, we know the soils do contain
this water, it has high bedrock location here, so it's just poorly drained soil to begin with.
We're not certain that any of this work would truly get to a drying of that soil to a point where the Freedom
Center would be comfortable with this. We do also recognize the sensitivity of working in and around these
burial areas. This is something that's been made very clear to us from the Loudoun Freedom Center over
many years that we've been working on this together. For those reasons, we do not recommend moving
forward with any modifications to the existing drainage and the natural drainage course of the water on this
site. Our recommendation for you this evening is to recommend approval of the draft memorandum of
understanding as it's presented to you on draft form, and again, we're not recommending any drainage
recommendations to this site as requested.
With that I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.
Mayor Burk: Thank you, Mr. Markel. Council Member Nacy, any questions? Ms. Fox?
Council Member Suzanne Fox: Thank you, I've got a few. Is this a memorandum of understanding or
agreement? Just out of curiosity, I heard you say understanding, I thought it was an agreement.
Keith Markel: With have different terminology and we can-- I don't know if there's a real specific, and we
can turn to the Town Attorney on this one, but we've been using, I think, more times than not memorandum
of understanding.
Council Member Fox: Okay. The reason I ask is because under the recitals, number two, it says transfer
on an as -is basis. If we adopt this particular agreement that would mean no stormwater, anything.
Keith Markel: Correct. There's provision.
Council Member Fox: If we adopt it as it stands, that's what that would --
Keith Markel: Correct.
Council Member Fox: Okay.
Keith Markel: The actual document is called agreement for donation of real estate, so we're going to be
using the term memorandum of understanding in the formal documents as it stands.
Council Member Fox: All right, so just a few questions. You said we purchased in 1990 but we really didn't
go down into the woods until about 2015 when we started figuring out some issues. Is that when we figured
out that there was a burial site down there?
Keith Markel: The Town was aware when it purchased land in 1990 that there were burials on the site but
there was no real research or investigation into that. I don't know the thinking at that time but I don't think
anybody realized the size and scope of the burial area. It wasn't until around 2015 when the Loudoun
Freedom Center approached the Town and wanted to look at this closer. That's when the Town said, "Great.
Let's get into this. Let's really research it." Then Jim Koenig around that time had also written his report
based on his own genealogy research that he's done on the lower Sycolin community. All these things
came together around that time and that's when we really created that partnership with the Freedom Center
to do this work that you see today.
Council Member Fox: The church that had this before since 19- or whenever the burial started, had they
ever come to the Town at any previous time with any concerns or anything?
Keith Markel: None that am aware of, no, and I did meet with the pastor a little over a year ago and I asked
their opinion on the process and the Loudoun Freedom Center's interest in the parcel. They are a small
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congregation. They still meet but they're not a large group and he felt that it would be beyond them to be
able to take care of, maintain or own these parcels. He was very open to something being done but they
did not have interest in ownership or future maintenance of the site.
Council Member Fox: I understand the rationale behind the staff's recommendation to not do the
stormwater management. I'm wondering -- There's no land disturbance, it's pretty much an all -natural area
except for the site that's down there. I'm wondering if there was a house down there would, and somebody
approached us to mitigate, would we do something like that?
Keith Markel: We wouldn't because all of this land is located in Loudoun County, so it's outside of the
Town's corporate limits. There's flood plain down there, just beyond the burial areas or the creek channel
and it's a steep slope up the far side that goes into the County's park land. Typically, I don't think there'd be
any construction taking place down in this low area. It's very, very wet most of the year.
Council Member Fox: You said, I read through, and there was a natural springs down there that's also
contributing to this?
Keith Markel: That is correct. Yes, so that was identified in the Rivanna study, and you can see there's a
small stone design around this natural spring which dates back many, many years. It could be over a
hundred years old perhaps. We just know it's a naturally wet area and with continuous flow.
Council Member Fox: Can you clarify whether or not the Loudoun Freedom Center will like us to go on -
site and do mitigation or do mitigation just on the upper part of the property that we're going to be mowing?
Keith Markel: I think their goal is to have a dry cemetery area and however that could happen, I think, they
would be open to that. If you go too far away from the burial areas there's going to be too much space
between. If you get too close, you run the risk of damage to the sacred space that is the burial areas.
Council Member Fox: Have we had issues with that kind of-- Have we done work where we've actually
disturbed anything?
Keith Markel: We haven't disturbed any grave areas, but we have had disturbance in the general area,
which has been of great concern to Loudoun Freedom Center. We had a lawnmower get stuck as we had
gone in to try to mow around the cemetery during wet weather, which did cause a lot of concern with the
Freedom Center. We had a washout of an early gravel trail. One of the burial areas where we had since
gone in and cleaned that out well, but that also was of great concern to them as well.
Council Member Fox: Okay, thank you.
Mayor Burk: Mr. Bagdasarian?
Council Member Ara Bagdasarian: Yes, thank you. Just a couple of questions. As part of the process,
was there a term sheet that was defined prior to correcting the MOU? Was that part of the process?
Keith Markel: No formal term sheet, just conversations back and forth, and discussions over the years that
kind of all developed into this. What staff did was took all of those thoughts, we got all of our different
departments that are impacted by this, the Airport, Public Works, the Attorney's Office, and sat down and
came up with all the lists of things that had been discussed over the years, and put that into the framework
of the document.
Council Member Bagdasarian: Were the terms agreed upon beforehand or just in general terms about
the donation of the land and transfer of the property rights?
Keith Markel: In 2019, when Council considered the gifting of the land to the Freedom Center, it was
always to gift the land free and clear at no cost to the Freedom Center. We discussed with FAA since the
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land was purchased with Federal dollars, would they be agreeable to this. They consented to that. The
Town agreed at that point to do the study work, the survey work, all the preparation of all the documents
necessary to transfer that land so that the Freedom Center would get this parcel of land free and clear.
That they would own fee simple and be able to use as they wish within the confines of the easements that
are placed for Loudoun County, and the avigation easements related to the Airport that the FAA requires.
Council Member Bagdasarian: Including the additional outlot A for potential future use, correct?
Keith Markel: That was a new addition to it. That was just something that ended into the discussion in the
last few months, is that interest of the Freedom Center to have future burials in the site. That was never
something that was part of the consideration back in 2019 and 2020 but has since become something that
they're interested in, similar to what they're exploring to do at Belmont.
I think that's an interest here at this site and so something that we have incorporated into the document,
not that the Town's granting permission because we won't own the land at that point, obviously. It will be
outside of the Town's jurisdictional boundaries at that point, but we've got nothing in the document that
would prohibit that so long as it meets all the State and County requirements.
Council Member Bagdasarian: That makes sense. Thank you.
Mayor Burk: Mr. Steinberg?
Council Member Steinberg: Thank you. Thanks for the presentation, Keith. Just for clarification, if my
memory serves me, the church actually never actually owned the cemetery. Is that correct?
Keith Markel: They did not. The land back in the 1880s was purchased by two trustees of the church, so
members of the church community, but the church itself never owned these burial areas fee simple.
Council Member Steinberg: Thanks. Currently, there are an additional two properties between the
cemetery and the church property. Is that also correct?
Keith Markel: Yes. I can show you. There's one parcel that's not owned by the Town, if you wanted to have
clear access from the church to the parcel. There's one 15 -foot strip of land that separates the two that the
Town does not own.
Council Member Steinberg: When we decided to gift the land I realized that the value of land is minimal.
Was it about $17K or give or take $14K?
Keith Markel: It was in that range, right. Because it doesn't have any development value for it and because
access is very limited that the land has very minimal value but I think that was the range that we were
looking at.
Council Member Steinberg: In one of the slides you showed roughly $71 K in expense to the Town but
our report in our agenda shows $81 K so is the difference there, the $10K, is that staff time?
Keith Markel: No, it would be Public Works time. Included it was in the staff report includes the fence
installation, the ongoing annual weed maintenance, weed eating, mowing, any upkeep provided by our
Public Works staff.
Council Member Steinberg: The $71 K, is that inclusive of staff time spent on --
Keith Markel: No, it is not.
Council Member Steinberg: It is not?
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Keith Markel: No. So all the Town Attorney's time and all of our staff time done in research and
development of the documents necessary for the land transfer are not included. All you're seeing there in
that cost is the hard cost that we've actually had to write checks for, would be to Rivanna, who did the
survey work just over $50K and $20K to our outside consulting survey crews to do that work for the plat
development.
Council Member Steinberg: So it would be fair to say that at this stage the Town's gift is in excess of
$100K.
Keith Markel: You're in that range, yes.
Council Member Steinberg: Okay, thanks. Can you go back to the slide that showed the conservation
zone and the buffer zone?
Keith Markel: This one or going back to the actual area to be gifted?
Council Member Steinberg: Yes.
Keith Markel: All right.
Council Member Steinberg: The outline doesn't appear to include the entire conservation zone. Why is
that?
Keith Markel: Because the future road alignment, and we don't know where that falls- somewhere up here.
As you can see this is the Runway Protection Zone that exists today. At some point, the County will come
through and create the new Sycolin Road, the new four -lane realignment. The intent here was to gift as
much land as possible on the creek side of the land to the Freedom Center. You see we've gone right to
the property line here, on this side. We've gone to the property line on this side here but on the side closest
to the roadway we've tried to stay sufficiently away from the burial areas. You've got the 50 -foot buffer
space that will provide a guaranteed buffer and then anything beyond that we're leaving in the Town's
ownership for future road development needs, for temporary grading, drainage, any of those issues.
Council Member Steinberg: Originally, it said there's a total of 50 -foot. You've got a buffer zone and a
conservation zone of 25 feet each, so the green area is not conveying?
Keith Markel: That's correct.
Council Member Steinberg: Okay.
Keith Markel: Just conveying is what's in blue and outlined in the red.
Council Member Steinberg: Do we have any idea of the County's timetable for relocating that little loop
of Sycolin Road?
Keith Markel: We do not. We don't have a firm timeline.
Council Member Steinberg: But when they do the expectation might well be that a lot of work is going to
happen in that area?
Keith Markel: Right. Definitely in the- because they will develop the road on the far side of the Airport
runway so that means they'll push it out into that mowed field most likely. You could see on that one picture
where it shows how it arcs out into that mowed space which puts it outside of the cemetery. I don't think
there's the risk of coming anywhere close to the cemetery that's at the bottom of that steep slope but we
believe probably in the upper field will be part of the road construction.
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Council Member Steinberg: Okay, thanks.
Mayor Burk: Mr. Martinez?
Vice Mayor Fernando "Marty" Martinez: I'm just curious, are you able to account for all the staff hours
used on this project?
Keith Markel: We could if, I guess, we went back and counted them up but we haven't been keeping
detailed track.
Vice Mayor Martinez: Okay. Well, I just think it'd be nice to know how much time and money spent by staff
to put this project through. I'm not making it an ask. I'm just saying somewhere down the line you can
account for it, that'd be great. Thank you.
Mayor Burk: Mr. Cummings?
Council Member Zach Cummings: Thank you. Quickly on the agreement for donation of real estate. At
this point, I just want to make sure I'm clear where we are in the process. At this point, this has been drafted
by the Town Attorney and has the Loudoun Freedom Center seen this MOU and had their input put into it?
Keith Markel: Absolutely, yes. We've had numerous meetings, looking at the document that you're seeing
and there's verbal agreement with them on everything other than the drainage consideration that we're
bringing here tonight.
Council Member Cummings: Okay. Then on the drainage, the figures that you put together, the plans that
you've worked with is that then with Public Works or is it with an outside company that has success in
working with historically important land?
Keith Markel: Well, working with local contractors who were able to get out and come and give some rough
ballpark estimates. Again, just treat these all as rough estimates and the number is probably the starting
point. Then we'll go north of that based on site conditions because there's been no geo-tech work, there's
been no borings, no nothing. We know, based on the soil maps and the geology in this area, there's rock
that shows up, very shallow, and if you saw how they built Crosstrail Boulevard through all the rock that
had to be moved there, well, that's in the same general area, so there could be a lot of impact there once
you start uncovering things.
Those are a starting point for discussion of what it would look like. They are based on estimates from
contractors that do work in this area, not specific to historic sites or cemetery sites, but based on linear feet
of pipe, the amount of disturbance, tree removal, and those sorts of things were factors that went into the
cost.
Council Member Cummings: Just to clarify, even with all this work done, it still could flood.
Keith Markel: Flood or, B, wet to the point where the ground is saturated and will be wet and hold water
for much of the year during wet weather season.
Christopher Spera: Keith, if I could interrupt or supplement your answer. The other thing we have to
remember is that whatever we do, if we did anything with respect to drainage, there is the potential that that
drainage situation would change with the road construction. That's the unsaid piece here, is that while it's
unlikely that the road construction would remove completely that hillside, there could be significant
modifications as a result of the final orientation of that road that would have some impacts either positive
or negative on the drainage. That would be an issue between the Freedom Center and Loudoun County at
the time of road construction.
Page 81 April 12, 2021
Keith Markel: You'll see here on this drawing that there is some space here reserved, that wide space just
south of the blue box area. That's what we're calling for. If they did have to convey that water and find an
adequate source to convey that water down to the creek that would be the path that we take. It'd be well
outside of the burial areas. It wouldn't disturb that space, but it is reserved for that purpose in the future.
Council Member Cummings: I guess my last question, I'm not trying to be a pessimist, but if the Freedom
Center decides that the as -is agreement for transfer isn't what they would like and they decide not to move
forward, does the Town- do we have a plan of what we would do with the cemetery?
Keith Markel: It's certainly your prerogative, but we would recommend that you maintain it the way that
we're maintaining it today. There's certainly no harm in the Town maintaining ownership of this and we
could maintain it to whatever level you deem appropriate. For the past several years, this is the level that
the Town has been keeping it. It's certainly something, if they did not want to have the land conveyed to
them and gifted to them, you could just maintain ownership and leave it in the state you see it tonight.
Council Member Cummings: Okay, thank you.
Mayor Burk: I have a couple of questions. You said that they are-- Well, first off, this is the burial sites are,
when you say down a steep slope, it is really a steep slope and there's a stream down there but more than
that, there's more than one spring, I believe, if I remember seeing when I was down there. I'm not sure how
you would drain a spring, but it is right beside the creek and purposely that was part of the plan when they
developed that cemetery.
I'm skeptical that that $125K is going to do it to fix the drainage. It's been like that for forever, as long as it's
been there. If the Freedom Center, the Loudoun Freedom Center does open it up to burials, where would
people park? You can't park at these gravesites. It's way down at the bottom of the hill. Where would they
park if you have a cemetery where you've got 50, 100 people? Where are they all going to park?
Keith Markel: That is a concern because you cannot use the Runway Protection Zone as a large parking
field based on FAA requirements. We call out in the agreement that they could have one, two, three vehicles
up to three vehicles parked in the field as we do today when we go out and mow or inspect the site, but
anything larger than that, they would need to shuttle visitors to the site. We've offered use of the Airport
parking lot. The park and ride that the County owns is just down the street so they could do a kind of a
carpool shuttling to the site, or they can work out an agreement with the church. They have a large parking
lot just to the south of this, and they can work out an agreement with the adjacent property owner that sits
between the Town's project property and the church. That'd be another alternative for them as well.
Mayor Burk: I don't see the Airport parking during the day being a viable source of parking but --
Keith Markel: We offer that because that's something we had to offer but practically, the park and ride lot
is closer and they could use the County park and ride lot as well.
Mayor Burk: Then are we- and this is more for the attorney. I recently had a discussion with the people
from the Methodist church and they have an issue with their church cemetery and they're very interested in
what we're doing. Would this set a precedent that it would be harder to deny another church or another
organization that has a cemetery to come in and say, "We've got issues, we're in the Town, can you help
us with the trees that are on our cemetery that are pulling up the graves?"
Christopher Spera: I think from a precedential perspective, anything that we do beyond facilitating the
donation, you probably do run some danger there of establishing a precedent. I think that the actual
donation is really a one-off to me. I don't think you establish any precedent by conveying the land, but in
good faith and with pure intentions we needed to expand the Runway Protection Zone.
The nature of the land was such that we had to buy all of these lots, which included this portion, which we
frankly didn't need but not buying it wasn't an option. We buy it and then we discover here's what's there. It
Page 91 April 12, 2021
is culturally valuable to a group within the greater Leesburg community and so we find a way to respect that
value and facilitate a transfer. This is really, to me, it's very different that we sort of happened upon this
burial area through an acquisition of land for a completely different public purpose, as opposed to, "Hey,
we've got a cemetery in the Town. Can you help us out?" I think that's a church transaction of a very different
nature.
I'm worried less about precedential impact on the donation but once we go beyond the donation and engage
in improvements, then I think that you're correct to be sensitive to precedential impact.
Mayor Burk: All right. Thank you. Does anybody else have any follow-up questions at this point? Mr.
Cummings?
Council Member Cummings: Thank you. One question, and it doesn't need to be answered tonight, but
one thing maybe to look at, going back to what the Mayor just mentioned. Maybe if the preservation planner
could maybe look at the State or Federal to see if there are any available grants or funding opportunities
for individual either non -profits or organizations that help with historic preservation with cemeteries or
anything. Maybe that would be helpful to have on hand if others approach us looking for any information.
Mayor Burk: All right, so you need from us tonight to know if there are four people that would like to have
a public hearing on the donation of land agreement, is that the correct terminology, to the Loudoun Freedom
Center for the cemetery property? Are there four people that would be interested in having that public
hearing? We are not including any improvements in it. We're just doing it as is. All right. Oh, everybody.
Okay.
Keith Markel: You're comfortable with the memorandum of understanding as it's shown here this evening
so we can report back to the Freedom Center that this is the direction the Town wishes to go with.
Mayor Burk: All right.
Keith Markel: Very good.
Mayor Burk: Thank you very much -
Keith Markel: Thank you.
Mayor Burk: -even though you went over.
Keith Markel: I'm sorry. Hey, it might be my first time doing that, so I do apologize.
Mayor Burk: I know, I'm very disappointed. Thank you. Our next one is the Town of Round Hill's Accessory
Dwelling Unit Ordinance. We have Melissa Hynes here, she's the administrator for the Town of Round Hill.
Susan Berry Hill: Madam Mayor, I just wanted to introduce to you. At your request, you asked for a
representative of Round Hill to come and talk to you about accessory dwelling units and Round Hill has
enacted an ordinance recently. Melissa is the Town Manager for the town and she's here to talk about that.
Mayor Burk: Hello.
Melissa Hynes: Good evening. Can you hear me?
Mayor Burk: Yes.
Melissa Hynes: My name is Melissa Hynes. I am the Tow Administrator and I'm also the Zoning
Administrator because we're a tiny town. Thank you for inviting me tonight to share our project with you that
Page 101 April 12, 2021
we took about two -and -a -half years to complete but we're very proud of it. Again, this is not the silver bullet
to affordable housing, but it's like I said, an alternative to help with the problem in our small town.
Just to remind you our legislation was based on regulations created by Arlington, Virginia. From what I
understand, Arlington had created an accessory dwelling ordinance years ago and after 5 to 10 years, only
8 people ever actually used it. They went back and said, "Well, what's holding people up?" They realized it
was too restrictive and they had to lessen some of the regulations to make it more friendly.
Just as a reminder, before I go into my presentation. What is an accessory dwelling? An accessory dwelling
is a smaller, independent second dwelling on a single-family lot. It's different than a duplex, when you take
one house and you make it into two. It's always secondary. It's smaller. It's accessory. They have their own
living, bathroom, and kitchen space. Typically people would want one for a relative to age in place or to
bring in additional income by renting the space. Both Arlington and Round Hill have accessory dwellings
that take in different forms. You could have it located within your house, in your basement. You could build
an addition and make that your accessory dwelling or you could have it outside of your house, in your
garage or build a tiny home.
Just as a reminder, this all started back when we were working on our comprehensive plan in 2015 and
2016. We adopted it in 2017. Two of our goals were to provide owners with more options to utilize their
residence for income -generating purposes, which benefit both the homeowner and the town. Second, the
town wanted to do their little tiny part to help with affordable housing and workforce housing creation in
Western Loudoun County but, of course, in incremental stages. They're appropriately sized for a small town
like Round Hill.
The groups of people that we were focused on were the local workforce, maybe a teacher, firefighter, police
officer. We actually had two professors who worked at Patrick Henry living in a grandfathered apartment.
They'd been there for years. When the homeowner wanted to move, they thought they could subdivide and
buy it. When I tried to explain the process, they were like, "We're just going to move to West Virginia."
Residents who were seniors-- There's no senior housing in Round Hill and so we have a lot of seniors who
end up living at big old Victorian house up until they're 90, 95 until they die because they want to stay in
Round Hill, but they're all alone in this big house. So we we're wondering, "Well, what can we do? Can we
have a caregiver live with them? Can they rent out part of their house to a tenant to make some extra
money?" We have some seniors who'd want to live in a tiny house and then rent out the big house. Then
caregivers, like I said, and then family members of residents, which was kind of the impetus of the whole
conversation about, if you have in-laws that want to come live with you, how do you build a home for them
in your backyard?
When we went through our comprehensive plan process, just like everybody else, we talked about
affordable housing. We can all preach the good ideas and the gospel of affordable housing but when you
don't have enough land and the public doesn't support it, your hands are tied, and so we had both. We have
less than 30 buildable acres in Round Hill, and if it's prime real estate, everybody has an idea how to use
it. Furthermore, if a developer comes in with a high -density neighborhood idea or apartment building, or a
townhouse community, it's shut down day one.
Finally, like I said, another challenge was when seniors stay in their home and don't leave, that home is not
going into the mix. Normally, you have that life cycle of a house. When a certain point your kids leave, you
downsize into a retirement community, but if you have seniors living in a big old five -bedroom house, the
house is not going back into the mix for another family.
Our biggest challenge that probably took over a year of debate and discussion was, who should live in
accessory dwelling? For me as a zoning administrator, I kept telling my Council that if it's only for a family
member, who's going to be the person to knock on a door and say, are you related? My biggest fear was
people calling up saying, "Susie Smith has someone living in an apartment in their garage, and I don't think
that's their relative. I think that's a stranger." I never could put my mind around how to corner people and
say, "Prove to me that you are a family member."
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The second part was even if you could afford to build a second dwelling for a family member that's a really
big investment. It's a big decision, $50K, $100K and if you can't sell that later on when you go to sell your
house if it's restricted, you tell the future homeowner, "Well, that's only if grandma lives with you. You can't
rent it out. You can't make money on it." You hesitate. You're like, "Is it really worth that $50K, $100K?"
In my opinion, and it took a long time but we finally got to that point with the Council that-- It was right about
the same time the State was talking about Airbnb, to lessen the rules about Airbnb. It was like this perfect
storm of us talking about affordable housing, accessory dwellings, Airbnbs, and it all kind of wrapped up
into one in that when you have this accessory dwelling on your property, you can do a lot of things with it.
It can be for a renter, it can be for Airbnb, it can be for grandma. All this tied together builds a great economic
opportunity for a tiny town like Round Hill, that's built out, and it's not going to see any other change or
development.
The thing that we had to talk through a lot was that perception of a renter. Renter is such a dirty word. When
people think about renters, they think, "The other, somebody who doesn't care about town. You don't have
the same commitment to the community in prime homeownership." I'm a big believer that renters can be
just as passionate about their hometown as anybody else. You could be a lifetime renter and still want to
put the money into your home. My point is that when you've got a renter and a family member, what's the
difference? It's still a tenant, it's still someone living in your backyard, and that's what I try to get with my
Council that, "Are you okay with a second family living in someone's backyard? They have a second grill,
a second dog? They have family fights."
With a renter, you can have a lease. I used to say if my sister moved in my backyard as a family member,
and she started to be a horrible tenant and I wanted to kick her out, my mom would get mad at me and say,
"You can't kick your sister out," but if you have a lease, at least, when the tenant starts to act bad, you can
kick them out. The biggest challenge we had to make this work was removing that idea of renter versus
family member and just focus on what does it mean to have a tenant living on your property? Then we
developed a set of use standards that addressed all the concerns you might have about that second tenant
or second family.
When you think about your own accessory dwelling policy, like I said, there's different options. You have
the separate dwelling. I keep forgetting I have this in front of me. I apologize. You have a separate dwelling
so think of another home on the property or you can convert your garage into a classic garage apartment.
You can convert your existing home by building an apartment in your basement or in your attic. For Round
Hill, most of our homes are historic and don't really have real basements so that wasn't a big thing but we
do have some new neighborhoods that have the ability to do a basement apartment. We were mostly
focused on the exterior accessory apartments, the backyard dwelling. Also, we talked about, you could
build an addition. If you build an addition you could have an accessory apartment.
For Round Hill, this is how we made up our mix of accessory apartments. Now mind you, the reason why
we called it an accessory apartment is because dwelling makes you think second dwelling, like duplex.
Apartment reminds you it's minor, it's secondary, it's accessory. It needs to always be smaller than the
bigger. Interior accessory apartment would be a basement conversion. An exterior accessory apartment
could also be a converted garage. Exterior accessory apartment could be a detached house so it's not your
garage, it's a separate smaller dwelling, or it could be an addition to the back of your house that's another
interior accessory apartment. When you look into our zoning ordinance, we have a definition for interior and
a definition for exterior with different sets of regulations as far as talking about where the door is and how
it's perceived from the street.
How do you split this all out? Well, the thing about is this. If I lived in Round Hill and I wanted to build an
accessory apartment, I could get my zoning permit from the town, and then I had to choose how I'm going
to use it. Is it going to be a long-term rental, meaning a year -long tenant, would be here for a long time,
multiple years, or is it a short-term rental like an Airbnb, where your there less than 30 days? If that's the
case, you have to get an accessory homestay permit.
I'll speak quickly.
Page 121 April 12, 2021
Mayor Burk: Are you almost finished?
Melissa Hynes: Almost, yes. Then a family caregiver suite is when you don't charge anything to live in the
accessory apartment. It's free. Just grandma or the caregiver. Then recreational space is if it's just your
man cave. It's your extra space. You built your accessory apartment and then you've decided not to have
anybody to live in it. It's just your extra space. Real quick, if it's an accessory apartment and it's occupied
by a family member, there's no rent, you don't need a business license. If it has a tenant and you get rent,
you have to have a business license. If it's a short-term rental, business license and a homestay permit.
Then if it's just your guest cottage, you don't need to do anything. If it's your man cave, you don't have to
do anything either.
Basically, once a year, once you're registered as an apartment in Round Hill, we will send you a letter once
a year saying, "How are you using it?" If it's the same, nothing happens. If you've gone from man cave to
an Airbnb, you have to file a new zoning permit to get approval. If we find out that you have an illegal use,
maybe you never told us that you started charging rent, you'll be sited with zoning violation, go into the
process, to come back into conformance with the zoning ordinance.
This is the end of my presentation. This was the easiest way for us if you just think about it as this as, if you
want to have an accessory apartment, you have an accessory apartment, it's not going anywhere, but from
that point on, it's like having a dog, you have to register it and tell us what you're doing with it. Once a year,
you just reregister, you tell us how you're using it. You make sure you're in compliance with the zoning,
you're following the rules, you have the right licenses. Then when you go to sell your home, it's that much
easier to tell the next homeowner, "I have a registered accessory apartment, here are the rules, here are
the expectations." That's all.
Mayor Burk: Thank you. Are there any questions, Ms. Fox?
Council Member Fox: Thank you. First, I want to thank you for coming down here and explaining all this
to us. As I read through the slide show earlier, I actually got a little bit excited about this. You said you got
your idea from Arlington, which is pretty dense. I think of a dense, more urban area in Arlington. That
actually works there too, I suppose.
Melissa Hynes: Yes.
Council Member Fox: Interesting. Now, when you did this, when you passed this in Round Hill, there was
no consideration that you really had to take into- nothing that you had to take into consideration with the
County. This is something that you could do and the County didn't have to administer any ADU, anything
like that.
Melissa Hynes: No, we've already approved two or three of them and they only had the two is, in our
standards, is you have to comply with their regulations for building code and fire marshal but we already
have a good relationship with the County like you probably do for that and getting an address assigned to
it.
Council Member Fox: Oh, yes, you think about that, but as I think about how ADUs are administered right
now, they're strictly through the County so if we're serious about-- I've heard a lot of talk about, "Hey, my
parents are aging. I don't want them to move away. They want to stay here. Oh, my kids can't live by me. I
want them to be able to live here." Things like that. I've heard a lot of, not just from Council, but from folks
in the area. If we're actually serious about this, maybe we can see what can get done through deregulation,
which is what you were talking about, and maybe even tax incentives. I mean, if we really want to use it for
affordable housing and not for a different homestay, HomeAway, whatever we have, we could look at
different ways. We can do that through, I guess, normal market mechanisms. Was that how you approach
this?
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Melissa Hynes: Yes, we already have a demand. We had people with illegal apartments and we were
trying to find a way to bring them into the light. Yes, it's like a home occupation. It's like home -based
business to have that extra income for some people. The market was already pushing for Airbnb or rentals
or-- Then we had a large amount of people that wanted to have grandma move in the backyard type of
thing as well. We just didn't have the right mechanism to let people build a whole dwelling just for grandma
because then you run the risk, when they sell their house, now they have this perfectly good apartment in
their backyard that maybe grandma doesn't want, and what do they do with it?
Council Member Fox: Yes, I would think there are a couple of problems I can see is if you wanted to sell
your house and you have a renter in there, I suppose you can't just take care of that. You have to let the --
Melissa Hynes: Yes, you need to have a lease.
Council Member Fox: The renter gets to stay basically.
Melissa Hynes: A funny story. Our Planning Commissioner chair during this legislation went to buy a
house somewhere else in town and there was an illegal apartment in the house he was buying. He had to
tell the person, "You can't have the permit. I'm going to shut you down," but at the time there was a tenant
in the house, in the apartment. He let the woman stay there for a month or so until she got a place to stay
but it was hard for-- Exactly, having an apartment if you don't have a plan set-up what to do with the tenants.
Yes, I think that'd be a lease between the owner and the tenant to work that out.
Council Member Fox: One last question, the restrictions, you know how homeowners' associations are
more restrictive than zoning ordinances are. They have to work within homeowners associations'
guidelines.
Melissa Hynes: Yes. HOA would trump the town. The HOA says no, then.
Council Member Fox: Okay. That's it. Thank you very much.
Mayor Burk: Mr. Steinberg?
Council Member Steinberg: Thanks and thanks for the participation. Presentation, excuse me. Did you
say in all the time Arlington has had the ordinance, they've only had eight applications?
Melissa Hynes: I want to say pre this one. They had an older version that wasn't getting traction because
it was so conservative and so restrictive that no one was taking advantage of it. They wanted people to.
They went back and they gutted it and started over again. I don't know their new numbers, but at the time,
Arlington only eight probably had taken advantage of it.
Council Member Steinberg: A few questions in no particular order. Why out of curiosity, are you including
the recreational space as part of this discussion? It doesn't seem to be really part of an affordable dwelling
conversation. It's just an accessory building.
Melissa Hynes: If I have a house and I build an accessory apartment, and I tell the zoning administrator,
it's for an Airbnb or for grandma. Then when I sell it to you, and you say, "I don't want a tenant, I don't want
anybody to use it." You register your apartment with the town as recreational space. No one lives there. I'm
not charging money. Now if all of a sudden, one day somebody sees somebody coming in and out of your
house, they might call the zoning administrator and say, "I think he has a tenant living in his garage." Then
I would contact you and say, "Do you want to fill out the paperwork to make your apartment legal again?"
It's not really part of the conversation. It's more what to do with an accessory apartment that's not being
used as housing.
Council Member Steinberg: It's part of the administrative discussion. Out of curiosity do the interior
accessory apartments change the tax assessment in any way? How do you account for that?
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Melissa Hynes: I cannot speak to that but I would assume it increases the value of the home because of
the second dwelling inside the home.
Council Member Steinberg: It could conceivably also raise taxes.
Melissa Hynes: Yes, so we thought about that as well. We haven't done any data yet about the value of
the homes going up because we only have two right now.
Council Member Steinberg: Now Round Hill has some fairly distinct areas. Obviously, the older more
historic areas, which sit on large lots and are widely spaced versus say the more current housing that's
been built in the last 20 years or so now, as Councilwoman Fox alluded, I assume those may or may not
be governed by HOA in which case this whole conversation isn't part of their discussion. Does your
ordinance in any way apply to some of those homes as well or is it --
Melissa Hynes: Historic homes or the HOA homes?
Council Member Steinberg: The older home, the older areas of Round Hill.
Melissa Hynes: All around. If you look at Round Hill the historic part is intact, the new part is actually in
the County.
Council Member Steinberg: It's actually in the County. Your ordinance is only applying there's nothing
new within the town.
Melissa Hynes: We have one modern neighborhood that's been built in the past five years that is in town,
and they actually had people in that community with illegal apartments, where people have converted their
basement into an apartment. Yes, we have new houses and yes, they could benefit from it but if their HOA
one day decided we don't want apartments then their HOA would trump town regulations.
Council Member Steinberg: Since Leesburg is obviously a much more dense area than Round Hill and
you're an administrator and a zoning administrator, you may not have the answer. How in your planning
process can you account then for potential parking issues? Obviously, population increases, it would be
the County's problem as far as school population. All of these are factors that go into the planning process.
It seems that the accessory dwelling process might open gates.
Melissa Hynes: We put such strict standards in place where you can't have more than three people live in
it. We can imagine a mom and dad and a baby mom and dad and a toddler, a mom with two kids and the
space is so small, we don't expect large families moving in. The cost is so great to actually build an
accessory dwelling that meets all the standards, we don't predict a large group of people to participate. We
might maybe see one or two every year. Part of the whole idea of the sensitivity to nuisances in our
standards, you basically said if you become a nuisance, you're over parked, it no longer looks like a primary
residence, and this tiny home, you won't be able to have your permit anymore. We're very focused on
making sure that this thing does not impact the neighborhood and doesn't impact the adjacent property.
Council Member Steinberg: In your ordinance is the property owner required to live in the primary
residence?
Melissa Hynes: Yes, that was very, very important. It can't be that the primary house is a rental and the
secondary houses is a rental. It's important that this is a benefit only to the owner as maybe extra income
and that they're responsible for the tenant. They're living on -site making sure the tenants' keeping their
nose clean, versus an absentee landlord.
Council Member Steinberg: I would perceive that as a fairly important point because you can have a --
Okay, good.
Page 151 April 12, 2021
Melissa Hynes: Oh, I'm sorry.
Council Member Steinberg: We answered that. We answered that. Out of curiosity, this requires a lot of
oversight, it seems to me, so how do you create a sort of robust enforcement process?
Melissa Hynes: Round Hill, I don't know about Leesburg, we're complaint -driven for zoning. Somebody
has to call and complain for us to go out investigate. As long as you're not causing a problem for your
neighbors, we don't go out to investigate. It's very important that you do that annual registration process so
that we keep track of you, and that if we fact check, maybe Craigslist to see apartments in the area for rent,
and we noticed there's an apartment for rent and it's not in our database, we'll send you a violation notice.
Council Member Steinberg: Okay, and we know Airbnb and others are getting to be a pretty big thing
these days, do you have any perception or any feeling that might, maybe not in Round Hill, but in a denser
area, that could potentially become an issue for neighbors?
Melissa Hynes: We're actually quite dense, most of our lots are around third to half -acre. While we're a
small population, we have to get a small lot, so we're dense in a mindset, like the way you can throw a rock
at your neighbor's house. If you're thinking of large lots, you're outside of town limits, probably. Again, it's a
market -driven thing where I think that maybe 5% of people might take advantage of it, but not the whole
town because most people don't want someone in their backyard, to be honest. But there are some people
who might take advantage of it as an income -producing thing or for family.
Council Member Steinberg: Okay, thank you.
Mayor Burk: Ms. Nacy?
Council Member Kari Nacy: Oh, I don't have any -- I mean, it was an outstanding presentation and you've
laid everything out really clearly. It's definitely interesting the way that you approach the zoning ordinances.
I can already think of a few applications that it might be helpful in Leesburg. I don't really have any questions,
just thank you.
Melissa Hynes: I didn't want to bore you with the standards. If you want more information about the actual
standards, I can make sure you get a copy from --
Mayor Burk: Mr. Bagdasarian?
Council Member Bagdasarian: Yes, thank you, Melissa. Appreciate it. Interesting enough, we have
friends around North King Street that just built an addition for the mother to move in a single story that was
in a duplex or two -floor home. How does the Town of Leesburg handle such cases today when it comes to
accessory dwellings? Is it a one-off special exception? How do we handle this?
Susan Berry Hill: We have a provision in our zoning ordinance called the extended family unit. It applies
in the R4, six, and eight districts, and it was approved in 2012. It's kind of like the granny flat concept that
Ms. Hynes was talking about, that was the purpose of it. If you meet certain performance standards in our
zoning ordinance for that, it's a permitted use by right. If you don't meet one of those standards, you have
the opportunity to seek a special exception application and get it approved through Council. For example,
if the purpose of it was for family members, and that's how it's described, however, if you wanted to have a
tenant that's not related through blood move in, you could apply for a special exception, and Council could
consider that.
Council Member Bagdasarian: Great, thank you. Just one last question, so how did the community
respond to the discussions? Was there concern about neighbors having undesirable yards and structures
that would be constructed for this purpose?
Page 161 April 12, 2021
Melissa Hynes: That was more internally. The Council was very much divided for a long time. Like I said
it took multiple, multiple meetings for the Council to all agree to what they wanted. In the end that just meant
a longer list of standards to the point where the second dwelling has to look like the main dwelling and it
just has to blend in and it can't stand out. Design was very important. So even having that basement
apartment, you couldn't have a second door upfront to make it look odd. It had to look like it was all one
house from a passer-by. Like I said, that-- because the Council itself was so divided is what made the
standards so strong because I had kept coming back to the table with more standards to address all of their
concerns.
Council Member Bagdasarian: Were there different standards for the historic district?
Melissa Hynes: We don't have a historic district. We treated all as historic in that Round Hill is very proud
of its hometown character. It's very sensitive to design. We actually don't have a legal -- I can't think of the
word, but like a registered district with design standards.
Council Member Bagdasarian: Does it pertain differently to historic homes that are designated historic in
Round Hill?
Melissa Hynes: The standard speak to making sure that you protect the integrity of the home, the
neighborhood keeping character. The design has to be approved by the zoning administrator. You can't
just put anything in the backyard.
Council Member Bagdasarian: Thank you.
Mayor Burk: Mr. Martinez?
Vice Mayor Martinez: No questions, just to thank you for being here.
Melissa Hynes: Thank you.
Mayor Burk: Mr. Cummings?
Council Member Cummings: Microphone issues tonight. Thank you, Ms. Hynes for coming and
presenting your presentation and kudos to you and to the Town Council in Round Hill, because there are a
lot of folks who, whether you're campaigning or you're just out talking to people, when they bring up, "We
need to make houses more affordable, we need to help people have a place to live in Loudoun County".
Unfortunately, no one has the gumption, I'll say, to actually do something like these accessory dwelling
units. They're different than the affordable dwelling units that the County provides. These are actually for
anyone in an accessory dwelling unit and it increases the supply in the market and it is a market fix with a
little bit of government help to the housing affordability problem.
I just say kudos that you were able to walk through this process with your members and make this happen
because there's a lot of noise for something that is really helpful and really all communities, in my opinion,
should be looking at accessory dwelling units to help fight back against the market supply and demand that
we're having, and it's not going anywhere with the price of being able to afford to live here. Thank you.
Melissa Hynes: Thank you. I will be honest. We had one Council member who told me, "Melissa, we
shouldn't be the first to do it in Loudoun County. Can we wait for somebody else to do it first?" I said, "Well,
we're 18 months into it. You should go all the way."
Mayor Burk: Can you tell me you don't have any requirements on lot size?
Melissa Hynes: No, you have to comply with the zoning. We have a very generous accessory building.
You can have up to 1,600 feet on your lot for your accessory dwelling, not dwelling, for a garage. As long
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as you met the accessory structure requirements for building a garage that's what you have, setbacks,
height, lot size. You can't make a non -conforming lot more non -conforming that kind of thing. If you couldn't
do a garage, you couldn't do this.
Mayor Burk: What happens if you have a garage and you want to make another building?
Melissa Hynes: Well, it goes back to lot coverage. Zoning has a limit on how much you can cover the lot
percentage. If your lot is too small, you couldn't have both. You could convert the garage into something,
but you couldn't build a second.
Mayor Burk: The neighbors have no input into you converting this garage into another house with another
family. You'll have two families of kids running around --
Melissa Hynes: [Unintelligible].
Mayor Burk: -- dogs, things that are going on.
Melissa Hynes: Right. So it goes back to -- We had a member of the Council who had six children. When
the conversations we had [unintelligible] between us was husband, wife, six kids, and two dogs. It was
very controversial. This Council went a long way of trying to making sure that all those things you just said
was thought about. That you didn't become a nuisance. The neighbor did call, we didn't cite through the
violation of not complying with the ordinance, much scrutiny to beyond you for having a second dwelling on
your lot.
Mayor Burk: I'm really surprised that you included the Airbnb situation because we get a number of
complaints in regard to people renting out their houses or renting out an apartment. Now you build an
accessory building for renters. That would be a very interesting dynamic here. I don't know. I don't know
how well that would go over.
Melissa Hynes: We have very strict standards that if you become a nuisance, you lose the ability to rent it
out. You would lose your rental permit.
Mayor Burk: When someone asks a question about the value, the tax value, the assessment, if you had
this apartment why would it be an advantage? Because if I buy it and I don't want to use this apartment that
I've created, let's say downstairs, I now have an apartment down there that I don't want to have a tenant,
so that piece of property is not as valuable as it would have been if it had stayed just a single-family home.
Melissa Hynes: I'm not an assessor so I don't know how that works but you could still use it as a living
space. It would still just be a living room, maybe a kitchenette or something. It would be how you would
want it versus somebody else.
Mayor Burk: This is a question for Susan. Do we know how many people now have those apartments
grant? What do they call, what did you call them?
Susan Berry Hill: Extended family residents or units. We had one application since 2012 for that.
Mayor Burk: You've had one? Oh, that's interesting because --
Susan Berry Hill: Yes, there is one unit.
Mayor Burk: -- I know quite a few people that have converted their downstairs into-- interesting.
Melissa Hynes: That's what we face in Round Hill. A lot of people had [crosstalk] --
Mayor Burk: Won't be doing that one.
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Melissa Hynes: -- without flying under the radar. I've worked in bigger cities before with section eight
problems where tenants feel like they can't come forward a bad landlord. One of my fears with people
converting basements into scary apartments and telling them, "Don't you tell the government, or we're
kicking you out." So it's making sure that permits come to the light, not secrets.
Mayor Burk: All right, thank you very much. We appreciate the information and please say hello to Scott.
Melissa Hynes: All right. Thank you.
Mayor Burk: Have a safe trip back. All right, Susan.
Susan Berry Hill: Okay. We're moving more to the general topic of affordable housing now and at your
March 9th meeting, a request was made by Council to have a work session discussion about what is
workforce housing, and also what is Legacy Leesburg Town Plan, our draft plan, how is that addressing
affordable housing? That's the purpose of this work session item tonight.
I'm going to give you just a little bit of background real quickly on this. In 2005 Town Plan and the 2012
Town Plan there's policy guidance in chapter seven to encourage high -quality housing stock that
accommodates workforce housing and addresses all affordability levels. That language specifically noted
that housing should address accessibility, special needs populations, first-time buyers, or empty nesters.
That policy language has been in our Town Plan for many years.
We implemented that policy direction with a zoning ordinance amendment. This happened in 2009 where
we adopted our inclusionary zoning, which is our ADU ordinance. I'm not going to go into the specifics here.
I did go over this back in November when we talked about affordable housing there, but I wanted to include
these slides just so that our new members on Council know that we do have an ADU ordinance. It is
addressing that area of the spectrum between 30 and 70% area median income.
It addresses single-family detached and single-family attached development, as well as multi -family
development. You can see the standards here. I'm not going to go into specifics on that, but again, my
purpose in bringing this up is just to let you know that it does exist. This is one tool that we have that we
use currently. The ordinance does specify that the ADU units should be interspersed during the
development of the project.
Also, there is an option for a cash in lieu that can be provided for single-family detached. We have not seen
anybody exercise that option in Leesburg but if somebody were to do that, we would work with the County
on setting that or working with them on their formula that they have for that cash in lieu provision and those
requests go to the Affordable Dwelling Unit Advisory Board at the County.
We have a memorandum of agreement with the County, and it was initially approved in 2008 and then was
updated again in 2018 and it caps the number of ADUs in the ordinance at 120 that will be administered by
the County. Currently, we have 44 units that have been approved as ADUs in the Town and there are no
issues right now with the MOU so it's working fine. Now that brings us up to today. Looking at the issue of
affordable housing that is a big issue in Loudoun County as you probably all know.
The County did a needs assessment back in 2015, the board of supervisors addressed it in 2017. The
purpose of that was to study what are the unmet housing needs in the County? It's helpful to look at this
affordability question on a spectrum. You have on the far left here, the zero to 30% area median income,
which is very low, folks that are in real need of help with housing, covering housing costs. Moving towards
30 to 70% area median income, that is the area on the spectrum that our ADU ordinance is targeted to
address.
Then you have anything over 70%, which is moving towards that market -rate point. The question was
asked, what is workforce housing? At its most simplest level workforce housing addresses housing that's
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priced for middle -income individuals and families. It's very general, but if you were to look on this spectrum
what is the area that, that addresses, it can be 80 to 120% of AMI.
In the County needs assessment, it was interesting that almost 22K households in Loudoun County had
household incomes at or below 50% AMI. This is showing that even five years ago, six years ago, this was
a problem, it's increased today. Interestingly last week on April 1st, the County released their unmet housing
needs strategic plan, it was presented to the board of supervisors.
It's a very interesting document. It is a very comprehensive approach to addressing unmet housing needs.
Currently they're up-to-date, this time the County has done several things to address affordable housing.
They've done programmatic things approaches to address, for example, voucher housing, they administer
Federal programs for very low-income individuals so they do that and then they have an inclusionary zoning
ordinance, the ADU ordinance, they've had that in place for years.
What this strategic plan is doing, and it's an implementation step of their 2019 comprehensive plan. What
this does, is it expands upon what the County has traditionally done to address affordable housing. It does
so and the document is very comprehensive. It has strategies that are very simple to administer, some that
are regulatory, some that are informational, but then they have structural changes too when you start getting
into the more complex ways that they're addressing affordable housing, such as buying land to work with
non -profits to build affordable housing on and to retain those units in perpetuity for affordable housing.
Their strategic plan goes from A to Z in terms of complexity and different types of strategies. That brings us
to Leesburg and Legacy Leesburg, our draft Town Plan. The basis for our plan, we looked at a number of
things. One of the things we looked at was our Economic Development Steering Committee that as you
remember met several years ago, one of the issues that came out of that when we met with businesses in
Town was that it's hard to find affordable housing for workers of a lot of businesses, especially in the
hospitality sector.
That was anecdotal information that came forth out of that process. Then moving forward into the public
input and engagement portion of our Legacy Leesburg Town Plan, we heard over and over again from
different members of our residents that they were in need of affordable housing in Leesburg. We need
housing for empty nesters, as well as the young spectrum, younger folks who are wanting to start their
careers here and in need of affordable housing. Our market study that we did as a part of that Town Plan
process found that in Leesburg, 50% of renters spend more than 30% of their income on housing and 25%
of homeowners spend more than 30% of their income on housing.
That's exacerbated by the fact that we have a very low inventory of for -sale units. That's all over the Metro
area, but it's true in Leesburg as well and the Legacy Leesburg Town policy emphasizes housing
affordability and diversity. Looking at one of the guiding principles in the plan, if you look at second sentence
on this guiding principle, it says, "Seek opportunities to offer a variety of housing types at a variety of price
points that appeal to a wide range of households and enable residents to live in Leesburg throughout all
stages of life."
There are a number of strategies in the draft plan. In general, it suggests conducting a housing needs study
similar to what the County did but not probably as involved as the County's strategic plan or housing needs
study. It suggests developing an affordable housing plan based on those needs so that we know what part
of the spectrum of affordability we really need to focus on.
The question's been asked by Council in the past, last fall, and I think you're interested now, what kinds of
strategies can we adopt that would address affordable housing in Town? They can be regulatory, some
communities are reducing the parking requirements for affordable projects. Some are looking at procedural
changes perhaps fast -tracking developments, proposals that have affordable units, or they can be
collaborative.
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One of the points in the County's strategic plan is that they will work with the towns in Loudoun County on
sharing data and analysis on affordable housing and will probably work with us on different strategies. The
question for you tonight, and I'm finishing here is, should the Town take a more proactive role in trying to
get more affordable housing in Leesburg? If you're interested in responding to that tonight you can, or you
can defer until a later time when the draft plan comes to you, as recommended to you from the Planning
Commission and that concludes my presentation.
Mayor Burk: Okay. Thank you. Could we get a copy of the County's new plan, new study?
Susan Berry Hill: Yes.
Mayor Burk: That would be useful, are there any questions, anyone? Ms. Nacy?
Council Member Nacy: Mine was going to be similar, since the County has agreed as part of their strategic
plan to be helpful to the towns, could we get the specific data on the Leesburg housing needs study that
the County did? Do you think they would be willing to share with them?
Susan Berry Hill: Yes, yes.
Council Member Nacy: I think that would be helpful in us trying to figure out and maybe even save us
money on doing our own housing needs study.
Susan Berry Hill: Absolutely. We can try to get whatever they've got. Their study areas may overlap a little
bit into the County, but we can get whatever, what they have.
Council Member Nacy: Okay. Thank you.
Mayor Burk: Mr. Bagdasarian?
Council Member Bagdasarian: Yes. [Unintelligible].
Mayor Burk: Mr. Martinez?
Vice Mayor Martinez: Being an old guy on the Council, we've gone through this discussion several times
and we just could never find the political will to move forward to do something. I would like to see
alternatives, what we can do to implement, and maybe we can go through, do a roll call and see which ones
we want to try. I know we can work with the County. Is there anything we can do individually or not
individually, but as a Council to convince developers to add more ADU units?
I know currently a lot of our affordable dwelling, there's a fund or some sort with the County where people
can apply to get some help being able to afford houses and stuff. I really don't know. I know there's a few
people in Leesburg that have taken advantage of it, but I don't know how many is out there and how well
advertised it is. I know some teachers are looking to take advantage of the County program, but I would
like to see what kind of alternatives we as a Town can do to bring more affordable housing into our Town,
and not have to worry about residents always having to go to the County and hope that they have room
because the County's a lot bigger place than the Town of Leesburg, and it's hard for residents to compete
with other residents in the County. I'd like to find a way we could keep it local here to the Town. Thank you,
and I really appreciate your presentation. I know we've done this before, and hopefully, if we do it enough,
we're going to get something done and resolved. Thank you.
Mayor Burk: Mr. Cummings?
Council Member Cummings: Thank you. In your opinion, are there any current zoning ordinances that
are prohibiting folks, developers, whether large or small, from being able to maximize, say, their lot to build
an add-on for affordable housing or housing in general?
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Susan Berry Hill: We could probably look at-- I listened with interest to Ms. Hynes' presentation, and what
Round Hill had done, and accessory dwelling units. We have two different approaches for two different
things, one being the granny flat approach, which I explained. We also, last year, approved the homestay
provisions, which allows residents to use their property for Airbnb purposes. However, they have to register
with the Town, and there's certain requirements for that. Unlike Round Hill, we have two separate paths for
that, and we probably could look at that and simplify it. That might be something that we want to put as a
strategy for addressing affordable housing in the Town.
Council Member Cummings: A follow-up question to that, a broad question. Does our zoning look at
developers? We all use the word developer as someone who builds, I think we all think of them as the 75 -
unit condo building being built down the road. Do we look at smaller, local developers, someone who has
a lot? Do we treat them any different? If I had a lot, and I want to add two apartments to my lot, does the
zoning ordinance look at them any differently than a developer who's coming in to put up 75 units?
Susan Berry Hill: Well, the base is your zoning district, and what does that zoning district allow? For
smaller developments, we are approaching build -out too, just like Round Hill is. We don't have a lot of
greenfield development. We have some amount of infill, and sometimes we're seeing some pressure on
our existing neighborhoods to infill something that's a little denser than what's currently surrounding it.
That's something we can look at. I think that we don't want unintended consequences of introducing density
where it shouldn't be. There may be things that we can do, as we look into this affordable housing issue, is
what can we do for infill development? Then, there are different strategies for those bigger developments
that developers will gravitate towards. There's probably a number of strategies we can look at for small-
scale development as well as larger -scale redevelopment.
Council Member Cummings: Yes, I think that would be great to have because, just to sum up my thoughts
here is, we have a lot of folks who want to invest their own money into making Leesburg even better, and,
in my opinion, we should be able to separate the major developments that are going in greenfield to build
up, as separate from when we're looking at redevelopment. I hope, in the Town Plan discussions we'll
continue to have those discussions about what type of redevelopment we want here in Leesburg, and what
it looks like, and allow folks to spend their money here, and continue to add to our Town.
Mayor Burk: Mr. Steinberg?
Council Member Steinberg: Thanks for your presentation, Susan. It's my opinion, contrary to what several
of the Planning Commission members opined, that we're not going to convince developers to provide ADUs.
It's just not going to happen. We have to have the political will to create vehicles that require such things.
What are we going to learn from the draft plan that will help us make any concrete decisions that we don't
already know now, honestly?
Susan Berry Hill: Well, I think the draft plan is setting the framework for community development broadly.
On this issue, through the market study that our consultant did and what we've learned, as I mentioned, we
do have housing needs, unmet housing needs in Leesburg. There are people who are stressed with paying
their mortgages or paying rent, especially renters. The question that the plan provides is, we're in that
question, but it tees up this issue of affordability and diversity in housing and list it as -- it should be
something that Town is a goal that we address, the implementation strategies are very general in the plan
and it's suggesting that if this is a priority with Council, then you should look into it further and develop your
own strategic plan that addresses what needs Leesburg has.
The Town Plan is not going to provide all the strategic answers for affordable housing. We can't, otherwise,
it would be a 500 -page document. We can't put that level -- we have to know, staff has to know too, when
you adopt the Town Plan, what are your priorities going to be? Where is affordable housing? There's over
75 strategies in this plan right now. Out of those, what are your priorities? What do you want staff to be
working on? If affordable housing is one of those top priorities, then we'll work at finding out what are those
specific strategies that are going to work for Leesburg.
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Council Member Steinberg: I don't think I'd be off the mark if I said the consensus of this Council, without
taking a headcount, is that affordable housing is certainly a priority not only in Leesburg, but the County
and the rest of the country for that matter. Yet somehow we never seem to get there. Your report alludes
to a study in 2015 and the County is doing another one now. We keep having committees and studies and
yet somehow we just never quite achieve the goals that we're looking for.
That becomes the real question, how do we actually get to the point where we can formulate a strong
ordinance that says, this is what you must do, this is what our expectations are. I know, as you said that
Leesburg is primarily built out but we do have infill development. I don't know if, for example, we are too
late for a development like Leesburg Village and others. We know at some point, we will be building out,
say the Walmart, the old Walmart parking lot, almost certainly.
We know there will be opportunities, some of which are years down the road. How do we as a Council start
to turn this around now? What kind of a timeframe, can we say in a year, we'd like a solid ordinance with
reasonable strategies that help us get well down the path of providing affordable housing? Understanding
that it's an economic issue, but it's an economic issue for everybody, especially the people who can't afford
housing. Somehow, we've got to break this logjam and figure out how to do that. Is that something we might
have expectations for suggestions coming from staff or do we have to spitball on ourselves and come to
you and say what we want?
Susan Berry Hill: I think you'll have the opportunity. Once the Town Plan comes to you, the last chapter in
the plan is the implementation chapter. It will list all of the different goals and strategies that are in the plan.
At that time, you'll have an opportunity to look at that and prioritize what's important to you. What do you
want staff to be working on to implement that plan? That would be the time when you would say if there's
consensus or a majority on Council, we want staff to be working on affordable housing, and provide that
direction at that time. Then we would figure out how to address your preference.
Council Member Steinberg: Is it your professional advice, then that we do wait to see the draft plan, as
opposed to saying, we don't want to wait to see the plan we know what do we want to do, now, how do we
move along and start [unintelligible].
Susan Berry Hill: I would advise waiting for this plan. Because I think it's important to consider everything
that it's bringing to you. There may be other priorities that come forward in the plan that you want to address
too or in place of, I don't know. That would be something that Council should discuss.
Council Member Steinberg: Okay. Thank you.
Mayor Burk: Ms. Fox?
Council Member Fox: Thanks. Yes. I have a couple of questions. One has to do with the Commissioners
and I read that the Commission was pretty split. Did they come up with any proposals for the Town to
approach affordable housing? It sounds like they were split, but did they have any ideas? Because it sounds
like we're putting the cart before the horse here.
Susan Berry Hill: It was a very general conversation and it was again-- oops, I passed it, on this guiding
principle, which as you can see is very general, but the discussion was there's the second sentence in the
guiding principle that focuses on affordable housing and housing to meet all stages of life. There was
definitely a difference of opinions on members of the Commission. Some felt we should not be addressing
affordable housing, that that should be left to the marketplace.
Others felt, no. We didn't get into the bigger discussion which will happen when we get into the next chapter
which addresses the strategies. But at this point, if there's direction from Council tonight, generally that
yes, we do want to address affordable housing, I'll take that back to the Planning Commission and say, yes,
we think probably the wording should stay the same in the guiding principle and that the strategies that we
come forward with that maybe where the meat is in terms of the direction we're going.
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Council Member Fox: Okay. If I heard you correctly, workforce housing is defined as 80 to 100% of AMI,
ADU 30 to 70%. I might be wrong here, but what I'm seeing us do is trying to hedge towards some sort of
housing that may be a government would own manage, maintain, administer. That's not what we're hedging
towards?
Susan Berry Hill: No, I don't think so. That's up to the Council but that's a big solution. When I looked at
the unmet housing strategic plan that the County did, it was very interesting. Now they're starting from very
low cost, low work options to addressing affordable housing all the way to some of the big things. We should
look at whatever options will get us the most bang for the buck in terms of addressing our own affordability
needs.
Council Member Fox: One of the things that I heard this evening when we were discussing the accessory
dwelling units was and I made a point to ask this, how much can we do without the County? I think Mr.
Martinez actually alluded to that as well. What can we do that we don't have to ask the County's permission
for, or have to wait on them to administer something?
That actually came up as nothing. This is something actually. These accessory houses that we might think
about because we would be free and clear of that obligation. The other things that I was thinking of, one of
my things is to make sure we find options that either minimize or eliminate taxpayer liability. I was thinking,
how can we incentivize either somebody who's looking to build something?
The only thing I can think of at this point is to create tax incentives, something we can do as a Town, or
look at other incentives, like great land deals that we might own and use it for affordable housing, as long
as it's used for affordable housing. Those are the kinds of things I think we could do as a Town without the
County. Of course, we should partner with them because they do administer ADUs but I think there are a
lot of things here that we can actually do.
Susan Berry Hill: We can, I think there are regulatory things we could do in our zoning ordinance or
procedural things in terms of how we look at land development applications that have an affordable
component. I think there are probably a number of things that we can do and maybe informational things
that let our residents know about the loan programs and all of the other things the County administers.
Maybe there's a piece that we can play in that through outreach to our residents, to let them know about
that.
Council Member Fox: If the Council leans toward looking closer at the accessory dwelling units, what I
understand is from the conversation that happened, that anything that was Airbnb, and I know there's a lot
of controversy around Airbnb. I get it. I really honestly do. The owner of the property has to be there for any
sort of anything.
Susan Berry Hill: Yes.
Council Member Fox: Okay. All right. Thank you
Mayor Burk: I do have to laugh. Here we're talking about doing something without the County and usually,
we're saying we want the County to help out so it's kind of funny. The one thing I'm concerned about with
all of our discussion, I think you can see that we all are concerned about affordable housing, but we have
to be very careful of the unintended consequences. Whether it's increasing density. In my neighborhood,
we have 10 homes, with most people have two cars. Now you're going to add another family. You're going
to have, instead of 10 homes, you're going to have 20 homes, and you're going to have 20 cars.
Most people have two cars. What is the ramification of that? What is the impact? We need to think about
what is the impact? Whether we don't take care of it, but most certainly schools are part of what is very
important to us here in Loudoun and Leesburg and we don't want to overburden such places. We need to
also think about the increase in staff. If we're going to take over these big projects we better be careful as
Page 241 April 12, 2021
to how much that implication is to what staff has. That doesn't mean that we can't move on and we can't
come up with ideas of what we can do and how we can do it.
We just have to keep in mind at all times that there are unintended consequences that we need to think
about. Most certainly I think you can hear from everybody here that everybody is interested. Unless I hear
otherwise, I'm going to say that we will follow your recommendation and wait for the Town Plan, and then
bring it up at that point. Well, thank you very much. Again, thank you Ms. Hynes for coming and a very
interesting presentation. Next, we have the Airport Ad Hoc Committee Final Report. Mr. Coffman?
Scott Coffman: Good evening, Madam Mayor and members of the Council. As you know in February, this
Council appointed an Ad Hoc Committee to study the structure of the Airport Commission. Included on the
membership was Council members, which Vice Mayor Martinez chaired the committee, and Mr. Steinberg
and Ms. Nacy also participated. Also on the committee, we invited all Airport business owners to send a
representative of the 12 businesses, eight of us took us up on the offer. They were well represented by
flight schools, aircraft maintenance shop, the helicopter operator, all participated.
The committee met three times. Mr. Martinez had organized some presentations, for giving the background
on the Airport, the Airport Commission, what it does, where it receives its funding, some of the initiatives
that have been taken in the past that have brought the Airport to where it is today, and what the Airport
master plan and guidance is for going forward. We gave everybody some good background. The committee
continued to discuss ideas and make suggestions and everybody's voice was heard. At the final meeting,
the ideas all gathered around three common goals and they were one, to improve the Airport business
operator's input to the Commission, to have their voices heard, it was to improve citizen involvement in the
Airport Commission. Finally, it was to provide a membership that was well -qualified in the Airport operations
and business aspects of what they do in their role. The committee came out with a final report. They took
all the ideas and voted. The final recommendations were, as I've got listed up here, were to form an Airport
business association. This would be either a formal or informal. Mr. Spera can talk a little bit about that.
We only recognize one business association that would come together on their own. This would not the
Town organization. This would be their own business organization. They could choose a representative.
This is the recommendation, who would serve as a voting member of the Airport Commission that would
be an eighth member. That was to give the voice to the Airport businesses. The goal of providing citizen
involvement was to involve the Loudoun County Economic Development Commission and have a liaison
attend the Airport Commission meetings and work together on supporting businesses and reaching out to
the community. The committee reviewed the current process for the seven members of the Commission
and did not support any changes to the current nomination and appointing of other Commission members.
That's really the gist of the votes of or the output of the committee and I'll let you all discuss.
Mayor Burk: Anyone have any questions? Ms. Fox?
Council Member Fox: Thank you. Scott, you said one voting member would be an eighth member of the
Airport Commission, correct?
Scott Coffman: Correct.
Council Member Fox: Usually, there's an odd number. How would that work?
Scott Coffman: Correct. There was some brief discussion of it, and they would adopt something in their
bylaws on how to treat tie votes.
Council Member Fox: I think that's the only question I had. No changes to the current process for
appointment and confirmation of Commission members. If we have an Airport business association, does
that preclude any of the Airport employees from being appointed, or we just leave that alone?
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Scott Coffman: The committee did not discuss that. That's typically something that I let Chris address on
any conflict of interest between employees and how they would be represented on the Committee or the
Commission.
Council Member Fox: Thank you.
Mayor Burk: Anyone else having questions? Mr. Bagdasarian?
Council Member Bagdasarian: This is really more directed towards Mr. Spera, but just as a preface I
know at one point in time the Airport Commission had an EDC liaison, and I thought there was a solid link
that way, so I'm not sure why that process ended. But in regards to the actual association, how formalized
do you recommend this being as they need to be a 501-c-6 trade organization? Can it be just a more of an
informal type of organization?
Christopher Spera: My concern, when I discussed this with Scott was less about how formal or informal
the structure was, but rather that we just identified the one that would be, if we were to adopt something
like this, which gave that entity a seat at the table. There would be nothing to prevent -- you had the Airport
businesses association, and then you had the Airport businesses society and then you have the
amalgamation of Airport businesses and they could choose to organize however they wanted. I think the
key was to just identify and recognize one. They could do whatever else they wanted in addition, but we
would recognize one and give that one entity the seat at the table.
That was really my concern, and less focused on the formality or informality of how they structured. That
would really be up to them how much dues they wanted to charge, do they want it to become a not -for-
profit corporation? It really would depend on what their scope was, what their mission was. If they wanted
to engage in fundraising or some type of promotion, you might want to create a not -for-profit entity. If all
you really wanted to do was create an organization that would meet periodically and then provide input to
the Airport Commission, you could do that informally without creating a legal entity.
Council Member Bagdasarian: Where the outcome would still be the same regardless of that. I look at it
as the Downtown Business Association represents the businesses of the Downtown as it did at one point
in time, but I think that makes sense. Thank you.
Mayor Burk: Who else at this point? Thank you, Mr. Coffman. Appreciate you coming forward.
Christopher Spera: Madam Mayor, if I could simply make a brief supplement to what Scott presented.
Parallel to this, as I think each of you know, I undertook a review of the two sections of the Town Code that
directly relate to what the Airport Commission's role is, as well as a review of the 45 pages or so of the
Airport regulations. Parallel to the process that the Vice Mayor administers and that Scott participated in, I
undertook that review. I have shared the results of that, my proposed line edits, which were exclusively
focused on making sure that the Commission sat in an advisory function as opposed to an adjudicatory
function, and shared those with the Airport Commission itself, in addition to Scott. We actually took
advantage of a couple of other things that were essentially mistakes or other things we could have fixed,
but that proceeded on a parallel path. I think we're in pretty good shape on bringing that to you as well.
Mayor Burk: Thank you very much. Appreciate it. The next one is --
Vice Mayor Martinez: Madam Mayor, Scott, Chris, when will you want to bring this to Council for a formal
vote on the recommendations?
Christopher Spera: My thought was that since I've got some proposed changes to the Town Code we've
got to wait at least a couple of weeks. We have to notice that. Typically, we go two meetings hence. To me
it would make sense to put it all together. We would bring you the proposed code changes, the revised set
of regulations, and then tee up this for any of these recommendations that you wanted to act upon.
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Mayor Burk: It doesn't have to go to a public hearing?
Christopher Spera: I'm sorry.
Mayor Burk: It doesn't have to go to a public hearing?
Christopher Spera: The code changes do.
Mayor Burk: They do, okay.
Christopher Spera: The changes to the Town Code that requires an ordinance that does require a public
hearing. The approval of the regulations do not, but to me it doesn't make any sense to separate them. Let
the requirement of the public hearing on the code change be the timing driver. I think two meetings from
tomorrow would probably be the right time, subject to Mr. Dentler's sound counsel on that. I know he
manages that very carefully.
Vice Mayor Martinez: I just wanted to thank the Town Attorney, Scott, and Russell Seymour for all their
help, and the participation of Council Member Steinberg and Nacy for being there. Thank you, all, I really
appreciate all the help you gave me.
Council Member Fox: Madam Mayor? I have a quick clarifying question that Mr. Spera was talking about.
First of all, I sat in on a couple of these meetings and they were very well run. You had a lot of people to
deal with and I thought of it as very, very well run. Thanks for serving. The other question I had, with all the
changes that are going to happen, will we be seeking Commission input on this? Will it go to Commission
before it comes to us, the Airport Commission, or will it come straight to us?
Christopher Spera: I have shared the revisions that I am proposing both to the Town Code and to the
Airport regs. I've already shared those with the Airport Commission.
Council Member Fox: Okay, thank you.
Christopher Spera: The only thing I suppose it would be -- the Ad Hoc Committee has made its
recommendations. Everyone knows what they are. The Airport Commission will be free to comment on do
they support, do they not support it. Other than that, I don't think that there's any additional outreach that
needs to happen beyond that associated with the normal public hearing.
Council Member Fox: Okay, thank you.
Mayor Burk: Thank you. Thank you very much. We are now at the American Recovery Fund and
Community Projects Funding Request.
Clark Case: Good evening, Mayor Burk, Vice Mayor Martinez, Members of the Council and Members of
the public here in the chamber and at home. My name is Clark Case. I'm the Director of Finance and
Administrative Services for the Town. I'm here to talk about two particular Federal funding opportunities for
the Town. The first is the American Rescue Plan Act, which we refer to by its acronym of ARPA. The second
is some community project funding that can be included in the Federal government's earmarked projects
for the next Federal fiscal year. The Town is expected to receive funding from ARPA, which was signed
into law on March 11.
The funding amount that was initially published when the Act was passed for the Town of Leesburg was
$48.83 million. That looked high to us. However, the official allocation is not yet known because it's subject
to the US Department of Treasury's recalculations of all the allocations. We've had extensive discussions
amongst the professional organizations that the Town is a member with. Their opinion is that the
independent towns were double -counted in the Community Development Block Grant database that the
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initial allocation was published from, and that resulted in a significantly overstated amount to be allocated
to the Town.
Their estimate, I would call the back of the envelope estimate, was that the allocation can be as low as
$7M. The Treasury guidance though will be official. We will get that guidance, we will find out what the
allocation is in May. The funding is expected to be received in two payments of 50% no later than May 11
of 2021 and a second 50% no earlier than 12 months later. The Department of Treasury is to provide official
guidance to us on the allocation, the eligible uses, and what procedures we have to follow to receive the
funding and what we can use the funding on.
There's confusion in that area as well, because the towns are not explicitly listed in the section of the Act
that says that you can use the money to replace lost revenues due to COVID. That is mentioned in the
State section, but not mentioned in the local government section directly, and they're restrictions mentioned
in the State sections like not being able to contribute to a pension plan that's underfunded. That's not
explicitly mentioned in the town's local government section. The Federal guidance, the Treasury guidance
was sure to answer for us those questions.
The way the Treasury Department addresses this sort of guidance, as they call it, is they release a list of
frequently asked questions and answers. Those are considered authoritative. They follow the same
procedure when the CARES money was passed. They did 19 revisions to those frequently asked questions
after the initial set were released. The rules can change even after the initial guidance. Treasury did see
that that was ineffective, especially in the short timeframes. They reached out to the local government
community, the Government Finance Officers Association, League of Municipalities and others, asking,
"What do you need to see in the guidance?"
We have been supplying that information to them. We do not know when they will issue their guidance.
They are not saying anything about reallocations at this stage. There's a lot we don't know yet. The
Government Finance Officers Association is urging town Councils to be patient, take a wait -and -see -what -
you're -getting approach, and also wait and see what the guidance says about what you can do with the
money. They urge local governments to spend this money on one time things. Do not spend it on ongoing
programs, because when the Federal government funding disappears, you'll have to raise taxes to make it
up or slash services, or cut back programs that have become popular.
It's a little bit of a honey trap. They say don't fall into it. The second thing I want to talk about is the
Community Project Funding, which is the earmark projects for the next Federal budget. Those earmark
projects are likely to focus on infrastructure, transportation projects like streets, environmental projects,
some that are storm water projects, utilities, airport, and any other project that has a very large stakeholder
support. Congresswoman Wexton has solicited the various local governments within her jurisdiction to ask
them for what are their priorities. Each of the towns has been asked to submit no more than 10 projects
with the top three projects prioritized no later than April 16 to Congresswoman Wexton's staff.
Obviously, we have a very short period of time. They want clear documentation as to what is the scope and
nature of the project, and they want clear endorsement of the local elected officials of any projects that's
included, and they urge us to pick projects that have widespread community support. We need Town
Council's direction on what should be on this list of 10 projects. We did not want Council just have to come
up with that out of thin air on one evening. We went back through the Town's CIP. We looked for projects
that were included in the CIP that have large G.O. bond funding, for example, that if funded by another
Federal grant would free G.O. bond funding for other Town priorities.
We included projects that we knew had stakeholder support from the community and stakeholder support
from the elected officials, because they were included in the Town's CIP. This is the list of projects. We
have put together a spreadsheet so as Town Council proposes changes to this prioritization that we can do
that on the fly, and you will see the effect of those as you go. The thing we caution you on is that we have
a very short timeframe to turn around, so any project we add to the list will need to be something where we
have a clear definition what that project is and there was really very little time to do that.
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We also have to be able to document that there's stakeholder support. There's no time to go out and find
that stakeholder support before now and the 16th. With that, we would ask that you set the priorities for this
list to be passed by resolution tomorrow night. We have the budget team here. We have Renee LaFollette
here to answer any of your questions about the project list. Of course, we will be projecting the project list
on the screen for you to make your changes as you go. With that we're ready to start.
Mayor Burk: Mr. Bagdasarian, any questions?
Council Member Bagdasarian: Is the list in the resolution is that the prioritization that you have listed?
Clark Case: This was our list we put together to give you a starting point. We didn't want to just throw this
up and say, "Give us your 10 projects." That would have been unreasonable as an expectation. The Town
Manager together with his team of people, we went through. We tried to put it together and Kaj put in what
he felt was the best priority order based on the budget hearings and the CIP hearings that we held. This is
a list we came up with that is the starting point for Council to work from.
Council Member Bagdasarian: The first one, the bypass on Edwards Ferry Road, what level of impact
would that make if we were to receive funding for that?
Clark Case: You're looking at $163M. There's no way the Town and the County can fund that by ourselves.
We're going to have to have Federal funding. That Federal funding has not been forthcoming so that project
is in our future projects list. We don't have the money to fund it at this time. I think everybody knows just
how important that traffic jam is to the Town's citizens and virtually everybody who drives through. It's a
very large dollar amount.
If we could get the Federal government to fund that, that would be huge for the Town and it would certainly
save us our portion of the VDOT funding, which might be as much as 20%. If you do the math, if we have
$32M of Town G.O. bonds that we would have to come up with, perhaps, if we couldn't find other funding
towards this. There is a very large stake in getting that project passed. We do know there's widespread
support through the Town for that. I'm sorry, we're having technical difficulties.
Council Member Bagdasarian: I was hearing things.
Kaj Dentler: Can you just put the slide back up and we can make adjustments?
Eileen Boeing: You know what, I can pull it up.
Council Member Bagdasarian: Just one quick follow-up on that, were there any other Federal funding
opportunities that we were looking at aside from this assistance?
Clark Case: Well, yes, the ARPA projects that will give us Federal funding as well once we know what we
can spend the money on. We're absolutely looking at that. In addition to that, as other Federal funds are
made available from ARPA projects that were given to the states, the states may be making some of that
funding available to us as well. For example, on the Route 15 bypass, a lot of that Federal Department of
Transportation money would go to the State of Virginia and would wind up in VDOT coffers and they would
be contributing their portion towards that project, probably from the ARPA funding or from the earmark
funding. Both the County and the Town would be looking to perhaps get Federal funding for their portions
of this very large interchange.
Council Member Bagdasarian: Thank you very much. Appreciate it.
Mayor Burk: Mr. Martinez?
Page 291 April 12, 2021
Clark Case: I got it on my screen here. There it is. This is the dynamic list that you all can make your
changes to. Of course, we have the Capital Project summary pages for each one of these projects. If you
need more information on the projects, we can flip down to that summary page if you wish.
Mayor Burk: That's fine. But let's let everybody ask their questions of the project at this point, if that's okay
with you. Mr. Martinez?
Vice Mayor Martinez: I was wondering why the Police Department's building or enhancement to their
building is not in there. It's a $20M project.
Mayor Burk: It's down there.
Council Member Fox: It's in there.
Clark Case: It's in there at $18.75M.
Vice Mayor Martinez: I'm sorry, I missed that.
Clark Case: It's number nine on the list and that was certainly a very substantial amount of G.O. bond
money to be used for other projects.
Vice Mayor Martinez: Right. Well, I guess I'm surprised it's not number one. I think that's one of the things
that we really need to focus on in public safety is increasing that building or improving the building, adding
to it. Other than that, we just need to figure out which comes first in our top three. I know that the Police
Department building would be my number one. Thank you.
Mayor Burk: Ms. Fox?
Council Member Fox: Thanks. Quick question, what's the $7M figure, the low end? It was in the staff
report you heard would go anywhere go from $7M up to $48.8M.
Clark Case: The $7M was an estimate from one of the associations as to what the lowest number we might
be getting would be. Again, this was their calculation. I don't give it any more credence than I do the $48M
at this stage. We just don't know. There's a lot of doubt as to what that number will be and we won't know
until the Treasury does its calculations. Treasury can go through and say, "No, we meant to do that and it's
$48.8 is it." We just don't know.
Council Member Fox: Okay, quick question about the bypass. I agree with Vice Mayor Martinez, Police
station expansion is my number one. I would like to see the Town Branch at Mosby Drive. That could be
pulled up in any way shape or form. I think that would be neat to go ahead and get that flooding mitigation
and that restoration taken care of for those residents, but the bypass, this money has to be used by 2024.
We're not going to get the bypass done by 2024. Could we use these funds by that time? What is our
portion? What is our share?
Renee LaFollette: The portion that we would ask for would not be the full $163M. The $6M that's shown
is for design. The design work we could have done in the timeframe for this funding.
Council Member Fox: So $6M?
Renee LaFollette: The $163M, if it goes to a Federal earmark through the Congressional office, the second
piece, not the RF funding, but the Congressional, with Senator Wexton. There are a number of other
earmark bills that will be coming up that may give us the opportunity to go for all of that and not have the
tight time window for extending the money.
Page 301 April 12, 2021
I'll liken it to the Battlefield, Kinkaid to 7 project that was finished a number of years ago. That one got a
Congressional earmark from Frank Wolf. At the time, that funded almost half of that project. To have it on
our list for Wexton to be able to go after it in multiple pieces through different earmarks is probably one of
the better ways to go. We do have a smart scale application in for this which goes through the State and
they would use that application also to go after Federal funds.
Mayor Burk: Excuse me for interrupting you for one second, but I need a clarification here. What we're
doing right now is for Senator Wexton's earmarks. It has nothing to do with the COVID money, so we're not
limited in the time.
Council Member Fox: Oh, got you.
Clark Case: That's correct. Do not confuse the ARPA money, which has a two-year limit on it, with the
earmarks.
Mayor Burk: We're not talking about that.
Council Member Fox: Okay. This is the --
Clark Case: The earmark limits will be passed by each earmark bill, so any restrictions will be in the
passage of the legislation that gives you the earmark. There might not be any, or it might be five years.
Council Member Fox: Okay.
Clark Case: It is going to be whatever grant award stipulates as the time frame. For a large project like the
Route 15 bypass, it's probably going to be your typical VDOT grant, which is you've got to complete it within
the reasonable timeframe.
Council Member Fox: I see.
Clark Case: It's not limited to the ARPA the same way, so it doesn't have that two-year timeframe on it.
Kaj Dentler: Different funding.
Clark Case: Different funding —
Council Member Fox: Understood.
Clark Case: -- different mechanism providing the funding.
Council Member Fox: Okay.
Vice Mayor Martinez: If I might offer a correction, did you guys say Senator Wexton? I'm sure she
appreciates the promotion but —
Mayor Burk: I did. I did. [crosstalk] I apologize. I was the one who said that.
Clark Case: All day long as I practiced my presentation, I've been calling her Council member.
Council Member Fox: Okay, that's it. Thank you.
Mayor Burk: Okay. Mr. Cummings?
Page 311 April 12, 2021
Council Member Cummings: Yes. Thank you for clarifying that. I want to just put out that, because we're
going back to the earmarks, working on Capitol Hill, we could get none of this as well. The reality is this is
just our wish list to the Congresswoman, and if she is able to persuade the other members of Congress to
add this to the bill as an earmark, then we might be able to get some funding. With that in mind, does staff
have a plan? Or do my fellow Council members have a plan to work with the Congresswoman to ensure
that our earmarks are a priority to her office?
Mayor Burk: They will be.
Kaj Dentler: Well, I'll address that. The Congresswoman is going to select her top 10 -- Can you hear me?
Congresswoman is going to select her top 10 in essence, and then identify three from that that she's really
going to push. That's the basic theory. That's coming from across her entire district. Not just Leesburg.
Mayor Burk: Not just Leesburg.
Kaj Dentler: We'll put in our top 10, identify our preferred three but she then has to make a decision with
the limited amount of options she has. We have to choose wisely of things that we think she would be
supportive of, that she knows there's good stakeholder support for, provides benefit as broad as possible,
not only communities but public safety, emergency management, environmental, recreation, open space,
infrastructure. She's going to look to cover a lot of areas. We've talked with her staff so we have an idea.
All of these ideas have been flushed out to them. All of them have options. We don't know what she'll
choose, if that helps you.
Council Member Cummings: Sure.
Kaj Dentler: If that helps you.
Council Member Cummings: Yes, it does. With the Route 15 bypass, again, I'm asking because so
maybe folks on staff have been here when earmarks were part of the budgeting process and the legislative
process. Would it help us in maybe getting some of that funding if the County also saw that as a project
that they're interested in?
Kaj Dentler: Correct. That's been discussed as well. Any overlap of agencies or jurisdictions is a bonus for
Congresswoman Wexton because then she's serving more parties as a result. So, yes. That is an
advantage.
Mayor Burk: Is that one of the County's priorities?
Kaj Dentler: Correct.
Mayor Burk: Mr. Steinberg?
Council Member Fox: May I ask a question?
Council Member Steinberg: Go ahead.
Council Member Fox: I'm sorry. Thank you, Mr. Steinberg. Doesn't the County give us a little bit of a push
after the NVTA? The PCAC committee didn't recommend to NVTA that we would get monies for Edwards
Ferry. The County stepped up a little bit. Is that correct? Am I remembering this correctly, Mayor?
Mayor Burk: I'm not sure. I'm not sure.
Council Member Fox: We needed to be able to keep going and we weren't going to get the money to keep
going.
Page 321 April 12, 2021
Renee LaFollette: Correct. This is a project that obviously is in competition with other County projects. At
the time that we had three interchange projects in our CIP Battlefield -7 bypass, Edwards Ferry, Fort Evans,
and also bypass at Battlefield. This was our number two ranked interchange. At the time, the County did
support us as this being the number two most important interchange in this area. That has shifted slightly
with the County and I don't know exactly where they have this project in their order of priority. We do have
$5.4M of NVTA funding that we have started working with VDOT to start moving the design forward.
What we've been told by NVTA staff and also the County staff is that once we start getting into design and
we start getting some movement on the project, it will be easier for them to recommend this project for
funding. The way they do their ranking and ratings of projects, for some reason this project is not scoring
very high on smart scale or the NVTA rankings right now. Part of that is because we haven't been able to
move the project forward. We've worked with VDOT and they're working outside of their comfort zone and
their normal process to start pushing this design forward. I hope that helps.
Council Member Fox: I just remembered Mayor and I met virtually and petitioned Chair Randall to help us
out by keeping the project alive. That's what I'm asking.
Renee LaFollette: They want us to keep the project alive but I don't know where it ranks in their order
priority for all of their interchanges.
Council Member Fox: Thank you.
Mayor Burk: Mr. Steinberg?
Council Member Steinberg: Thanks. This clarification is really helpful. It seems that if we can come up
with projects that have a more, or at least some regional appeal then they might be viewed more favorably
than some of these more parochial projects that we have on this list. Is that a fair assumption?
Kaj Dentler: I say possibly.
Mayor Burk: In my discussions with her staff, they said not. They were like, "Look at something that's going
to affect Leesburg. That would be community, environmental, that kind of stuff."
Kaj Dentler: It's very broad, it's moving fast, there's not a lot of time. One of the comments that her staff
made was projects, big and small. It's all over the board. I was on a conference call today with the Secretary
of Finance for the State and they're trying to interpret the rules and anticipate what's coming, but stuffs
coming at you so fast you got to make the best decision that you can at the time. The answer could be
anything. I would not just limit it to what your regional, you pick what you feel your best what you want to
get.
Council Member Steinberg: So let me ask a question.
Kaj Dentler: They will help us, if she sees something that we like that we
Mayor Burk: You haven't talked. [crosstalk]
Council Member Steinberg: Something that also relates to 15, but a project I think is a little further along
would be the section from Battlefield up to Montresor. I know that our part of that is very small. What are
we on the hook for the interchange of North King Street and the bypass on North 15? Where are we on
that?
Renee LaFollette: Are you talking about north of Town between Battlefield and Montresor?
Council Member Steinberg: Yes. Once you get above Battlefield, that --
Page 331 April 12, 2021
Renee LaFollette: We're not on the hook for any of that, except reviewing plans at the current time. The
County has applied to NVTA and has received funding for all of that project --
Council Member Steinberg: All of that.
Renee LaFollette: including design for the later phase which is Montresor further north.
Council Member Steinberg: Yes.
Renee LaFollette: They're in engineering design work currently for that section.
Council Member Steinberg: So we don't have to worry about any of that?
Renee LaFollette: No.
Council Member Steinberg: Do the projects have to be specifically named? We, obviously, have a lot of
utility projects other than the one I see here. I see this western pressure zone pop station, but almost you
would think almost any of our utility projects might qualify. Why this one versus anything else?
Kaj Dentler: Primarily, this is more of an emergency management perspective. So we're trying to give her
a broad choices of projects that we have and we need. The driver for that is really emergency management,
and ensure that our infrastructure for water and sewer provisions are available.
Council Member Steinberg: Exactly.
Kaj Dentler: That is something that has been identified in all of the bills, even the ARPA and then the
intended infrastructure bill that President Biden will put forward.
Council Member Steinberg: I'm not sure where the Veterans Park project -- what is that project exactly?
Council Member Nacy: I was going to ask that too.
Council Member Steinberg: Veterans Park, what are we talking about there?
Kaj Dentler: Veterans Park is — so we have 86 acres on the Potomac right beside Ball's Bluff. County
donated $4M or contributed $4M to the Town. We bought that in 2000 in arrangement with the North Virginia
Park Authority, now known as Nova Parks. We view this project as a good stakeholder project.
Council Member Steinberg: Okay.
Kaj Dentler: You have the County has contributed a significant amount of money, you had Nova Parks
was involved with the acquisition, it's environmental, it's conservation, it's is on the Potomac, it's recreation,
it's open space and it's moving forward in design. You've already awarded the contract for design. We saw
that as an attractive project dependent upon what she's looking for.
Council Member Steinberg: As it now stands, we're stuck on the Evergreen Mill project. That's basically
no pun intended, road -blocked. It's not going anywhere at this point?
Renee LaFollette: Are you talking about the Evergreen Mill Road widening project?
Council Member Steinberg: Whatever I'm reading — yes.
Renee LaFollette: That project is in design currently and we actually have a public input meeting on
Wednesday.
Page 341 April 12, 2021
Council Member Steinberg: Yes.
Renee LaFollette: That design is moving forward to be able to move into land acquisition in a couple of
years. We do have a funding shortfall for construction in out years of the plan, but -
Council Member Steinberg: No portion of that project is proffered by the development going on there?
Renee LaFollette: No.
Council Member Steinberg: Fine, thanks.
Renee LaFollette: I wish I could answer otherwise.
Mayor Burk: Ms. Nacy?
Council Member Nacy: Thank you, for Veterans Park was going to be one of my questions too. The Town
grant at Mosby Drive, that 1.4 is if we get that grant? That's what we need in addition to all the stuff on the
right there.
Renee LaFollette: Yes. That would be the Town's portion of that project if we did not receive the grant.
Council Member Nacy: If we don't get the grant, then it's really $2.4M that we need?
Renee LaFollette: Correct.
Council Member Nacy: That would be, in my opinion, a priority that we maybe move up a little bit. I mean,
it's at the top, right? It's recent, it's on the minds of a lot of residents. It would be a huge help from something
that's been going on since the '80s, et cetera, et cetera. I was actually going to suggest bumping down
Evergreen Mill widening a bit for some more Town -specific things that go along with what the
Congresswoman is looking for stakeholder -wise. Anyway, recently Town Branch and Lawson Road are on
the forefront. I think those are in good places or it could even be bumped up a little higher. Just my two
cents.
Mayor Burk: All right, then I'm going to ask what the majority of us are looking for. Mr. Martinez mentioned
the police station. Are there four people that feel that that should be on our top three for the
Congresswoman's? Ms. Fox, myself, I assume Mr. Martinez, Mr. Bagdasarian and Ms. Nacy. All right, we
got four on that. Mr. Cummings, you were on it too? Mr. Cummings also. I would agree. I would suggest
that Lawson Road would be one that we would bring forward. That is something her staff did call and ask
me about.
They had gotten some calls. When citizens came out, they did reach out to her. That was one that she was
aware of, so I thought that might be something we put up. I don't know if there's four people that would
consider Lawson Road one of the top three. All right, that's everybody. Then as to whether we do Veterans
Park would make sense to me, or whether we do Town Branch at Mosby, I'm willing to consider both of
those.
Eileen Boeing: Are you doing them one at a time?
Mayor Burk: I'm sorry.
Eileen Boing: Or are you doing all of them?
Mayor Burk: No, I'm doing one at a time. How many of us would like to have the Veterans Park money put
third? How many people would want that one? Just me.
Page 351 April 12, 2021
Council Member Bagdasarian: Point of clarification. Are we just voting on the top three, or are we rank -
ordering the entire list?
Mayor Burk: We don't need it. We only need the top three.
Kaj Dentler: No, just the top three. As long as you're comfortable with these 10, then just identify three.
Mayor Burk: Veterans Park is not third. Town Branch at Mosby Drive? We've got Ms. Fox, Mr. Cummings,
Mr. Bagdasarian, Ms. Nacy and myself, so that becomes third. That's all we need to do on that one.
Kaj Dentler: We'll have this prepared for your vote tomorrow night.
Mayor Burk: Thank you. Is there any additions to future Council meetings? Ms. Nacy?
Council Member Nacy: [unintelligible].
Mayor Burk: Mr. Bagdasarian?
Council Member Bagdasarian: No additions.
Mayor Burk: Ms. Fox?
Council Member Fox: Yes. After hearing our report tonight, I think something we can do now and I know
most of us probably want to go ahead and wait, but I think something we can do now is present and debate
some of the pros and cons of accessory housing because that's something that we could do either now or
pull into later on. I'd like to go ahead and present that as a future work session, but I don't want to have it
before we seek Planning Commission input. [crosstalk] I would ask for Planning Commission input first, and
then have the discussion about the pros and cons of accessory housing.
Mayor Burk: Are there four people that are interested in doing her accessory housing discussion? Okay,
everybody. Is that it, Ms. Fox?
Council Member Fox: Yes [unintelligible].
Mayor Burk: Okay, anybody else? Mr. Martinez?
Vice Mayor Martinez: There's a couple of things I'd like to add for future meetings. One is to create a
subcommittee to determine if we need either a Police Advisory Committee or Police Oversight Committee,
and basically a subcommittee to determine whether or not we need to add one or the other or maybe not.
Mayor Burk: Are there four people that would want to do that one? Mr. Bagdasarian, Mr. Steinberg, Mr.
Cummings, Mr. Martinez.
Vice Mayor Martinez: Then my second request is that we re-evaluate the Main Street program for the
Town of Leesburg.
Mayor Burk: All right, he wants to reevaluate the Main Street program in Leesburg. Are there four people
that are interested in having that discussion? Mr. Steinberg, Mr. Cummings, Mr. Bagdasarian, and Vice
Mayor.
Vice Mayor Martinez: That is all. Thank you all.
Mayor Burk: All right, is there a motion to adjourn? Oh, wait a minute, sorry. Mr. Cummings.
Page 361 April 12, 2021
Council Member Cummings: Sorry. Thank you. I have a very controversial one I need to bring up here.
May is National Preservation Month. I'd like to do a proclamation before May on preservation in here in
Leesburg.
Mayor Burk: All right, I'm not sure if that's on the list that we have, but either way, it will put it on if it's not.
Council Member Cummings: It may be. I'm not sure.
Mayor Burk: All right, are there four people that want to have that? Okay, everybody. Everyone. Is there a
motion to adjourn?
Vice Mayor Martinez: So moved.
Council Member Steinberg: So moved.
Mayor Burk: Moved by Mr. Martinez. Seconded by Mr. Steinberg. All in favor.
Council Members: Aye.
Mayor Burk: Opposed. All right.
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