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| An illustration of the shopping center proposed for Bailey's Crossroads. |
The committee also heard a presentation on a housing development for Columbia Pike and Carlin Springs Road, and the group bid farewell to Janet Hall, who is retiring after serving as the Mason District representative on the Fairfax County Planning Commission for 20 years. Hall plans to focus on her other activity – teaching skiing at Liberty Mountain Resort to people with disabilities, including the blind. Mason Supervisor Penny Gross plans to announce a successor next week.
The shopping center is critical for setting the tone of future redevelopment in Bailey’s Crossroads, Hall said. “I want it to be beautiful, and this isn’t.” The rezoning application is scheduled to go before the Planning Commission on Jan. 14 and the Board of Supervisors on Jan. 27.
Barnes Lawson, the attorney representing Spectrum Development, listed the proffers agreed to at a recent meeting with Gross. They include pavers along Washington Drive; more screening in the parking lot, no neon, blinking or flashing signs; restricted hours for deliveries and trash removal; no outdoor venders; and $3,000 for landscaping on the front yard of Concetta Di Falco’s house on Washington Drive, which is directly across from the proposed entryway to the shopping center.
That doesn’t go far enough, said Di Falco’s granddaughter, Irene Xenos, who also lives on that street. She wants Spectrum to eliminate the smallest of three proposed buildings so the driveway can be moved. “It’s a safety issue,” she said. “We want substantial concessions to go with the will of the community.”
Some 41 Courtland Park residents who live near the site have signed a petition opposing the project, and several of them came to the MDLUC meeting. Among their complaints: Traffic is already backed up on Washington Drive and the shopping center will make it worse, the buffer between houses and the shopping center parking lot isn’t deep enough, and a proposed CVS with a drive-through pharmacy will lead to increased traffic congestion.
Hall said had urged CVS to move the entrance to the drive-through for its pharmacy to the street (it’s now planned for the parking lot), and CVS refused, saying it doesn’t allow that kind of building design. Hall later learned that CVS does have an urban-style building that would be better suited to that site and vowed to write to the company and “express my outrage.”
The MDLUC voted to recommend that the Planning Commission approve an Afghan funeral chapel proposed for Braddock Road near the Backlick Road intersection if a county attorney agrees that the facility meets county and state legal requirements and if the development conditions agreed to by neighborhood residents and the Afghan Academy are incorporated into the proposal.
The Planning Commission had held a hearing on the proposal Dec. 3 but deferred a decision pending an opinion from the county attorney. At that hearing, Craig Blakeley argued the proposal conflicts with state law, which requires funeral chapels to have embalming facilities. The proposed chapel would not have embalming facilities as the Muslim faith bans embalming.
Local residents had concerns about traffic, parking, and pedestrians crossing Braddock Road and creating safety concerns, and the possibility that the building could be used for other purposes by members of the Mustafa Center across the street, as well as funeral services.
Spence Limbock, a representative of the Hillbrook-Tall Oaks Civic Association, said local residents and members of the Mustafa Center met three times to iron out their differences. The Afghan Academy is the parent organization for both the Mustafa Center and the proposed funeral chapel.
As a result of those negotiations, members of the Mustafa Center agreed to prohibit parking at the chapel when the building is closed, restrict the number of individuals in the chapel, and not use the building before or after the stated hours of operation.
Limbock said the mosque leadership also agreed to discourage mosque patrons from parking on residential streets and the nearby park, hire people to direct traffic during busy times, and ensure that drivers can only enter the chapel lot by making a right turn from Braddock and can only exit by turning right.
Kathleen McDermott, an attorney who lives near the chapel site questioned why the building would be twice as big as the mosque and suggested that because the mosque tends to overcrowded at busy times the mosque might shift some activities to the chapel building.
Sohaila Shekib, the engineer working on the facility for the Afghan Center, said that won’t happen because it wouldn’t be appropriate to hold meetings or other events at a funeral chapel. MDLUC member Steve Smith noted that if the mosque is overcrowded, that is a zoning violation and would have to be dealt with by the Department of Code Compliance, not the MDLUC.
The MDLUC didn’t take a position on the proposal to replace a vacant office building at 5600 Columbia Pike in Bailey’s Crossroads with an apartment building; the presentation was for information purposes only.
The “Gateway Plaza” project calls for a seven or eight-story building with about 500 multifamily units, said Bryan Foulger, development executive at Foulger-Pratt. About 30 percent of the units would have two bedrooms; the rest would be a mix of one-bedroom units and efficiencies. The existing five-level parking garage would remain. The 3.8-acre property is on the edge of Fairfax County, with a small part of the site in Arlington County.
The project is expected to be reviewed by the Bailey’s Crossroads/Seven Corners Redevelopment Corporation Dec. 16. A public hearing by the Fairfax County Planning Commission on a comprehensive plan amendment – needed to change the use of the property from office to residential – is expected to take place in February 2015. The Planning Commission could consider a rezoning proposal as early as April 2015.
The termination of the Columbia Pike streetcar won’t have a big impact on the project, Foulger said. Although he would have preferred the streetcar to go forward, “we never went into this thinking the streetcar is a sure thing.”
Kathleen McDermott, an attorney who lives near the chapel site questioned why the building would be twice as big as the mosque and suggested that because the mosque tends to overcrowded at busy times the mosque might shift some activities to the chapel building.
Sohaila Shekib, the engineer working on the facility for the Afghan Center, said that won’t happen because it wouldn’t be appropriate to hold meetings or other events at a funeral chapel. MDLUC member Steve Smith noted that if the mosque is overcrowded, that is a zoning violation and would have to be dealt with by the Department of Code Compliance, not the MDLUC.
The MDLUC didn’t take a position on the proposal to replace a vacant office building at 5600 Columbia Pike in Bailey’s Crossroads with an apartment building; the presentation was for information purposes only.
The “Gateway Plaza” project calls for a seven or eight-story building with about 500 multifamily units, said Bryan Foulger, development executive at Foulger-Pratt. About 30 percent of the units would have two bedrooms; the rest would be a mix of one-bedroom units and efficiencies. The existing five-level parking garage would remain. The 3.8-acre property is on the edge of Fairfax County, with a small part of the site in Arlington County.
The project is expected to be reviewed by the Bailey’s Crossroads/Seven Corners Redevelopment Corporation Dec. 16. A public hearing by the Fairfax County Planning Commission on a comprehensive plan amendment – needed to change the use of the property from office to residential – is expected to take place in February 2015. The Planning Commission could consider a rezoning proposal as early as April 2015.
The termination of the Columbia Pike streetcar won’t have a big impact on the project, Foulger said. Although he would have preferred the streetcar to go forward, “we never went into this thinking the streetcar is a sure thing.”