Town Council Work Session

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Leesburg Town Council 2h 57m 3 speakers 4 agenda items transcribed 7 days ago official recording ↗

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What was the purpose of the council’s opening and motion at the start of the meeting?

0:03

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Kelly Burk 2:24

Welcome. I would like to start tonight's town council work session of December 8th, 2025. We have a couple of things. First off, our closed session for the potential acquisition of real property is going to be taken off. We will not be discussing that tonight. And we have a council member, Wilt, has requested to participate in tonight's council work session electronically. He's not feeling well. He's participating from Leesburg. Do I have a motion to allow Mr. Wilt to electronically participate in the December 7th, 2000, is it December 7th? It says 7th, but it's the 8th. The 8th, 2000 council, 2025 council work session. So moved by council member. Kerkowski, second. Councilmember Steinberg, all in favor? Aye.

Kelly Burk 3:16

Opposed? That's five, five, zero, one, one, okay. I'd like you to have five, zero, one, and then we forgot that the other person was gonna be here. And Ms. Nacy will not be present today. She has a conflict, a work conflict. So our first item for discussion tonight is the regulatory restrictions impacting housing development in the B1 district. And I want to remind everybody as we are asking questions of staff and would you please make sure you're speaking into the mic. Mr. Wilk won't be able to hear us otherwise. Mr. Watkins.

Unknown 3:59

Madam Mayor, members of council, a very good cold evening to you. So this item deals with the multifamily in the downtown B1 district. So this graphic essentially shows you the downtown. The historic district is highlighted in the white line. The predominant zoning district in the downtown is B1. We also have the residential historic district. This graphic is intended to show you that within the B1 zoning district, almost all of our residential dwelling unit types are permitted. That's represented by the P in the table. You will notice that there is one M. Multifamily is permitted in the B1 district. However, there is a density threshold. Units less than, developments less than five are by right. Developments that have six or more are approved by minor special exception.

Unknown 4:52

This graphic is intended to demonstrate and illustrate the dimensional standards for the B1 zoning district. Of note is the, I tried to get the graphic to do it, but you'll notice that there are two highlighted boxes. So for the multifamily dwelling unit type, there is a footnote, and that footnote again represents the district maximum for buy right uses of five uses, or five units. We also have a restriction for residential above the ground floor in the area bounded to the north by Cornwall, to the east by Church Street, to the south by Loudoun Street, and work to the west. Again, residential is not permitted on the ground floor. With the zoning rewrite, we are proposing changes. So again, this is an illustrative of the proposed downtown zoning districts, DT, B1 will become DT, and again, RHD will remain.

Unknown 5:50

And here of note, we are proposing with the rewrite to increase the dwelling unit density from five to 10. And again, as the graphic illustrates, staff feels that this is a good compromise that will increase the threshold for when a project needs to come before council for review. So with that, I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.

Kelly Burk 6:11

Does anybody have any questions on this? Mr. Cummings?

Zach Cummings 6:14

Yes, thank you. When was the five-unit limit put in place?

Unknown 6:22

2018 is when the process switched from a full special exception to a minor special exception.

Zach Cummings 6:30

Okay. And the number five was, that was there, I believe that was there previous to that, right? Correct. And how did we, you know, how did they come, what were they trying to protect, I will say, with using the five unit limit? And thus, you know, you all are looking to change it to 10. What are we looking to protect by having a limit like that?

Unknown 6:49

I think it was a marriage of several things. One is allowing residential multifamily in a buy right scenario, protecting our historic resources. And then the five number represented something that was de minimis, meaning no direct corollary impacts on adjacent uses, meaning within the mixed use district, our B1, it's common to find these types of scenarios.