Planning Commission Meeting   3/2/2021

Hi, Jeff, I just wanna make sure my audio is working okay.

Can you hear us?

Okay, perfect, thanks.

Yes, everything's all right.

He stepped out for a moment, so I didn't want to answer for him.

Thank you.

Can I help you, Anthony?

Nothing yet.

OK.

Good evening.

This is the Planning Commission meeting, March 2nd, 2021, 6 p.m.

electronic meeting.

This meeting is being held pursuant to and in compliance with ordinance number 20-A-16, an ordinance to ensure the continuity of the government during the COVID-19 disaster.

Mr. Bailey?

Present Mr. Randolph Present Mr. Bailey Present Ms.

Firehock Here Mr. Bivins Present

Ms.

Moore.

Present.

Here.

And Mr. Keller.

Mr. Keller is absent tonight.

Thank you very much.

Are there matters of

Hearing none, we have nothing on our consent agenda this evening, so moving straight into our... Moving into our... You won't believe this, but I printed the wrong agenda.

I'm in a bit of a pickle, because the agenda I have is from

Give me a second, I can think of that.

Mr. Chairman, I'm sorry to interrupt if I might.

Oh, I proposed.

Thank you.

That's why I don't have to.

Actually, no, I think maybe it is why.

You know what?

Thank you, Councillor.

I didn't have the wrong agenda.

I just wrote over the fact that we weren't going to do that tonight, so I was going to the main event.

It still requires a vote on the deferral.

I absolutely appreciate that.

to defer this.

Is there any information that needs to be known besides other than that?

Mr. Rapp.

We haven't gotten a motion yet.

Is there any additional information which we need to know?

No.

Okay.

Motion 2.

Okay, go ahead Corey.

Excuse me?

I'll second Corey's motion.

Mr. Bailey.

Ms.

Aye.

Yes.

Ms.

Firehock.

Yes.

Ms.

Moore?

Aye.

So if you would let the applicant know that the request for deferral has been accepted.

Now, moving on to our public hearing for this evening.

which was actually on the piece of paper I had in front of me.

It was just underneath this other one.

Public hearing for ZMA 2020-00007 RST Residences.

Good evening, everyone.

Before I get started, can everyone see my PowerPoint and hear me fine?

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Good evening.

My name is Andy Brattleback, and I am a senior planner with Albemarle County Planning Division.

And we are here tonight for a public hearing for a rezoning request.

Application number is EMA-2020-00007, titled RST Residences.

So to give you a brief overview of the location of the property that is the subject of this rezoning request, here's an aerial map with a site in the middle there.

It is two separate parcels right along Route 29 at the northeast corner of the intersection of Ashwood Boulevard and US Route 29.

To the east and northeast are the areas of the Forest Lakes neighborhood.

And then near the eastern side of this aerial photo, you can see Sutherland Middle School and Howie Mead Elementary School, which are two of the local schools that this property is within the district of.

And then at the bottom of this photo is the Brookhill development, and it is currently under construction.

This is another aerial view of the site which is more zoomed in.

You can see it's right there at the northeast corner of Ashwood and Route 29.

The Ashland Town Homes section of Forest Lakes neighborhood is directly to the southeast of the property.

There are forested properties to the north and then

as well as communications towers adjacent to Bergmar Drive, which is in the top left corner of this picture.

And then for those of you who are driving along, 29 is kind of a street view of the site.

One of the parcels of this project is this motel just north of the Ashwood intersection.

So a brief overview of the proposal before us this evening.

As I said, it consists of two parcels, a tax map parcels with 6-108.

The existing uses on these properties include, as I mentioned previously, there is also the Ridgewood mobile home community on TMP 46-109 and there is a small historic cemetery also located on parcel 109.

The applicant is requesting to rezone this property to PRD planned residential development to allow for a maximum of 370 residential units.

And then also tonight we'll hear about an associated special exception request that the applicant has submitted to modify the step back requirements for buildings over three stories or 40 feet tall, whichever is less.

So as an overview of the zoning of this site and the nearby sites, the current zoning of this property is R1 residential, which allows one dwelling unit per acre.

And as I mentioned, the applicant is requesting PRD, planned residential development, which allows up to 35 units per acre.

By right with R1, the current R1 zoning is

The applicant would be allowed to construct up to 19 dwelling units with the possible addition of more units based on bonus factors up to 50%.

And that would depend on how those bonus factors work.

Some do require discretionary approval, but at 50%

based on bonus factors.

The overlay zoning districts along this property include the entrance corridor overlay

to Route 29, the Airport Impact Overlay District, and there are areas of both managed and preserved steep slopes on the property.

Looking at the nearby existing zoning of other properties, to the north on those Forster properties, they are also zoned R1.

To the west across Route 29, the properties are zoned RA or rural areas.

Surrounding a lot of the site, the Forest Lakes neighborhood is in PUD planned unit development.

And then as I mentioned, the Brookhill development, which is currently under construction, and it's just slightly to the south of the subject property is sewn in empty neighborhood model district.

Regarding the comprehensive plan for this area, the subject property is within the community of Holly Mead of the Places Twenty

and there are two land use designations on the property.

Urban density residential which is the orange color and the private land open space which is the dark green color and the private land open space on the subject property is really just a narrow strip along the Route 29 frontage so it may be a little difficult to see on this map.

Other

Land use designations for the surrounding areas are additional areas of privately owned open space that largely follow either existing open space or environmental features such as stream buffers.

neighborhood density residential, including the Brookhill property in areas of the Forest Lake neighborhood.

The Ashland townhomes to the Southeast is also designated as urban density residential.

There's one property designated as institutional right across Ashwood Boulevard from the site at the Southeast intersection of Ashwood and Route 29.

And then to the West across Route 29 are properties designated rural areas.

So to go into more specifics of this proposal, the applicant is requesting a maximum of 370 dwelling units.

However, what is being currently proposed with the application plan is 362 dwelling units, which includes 254 multifamily apartments and 108 two-over-two style townhouse units.

So it would be a two-story townhouse on top of a

that those are intended to be sold as condominium units, whereas the multifamily apartments are intended to be rental units.

The gross density of this site is 18.97 units per acre, which falls roughly in the middle of the recommended density for urban density residential, which is 6.01 to 34 units per acre.

And the net density of the site, which removes

to 19.89 units per acre.

So approximately one unit more, but still well within the range of the urban density residential land use designation.

The applicant is proposing 4.88 acres of open space and recreational amenities on the site, which is 25% of the site and does meet the requirement of a 25% minimum of open space for planned residential development.

The applicant is proposing 50% of the units to be affordable housing, which is more than what is recommended in the comprehensive plan in the housing chapter of the comprehensive plan, which is 15%.

The applicant is proposing buildings of between three and five stories tall as depicted on the application plan.

And in the urban density residential land use designation in places 29 for residential buildings,

Four stories is the maximum recommended.

And so there are two buildings in the center of the property or two wings of one building kind of in an L shape that are depicted as five stories.

So that would be more than what is recommended in the master plan.

And then as I mentioned previously, the applicant is requesting a special exception for modifying the requirements for step backs for those buildings over

to eliminate the required 15 foot step back.

This is a view of the application plan that the applicant has provided showing the upper areas, which are the kind of orange hatched areas around the perimeter.

There's a proposed 100 foot forested buffer along Route 29, which the bottom of the screen is to the west,

The photo is north, just to help orient everybody.

The kind of burgundy colored squares and rectangles are the proposed buildings.

The four to the bottom and in the center of the screen are proposed to be the rental apartment units.

And then the five burgundy blocks at the top of the screen are proposed to be the two over two townhouse units.

The gray dashed lines show the proposed circulation within the site.

The green hatched areas are areas of proposed open space and recreational areas.

And then you can see down at the bottom of the screen is the location of the cemetery as well.

And the applicant is proposing a sidewalk or pedestrian path

to provide access to the cemetery.

And then the areas of gray that are kind of finger-like are the areas of preserved steep slopes and the applicant is not proposing to disturb those slopes during

And this slide shows you just a conceptual layout of the development based on the application plan shown in the previous slide, showing a little bit more detail on the residential buildings, on where the parking spaces and parking envelopes would be located, and where the open space and recreational areas would be located, including lots for asphalt recreational areas.

The applicant is

indicated that a pool is a potential amenity area there in the center triangular area of the development, a dog park along the eastern property line, which is kind of near the top of this depiction.

And then some of the proposed stormwater management areas you can see kind of in the very top along the northeast corner of the property, which is the kind of a narrow green rectangle.

One aspect of this development that I did want to highlight is the affordable housing.

The applicant is proposing at least 50% of the total number of dwelling units to be affordable.

So that would be 185 units maximum based on the applicant's request for 370 units.

However, as the applicant is proposing 362 units, that would come out to 180 units.

The applicant is proposing that those units could be for sale, for rent, or a combination of both at the owner's discretion.

And the terms of the affordable housing are provided on the cover sheet of the application plan in the lower right-hand corner.

And just a few highlights of the terms is that the affordable housing would be available to individuals making 80% of the area median income for the Charlottesville area.

For the for sale units, the applicant would provide the county a period of 90 days to identify eligible purchasers.

In that 90 day period would commence upon written notice to the county from the applicant that the units will be available for sale and the notice shall not be more than 60 days prior to receiving

For the for rent units, the affordable housing rentals would be affordable for 10 years following the issuance of SEO, a certificate of occupancy.

Regarding access and circulation to this site, there are two proposed entrances into the site.

And then the only full movement entrance into the site would be at the southern end of the property on Ashwood Boulevard.

And this proposed entrance is opposite Archer Avenue, which has not been constructed yet, but is proposed as one of the major north-south roads through the Bork Hill development and would ultimately connect up to Ashwood Boulevard.

The applicant is proposing that all of the internal roadways of this development be private.

However, three of the roadways, travelways A and B, is designated on the application plan, as well as private roads team would have public access

to use those roads.

So one private road which would be constructed to private road standard is Road C and that is the one that goes north from the Ashwood entrance to the northern property line.

It is roughly parallel to Route 29 and the applicant is proposing an easement near the northern property line for future extension of this road.

if the properties to the north were developed.

The other roads in the development are designated as travelways for internal movement through the apartment and condominium complexes.

And the applicant is also proposing internal sidewalks and pedestrian paths throughout the development along both sides of most of the travelways and private road C, as well as a sidewalk or pedestrian path parallel to Ashwood Boulevard.

One item that I did want to bring up as it has been an issue of concern is Text Map Parcel 46B5-1D.

And this is a newer piece of property that is located between the applicant's property and the Ashwood Boulevard right of way.

It is property that is currently owned by the Commonwealth of Virginia that had been

acquired as part of the Route 29 improvements.

The proposed project entrance off of Ashwood would cross this property.

And so after conversations with staff, the applicant did provide a letter written by VDOT, which is included in the staff report as attachment eight, outlining the process for converting this piece of property into public right of way.

And so I did just want to mention that

It is not public right of way at this moment, but it is according to VDOT, there is a route to convert it to right of way.

And so as this project moves forward, and if the rezoning were to be approved by the board, it would require further action by the property owner in VDOT and follow up by the county to finalize that access.

This is a chart showing impacts to the schools in the area.

This property is within the school districts for Albemarle High School, Sutherland Middle School, and Halimeda Elementary School.

The column on the left shows the enrollment capacity for the 2019-2020 school year, where Halimeda and Sutherland were both under capacity and Albemarle High School was already over capacity.

The middle column enrollment capacity is the projected enrollment capacity for the 2029-2030 school year based on the school system's numbers and this would not include this development's proposed generation of students.

So Albemarle High School would be over capacity, Sutherland Middle School

And the numbers in the second to right column are the projected number of students generated by RST based on the calculations provided by the school system that they use.

So RST would be expected to generate approximately 47 elementary school students, 15 middle school and 22 high school students.

So if those students were to be generated as expected, then Hollymede Elementary would become over capacity as you can see by about four students over.

And then Sutherland Middle School would be over capacity based on the 2029-2030 projections and Albemarle High School would also remain over capacity.

So this is a list of the factors favorable to this request.

As I mentioned, the request is consistent with the uses and density recommended by the Places 29 Master Plan, including as a residential use with a mix of housing types and density that does lay within the range of 1601 to 34 units per acre.

which is more than 15% minimum recommended by the comprehensive plan.

The request proposes to provide additional pedestrian connections in the area including parallel to Ashwood Boulevard connecting to the existing multi-use path that is along Route 29.

And the request does at least partially address the 12 neighborhood model principles which are included in the staff report as attachment number five.

Factors unfavorable to this request is that the proposed development would result in additional student enrollment at area schools, including Albemarle High School, which, as I mentioned in the previous slide, is already over-compassing and would contribute to the other schools in London, how we need as well, reaching near or over-capacity by the 2029-2038 school year.

The proposed height of some of the buildings is inconsistent with the recommendations of the MASS Places 29 master plan, which as I said, recommends a maximum of four stories for residential buildings in the urban density residential designation.

Number three, although the minimum amount of open space has been provided, the intent of the PRD zoning district is identified in the zoning ordinance recommend an improved level of

and that cannot be analyzed at this time with the information currently available.

Andy, Andy.

Let me pause you there for a second.

We're having some some some sound issues.

And so we're going to ask to sort of straighten that out and look towards Charles to see if we can, if this needs to take place now or you want to keep moving.

Yeah, I think we really have one more slide at this point, but it's something I think we need to address.

I'm going to ask the PC members to

Okay, can everyone hear me?

Okay, so we are at the staff recommendations.

So based on the previous factors, favorable and unfavorable, that I listed in the previous slides, at this time, staff is unable to recommend approval of SCMA 2020-7 RST residences.

In addition, staff is unable to recommend approval of the special

for the special exception request SE 2020-3 RST Residences, which is to modify the requirements for a step back of 15 feet for each story that exceeds 40 feet or three stories, whichever is less.

These are the suggested motions for the rezoning request and the special exception request when we get to that time of the meeting this evening.

And I am available for any questions now

the public comment period.

Thank you, Andy.

As soon as I get the screen back, then I can see everyone to see who has questions for Andy at this point, but I can't see everyone as of yet.

So let's do this.

Do you want to share that part of your, ah, thank you, I gotta revive that.

So who has questions for Andy at this point before we move forward?

I see Karen and anyone else?

Karen and Luis.

Thank you.

Andy, I'm wondering if you could elaborate a little bit on the lack of specificity in the open space amenities.

You said that the developer, applicant rather, did meet the minimum standards, but could you elaborate again a little bit on in what ways the information was not sufficient?

Yes.

So as I mentioned, the applicant does meet the minimum 25% open space requirement for the PRD.

However, in the zoning ordinance for the planned residential development, it is the intent that PRD have an improved level of amenities.

And so there are areas

in the trend-only application plan that do meet the minimum square footage, which would equal out to 4.88 acres in areas for the required number of tot lots and basketball courts, that sort of thing.

However, as I mentioned, a substitution request identifying additional amenities or that sort of thing that would be over and above what is

recommended has not been provided.

Thank you.

You mentioned the historic cemetery.

Not that I know of.

Do you know if there's been any archaeology performed to properly identify the boundaries of that cemetery?

I am not aware of that.

Anyone else?

Anyone else have a question for Jenny?

And so starting with Jenny, and then perhaps others.

It would be for the five structures of the two over two townhouse units, which are four stories, as well as the two wings of the central L-shaped apartment building, which is shown as five stories tall.

And then the other three apartment buildings are proposed to only be three stories, so they would not need the step back.

Good evening, Mr. Chairman and members of the Commission.

I'm Valerie Long, here representing the applicant and the owner of the property, RST Development.

We have a number of representatives of our project team here tonight.

I'll give them each a quick introduction so you know who's here and we can draw on their expertise as needed.

First, we have Scott Copeland with RST Development.

Also Alex Mayes with RST.

We have Carl Holtgren, who is with Ramey Kemp and Associates, our traffic engineers.

We have Ryan Yaugher with Bowler Engineering, civil engineer.

We also have architects from LAS Architects, Neil King and Scott O'Brien.

And also my colleague Charlie Aldis is with me.

So we look forward to talking with you about this.

I'm going to go ahead and share my screen.

All right, hopefully everyone can see the blue screen.

Great.

I'm going to move people around a little bit so I can

See everyone and hopefully try to look the right way most of the time.

First, I wanna introduce a little bit about RST Residences, RST Development.

This is their first project in Albemarle County.

It is a family owned business.

Scott and his brother Todd and his father are the RSMT of RST Development.

They've been developing affordable housing projects all up and down the East Coast for several decades.

This is their first community in Charlottesville and we're really excited to have been working with them over the past year.

I know that Mr. Reidelbach showed you where the property is and it's pretty clear as he's noted it's been a trailer park and old motel for many years.

As you can see just while I have this image up, a number of those residences were located very close to the property line.

I know that's a question that's going to come up later so I wanted to mention that.

You've seen the zoning already, it's R1 zoning.

We also have the relevant portions of the Places 29 master plan showing that the property is designated for urban density residential.

This is a different vantage point, so it's turned around.

Route 29 is in this location and you can see the lime green areas that are somewhat onsite as well as offsite.

Those are preserved steep slopes, which are not to be touched except for certain exceptions.

I want to start right off with the affordable housing commitment we have made with Mr. Copeland's permission.

He has agreed to make some enhancements to the affordable housing commitment.

He's been planning to make these all along.

Again, his primary business is affordable housing.

From the very beginning, we had hoped that this project would stand on its own.

And we continue to feel very confident and adamant that this project satisfies all the county requirements, including all of the neighborhood model principles and certainly merits your support, even if it only had the bare minimum requirement for 15% affordable housing with a 10 year affordable term for rental properties and 80% AMI affordability.

A few weeks ago, we updated our proposal a few months ago to provide that instead of just 15%, that 50, half the units would be affordable to those making up to 80%.

Again, RSTs always been planning to do much more significant affordable housing, but there are a lot of variables involved in the project one.

We need to make sure that the other elements of the project are approved.

but also it's subject to underwriting.

State low income housing tax credits are going to be involved.

So we were hesitant to make too much commitment.

We also were a little hesitant to, frankly, get out in front of the community about what we were able to do.

some of the questions that we've received in just the last few days.

RST asked that we go ahead and make it clear to all of you that they've enhanced the affordable component substantially.

And as a result, we can commit tonight that 75% of all of the apartments on site will be affordable.

It's a minimum of 190 units.

The affordability range would be from between 30%

and 80% of the area median income with an average of at least 60%.

And the affordable term would be for 30 years.

Just a quick summary.

There's also, as Mr. Reidelbach noted, there's townhomes in the backside of the property.

That's 108 units.

They're condominiums.

They would be proposed, at least right now, they're being built just down the street, half a mile away at Brookville.

They're selling like hotcakes, and they're selling for under $300,000.

So if that can continue, those units would meet the county's affordability requirement of 80% of AMI.

And then again, when you combine those with the 254 rental units, 75% of those would be affordable for 30 years at an average AMI of 60%.

You saw the pictures already of the existing mobile home park in the community and you've got your bearings I think about you as to where it's located.

This is a colored version of our conceptual plan.

These are the two over two townhouses in the back, the apartments.

I'm going to talk a lot about these two buildings.

This is the cemetery.

Mr. Saranzo, we did have this surveyed prior to submitting any applications.

So the rectangular areas around those are the surveyed boundaries of the cemetery per an old plot that was of record.

So right now there's no fence involved, but as part of the project, they would fence that area and also provide a path for any family members or other visitors to that cemetery to keep it available.

The area in orange around the boundaries is a natural buffer that would be left in place as much as possible, except where you might need to have utilities come through.

It's 20 feet on three sides.

It's 100 feet wide along the Route 29 frontage, which is a recommendation of the Places 29 Master Plan.

The area in yellow is currently part of the VDOT parcel.

Right now, the area in yellow and the area in blue are a single tax map parcel owned by VDOT.

We've been working very, very closely with their right-of-way team and with Adam Moore locally, who've been incredibly helpful in helping to ensure that the connection that would be made across Ashwood Boulevard and align with the future Archer

Avenue will be made.

As part of our site plan review, this area in yellow would be added to VDOT's right-of-way inventory, which would then allow the connection to be made at that time.

This area in blue would remain owned by VDOT and I believe they have plans to market that for sale.

There are also a number of amenity areas as was discussed here.

There's a central pool amenity area, some recreational areas, another tot lot over here.

I'll go ahead and touch on a few of those issues raised in the stock report.

With regard to the amenity areas,

At the rezoning stage, the only requirement is that applicants demonstrate that it's reasonably possible that they will be able to satisfy the amenity requirements at come site plan stage.

So as staff indicated, we do demonstrate that we can achieve those amenity requirements.

At the site plan stage is when it is typical to submit a substitution request officially.

That's when we've always done it.

We think that the amenities are well spaced in this location.

Most importantly, the swimming pool and other amenity areas is dead center in the community.

So we think that's the best location for that so that it's centrally available and located to everyone.

Some of the other amenities are spread out, one so that they can be spread out and some are closer to others, but also because the buildings are set back as far as we could from the adjacent property lines.

So because they're not buildings in these locations, it was a good place, we thought, to locate amenities.

and again over here we have a tot lot that's a little bit closer to these areas.

Regarding the sidewalk or the retaining wall here, first there is a sidewalk along this entire area.

Pedestrians will be able to access the swimming pool from all sides of the area.

If this retaining wall were not here, there would need to be a fence there anyway for both safety, security and also noise reduction.

It's a bit of a zoomed in view.

I can skip over some of these.

I'm happy to come back, obviously, and use these to answer any questions that you may have, but I'm cognizant of my time.

These are the townhouses here.

I have a slide coming up that shows the distances that these buildings are set back.

These buildings here are set back 112 feet.

This is about 78 feet, and I believe this one's in the range of 87 feet.

So we worked really hard to have those buildings be set back as far as we could from the adjacent neighborhood and at Four Stories we have some slides that will show you that they do not create an adverse impact on those adjacent neighbors.

This is an image showing just the pedestrian connections throughout the community.

We've added sidewalks every single place that staff has suggested if we did not have them already, including, I don't think it was highlighted as much in the staff report, this component of the sidewalk along Ashwood is through the VDOT right-of-way.

So that's an offsite sidewalk that the applicant has requested to make.

We'll talk more about that later.

With regard to the green space, this is the combination of the amenity areas that preserve steep slopes.

We're not touching those steep slopes.

In fact, we're staying five feet back from them.

And then other green space that will remain on site, including the buffer areas.

This is the concept plan.

You've seen this.

OK.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Other questions for the applicants?

Hi Valerie, thank you for the presentation.

One of the concerns that I have is regarding the mobile home community that's existing.

Could you guys talk a little bit more about the plans on how to handle that so you're not displacing folks and some of those key points in that plan and the timetable?

Absolutely.

I appreciate you asking that question.

A couple of things.

One, from the very beginning, RST has been very cognizant of this issue and obviously as part of redeveloping an existing community like this with affordable housing, they've been very sensitive and cognizant about it from the beginning.

The very first thing that they did was hire the prior owner of the community to be their onsite manager.

He's been managing the property for decades.

The whole time he owned it, he was the manager.

He has longtime relationships with these residents.

And Scott and his family members asked him to stay on board.

They hired him.

They've been paying him ever since to be the manager and to, among other things, assist the residents with relocation plans.

They, as you may know, under state law, you're required to give residents at least six months notice of any relocation deadlines.

In this case, RST will have given almost 18 months of notice.

There are a couple of residents who are still there.

The vast majority have successfully been able to find other housing, make other arrangements.

There are a few existing units that are still on site.

Some of those are waiting to be moved by new owners.

Some of them will just be left in place if they don't meet the code.

But the vast majority of folks have either moved on and found new housing or they've found new housing but they're waiting for their move-in date.

So we've been working with them very, not we, the owners and the manager, I've been working with the residents literally since RST acquired the property, I believe it was in November of 2018, and provided plenty of time.

They originally provided a 12 month period for relocation.

Once it became clear that it was going to take us much longer to work through the review process on the rezoning, they extended that deadline for another, I believe, six months or so.

Yeah, thanks Valerie.

So I guess where I was going is, what's the timetable for all folks to be relocated?

Sure.

And obviously, over the last year, that's been a challenge.

And that was also part of the reason that Scott and his team wanted to provide as much extra time as possible.

I believe, and I'll ask Scott Copeland to jump in, but I believe the current deadline is through the end of March.

Good evening, everybody.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And thank you for the question.

I don't really have much to add.

The current period is March, the end of this month that we just recently extended a few weeks ago from the end of February.

We have extended several times throughout the COVID process for that COVID period for that very reason.

We have one resident left on the on the property that does not have a definitive

move out date and plan yet is working on it and we are assisting and finding another location for them to reside.

We provided a great deal of information for the residents from the very beginning.

We've held on to the actual homes some of which are

not movable.

In many cases, they don't meet what is called a HUD standard, I believe is the vocabulary that because of their age.

So in many instances, they're not able to be moved.

So we have accepted them, they become a liability, obviously.

So we've allowed the owners to leave them in place.

and we would handle that liability for them.

There are a handful that are still, as Riley mentioned, that are still on site that are waiting to be moved.

Thank you.

Another question I have is in regards to the school system.

And there was a stat, I think it shows like 84 students roughly would be put into the school system projected.

Thank you.

A couple of things.

One, I think the most important way that we're planning to handle that is by providing a place for those families to live and those students to live.

Obviously those students are either here in the community right now, or they will be coming.

And we think the best way to mitigate the impacts of those students is to ensure that they have safe, affordable, clean housing in the designated development areas near the schools.

The elementary school and middle school will not be over capacity.

Obviously, it's well known that Albemarle High School is over capacity, but I know we've been working closely with the schools and to understand what their plans are for that.

Two things.

One, obviously, land was proffered and dedicated or committed to be dedicated.

to the county as part of the Brookhill project for both a high school and an elementary school.

There's also an elementary school proffered at the North Point community.

I understand that the county may not be interested in the Brookhill High School site anymore.

I'm not certain, but I know that they're also working very hard on what they call the Center 2 concept to further spread out some of the students that either are at Albemarle now or would be there in the future.

So we've also looked a lot at the school capacity numbers and I have some data if you'd like me to share it on actual students that are that are usually that live in apartment complexes.

they are much more realistic than the county's projected formula and results in a much smaller number of students so even that's obviously debatable and who knows how it turns out it depends a lot on the unit mix a large number of these units will be one and two bedroom which obviously don't generate as many students but we feel like the best thing to do is to ensure that these students

have housing to live in that is affordable.

And that is the most important thing.

I'm done, Mr. Chairman.

I would actually like to see the slide graphically depicting the rationale for the step back, please.

If that's okay, if we could have that back.

And after Karen moves, is there someone while we're waiting from as long to pop in?

Is there anyone, so Daniel and, do we have anyone else after Daniel?

I think we can see it.

Okay, great.

So this is, let me back up if I can to one slide to orient you to where we are.

I know.

Let me do this.

Let me just go back.

So to orient you, this is the main entrance off of 29, the first two buildings.

These are three-story buildings.

This is a three-story building, and this is a five-story building.

And it's actually a single building.

They're connected in two wings.

So the image that I'm going to show you is essentially looking at these two buildings here roughly from the traffic from that roundabout circle.

So this image was prepared by our architects to show the impact that the step back requirement would have.

And for just to reiterate the regulation, it applies to all buildings that are taller than three stories,

and no matter where they're located within the project, starting with the fourth and subsequent floors, a 15 foot step back is required.

So essentially where you see the red line that would cut that chunk out of that building.

This is a challenge for any mid-rise residential buildings.

It's possible to do this at a scale if you have tall, very tall buildings like you see in downtown Charlottesville and along West Main Street, some of the newer student housing buildings have this.

For a building like this, that will completely decimate the floor plan of the fourth and fifth

The purpose of that requirement is to avoid the canyon effect, essentially.

We think that by virtue of this five-story building being located adjacent to a three-story building that there really is not any canyon effect that needs to be mitigated.

The other thing we looked at, and Scott can respond to this, but my suggestion was, well, can you just spread that floor out and instead of having a five-story and a three-story, can you just have a bunch of four-story buildings?

That has a financial impact in that

Once you go to four floors, you need to have elevators and other challenges.

It just adds substantially to the cost of the building.

So the goal was to try and again, in order to meet the affordability goals and targets, to have this be a five-story.

We just don't think that it has an impact.

I've got a few things here.

There's parallel parking and sidewalks that spread out the distance between those two buildings to mitigate any canyon effect.

The five-story buildings are visually prominent because they have shared indoor amenities.

And probably most importantly, it's located right in the heart of the community and form the hub with all of the amenity areas in it.

They're very far from property lines.

Let me skip ahead to some other exhibits.

Again, here, this is another rendering, which you may have seen, again, showing that it's not, we don't think that there is any more, any difference in terms of a Kenyan effect between this three-story and this five-story, say, compared to these buildings here.

Likewise, all eight of the buildings that contain the two over two townhouses would also be subject to that same requirement.

On the fourth floor of these buildings, if we are not successful in obtaining a waiver of the step back requirement, the impact on the second floor of that unit, it would remove two of the three bedrooms,

one of the two bathrooms, the laundry closet, and would take out half the staircase.

And so as a result, you would end up with units that are essentially a one-story, excuse me, a one-bedroom, one-bath townhouse.

not marketable to anyone, certainly not the goal.

Thank you.

Anyone else have their hands up before we go to, I think Dan

Just a quick question.

I don't believe that's part of the 25%.

All right, thank you.

Anything else, Daniel?

This one?

Okay, Jenny.

Valerie, how tall are the, I mean, I know there are four stories tall, the two over two, but do you know how many feet?

Sure.

Anyone else?

So could you just clarify something, please, Valerie?

So the thing that's being shared with us this evening is that

A desire to have 190 of the apartment units be affordable and have that affordability be for 30 years.

Yes, in essence, 75% of all the apartment units would be affordable and that equates to 190 units affordable for 30 years.

Yeah, if I may, Scott Copeland, yes.

Okay, so let me continue on a question.

So in some of your properties, you have special relationships, or you offer a special relationship with certain types of employees.

Is that the kind of thing that you're thinking of?

There are tremendous opportunities to do that very thing.

Part of the reason that we want to see the wide range of affordability

which again goes from the 30% level in an essence all the way to market rate level and averaging in that 60% range.

It does give you an opportunity to provide housing for individuals or groups of people that you just mentioned.

Often there's a challenge in the affordable housing world of people qualifying.

So there are narrow windows, if you will, of making too much income as a household to qualify to live in the project.

And then on the other side is, you know, obviously having the income to pay the rent if you do qualify.

So there are narrow windows at times, but the opportunities that we're creating for ourselves with this wide range does provide

Yes, sir.

The levels of affordability and the amount of time, because- Yes, sir.

Yes, sir.

I understand.

Yes, sir.

OK.

Are there other questions for the applicants before we move on to public hearing?

I think I had something.

Thank you, Commissioner Bivins.

We have a large list right now of people already signed up to speak.

I am going to call you by name.

I'm not going to give this spiel each time.

I'm going to let y'all know that you have three minutes to speak.

Please state your full name and address, and then once you do that, once you start speaking, your three minutes starts.

So first we have Scott, and I'm sorry if I'm not good with last names, Scott Elif.

Please state your name.

You're the first person, so you get the full spiel.

Am I unmuted here?

Yes.

Okay, great.

Well, thank you all for the opportunity to provide our public comments.

We have a lot of ground to cover because there are so many issues regarding this proposal that we have.

It's deficient and unacceptable in numerous different areas, and you're going to see that in great detail.

well beyond the building heights and special exemptions and even the minimal open space area and so forth.

If you'd go to the next page for me, please.

Yep.

Okay.

We'll get this down.

I'm still just seeing my name here.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yes.

The individual names are divider pages in our whole PowerPoint.

So you could just use that.

You could put that up and,

Okay.

Okay.

I am going to go ahead and let you get started all over again.

Okay.

We may not be able to do your slideshow presentation.

It's a little different.

We have two different platforms.

Okay.

Okay, great.

Okay.

Yeah, we're all going to want to use the visuals that we created specifically for this, of course.

So if we can get that straightened out, that'll be the way to go.

So here's what we're going to do.

It's 7 10 right now.

We're going to take a break until about, do we need five minutes, Charles?

That'd be great.

So 7 15 and then we will all join promptly at 7 15.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, great.

All right.

I'll be here.

So that shows, that's a full screen slide for me anyway, Carolyn.

Sorry.

Our problem is, is that it seems like every time you start talking, the slide goes away for some reason.

You know, I don't know.

That's fine.

That's a lot of fun.

I don't think so.

I think we have it now.

OK, so let me see.

So if I speak, it looks like the slide stays there.

And if I say go back to the previous slide.

Okay, beautiful.

Okay.

Okay.

At the end, introducing each person, we have a page with their name on it.

So you don't, you don't use need to use the other name stuff.

Of course, of course.

And our people all know that as well.

So, okay.

Perfect.

Okay.

Sure.

I know this is fun.

Crystal, can I help you?

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah.

I see a lot of, I assume people are there.

Can people at least put themselves back on video so we know you're back?

There we go, okay.

Okay, great.

So I mentioned that we have a lot of issues we're gonna present.

As you can see on this page, it's pretty wide ranging, it's broad and deep.

The petition's gonna be written, it speaks for itself pretty well with respect to the details.

Our HOA board presidents will speak and you have a number of volunteer residents who are gonna talk about very specific topics

I've done a bunch of research.

We're going to have charts and analyses and examples and all kinds of things, including a couple areas where we actually contracted RHOA for outside professional support just for this meeting.

So we'll get to that in a minute.

So if I could get the next slide.

And just so everybody knows this whole presentation from our communities, we're not opposed to development.

This is in the growth area.

but you know we think it needs to be done responsibly and appropriately and from what you see from all of what we're going to show you this is not it not even close doesn't just have to do with building heights and special exemptions and even the minimal green space areas and everything there's a lot of other issues traffic as well the other important thing is the extent of affordable housing whatever it is this new proposal so hot off the presses it's not even on this

slide.

I didn't know about it before, but it doesn't have any effect on our opposition to this.

Affordable housing is terrific and laudable goals and everything.

But our opposition is about all the items that we're going to go through with respect to density and respect for the local community, the environment, traffic, property values and all the rest of it.

So you're going to hear from me now and from basically everybody all along that we ask that you deny this application based on

so many deficiencies and really need to go back to the drawing board and start this all over in our view.

So next page.

I'm just going to start with a couple of highlights and you're going to see these again later.

This is a rendering of what those four story buildings look like from Ashwood Boulevard.

This was a computer generated model.

The guy who did this for us will speak on it later.

This is to scale and everything.

and frankly, this is shocking.

This is incredibly out of scale.

It's huge, looks like a college dormitory quad, frankly.

You can't even see all the buildings.

There's eight of these actually.

This is the eight, what they call the two over two townhomes.

There's no trees, pavement parking and apartments jammed in as tightly as they possibly can be.

You've already heard and seen in a couple of the slides here,

how dense everything is in here.

And this is a really important visual representation of it.

We've asked for this from the developer and representatives repeatedly and it was never done.

So we contracted for it ourselves.

It's important to see what it actually looks like if you turn off of 29 and turn into Ashwood Boulevard to go into Forest Lakes.

So we'll get into this, including the before versus after a little bit later with one of the other speakers.

So let me just have one more slide.

And I'll just tell you what the other slide is there.

We'll get into this later.

The other issue that we contracted for was traffic.

Those little blue dots there are all the cars that would back up all the way to Archer Avenue and beyond in the morning, according to the scenario that we ran running the standard model that we contracted for.

Yes, thank you.

So I'm happy to go on.

Next, I have Mike.

Great.

Okay, super.

Okay, so and thank you, Carolyn.

My name is Mike Tuberty.

And I think you said you wanted addresses from everybody.

So 3018 Watercress Drive in Charlottesville.

So again, I want to thank you for your time this evening.

I'm a 26-year resident of the Forest Lakes community and I presently serve on the board of the homeowners association.

My wife Linda and I have always enjoyed living here.

It's where we raised our three children.

Okay, that was mostly her.

But they've all grown and they've moved on in their professional and family lives.

But Forest Lakes has always been home to them and we're thrilled that they keep coming back.

For much of our time living here since 1994,

My professional life was spent at Clock McPenta Plus.

That's a global plastic films company headquartered about 30 miles from here in Gordon'sville.

And I was its president for the Americas during my last 11 years, from 2003 to 14.

And I was responsible for nine manufacturing sites in North and South America with about 1,200 employees when I left and I started my consulting practice.

Today, in part, I serve in a director capacity on advisory boards, but mainly

and why I'm telling you all this, in my consulting practice, I work today with business owners and CEOs helping to tackle the biggest challenges and identify best opportunities for growth.

So we work sometimes one-to-one, sometimes together with their leadership teams and sometimes in peer groups together with other CEOs and business owners of non-competing companies.

Why I'm telling you this is simple and hopefully relevant and maybe even illustrative

Oftentimes we look backwards into problems and challenges to identify where things actually started to go sideways.

And we sometimes discuss opportunities for do-overs and what those do-overs might look like in order to establish better laid plans going forward.

So my intent here really is teeing up for others that are about to speak and give you a little bit of a backdrop of what you're going to be listening to and maybe get a chance to consider reconsidering this project or redrafting or fine tuning, et cetera,

a growth plan before agreeing to set it into motion, and thereby hopefully curtailing the need for a future project autopsy to understand what went wrong, why it went wrong, and maybe have a chance for a do-over before setting the wheels actually into motion.

So I think the main concerns of the local residents, my friends, my neighbors, and so on, fall into different categories.

I won't get into detail because it's gonna be covered, but really the impact on the neighborhood perspective, whether it's aesthetics,

safety concerns, traffic, the potential deterioration for home values and so on.

And then really kind of the big one is infrastructure.

The 350 additional new housing units at this time I think is simply too much and it's too soon.

On the heels of the two huge projects that are underway, the Brookhill and the North Point that's already been talked on, the current occupancy of our schools and the need for addressing

These are all points that are certainly relevant and to be covered.

But again, I thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Yes, I'm Sheila Katz I live at 2352 Ravenswood Court.

I am literally across the street from where this development this proposed development would be so I would be looking at those big

and quite frankly, ugly buildings.

So what I'm going to do is I'm going to give you some of the responses that we have had to the petition that was available.

And so these are comments that were made by people that signed the petition, which I'm assuming that you have

One, I am concerned about the traffic as well as schools in the area not being able to handle this development.

Traffic is going to be backed up actually to my development.

I don't know how I'm going to get out in the morning.

It's too many cars.

Next, this is a poorly designed, ugly, and excessive development that benefits no one except a handful of opportunists ignoring what is best for our special community.

That housing is harsh, institutional kind of housing.

There are no trees, no greenery.

My home was built in 2001.

It has a bucolic feel here in this community.

And that certainly is not going to be reflected by this proposed development.

Next.

I don't want to see the aesthetic or environmental impact that this development will cause.

So the bottom line is, it's ugly.

There are no trees, there's no berm, there's no welcoming feeling to coming home because everybody who lives in Forest Lakes is going to have to pass that.

There's no way to ignore it.

Next, I live in Forest Lakes and want to preserve as much natural habitat as possible.

I'm not opposed to sensible development, but this proposal seems overly burdensome and dense.

It will definitely put a strain on the area.

I think that speaks for itself.

Next, school population density will already be greatly affected by the new developments approaching completion along 29 near the Polo Grounds.

This additional growth creates a growth rate that is unable to be supported in schools and local infrastructure.

The Brookhill development is going to add

I mean, more than 1,000 apartments, which obviously means it's going to be more than 2,000 cars, because you got a mommy and a daddy in each apartment, and everybody's got a car.

So that just jams up 29.

Next.

The scope and scale of this particular proposal is outside the plan for spaces 29 and unprecedented in Albemarle County.

Next I have Helen Marie Field.

Helen, please mute yourself.

Thank you.

My name is Helen Marie Field.

I live at 3168 Autumnwood Strive.

And I want to thank you for allowing us to speak today.

On January 15th, the Daily Progress published a letter written by Scott Ellef entitled, Overdevelopment Puts Albemarle at Risk.

It summarizes many of the concerns you will hear tonight and emphasizes the critical point we are at in over developing 29 North and changing the character of the place we call home.

I would like to read into the record a couple of the comments written in support of this letter.

Written by Bred Elhart on January 26th, quote,

This is ridiculous.

Has money been approved for new schools to accommodate this growth?

This will bring an unsafe amount of traffic through Ashwood Boulevard.

The planning of the 29 North corridor needs to take a serious pause before moving forward with all of these developments or else we're going to have a dire situation with overcrowded schools, unsafe traffic patterns, and other surfaces such as EMS that cannot meet the needs of all the people."

End quote.

written by William Volrath on February 12th.

This proposed development is an unbelievable affront to common sense and good aesthetics.

It seems straight out of the 1950s style of Soviet architecture, not to mention it is clearly of excessive size with the entrance area to a residential neighborhood of quality single family and higher end townhomes.

Furthermore, the already overcrowded schools and roads serving this area

simply cannot handle such an increase in population density.

Rejection of this ill-conceived development is the obvious best choice for preserving the healthy environment so many have worked to create."

As you know, this proposed development is at the entrance to Forest Lake South.

I live in Forest Lake North, but I want you to know that whatever affects Forest Lake South affects our whole community.

We are all in this together.

I am very passionate about my opposition to this proposed development.

I grew up in Northern Virginia, specifically Vienna, and I have watched the terrible overdevelopment over the years.

After graduating from UVA, I stayed in Charlottesville specifically because of its charm and the character of Albemarle County.

But this has been threatened more and more each year.

As Scott said in his letter to the Daily Progress, quote, the long dreaded concern of starting to look like Fairfax or Loudoun is taking place before our distracted eyes, end quote.

And I completely agree.

Thank you.

Yes, we can hear you.

Okay, do you have a speaker and a phone on?

Is that why it's echoing?

Yeah, I couldn't get the video to work.

Thank you.

Can you see, can you go to the next slide?

Can you hear me now?

Yes, much better.

So this slide shows the existing berm from Ashwood.

This is the nice trees, the block, the separation between ourselves and the other part of this community, as well as Forest Lakes.

Could you go to the next slide?

This shows, of course, the infamous change of the structure of how we're set up.

This is going to show us many buildings slapped in, no berm, no merge between Forest Lake and the new community.

Doesn't fit the neighborhood.

These buildings are huge.

I think they're taller than the Charlottesville airport control tower.

It's the tallest buildings between Charlottesville downtown and Culpeper.

That's pretty big.

Could you go to the next slide, please?

This shows their map.

And again, it shows how much of the space they're using, not only vertically,

by showing the big floor plans, or rather the space, the boxes, but also it just gives a scale, right?

That they're going up four to five story, plus also using all that space vertically.

So for vertically and horizontally, these are huge.

We just can't do it.

Next slide.

This shows what we'd like to see.

Setbacks, three stories, something that would blend with the rest of Forest Lakes.

Why can't we have this?

That's all I have to say.

Thank you.

Hi.

How are you?

My name's Catherine Smith.

I'm a resident in Forest Lake, so I live at 2775 Cricklewood Court.

Thank you for taking the time to hear from all of us today.

I appreciate it.

Next slide, please.

So this was a little project we undertook.

It is to sort of show the scale of the buildings as they are intended to be built.

We used a balloon and raised it up to the height of the buildings as the developers have indicated they would be.

and you can just barely see it there on that slide on full screen, but it is well above what is an eight foot privacy fence, which is directly behind some of the homes in Cricklewood Court.

Can you please go to the next slide?

So there that slide shows a little bit more sort of the obtrusiveness of the buildings, the four foot, four by four, excuse me, two over two buildings that are the four story buildings.

Next slide, please.

or like that, depending.

The key of this is that the scale of these units do remain a concern.

I mean, these current residents, the residents you see there with the fence right behind it, it's very close to the property line.

Right behind it, you can't see it, is a trailer.

Now, the trailers are roughly on average 13 to 14 feet tall, which is based on the two by two buildings, 48 feet taller is their height.

That's a 34 foot difference.

which in some cases is larger than the buffer that is being touted as being some sort of barrier to this structure, particularly in the Ashland neighborhood where in some places the barrier between the buildings and the neighborhood is a mere 20 feet.

Next slide, please.

And there you see them a little bit more.

So one of the problems I think with this too is this plan goes against the community value of view sheds.

The total or the normal structures would make any vantage point obscured.

both from the intimacy of our own homes and the public streets.

We'd see them straight from our windows.

It'd create a lot of light pollution, potential noise pollution, and as you can see, an obstruct the vantage point of the sky.

I think our point isn't that we don't want development.

We're happy to have development.

We're open to development, but this development is a bit heavy-handed and hand-fisted compared to the neighborhood, particularly in relation to the two-story homes that are currently here.

It does not preserve the character of the existing neighborhoods.

It's going to remove trees.

It's going to damage surrounding landscapes.

And so we just want it to be sort of designed in a way that's a little bit more thoughtful.

I think that might be it.

Check one more slide for me, please.

And that's George.

Thank you so much for your time.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Next, we have George.

George, as soon as you start talking, your three minutes will begin.

George, are you there?

George, you have muted yourself.

I'll show you as unmuted now.

OK, George, we're going to have to come back to you.

Scott, would you like to take George's comments?

Right, he's the president of the Ashland HOA.

Ashland, as Andy showed at the beginning, is the townhouse development that's directly next to this proposal.

It's one-story townhouses.

And if you go to the next slide, those one-story townhouses are 70 to maybe 90 feet away from the four-story buildings.

So we took a picture of what it looks like from, this is 70 feet away, did this actually at Brookhill.

If you point your camera straight ahead and look out from 70 feet away, this is what you would see out there backyard, except for the privacy fence on the bottom layer there.

You can't even see the entire building.

I mean, it basically takes up the whole camera.

If you go to the next page, actually from 100 feet away, you can at least see the top of the building so you can see what we're talking about.

Those are four-story buildings, presumably sort of similar to what RST is proposing.

So George's point primarily is that the scale of this, just as Kat mentioned beforehand, is overwhelming and huge compared to one-story residential townhouses that are in this area.

And in fact, as Andy mentioned at the beginning, Ashland community is actually urban density, which is what really

This is supposed to be.

Compare what you've got at one-story townhouses and what Mark Manley showed as an example of urban density versus imagining that this possibly would qualify as urban density or the Places 29 equivalent.

All right, next we have Elena.

I do not see Elena.

Here we go.

All right.

Okay.

Hello.

My name is Elena Deliso.

I live at 1446 Ashland Drive.

I have concern about several aspects of the proposed development.

As others are also speaking, I'm going to limit my concerns to just two, although I also share the concerns about traffic, congestion, stormwater runoff, and school overcrowding.

My biggest objective is the proposal for an exception to the density requirement.

Maintaining the current county requirement for density or even lower density will result in a more enjoyable environment for the future residents.

allowing for more green space and less crowded parking.

Green space is important for people's physical and mental wellness.

A less crowded environment results in a better community, reducing the potential for conflicts related to disputes over noise, parking spaces, traffics, snow removal, pets, and other situations created by packing more people into smaller areas.

This could be an opportunity for building a pleasant neighborhood for people to call home if the density change is not allowed.

Also, keeping the berm at the entrance on Forest Lake South maintains the privacy and visual design of the community.

My second objective is to the requested exception to the step back requirement.

My understanding of a step back is to promote a more comfortable environment by reducing visual impacts of taller,

The current plan has taller townhome buildings that are in addition to increasing the density also creates a potential for intrusive lighting for the Forest Lakes community.

Ideally, the aim should be better than just meeting the bare minimum standards.

At the very least, the minimum requirements should be met.

Exceptions to the density and step back requirements should be rejected.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak.

Next we have Vlad.

Thanks.

My name is Vlad Gavrilovic, 3027 Watercress Drive in Forest Lakes.

I'm a planning and design principal with a local firm called EPRPC, and I'm also a 15 year resident of Forest Lakes.

As Scott mentioned, FLCA hired us to do a visualization and analysis of the proposed development.

And I wanted to share, if you go to the next slide, some points about the visualization first and really address its reliability.

You've seen this before, but I wanted to emphasize that we used 3D computer modeling technology program called SketchUp.

to ensure that we had the scale and the viewpoint right.

We projected the building forms, the locations and the heights accurately using this computer model.

And then we had a professional renderer place the facades from the development plans themselves that were submitted to give a realistic impression of what you'd see on Ashwood Boulevard after this was built.

Next slide.

And we were also asked to do a professional assessment of the proposed plan.

And there are some concerns we found from the plan and where it deviated from what I call professional best practices.

Based on my 35 years of experience doing this kind of work all over the country, I had some grave concerns with this layout.

And these included things like the building heights, the scale and character, really the compatibility with the surroundings and the open space and street design.

My biggest observation though is that this is packed in very tight with an overly regimented layout and a lack of what I would call breathing room in this layout.

Next slide please.

This plan shows in green some of the modifications that we suggested without completely redesigning this plan.

So these included things like lowering building heights, widening streets and sidewalks, and relocating these communal recreation areas so that they could be more central, safer, and more accessible.

But one of our biggest recommendations is to do the same buffers that you're doing on Route 29 to the surrounding Forest Lakes community, these 100-foot buffers to Ash Boulevard and to Ashland.

Next slide.

And then the last thing I want to share is we were asked the question, how many units could be accommodated if our suggested modifications were applied to this plan?

So here's a revised plan we did respecting their basic layout.

What we did was lower the building heights and setbacks to meet county requirements.

We widened roads to meet professional standards that could be better adapted to public roadways if needed.

And we applied these buffers and centralized the recreation areas.

However, we didn't modify the basic layout, which has been pointed out as a very regimented layout.

The bottom line is these modifications yielded 200 units down from 362, really 197.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Yes, ma'am.

Hi, my name is Elizabeth Alice Keys, and I actually own two properties in Ravenswood neighborhood of Forest Lakes, 2326 Ravenswood and 2351 Ravenswood.

Both of these properties will have the unfortunate sight line of this proposed development.

I actually live in one of these homes and rent the other one.

PowerPoint slide, please.

On the PowerPoint slide, you'll see some objective strategies and statements I have taken from the Places 29 Master Plan, the Comprehensive Plan, the Growth Management Report of 2019, and Zoning Regulations.

They speak directly to how the proposed RST development does not meet the criteria set forth in these documents and therefore should be denied.

This proposed development may meet the density required in the Comprehensive and Places 29 Plan,

but does not respect scale and character of the existing surrounding neighborhoods.

Next slide.

It does not compliment but distracts from our neighborhood with the overwhelming difference in density and architecture.

A couple of the objectives discuss the county and developers meeting with neighborhoods.

Next slide, please.

To minimize any negative impacts

of Enfield and Redevelopment and to help new developments blend into the current neighborhoods.

This has not happened.

Other objectives discuss infrastructure.

Next slide, please.

That should be in place prior to developments being approved, such as public transportation and schools.

At this time, infrastructure is not in place for this development.

This developer is not offering any proppers to help with that infrastructure.

Only at the last minute, even tonight, they keep increasing affordable housing in order to try to get his proposal approved, but infrastructure does not exist to support affordable housing.

Next slide, please.

The graph on this slide depicts data from the Gross Management Report of 2019, which states that by 2040, 11,750 new dwelling units were needed to support the projected population in Elmore County.

At that time, 8,843 units were already in the pipeline.

That left only 2,906 dwelling units needed by 2040.

In summary, the following statement from objective nine of the comprehensive plan says, back to previous slide, thank you, says this.

In order for developed areas to be places where new and existing residents want to live, impacts from new development should not adversely affect existing residents and property owners.

One way to mitigate impacts is to ensure that adequate infrastructure is in place before or concurrent with development.

If roads are overburdened, schools overcrowded, developed areas become places where people do not want to live.

Thank you for

Next, we have Paul.

Paul, please.

Yes.

Yes, we can.

Good.

Thank you.

I appreciate both the opportunity to talk and the considered and well-documented opinions of my colleagues here.

I have lived all my adult life in Albemarle County.

I've been driving Route 29 north as my commute for about 40 years.

And in that time, I have watched steady growth and development in the county, mostly well planned.

I remember when Rio Road was the edge of the wilderness.

And obviously, that's much different now.

My wife and I wrote the first contract in Forest Lake South back in

93 and moved in here in 94.

So we've watched the steady development here.

Forest Lake South is a very livable, walkable, connected development consistent with the way we would like the county to be.

We are very blessed and recognize that not everybody is going to have the same density or quality that we have here.

However,

The proposed development is definitely not similar to this neighborhood or the livability.

It is an instead example of urban sprawl not in character with the neighborhood that we have now.

Ongoing development is a given in this county and generally a sign of growth and healthy economy and we appreciate that.

We know that things are not going to stay the way they are.

As I've said,

I've watched many years watching things change and has spent my fair share of time in Northern Virginia where things have exploded much more readily.

So despite the fact that we want development and understand that needs to happen, this development asks significant exceptions to the existing zoning specifics in the maximum height and the setback.

It only really benefits the developers profit and outcome from this development.

And while we certainly do want more affordable housing and there are lots of opportunities across the county, across Charlottesville and Albemarle County for affordable housing.

This one really only considers the benefit to density in this particular development.

We strongly urge the Planning Commission to consider the precedent set.

If this exception is approved, where will that end?

Where will that stop for the next person who wants significant development and to violate the tenets of the current zoning?

Thank you.

I am Steve Cameron.

I live at the 2774 Crick award court.

I'd like to amplify some of the information that what is in the county staff report.

County staff did an analysis on the overall project plan submitted by RST to see how it melded with the Places 29 master plan and to see if the developer had done their due diligence all along.

Staff looked at 12 items in particular.

Some are included, but not limited to this.

Pedestrian orientation, mixture of uses, parks, recreational amenities, and open space, buildings and space of human scale.

The staff graded the project plan submission on each one of those 12 items as one, met the principle of the Places 29 plan,

partially addressed the principle of the plan, and finally, largely did not address the principle.

The overall assessment was that five of the 12 principles had been met.

That equates to 41%.

Six of the 12 principles had been partially met, and one of the 12 principles was largely not addressed.

In delving into one of the 12 principles, the one specifically dealing with parks, recreational amenities, and open spaces, the staff said, and I quote from their report, the applicant has provided the minimum square footage of open space required if the taught lots and basketball reports required by the ordinance are installed instead of submitting a substitution request at the site planning stage, unquote.

what they've done is come in with a minimum and they can skinny out later on at the site planning stage and go below the minimum.

The staff also took a look at the request for waivers and we've heard a lot of that about the going from up to five stories.

And another quote from the staff said,

At five stories, the two central buildings of the development already are proposed to exceed the maximum recommended height for the land use designation in the master plan.

Waiving the requirements for a setback would further reduce the ability to create buildings and space of human scale, as recommended in the neighborhood models principles of the comprehensive plan.

This is from our own professional pages staff of Albemarle County.

Last thing I want to say is the Places 29 master plan is a good document and it should be followed.

If this lands to be developed, RST should follow the letter of the law and frankly put forth a better effort in the future.

Thank you.

Next we have Sue.

Thank you.

Your time starts now.

Thank you.

I thank you again for this opportunity.

Um, I really appreciate it.

Uh, I do want to share, uh, as someone who's newly appointed to the places 29 North, um, CAC and as someone who's just completed a 10 year term on the forest lakes community association board of directors, I have a great interest in forest lakes.

and in the new developments that are proposed and ongoing in our area.

I believe very strongly in community engagement and community service.

Today, I would like to address equity in terms of this proposal and three areas that I think merit some equity consideration.

What is the trade-off?

in harming an existing development for Slakes versus giving developer concessions.

And what is the expense that we're willing to have those who already live here bear for this new development, particularly looking at traffic and the aesthetic scope and scale.

So again, in terms of how the county and the planning process

addresses equity.

Those who are here, we enforce lakes.

Do we deserve to be harmed?

Do we deserve to have challenges and expenses to benefit a new development, especially with the concessions and the special exceptions, et cetera?

And then that leads me to the number two issue.

There are a number of waivers and special exceptions being offered and being requested through this process for RST.

And we in Forest Lakes expect the Places 29 guidelines to be executed and followed, and don't expect for the number of waivers and special exceptions to be offered to any development.

most particularly how this development will impact those of us who are already here and who have an expectation of remaining happy county residents, if you will.

So we in Forest Lakes have covenants and resident expectations for how we run our organization.

And I can say from my time on the Forest Lakes Board of Directors,

and we took it as a very important responsibility of the board that we would follow our own covenants and our own guidelines and policies and that we would not offer waivers and special exceptions because those who... Ma'am, I'm sorry, your time is up.

Thank you.

And the last one is VDOT.

Is it appropriate for VDOT to allow access to RST?

Thank you.

Yes, please.

First page then.

We're going to turn our attention to traffic now.

This is the other area where we

contracted for another scenario using the standard VDOT model, the same one that the developers, consultants use and so forth.

And why did we do that?

Because we looked at how many units there are in Forest Lakes now or would be in the future about 850, 880.

And we thought about how many people that were in Brookhill, number of units that would in the north part of Brookhill that would come north to Ashwood Boulevard.

Nobody knows exactly, but something in the order of 150 to 300.

And then you had the RST proposed units, 350 actually more than that now.

That gives you an increase of 62 to 80%.

So how can it be that the developer's traffic study only showed a 35% increase in traffic?

Didn't seem right.

We actually asked the developer to run an alternative scenario for us, just so we could understand the potential.

And they frankly,

declined to do that specifically.

So we spent our own good money to contract it.

Same model, just some different inputs.

Next slide, please.

When we did it, here's what happens.

The step chart here is the number of cars that would be turning left onto 29 at Ashwood Boulevard in the AM rush hour.

So the baseline, which was a car count from 2019,

was 369.

We basically built it up by adding step-by-step, updating the baseline, adding a Brook Hills initial estimate.

We've re-estimated that a little bit in this scenario, added in the developer's transportation impact analysis for RST.

We updated that further.

You end up with, guess what?

60% more cars turning left than was anticipated in theirs.

The question is, when does that overwhelm the intersection or result in backups?

And our colleagues are gonna describe this in a little bit more detail and show you the results, including that kind of shocking chart from the very beginning that shows 404 car backup in the morning, which is obviously incredibly troubling and unsustainable and not approvable.

Thank you.

Good evening.

This is Jane Keithley.

I am a 25 year resident of Forest Lake South.

I serve on the board of the Forest Lakes Community Association and I pass through that Ashwood Boulevard 29 intersection daily, sometimes more than once a day.

I feel like this RST development as planned is a poor fit for the space at that intersection.

There are too many planned units.

and it will not be able to be adequately accommodated by the local surroundings as we've been describing here this evening.

I agree with the sentiments expressed so far and want to add a little bit more on the traffic situation.

It's a major concern.

The additional traffic as Scott just outlined with the increased number of cars will lead to congestion.

If I could have the next slide.

This picture or this diagram shows the little blue cars there are backed up.

This would be this was from our analysis of the traffic situation and shows that 404 foot backup at peak times.

You can see it goes back through the intersection with the Archer Avenue access points to the south and through the north, which would be the RST new access point.

back into the Forest Lake South neighborhood.

This is in addition to the slight backup, you might be able to see to the south on Archerville Avenue where cars would be coming up from Brookhill attempting to turn on to make left turns onto this Ashwood Boulevard as well.

So quite a bit of gridlock and

Congestion here that would lead to delays, wasted time and potentially safety concerns as people try to scramble to get through the intersection and so on.

The report over on the right hand side, you can see this report graded this a very poor E closely bordering on an F assessment for this scenario.

Next slide.

This schematic shows the same information you just saw with actual numbers of cars

and you can see in the center between the gray and the sort of pinkish stripes 784 is the cars that go through that four-way intersection where Archer Avenue crosses over Ashwood Boulevard in the proposed plan.

That mixing bowl area would see an increase down on the left of 52% of cars.

And then if you follow this out to the left-hand turn onto 29 South,

we would anticipate an increase of 60% of cars turning out of the neighborhood to go south.

That's a pretty big increase.

We do believe that these assumptions are accurate and reflect the current situation in terms of the number of cars per family and the school traffic.

Okay, the next slide just shows the time wasted

and I just ask the Planning Commission to consider our comments and not support this proposal for development.

Can you hear me?

Yes ma'am.

Are you ready for me to start?

Yes ma'am, go right ahead.

I would like to explain on this map of the Brookhill development has five areas in the northern section circled in black.

And these areas are the ones that are in closest proximity to Archer and Ashwood.

And we feel that the majority of people living in those areas are going to choose Archer and Ashwood as their morning rush hour route to reach 29, whether they're going north or south.

There are also two other areas slightly to the right of that circled in gray.

And we think that those homeowners, those residents will also opt, at least in the people going north, would opt for the Archer Avenue, Ashwood route.

And we're assuming about 50-50

perhaps that heading south would also take that route.

The reason being to go the alternative through Brookhill, going south to Polo Grounds, there's probably, in our opinion, our assumption, kind of common sense assumptions,

that they're more likely to encounter school buses, trash trucks, commercial deliveries, and that sort of thing that's going to tie up traffic.

And everybody in rush hour is in a hurry to get where they're going, whether it be to their jobs or if they are taking their children to school, whatever the case may be.

Next slide.

Can I have the next slide, please?

Oh, there it is.

We see, as far as RST's assumptions, we see no reason to assume what they did, that the traffic rates for their apartments would be lower than any single family housing, particularly for the reasons that are listed here.

Their apartments, especially what they have presented tonight, are going to cater to working people and renters, people who are going to have to commute to a job downtown or whatever other part of Charlottesville they may be working in.

And with such a large share being affordable housing, in order to pay their bills,

Okay, good evening.

OK, my name is Bill Winch.

I'm a traffic engineering principal with the firm EPRPC here in Charlottesville, also a county resident, 3205 Watch Station Drive.

EPR was contracted to run some scenarios for the Forest Lake subdivision using trip generation and distribution characteristics per their local knowledge and intuition.

The modeling effort, the Synchro model was the same model platform used for these types of studies across the state, same as the developers engineer used.

And really the purpose was to run some what-if scenarios.

And you've heard a little bit about this from the prior few speakers there.

You know, if the trip generation is higher, if the distribution is more geared up towards the north there,

and let's see, and as you could see and hear from the folks who have talked here and maybe go to the next slide.

Okay, nevermind.

In some of the graphics presented earlier, based on these scenarios as developed by the Forest Lake residents, there could be some additional

congestion experienced in the morning peak hours that would cause some backups and multiple signal cycles required to get through the intersection.

And while these scenarios differ from the model runs produced by the developers engineer, again, it's the same model, but again, with some different volume and distribution inputs.

Thank you.

Good evening.

My name is Bill McLaughlin.

I've lived at 1800 Easy Lane in Hollymede for the past four years.

I'm a Hollymede board member and have recently been appointed to the place's 29 North Citizens Advisory Committee.

Like others, I believe that as proposed, this development is overly dense with insufficient usable outdoor space.

My concern is for the health of the people who will be living there in relation to the threat posed by airborne viruses similar to the one causing the current pandemic.

As planned, this proposal simply has too many people and not enough space.

As we are all well aware, the current pandemic has struck most heavily at the central workers that cannot work from home and often work closely with the public.

And of course, it is just these people who most often live in high density housing.

I realize that density is not the only factor in COVID transmission.

However, for an April 2020 study done by Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, quote, data from a new county level model

show social distancing policies, population density and temperature are the most impactful factors in the spread of COVID-19.

Now, when I brought this up at an earlier public meeting, the developers representative assured us that COVID-19 would be over before people move in.

So we didn't need to worry.

This may be true.

However, should we be building new super dense housing based on the assumption

that a pandemic like the one currently will happen only every hundred years?

Admittedly, the developer has provided for some open space, so residents could follow Dr. Fauci's succinct prescription that outside is better than inside.

However, a good portion of that open space is in the buffer zone, adjacent to Route 29 or on steep slopes.

neither of which are conducive to residents actually using them.

Therefore, not for my benefit or the benefit of any of the people speaking here tonight, but for the health and benefit of the people who will be making their homes in this development, there needs to be fewer units and more open space.

One other point I need to make is regarding access.

Five of the other parcels on Route 29, could I have the next slide please, sorry,

The next slide.

Alright, nevermind.

Five of the other parcels on Route 29 in this area have only right turn in, right turn out access.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Next we have Rich.

Thanks.

I'm Rich D'Amico and I live at 2674 English Oak Circle in Forest Lake South.

And thank you, as others have said, for allowing us to provide our input.

So next slide, please.

I've lived in, I'm sorry, maybe go back.

I think my slides got a little out of order.

Go back two slides, please.

There you go.

I've lived in Forest Lake South since 2009.

In such, I routinely drive in and out of the Forest Lake South Ashwood Boulevard exit onto Highway 29.

And many of us are concerned about the impact that the proposed new street connection, I think it's listed as Road C on the application plan, from the RST development Ashwood would have on both the traffic flow and the general safety.

In normal times, as has been pointed out, the traffic leaving from Forest Lake South can already get backed up on Ashwood to the point where you can't always catch the left turn light onto 29 South during AM peak hours.

and add to that as it's been discussed, we're facing a significant increase in traffic load onto Ashwood from the new Archer Avenue being connected north into Ashwood from the new and very large Brookhill Commons development to ourselves.

Adding yet another connector road to Ashwood from this RST development will only serve to exasperate the traffic problem and could cause accidents as cars are attempting to turn and merge together in a rather confined area of space where there's a bend in the road and some difficult areas for visibility.

We did note that the 50 page rather complex traffic impact analysis that was done with data from the day in mid-December 2019.

But from looking at that study, there appears to be a lot of assumptions, variables, and unknowns that go into creation of an analysis like that.

And I would ask that the experiences of those who have actually exited Ashwood for the past decade be considered as well.

The reality is we don't know exactly how this new Archer Avenue is going to impact traffic flow and safety there.

And to add on yet another intersection there, it does not seem to be advisable.

Now, it was noted in a prior slide, section 15.2-2283 of the Code of Virginia, which encompasses the purpose of zoning ordinances, subsection double I, notes that zoning ordinances shall be designed in part, quote, to reduce or prevent congestion in public streets, unquote.

Therefore, I simply ask that you consider the impact of the congestion Ashwood Boulevard if you would permit this new connection.

Next slide.

In summary, I would ask that the commission oppose RST's development request to have an easement or some other right of way through VDOT owned property to Ashwood Boulevard since there's a very real probability that's going to cause a traffic and safety problem and add this proposed road C as an unfavorable factor in your consideration.

We believe the solution is simple.

If the RST development is simply right sized, then the existing right in, right out access to the property at Ridgewood Drive that the residents in that area have used for decades

may be more than adequate for the RSD development and the traffic congestion and safety on Ashwood would not be negatively impacted.

Thank you.

Hi, thank you.

This is Deborah Brammer and I live at 1155 Rustic Willow Lane in Forest Lakes.

I'm concerned that if this development is approved that our overcrowded schools will become more overcrowded and our property values will be negatively affected.

Albemarle County Schools are already overcrowded and some of the classrooms are actually bursting at the scene, basically because new developments are always being approved.

Could you put the slide up please?

You'll see in this slide that is an Albemarle County School Board long range planning capacity enrollment study, various numbers.

If you look at the column that is current for this school year in 21-22,

You'll see that at Baker Butler, it is projected that it will be 114 students over capacity by the coming school year, and it will get worse from then.

Mind you, these projections are based on new housing permits and the projection of existing student base.

So these projections don't even include all the new developments that are coming down the pipeline, and there probably are a number of them.

Now, if you look at the next to last line, which has the Albemarle High School,

It is projected that in the next coming year, the high school will be, there'll be 163 students that will be bursting out of the walls.

And by 2029, it will be over capacity by almost 400 students.

And this is before we even add any more developments on.

So,

The school system as a whole is obviously over capacity and it's getting worse.

My point is that if developments keep being approved, we can either do

build more schools, which is great.

The quality of the schools would be maintained, but they cost a lot of money.

And not only we would get money from bonds, but we'd also get money from the taxpayers.

And that is you and me.

And that will decrease our property values.

The other thing is we could keep approving developments

Okay.

Thank you.

Next we have Tamara.

Yes, we can.

Good evening.

My name is Tamara Hammond.

I've been a resident of Forest Lakes for 26 years.

I live at 3125 Turnberry Circle.

Thank you so much for hearing all of us tonight.

The topic that I would like to touch on is the RST development and the Albemarle Climate Action Plan.

Slide one, please.

One of the main themes of the Climate Action Plan is to protect our local natural environment.

It also states that the plan is as much about the kind of place we want to live in here in Albemarle County as it is about reducing the community's contributions to global greenhouse gas emissions.

Speaking to just this proposed development, it appears that these basic principles are not being considered.

Slide two, please.

Kind of blurry here, but this is a software shared by the Piedmont Environmental Council that tabulates current vegetation on any given landscape.

Currently in this space, trees account for about 55%, I think it's probably a little bit more than that, and grass 25% of the flora.

Currently there's sufficient buffer between the developments Route 29 and Ashwood Boulevard.

This makes this kind of place we want to live both aesthetically and sustainably.

Next slide please.

With the proposed development, shockingly different.

The entire 20 acres will be clear cut, leaving only the required 100 feet of buffer along Route 29, removing mature trees along Ashwood Boulevard, and leaving an absurd 20 foot buffer along the shared line with all adjoining Forest Lake's home, 20 feet.

Not very much.

Bulldozing these mature trees near these houses will endanger those left by undoubtedly cutting into their roots.

Trees, canopy, buffer greatly reduced or worse yet gone.

It's not really a place that you'd want to live.

Next slide, please.

Yes, we're in a growth zone and not opposed to growth, but clearly the message from the climate action plan is not being followed.

This slide shows a 3,200-acre swath of the northern corridor showing current vegetation of about 50% trees, 20% grasses.

With maybe an 80% loss of those resources, we've got pretty awful results.

Our top priority should be to make this a place where indeed we'd all like to live, where the current surroundings are taken into account to benefit the quality of life for all residents.

and to protect the natural environment.

We're asking the Planning Commission to be good stewards and strongly consider the climate action plan on these issues, not only for the RST development, but for all future development in the northern growth area.

Thank you.

Next, we have Dick Billings.

Good evening.

This is Dick.

Yes, I can.

Super.

First slide, please.

By the way, I am Dick Billings.

I'm a member of the Board of Directors here at Forest Lakes and live at 1605 Pepper Ridge Lane and have been a resident here for just about 25 years.

The slide I'm showing you is a topographic view of the Ridgewood area.

And one of the things I'd like to point out in this is this represents, first of all, the highest ground in the local area.

So every bit of rainfall that hits this development has to run off to somewhere.

One of the things you'll notice is on the north side of this parcel is a ravine and it's 60 foot deep.

Now, this is where our concern lies, both in construction phase as well as ongoing in the residential phase of this development.

So we are not aware of any actions to reduce runoff or manage it.

And we're very concerned about that.

Next slide, please.

So again, once again, the Ridgewood has the highest elevation in the immediate area.

There is a significant reduction in open land to absorb any runoff in the current proposal.

That has to be all managed essentially with storm drains, which is obviously not where we are today.

And Forest Lake has a history of dealing with these issues.

I would refer you to the Hollymede Town Center development, where our Hollymede Lake was significantly affected with siltation.

And we don't want to see that again.

What we would like to see is any plan going forward have a requirement for 100% remediation of any damage to the local area.

Any questions?

Please get in touch with me other than that.

Thank you.

Good evening.

This is Gail Hayes.

Yes, I can.

Great.

So my address is 2240 Reserve Circle in Rockingham, but I grew up in Hollymede and my parents currently live there.

I have a PhD in environmental engineering, so I was asked to provide some input on the environmental aspects of this project, particularly with regards to the water quality concerns.

So you'll hear me echo some of what Vlad

Gavrilovic, Tamara Hammond, and Dick Billings said, bottom line up front is I believe that the plan is not acceptable as it has been presented and should not be moved forward until substantial changes have been made.

So it strikes me the most as a transformation of the site from the vegetated and forested plot with low density development to primarily just buildings and pavement.

Natural vegetation, as we are probably all familiar with, is really good at managing its own runoff.

But the current plan is basically to replace the natural landscape of forest with roofs and pavement and highly manicured open space and maybe a few trees scattered around.

So this will result in significant increases of runoff volume from the site.

that in turn will cause issues with erosion, flooding, and deposition of contaminants in the downstream areas.

For example, on the northern edge, the site drops off very sharply to a local stream.

Without the proper design in place, the stream is vulnerable to adverse effects from the project, such as silting, flooding, erosion, and contaminant transfer.

Secondly, the plans call for few trees, except for the perimeter buffers, which seem inadequate.

These have been mentioned several times so far.

Specifically, the east side buffer of the plot in particular is only 20 feet in width.

Mature native trees from oak to dogwoods can require at least this much space between themselves and another tree in order to thrive, meaning that there would likely be at most a single row of trees in this quote unquote buffer.

Furthermore, the 20 foot buffer is stated to allow fences, dog parks, pedestrian and multi-use paths, as well as stormwater management facilities within itself.

My professional opinion, such a narrow strip cannot support any one of these functions and still serve its buffer purpose.

So good stormwater management uses a range of designs that are distributed around a developed site.

Examples include rain gardens, swales, manufactured treatment devices, green roofs, et cetera.

Each system treats a little bit of the runoff to prevent a single system that is liable to fail from having to handle all of the runoff

While not all developed sites allow for distributed stormwater management, I see no reason why this particular site cannot support that.

Instead, what I'm seeing is a single stormwater management system on one edge of the site.

There is no evidence that any analysis has been done to show that the single system, whatever it will be, is up to the task at hand.

Your time is up.

OK, thank you.

Thank you.

Next, I have Todd.

Todd McGee, 1606, Purple Sage Court.

I'm currently a resident of Forest Lakes and have been part of the neighborhood since 1997.

My first home in Forest Lakes was on Ashland Drive, which is one of the groups of homes that border the proposed development.

I'm Chair of the Architectural Review Board for Forest Lakes and also sit on the Board of Directors for our neighborhood.

I agree with the concerns made by my colleagues and neighbors this evening regarding the scale of the proposed project.

As a local realtor, I see the opportunities for new development and also get to see the impacts new developments have on the immediate areas surrounding them.

Unfortunately, this project would have a negative impact on the value of the homes that border the site.

Redeveloping the site and erecting four and five story buildings that tower over the one and two story homes right on the edge of an existing neighborhood is not a good decision.

Packing 350 plus units into the area is also not a good plan.

The Places 29 guiding principles state preserving the character of existing neighborhoods.

It also states respecting the scale of the existing development.

The proposed development will have a negative impact on the value of any home that is directly adjacent to the site.

The homes in the sections of Ashland and Teakwood that bordered the project will have a decline in their market value as a result of the density and scale of the buildings, which are not compatible with forest lakes.

Developers have a responsibility to use design principles to promote compatibility between new and existing developments.

We would encourage the developer to rework the project using the guiding principles of places 29,

plan that would respect the suburban scale and character of Forest Lakes.

Good evening.

Can you hear me?

Yes, you may get started.

Thank you.

We've all heard a lot of facts and figures tonight.

I'm not here to deliver more data.

I'm here to address the intangible and unmeasurable human impact that this proposed development has upon the Forest Lakes residents.

My husband and I were transferred to the Charlottesville area from the northern Michigan arena.

We specifically chose Forest Lakes for the trees, the walking trails, the open spaces and the dark skies.

We loved the country atmosphere inside the convenience of the city.

We knew the area behind us was zoned residential and would someday be developed.

But we trusted in the integrity of the 29 master plan.

We never dreamed that waivers, special exclusions, or expanded step backs would create

austere concrete high rises that would breach our privacy, invade the dark skies, and potentially cause runoff flooding.

Like most of our neighbors, we've made significant improvements to our home, especially since we've chosen Charlottesville as our retirement home.

We have earnestly paid our real estate taxes and believe that whether you're a young or old resident in Forest Lakes or anywhere else in Albemarle County, that your real estate holdings fund the next chapter of your life.

So it's so disheartening to hear from Todd and Nest Realty that this development as proposed will have such a detrimental effect to our future property value.

I'd like to emphasize the fact that I cherish both my front and my back door neighbors.

I look forward to those new friendships that will come with this new development.

I don't oppose the new development at all.

However, I am asking this committee to consider the human aspect of their decisions.

I want you to please think seriously about the trust we placed in you to uphold the 29 Spaces Master Promise and to deny these excessive plans as they are proposed.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Paul Maruza.

I live at 1755 Golden Tree Place.

I've lived there with my wife where we raised our four children for 26 years.

I'm currently, I've been on the Hollymede board for about 10 years and I'm currently the president.

I'd like to draw the commission's attention to Hollymede.

There have been a lot of excellent presentations and descriptions from the Forest Lake South and Forest Lakes North communities

to which we are contiguous.

So we are really all part of one community, but I would like to represent our Hollie Mead neighbors to you.

We are 468 families and individual residents, and we have single family homes, condos, and townhomes.

Hollie Mead's the older brother of the developments in the Forest Lakes, we've been here

For many years, the trees are mature and we are a walking neighborhood.

Children walk to the schools along Hollymeade Drive.

This development, which will be also contiguous with Hollymeade, will affect the traffic.

We will have increased traffic as estimated on Hollymeade Drive for those who are going to avoid going out the overly congested Ashwood Drive.

That will affect the safety of pedestrians with that congestion.

We are of course concerned with the aesthetics, which people have gone over very well.

It is a very block Soviet style construction, which will be seen from all over.

It is very dense, too dense.

We do not also agree with the waivers from the 29 plan that are proposed.

Also, all of the developments here, to include the mobile trailer park, always have used the topography and respected it with bridges and valleys.

This new development shows no respect for the topography of the area and completely changes the way the old mobile park home was configured.

So,

With that, I'd just like to, on behalf of the Hollywood Citizens Association, speak out against approval of this plan as it's proposed.

Hello, everyone.

Great.

Hi, my name is Jimmy Beranek.

My address is 1925 Becker Lane.

I live in Forest Lakes.

In fact, I'm the Forest Lakes president, current board president.

For those of you that don't know, Forest Lakes is the largest homeowner association in Albemarle County.

1,500 homes and about 5,000 residents.

And as Paul mentioned previously, the colony is right in between us.

So we are one big, happy neighborhood.

Forest Lake South, Holly Mead, Forest Lake North.

I want to take this time to thank all the Planning Commission for caring enough and spending so much time.

I know we're approaching three hours here, but this is an important topic.

I also want to thank all the great citizens of North of the Albemarle.

You guys are doing a great job.

Thank you for signing petitions and for speaking out tonight.

I love your passion.

To me, it comes down to this, and I'm going to sum up what everyone said before me.

The 29 master plan says preserving the character of the neighborhood.

These large dormitory style buildings in no way shape or form preserve the character of the neighborhood.

Not to mention what it does to our lakes, what it does for the precedent.

You guys said if you guys approve these four and five storey buildings, what's the next developer going to come around and say?

None of us wanted to start at the corner of Ashwood Boulevard and 29.

In closing, as we've requested at the beginning of these comments and several times throughout for so many good reasons, and again now, we ask that you deny the RST developments proposal and send them back to the drawing board for a complete overhaul.

Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you.

Next, okay, that ends their presentation.

Next, we have Crystal Passmore.

Hello?

Okay, thank you for allowing me to comment.

My name is Crystal Passmore.

I rent at 1510 Amherst Street.

And my comment today is just that I would like people to have homes.

I want people to have affordable homes.

I want people to live in the town where they work.

I don't want people to have to commute from Rutgersville.

if they work in Charlottesville or if they work in downtown Albemarle.

I don't know anything about view sheds or intrusive lighting.

I just want people to have homes they can afford.

This is an area you guys want developed.

The developer is giving you the green space you asked for.

I would also like to point out that there are 370 if not more people plus 85 children who aren't represented tonight.

Those are the people who would benefit from this being built.

The residents of Forest Hill kept saying no one benefited from this project.

And I don't know why they said that.

They were wrong about that.

I wish 370 people who want affordable homes could be here to talk to you guys.

But they literally don't have these homes right now.

This sounds like a nice community.

It's a beautiful area.

Everyone who's spoken before me has convinced me that this is a lovely place to live.

I would love it if you guys would allow more people to live here.

And that's all I have to say.

Just please allow this development to go forward.

Thank you.

Okay, my name is Josh Karp, I live at 1510 Ann Morrison Child School.

So the proposal that we're hearing tonight will provide for 190 affordable apartments at families making 30 to 80% of the AMI for 30 years, plus 100 plus townhomes that will be affordable 8% AMI without subsidies.

This is all kind of abstract, these numbers.

Who knows?

AMIs and percentiles.

We're talking about 200 actual families.

What kind of families would they be?

I want to be a little more concrete about this.

So I have a toddler and he goes to daycare in Charlottesville at the YMCA.

The teachers there make about 12 bucks an hour.

That's about 30% of the AMI around here.

I know a bunch of the teachers, and one thing they all have in common is they don't live around here.

They can't afford to live in the city, in Albemarle.

They live in Luisa, Livano, or Green.

If we had affordable housing at 30% AMI, then my kids' teachers could live a bus trip away from work and not spend an hour and a half every day in their cars.

I know there are concerns about the project.

People are worried about property values.

Those concerns, frankly, are not realistic.

A study a few years ago from Habitat for Humanity in this area showed that building affordable housing actually increases property values in the area.

But in any case, I think it's more important that people have affordable housing than that property values continue to go up.

I checked out the property values in the area, and these houses in your neighborhood are worth half a million dollars plus.

If you want to deny affordable housing to maximize property values for people who have that much money, maybe you can come to my kid's daycare and explain to the teachers why they can't live in the area.

Honestly, if you think property values matter more than people having a place to live they can afford, you should be ashamed of yourselves.

I also want to talk about the setbacks for a minute.

I know there are complaints that they're too small and people don't have enough space.

but space costs money and bigger setbacks mean fewer homes and higher prices.

I have lived in studios, I've lived in a single occupancy and I can tell you that when money is tight, I am happy to sacrifice a step back if I can pay my rent.

People's right to housing is more important than aesthetics.

Please support the project.

Thank you.

Good evening Planning Commission.

My name is Chris Hawk with the Piedmont Environmental Council.

PEC recognizes that the applicant's updated affordable housing component is significant and it addresses a large portion of our concerns related to the affordable housing component of this rezoning.

And we thank the applicant for these substantial changes.

We hope the applicant, Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors will work together to address our concerns regarding connectivity.

public transit, walkability, special exceptions, public schools and onsite tree canopies as it pertains to this development and its environs.

If this rezoning is to move forward to the board, we ask that the missing public infrastructure such as public transit and walkability to nearby services be addressed.

These issues are outstanding in places 29 North as a whole and should be addressed regardless of the outcome of this rezoning.

Thank you.

Yep, that's right.

Thank you, Ms.

Shaffer and good evening commissioners.

I'd like to speak tonight in favor of this project.

I'd like to remind you of several points from your own comprehensive plan.

First, land use objective five, promote density within the development areas to help create new compact urban places.

Encourage developers to build at the higher end of the density range on greenfield sites provided that development will be in keeping with design recommendations in the neighborhood model.

Encourage developers to build within the density range recommended in the master plans on infill sites.

Ensure that housing is equally available to all populations.

Provide for a variety of housing types for all income levels and help provide for increased density in the development areas.

Provide affordable housing options for low to moderate income residents of Albemarle County and those persons who work within Albemarle County who wish to reside within Albemarle County.

Your comprehensive plan, your Places 29 North Master Plan, your Climate Action Plan, all demand that you support dense, affordable development within your development area.

I'd like you to think tonight about the residents, your potential constituents who would live in these homes at the 30% AMI level all the way up to the 80% AMI level who don't have the opportunity to raise HOA dues on their neighbors, to hire professional consultants and engineers and PR firms

and enlist the local supposed environmental firms that they sit on the boards of to help oppose this housing in their backyard.

Think about them and whether they'll have a place to live.

And I urge you not to send this back to be downsized and to eliminate homes so fewer people can live there, but to embrace density and having homes on this site and to maximize this use of the land

So you don't tear down acres and acres outside of the development area for a large lot, expensive, detached, energy inefficient, low amenity housing that you will be forced to have if you don't allow apartments and stacked townhomes for affordable rentals and for entry level homeownership opportunities.

Thank you.

Good evening Planning Commission.

My name is Matthew Gillican.

I live in Charlottesville, Virginia.

I wanted to speak in favor of this project.

It's really remarkable to see how consistently affluent neighborhoods in the county gather their resources together to fight against housing for people who don't have the resources they have.

I spoke to you all a number of months ago.

It's actually the last in-person thing I did before the pandemic, speaking in favor of the Parkway Place development.

And I appreciate that you all voted in favor of that.

I hope that you will take the same tact with this project, voting in favor of what, as best I can tell, is one of the most generous and robust proffers of affordability the county's ever seen.

I think that the opportunity to have this degree of affordable housing is one that the county can't pass up based on everything the county has said about its care for affordable housing.

My wife is a teacher in the city schools and I work at UVA Hospital.

A lot of our co-workers have to come from the surrounding counties because they can't find affordable apartments to rent in the Charlottesville or Albemarle area.

I would love for them to have shorter commutes to put less pollution in the environment from their cars, to have the chance to ride the bus into work rather than drive.

I hope that you all will vote in favor of this.

Thank you.

At this time, I do not have anyone else with their hand raised.

I take that back.

Next, I have a couple more people.

Nancy?

Yes, good evening.

My name is Nancy Trudeau and I live at 2666 English Oaks Circle.

I respectfully request the application to be denied.

Under section 33.7 of the zoning codes, the commission has a duty in zoning when considering the zoning map amendments.

to do so according to good zoning practices, which are clearly not accomplished by this development, not by this development on behalf of the surrounding residents, but of the very residents who will reside within the development.

A very inherent and critical component of good zoning is set forth in the Commonwealth of Virginia section 15.2-2283,

which has been cited by a few of the previous presenters.

This section of the code requires compliance with the purpose of the zoning ordinance as section double small i to reduce or prevent congestion in public streets.

The applicant's proposed development is so condensed, it's so over inflated that it not only puts Forest Lakes residents, the general public,

and those that use the streets located at Ashwood Boulevard and Route 29, but the applicants own homeowners on congested roads, which are currently dangerous at the high traffic hours of the days.

Just yesterday evening, I came in at about 5.30, and the turning lane that goes onto Ashwood Boulevard was backed up by five cars.

To get to that turning lane, you crest a hill.

And that hill is a blind spot, even in good weather.

The proposed use of Ashwood Boulevard by these developers is unnecessary.

If the development was more reasonably sized, they could use their own existing roads.

the Ridgewood Drive Road and the road located that serves the developers own motel site.

There's no reason to use Ashwood Road.

I respectfully request the commissioners do their duty to revisit this road site for the benefit of all the residents, including those who will live in the development so that the roads are not

to prevent the roads from becoming increasingly dangerous and even ultra-hazardous in good weather conditions.

Hello, my name is Jimmy Buranic.

I spoke earlier.

I just want to point out, we are not opposed to

underfunding anybody.

We're not opposed to having people that can't afford wages in our neighborhood.

We are opposed to the buildings.

That's what we said, the building environment.

We just need to read the overhaul of the plan.

Mr. Brannock, thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

Carolyn, are there others who have their hands up that are first-time speakers?

My name is Christopher Schmidt.

Go ahead, Chris.

Oh, okay.

I got muted.

Sorry.

Yeah, my name is Christopher Schmidt, 17 Lowell Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts, actually.

I'm calling in as a longtime fan of Charlottesville and someone who's actually been looking to move to the area and have been paying more attention to things as a result of that.

I wanted to say, having spent most of today actually reviewing a lot of details around this project, I'm really excited to see this type of development being considered in the Charlottesville area.

I think that the value of the affordable housing offers here are very

very strong.

I think that as another commenter said, there's obviously a lot of value to this community.

This is a place where people really do feel like they have the best of all worlds living near Charlottesville, living in the county, and being so close to so many things that are so great.

And I think it's really an opportunity to take some of the spaces, Greenfield development, and create something that is able to have more affordable homes, able to have more people who can live there who otherwise wouldn't be able to.

Having lived in a much more dense city than this area, I think people express concern about open space, about many things like that.

And I think that all of these things are livable.

Being able to have a home to live in is really the important part.

I don't care if this is COVID, if this is talking about open space for recreation.

I don't care about any of those things.

All of those things are something that you can do.

But if all you can afford to do is live in your car, then you don't have access to any of those amenities anyway.

And something is almost always better than nothing, which is what a lot of people have or are driving.

They're not living in their car, but they're spending a lot of time there.