Planning Commission Meeting

meeting

Leesburg Planning Commission 1h 49m 7 speakers 8 agenda items transcribed 7 days ago official recording ↗

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What was adopted as the agenda for the June 20 Planning Commission meeting?

0:01

Thank you.

Gigi Robinson 0:39

2024 meeting of the Leesburg Planning Commission. Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance. To the flag. And to the Republic for which it stands.

Gigi Robinson 1:14

Okay, we have a quorum, we have one absent member. Do I hear a motion to adopt the agenda as submitted? Second.

Brian McAfee 1:25

Second.

Gigi Robinson 1:26

All those in favor?

Brian McAfee 1:29

Aye.

Gigi Robinson 1:30

Okay. Do I hear a motion to approve the minutes of the May 16th, 2024 meeting?

Brian McAfee 1:38

So moved.

Gigi Robinson 1:42

Thank you. Are there any questions, any additions, any deletions, alterations, or the such? No. Okay, all those in favor? Aye. Aye. Any nays? No. Abstain. You abstain, yes, thank you. All right, disclosure of meetings. Jennifer will begin, no? No? No. No, no. I did have one. June 4th, I met on Crescent-Sickelon, 52 units that are opposite the Douglas School, scheduled for July for our review with Mr. Trevor Dearman. I don't have any chairman's statement except to remind us all we're halfway through the year. Please watch your vacations so that you're not out more than four meetings this year. Just keep it in the back of your mind, okay? All right, the next is remark by petitioners. Do we have any petitioners? We don't, okay.

Gigi Robinson 3:02

Then let us move to comprehensive planning, which would be the Crescent District Master Plan update. Rich Klusick, Land Use Manager, Department of Community Development, will enlighten us.

Rich Klusick 3:17

I certainly hope to enlighten you. Thank you, Madam Chair. So obviously here this evening to present the progress that we've made on the Crescent District Master Plan update. The goals for this evening are to give you a quick refresher regarding the background and goals of this update project, talk a little bit about the process to date, talk about some of the discussions that we actually had the last time we met on August 3, 2023, and then talk about some of the new policy direction and how that policy came to be. This brings us back to those good old days when we spent nights working here together, rolling up our sleeves, working on Legacy Leesburg. Legacy Leesburg is, of course, the vision and overarching policy for the town.

Rich Klusick 4:07

This document, the Crescent District Master Plan that we're discussing, is one of those strategic plans that provide some greater specificities for a specific area. And then the zoning ordinance is the tool that will ultimately be used to implement The vision, of course, the zoning ordinance is another document that we have that's currently being updated. So we talk about the Crescent District. We're generally looking at the area along Catoctin Circle, essentially from South King Street to East Market Street and the area along East Market Street from Mom's Apple Pie out to the bypass. The Crescent District Master Plan was first drafted in 2003 and adopted in 2006, and it's important to note that the policy direction for that document shifted over time.

Rich Klusick 4:53

There's been a desire at times to have growth occur more quickly, and there have been times when there's been a desire to have growth occur more slowly. In 2022, with the work that we were doing on legacy Weisberg, as well as with a major application of Virginia village that was proposed and approved. We essentially started the effort to revisit this master plan document in 2022. So some of the goals that were set forth at that time were to revisit the building form and density. address market realities and to consider opportunities for public investment. That's a really important one because the prior iteration of the master plan specifically said there will be no public funds for the Crescent District, whereas Council specifically expressed an interest in considering opportunities.

Rich Klusick 5:43

So ways to perhaps consider those opportunities include new parking facilities, streetscape improvements, new parks and open spaces within the Crescent District, as well as considering opportunities for affordable housing partnerships. Like any planning effort, we start with public input, and this was probably one of the more difficult occasions to do public input because we didn't see the consensus that we often see. There were opinions all over the map for what the future of the Crescent District should look like.