Tag: John Foote

City of Manassas Park Approves Village at Manassas Park Rezoning

Posted on by Brigitte Flores

On October 20, 2020, the City of Manassas Park Governing Body approved the last element of a major rezoning application for the Village at Manassas Park that will provide the missing link to the City’s long envisioned downtown area, and that will completely transform the City’s center. Construction is set to begin in the early Spring of 2021.

On November 20, 2019, Norton Scott, through its subsidiary Village at Manassas Park, LLC, submitted an unsolicited proposal under Virginia’s Public-Private Education Facilities and Infrastructure Act of 2002 for the development of a substantial portion of downtown. The proposal included a New City Hall with governmental and administrative offices and a public library, a public plaza, a 6,500 square foot commercial/retail building, a 40,678 square foot entertainment/retail anchor, with an additional 3,600 square feet of in-line ground retail/restaurant space and 36,828 square feet of commercial offices, and 300 two-over-two townhomes. The Virginia Railway Express will construct a new 600 plus space structured parking garage, on land purchased by Norton Scott and provided to the City, to serve the relocated VRE station. The site will be owned variously by the City, the VRE, and Norton Scott.

The property is located in the City Center Redevelopment District and the goals set out in the City’s Comprehensive Plan will be significantly advanced by the addition of the desired mix of uses – civic, entertainment, commercial recreation, parking, and housing which fulfills the City’s long held plans for the revitalization of the City Center. The project incorporates a unique design that will create a City Plaza and a center based on an anchor business that is anticipated to focus on entertainment. Thanks to the level of cooperation between the City and Norton Scott, with the City particularly well represented by City Manager Laszlo Palko and City Attorney Dean Crowhurst, the project is designed as a cohesive and integrated community on 22 ½ acres, that will bring life and activity to the City Hall area with entertainment, restaurants, retail, and residents immediately adjacent to the new VRE Garage. Buildings will feature differing heights, pleasing design, and a lively streetscape to enhance and accommodate the increased density envisioned in the Comprehensive Plan. The proposal is multi-modal, and encourages pedestrian and bicycle traffic.

On June 16, 2020, the Governing Body approved a PPEA Comprehensive Development Agreement between itself and Norton Scott, and the rezoning of the first Phase of the project that will consist of the New City Hall Building, public Plaza, the VRE garage, the retail/commercial building and up to 164 two-over-two townhomes. The October 20th rezoning approved the second Phase, which will following immediately upon the first, and will consist of the entertainment/retail anchor with an additional 3 in-line ground floor retail/restaurant spaces and the commercial office space. The remaining two-over-two townhomes will be completed.

In a unique land use twist, the first Phase of the Rezoning was City-initiated and unproffered, as part of the Comprehensive Agreement’s financing component. That Agreement required Norton Scott to reach back and impose blanket proffers on the entire project with the second Phase rezoning.

The land use and zoning team of John Foote and Jonelle Cameron assisted Norton Scott and its team of superb consultants through the complex Public Private Partnership, the Comprehensive Agreement, and the ultimate approval of the proposal.

 

Image Sources
Top Image – David, Carter, Scott, Ltd.
Bottom Image – Land Design Consultants, Inc.

Town of Warrenton Approves Poet’s Walk Memory Care Facility

Posted on by John Foote

Contributing Authors: Jessica Pfeiffer and Christine Gleckner

Picture
Source: Photo courtesy of Silver Companies

Shareholder John Foote and Land Use Planner Jessica Pfeiffer recently worked with Silver Companies on a successful rezoning and special use permit for a new memory care facility in the Town of Warrenton. The applications received final approval by the Town Council in September 2015.

The facility, which will be located on the east side of Blackwell Road, north of the Route 17 Spur, and immediately south of the boundary between the Town and Fauquier County, will consist of 37,500 square feet and have approximately 60 beds. The facility will employ approximately 55 highly trained employees and provide state-of-the-art care.

A memory care facility is a specialized form of assisted living facility exclusively for residents with Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and other forms of dementia and mental impairment. The Silver Companies is aware that 5.5 million people have already been diagnosed with a memory care illness, and the Alzheimer’s Association is predicting that number will double over the next 20 years.

Other Poet’s Walk locations in Spotsylvania, Fredericksburg, and Loudoun Counties are either open or under construction. Land Use Planner Christine Gleckner recently obtained zoning approvals for a 168-bed facility in the Oaklawn mixed-use development in the Town of Leesburg, and Land Use Planner Bill Keefe is currently assisting Silver Companies to gain legislative land use approvals for a Poet’s Walk facility in Loudoun County’s Lansdowne planned community.

Takings & Raisins

Posted on by John Foote
Source: Carl Davies, CSIRO
Source: Carl Davies, CSIRO

On June 22, in one of its last opinions of the 2015 term, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a decision in Horne v. Department of Agriculture. This case has to do with what are called per se takings in the form of actual physical acquisition of property as opposed to regulatory exactions. The case, involving raisins of all things, has the potential to affect matters like affordable housing ordinances (to the extent that statute or ordinance requires that a developer either pay for, or actually provide, such affordable housing at prices that do not recover the costs of construction). At the very least, it will lead to further litigation regarding such topics.

It appears that the New Deal Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act of 1937 authorizes the Secretary of Agriculture to promulgate marketing orders to help maintain stable markets for particular agricultural products. The Raisin Administrative Committee (!) established to impose a reserve requirement that growers set aside a certain percentage of their raisins for the account of the government free of charge is such a marketing order. The Act allows the government to make use of those raisins by selling them in noncompetitive markets, donating them, or disposing of them by any means consistent with the purposes of the program—including destroying them. If any profits are left over after subtracting the government’s expenses, the net proceeds are redistributed to the raisin growers. In 2002–03, raisin growers were required to set aside 47 percent of their raisin crop under the reserve requirement and between 2003 and 2004, 30 percent.

In Horne v. Department of Agriculture, raisin growers Mr. and Mrs. Marvin Horne and their family refused to set aside any raisins for the government on the grounds that the reserve requirement was an unconstitutional taking of their property without just compensation. The government fined them the fair market value of their reserve requirement as well as additional civil penalties for their failure to obey the raisin marketing order.

The Hornes sued and the Ninth Circuit held that the reserve requirement was not a per se Fifth Amendment taking because personal property is afforded less protection under the Takings Clause than real property, and because the Hornes, who retained an interest in any net proceeds, were not completely divested of their property. The Court of Appeals held that, just as in cases allowing the government to set conditions on land use and development, the government imposed a condition (the reserve requirement) in exchange for a government benefit (an orderly raisin market). It held that the Hornes could avoid relinquishing large percentages of their crop by “planting different crops.”

The Supreme Court reversed, holding that the Fifth Amendment requires the government pay just compensation when it takes personal property, exactly as when it takes real property. Any net proceeds the raisin growers receive from the sale of the reserve raisins only goes toward the compensation they received for that taking—it does not mean the raisins have not been appropriated for government use. Nor can the government make raisin growers relinquish their property without just compensation as a condition of selling their raisins in interstate commerce.

The decision and the salient elements of the opinion are available here.