Council Prepares Request For Maple Ave Vision Consultant

Town officials plan to have their vision for Maple Avenue outlined for designers by the end of a month in a revised request for proposal they call clearer and more specific than documents they've developed in the past.

At a work session Monday, town council members attempted to make the last major changes to the way the vision, through the RFP, would take shape. The document will put more than a decade of discussions about redeveloping Vienna's main corridor in designers' hands.

Planning and Zoning Director Greg Hembree said the document, including revisions made by the council and planning staff during the session, would be sent for final council review Jan. 31.

Councilwoman Carey Sienicki drove a discussion Monday about more clearly defining costs, deliverables and the project's phases in the proposal to give firms or individuals a better idea of what the council is asking them to do.

"I may look at all those documents and have a vision but then you might look at it collect different kernels out of different parts ... so I think what needs to be done is, How do you go about coming abut finding a central focus so that everybody is on that same page?" Sienicki said. "[The RFP] right now doesn't specifically say what all the deliverables are ... You can go for decades but there’s a point at which you’re just coming up and reinventing the same document again and again and again."

"We wanted make sure the consultant, whoever that is, has an understanding of what you might be envisioning also," Hembree said.

Plans for a revitalized, more developed Maple Avenue began about a decade ago with a committee of seven members who spent years compiling early ideas about what Vienna's main strip should look like. But things sat "on idle" until a feasibility study was conducted around 2009. The town contracted local engineering firm Wiley Wilson to complete renderings based on some of those findings, The council used those drawings to articulate a vision it used to create drafts of a RFP in November and December.

The firm chosen through the process will, in part, determine if the town can create overlays to its existing zoning laws to accomplish the vision  — marked by a proposed 15 foot setback, maximum building height of 54 feet and green, walkable community space — or whether it will have to create entirely new ones. But it will also give the town a more defined, three-dimensional look at what's possible in the corridor now lined by several larger plazas littered with disconnected, small, independently-owned lots.

On Monday, Sienicki proposed drifting from the "boilerplate" request for proposals the town typically uses for other contracts to implement some aspects of the zoning implementation plan Loudoun County adopted for the Route 28 Corridor in 2011, a recent document which, though on a different scale, tries to accomplish many of the same goals, Sienicki said.

The RFP the council reviewed in December split the vision development process into four phases, the first of which would only entail creating a vision and defining the limitations of the study. Sienicki, who along with others argued that work has already been done, suggested collapsing the request into three phases and expanding the definitions within them.

In that scenario, creation of the plan would be fast-tracked to Phase One, including "an overlay district, incentives/proffers, setbacks, building height, and the location of the new Code within the current Code," Sienicki wrote in her suggestions. Phase Two would focus on public outreach and Phase Three would present the plan to the council, public and town boards and commissions.

The Council, upon Sienicki's recommendation, agreed it should assign an overarching timeframe for all the work it expects to be completed, assigning percentages of that amount of time to each phase so it can more precisely evaluate the consultant's performance.

Councilwoman Laurie DiRocco, who has said in the past she hoped 2012 would be the year the project begins to move forward, said she thought 16 months was a realistic time frame for all phases to be completed; Councilman Michael Polychrones said he would estimate about 20 months.

Councilwoman Laurie Cole said she understood Sienicki's proposed description of essential duties and responsibilities "a lot better ... than I was before," she said. "It gives a clearer picture and it also help us focus on what it is we want, which is part of this process. We're all going to be spinning our wheels if we don’t know what we’re asking for and the proposers don’t know what we’re asking for."

"When we're done ... we move from the box to the two-dimensional ordinance," Hembree said. "This project is super important to the town we want to do it correctly."

Proposed phases included in the most recent draft of the RFP are below. Phases as outlined last month _

Essential Duties and Responsibilities (taken from town documents).

Phase 1 Preliminary Document
o Explore: Look at an extensive array of conceptual graphic concepts

1. Explore through sketches of site plans, plans, elevations, planting schemes, and landscaping what configurations and arrangements might be appropriate to what is envisioned as the preferable outcome of the program.

o Explore: A series of zoning and code vehicles to support the above possibilities.

1. Identify the various options, such height, bulk plane, incentives/proffers, setbacks, uses, motor vehicle and bicycle parking, FAR, and overlay districts.

o Create: The final concept graphics embodying the distillation of the refined
preliminary concepts explored above.

1. Types of presentation should be chosen. Options include, but are not limited to the following: rendered plans and site plans, planting schemes, hardscape considerations, lighting considerations, perspectives, models, diagrams, and abstractions.

o Create: The final codification supporting the agreed upon design direction.

1. The decision would be made at this point as to what mechanism would be utilized to support the envisioned outcome. It would involve settling on, for example, an overlay district, incentives/proffers, setbacks, building height, and the location of the new Code within the current Code.

Phase 2: Public Feedback and Final Document

o Discussion: Open up the project to the various Town boards and commissions, and the citizens.

1. Incorporate suggestion into the proposed Code.

• Refine: Ready all documents for collation into final document.

o Create: Final document/Code

Phase 3: Present Final and Conformation
o Present: Present the final document/Code to the public and the various Boards and Commissions.
o Vote: Town Council Approval and Codification
o Provide Post Final Conformed