Town Council Work Session
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What is the latest update on the Veterans Park at Balls Bluff project?
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Thank you.
All right, let's call tonight's meeting to order. I can't find my agenda here. It's somewhere. The first item for discussion tonight is the Veterans Park at Balls Bluff. Mr. Wagner?
Good evening, Madam Mayor, members of council. I'm Doug Wagner. I'm the Assistant Director of Capital Projects. I'm here this evening to update you on the Veterans Park at Balls Bluff. Yeah, here we go. How do
I change it?
Sorry about that. Some background on the project project was acquired by the town in the year 2000. It's 86 acres adjacent to the battlefield. Balls Bluff Battlefield Regional Park. Master Plan was approved in 2002 and revised and approved again in 2012. In fiscal year 21, Loudoun County gave us a capital contribution of $4 million funding the park. And this year in March, we received an additional $2 million for fiscal year 29 for additional construction on the park. The park provides the town's first public access to the Potomac River. It provides venues for hiking, picnicking, other passive recreation pursuits. It complements the Northern Virginia Regional Balls Bluff Park and the Potomac Heritage National Scenic Trail.
The overall project will be constructed in three phases. The first phase, shown here in white, will be the access road down to the river with boat ramp and parking. silo picnic area with some parking and passive trails. Phase two, hoping with the additional funding in fiscal year 29, phase two will start in 29 with the corn crib. Corn crib area with parking and a picnic area. The silo area with parking and picnic area and a maintenance building. And then as future funding comes available, we'll construct bike trails, additional hiking trails, a disc golf course, and the visitor center. Traffic counts on this project have been taken, traffic counts and studies have been taken three separate times. First in 2002 with the original master plan.
Again in 2021 with final design of the project. And then at requested neighbors again in 2024, we took traffic counts and reviewed them to previous counts. In all three cases, there's no indication of excessive traffic volumes or speeding in the area. We will be updating the Residential Traffic Commission at their May 6th meeting. In December of 2023, we began felling trees and made the mistake of not contacting residents to bring them up to speed ahead of time. And as you would expect, residents brought concerns to the council about our communication, about traffic impacts on Balls Bluff Road, and about the loss of trees and screening between the residents. Since that time, Department of Capital Projects has been working hard to come up with solutions to those three concerns.
As far as communication, we have a communication plan together. Residents have a single point of contact, Tom in our office, and there's a single email that comes to both Tom and myself. We are providing monthly updates to the residents.
How are traffic studies and resident concerns being addressed for the park?
We are also updating the webpage monthly. A project sign will be constructed shortly in front of the project with contact information, the town staff and a QR code linking to our website. Regarding the landscape plan, we're about finished with a conceptual landscape plan that we'll be meeting with residents in the next several weeks to go over our concept. And our plan is to have that area planted prior to start a construction of our park this summer. We have met with Residential Traffic Commission several times. We'll be updating them again at their May 6th meeting. And as soon as we release a construction contract, we'll be doing a pre-construction meeting with the neighboring community to give them Town of Leesburg construction contacts and our contractors construction contacts.
Project milestones completed to date. We acquired the $4 million from Loudoun County for fiscal year 21. Project was added to the CIP in fiscal year 2018. Design began in December of 2020. We met with the Potomac Crossing HOA in June of 21 to give them an update on the project. We started tree felling December of last year and finished in March of this year.
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Agenda
8 items
1
What is the latest update on the Veterans Park at Balls Bluff project?
0:02–6:17
2
How are traffic studies and resident concerns being addressed for the park?
6:17–10:17
3
What easement issues remain for the Veterans Park development?
10:17–16:08
4
How does the South King Street interchange affect current and future traffic patterns?
16:08–21:39
5
What improvements are proposed for the South King Street interchange and Route 7 corridor?
21:39–25:10
6
How is funding being pursued for the interchange studies and NVTA support?
25:10–29:25
7
What proclamations were considered during this council work session?
29:25–33:16
8
How did the council conclude the meeting and what are the next steps?
33:16–36:45
Speakers
4 identifiedOfficials recognised by voice; public commenters shown as “Speaker N” unless they state their name.