Planning Commission Meeting - Mar 05, 2026

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Leesburg Planning Commission 1h 51m 2 speakers 5 agenda items transcribed 2 months ago official recording ↗

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How does the Planning Commission open and organize the March 5, 2026 meeting?

Ron Campbell 0:34

I call to order this March 5th, 2026 meeting of the Leesburg Planning Commission. Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Ron Campbell 1:05

Thank you. Let the record reflect tonight that we do have a quorum. We are missing our town council member, Mr. Steinberg, and wish him all the best. And our vice chair, Mr. McAfee, work responsibilities tonight. And thank you. All right, right on time. All right, do I hear a motion to adopt the agenda as submitted? So moved. Second. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Thank you. The minutes from our February 19, 2026 meeting, do I have a motion to approve the minutes? Are there any changes, corrections, or alterations? So moved. Second.

What is the zoning ordinance rewrite work session and why is staff presenting it tonight?

Ron Campbell 1:59

All in favor? Aye. All right, and one, two, two abstentions, and one absent. Thank you. All right, any disclosures? We'll start with Commissioner Tuck. None. None? Never.

2:27

All right.

Ron Campbell 2:28

Thank you. I don't have a statement tonight. Petitioners, are there any petitioners who are signed up?

Sarah Bowing (Planning Commission Clerk) 2:35

No one signed up.

Ron Campbell 2:37

All right. Well, at any point, we're always open to hear from the public. This is not just our responsibility. It's always our pleasure to hear from the public. So there's no public hearings tonight. Our work session tonight is zoning ordinance rewrite, staff response to commissioner questions. I'll turn it over to Director David to lead us and his team in their response. Thank you, sir.

Director David Boucher 3:08

great thank you very much chair campbell uh tonight is the 18th meeting that we've had our 19th meeting we've had on the zoning ordinance rewrite the commission has certainly been putting in a lot of work and effort it's been appreciated and the draft of the rewrite has improved as a result of all the work so as we come to the close of our work on the draft we have asked the commissioners for questions and outstanding comments on the latest draft so we did receive some good questions and some good concerns and we're planning to respond to those questions and concerns tonight as well as in the march 19th Planning Commission meeting. So first off, we got some questions regarding attainable housing from Chair Campbell.

Director David Boucher 4:04

And Mr. Campbell asked one of his colleagues, Mr. Cronenberg, who is a specialized developer in attainable housing, who's had some successful developments in Maryland, to take a look at our draft and pose Some questions for us to ponder as we think about are we really creating all the opportunities we can for attainable housing? And he also presented his attainable housing concept. So you had that attached to your agenda packet tonight. So in my read of... This type of housing development is essentially low rise multifamily. And the way it was described in the materials is this is prefabricated housing, not to be confused with manufactured housing, which is more mobile homes, but prefabricated housing that

Director David Boucher 5:05

is situated on a common lot, one big lot, and it's all attainable and it's for rent. And the materials specify that it does meet HUD code standards and that it's an innovative new approach. And you can see from some of these pictures here that there's duplexes and triplexes and some singles as well. And they're sometimes situated around a private court with private streets and parking out front. And the idea here is it's another chance for folks to get into the marketplace at a lower price point. As we look through this materials, of course, we asked ourselves the question, would something like this work with our current zoning regulations? So I'm just going to go back up to the site plan as I talk through some of this.

Director David Boucher 6:04

And the answer is not exactly. We don't have all the tools and definitions in our current zoning ordinance that would make this type of development with small prefab homes not on their own lots that are all on one common lot surrounded around private streets. You could potentially do something like this with a planned development option in our zoning ordinance, but the way we define multifamily is more the traditional multifamily, which is an apartment complex. And in our subdivision and land development regulations, we don't really recognize private streets.