Public Hearing on South Grant Development Tonight

The Manassas City Council will hold a public hearing at the end of its reguarly- scheduled meeting this evening, regarding the development of townhouses at the corner of South Grant Avenue and Orchard Lane.

The hearing is in response to an application from land owners, BLP Trust to rezone approximately 1.467 acres  from single family residential land use to city center transitional use for the purpose of building a maximum of 14 townhouses on the site, according to city documents. 

The site is located at 9910 South Grant Avenue and is flanked by retail to its north and west and single family homes to the east and south.

The rezoning application is part of a court-ordered settlement of prior rezoning, according to city documents. The site was originally rezoned for commercial, which included a 13,500 sq.ft. commercial center.  This rezoning, however, was initially denied by council.

But a settlement between the city and land owner, BLP Trust resulted in the rezoning of the north and west  portions of the property to general commercial and neighborhood commercial land use to include a Walgreens and bank site. The balance of the property, which is the subject of today's hearing, remained zoned for single family residential with the requirement that a rezoning application for twnhouses be submitted, city documents state.

 Monetary contributions to the city as proposed with the rezoning ordinance meet the amounts recommended in the city's proffer policy as of Dec. 2011, bringing in $15,480 per unit for city schools. Proffers are provided across all four areas of impact: schools, transportation, public safety and parks.

Monetary contributions for 12 units would total over $360,000, or over $25,000 per unit, city documents show. 

The city council is expected to continue tonight's public hearing to a Feb. 13 meeting, when action on the item is expected as well.

Community Design

The townhouses are proposed with a maximum of 45 feet in height (3 stories). This allows the units/neighborhoood to serve as a buffer between the single family homes on the south side of Orchard Lane and the commercial development north of the site, while also blending in with existing single family homes.

BLP Trust proposes a combination of brick, stone and Hardi-plank townhouses. Also proffered is a variety of setbacks to break up the front elevation of each group of townhouses. This will help the appearance of the attached units look like a collection of individual units.

Units will be set back from the public street curb a minimum of 20 feet and a maximum of 25 feet. This provides a front yard approximately 15 to 20 feet in depth between the front of the units and the public sidewalk and will allow the development to blend in better with surrounding single family houses.

Traffic

 Parking spaces will be provided per the zoning ordinance in the form of 14 driveway spaces, 14 garage spaces and 12 surface lot spaces. Parking is located to the rear of the units to limit the visual impacts of the project.

The plan provides one access point to the site: an eastern entrance off South Grant Avenue. This design separates the commercial traffic to the west of the site, from the residential traffic. Traffic would access the site via Dumfries Road at the existing traffic signal at Orchard Lane.

The rezoning of the property to residential will also significantly cut back the amount of additional traffic  in the area.

According to city documents, the original rezoning of the site to commercial in 2005 would have generated a total of 1,843  trips to the area—a 106 percent increase to traffic. The current rezoning ordinace of residential is estimated to result in 82 total trips at only a 5 percent increase in traffic. 

Read the full public hearing agenda.