By Brian Trompeter
Stephen Kenney, a member of the Vienna Planning Commission, has been presented with the 2024 Chandler Award for Citizen Planner of the Year by the Virginia chapter of the American Planning Association (APA Virginia).
The award honors an outstanding Planning Commission or individual member for serving as an example for all citizen-planners by being dedicated, objective, open, moral, balanced and knowledgeable of Virginia’s planning framework.
Kenney is a longtime Vienna resident and a principal and practicing architect with RV Architects PC. He has been a member of the Planning Commission for a decade, including three years as chair.
During his years on the Planning Commission, Kenney made significant contributions to the drafting of a major update to the town’s comprehensive plan, APA Virginia said in announcing the award. He also was involved actively in the comprehensive update to the town’s zoning and subdivision ordinance, “demonstrating great energy, attention to detail, care for the community and fairness,” the organization said.
“Mr. Kenney’s meticulous and thoughtful approach to his role as a commissioner has greatly enhanced the overall professionalism of the commission,” APA Virginia noted.
Vienna Mayor Linda Colbert was among those nominating Kenney for the award.
“As mayor, I seek his advice regularly and appreciate talking through issues and concerns with him,” she said. “His experience, insight and professional knowledge always help give me a better understanding.”
Kenney was honored July 23 at APA Virginia’s annual awards ceremony, held in Williamsburg.
Town Body Approves Daycare: Vienna Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA) members on July 17 unanimously granted a conditional-use permit for a family daycare serving up to 12 children at 430 Old Courthouse Road, N.E.
The application “responds to an important need in our community for a family day home,” BZA member Robert Petersen said. “We’ve seen this over and over that the community has a real need for these types of facilities.”
Happy Hive Daycare LLC will operate the facility out of an existing 4,006-square-foot single-family detached house at the 0.3-acre site. Children using the home likely will range between 2 months and 6 years old, applicant Bahareh Ranjbar said.
Ranjbar already operates a home business there that serves up to four children, and will need to obtain state licensure to provide services to five or more children.
The facility will be operated in about 1,562 square feet of the house’s basement and people will be able to access that area via the back of the home and occasionally the front door or garage.
The home will be operated out of the applicant’s principal residence, as required by town code. The facility will be open Mondays through Fridays from 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and only one non-resident will be employed there.
The BZA’s approval required the business to fence in the house’s rear-yard recreational area. Ranjbar said the project already is in the works and the wooden picket fence likely would be installed by July 19.
The BZA’s motion also stipulated that people dropping off children or picking them up must park on the south side of the street, where the house is located.
“I don’t think we want people crossing Old Courthouse Road,” said BZA member George Creed. “There’s an awful lot of traffic. I think it presents a real safety condition.”
Town Council OKs New Contracts: The Vienna Town Council on July 8 unanimously approved a raft of municipal contracts ranging from police software and pavement work to environmental services and vehicle tires.
The contracts included:
• Up to $102,425 to Tyler Technologies in a sole-source agreement to maintain software for the Vienna Police Department’s computer-aided-dispatch, law-enforcement records management and mobile-data systems.
• $1.5 million to Sagres Construction Corp. (primary vendor) and A&M Concrete Corp. (secondary vendor) to provide on-call roadway maintenance in fiscal 2025. Among the companies’ tasks will include working on curb-and-gutter, sidewalk, trails, storm and sanitary sewers, water lines, paving, pavement milling, silt removal, retaining walls, under drains, seeding, sodding and storm-drainage channels.
• $200,000 to Resurface Inc. to perform recurring pavement-marking work on an as-needed basis.
• $200,000 to WSP USA Environment & Infrastructure Inc. for on-call environmental professional services.
The Council also agreed to ride these contracts negotiated by other jurisdictions:
• Using a Rockville contract, Vienna will buy $140,000 worth of utility-marking work from Pinpoint Underground.
• Riding a Fairfax County contract, the town will purchase $75,000 worth of tires from Service Tire Truck Center.
