Planning Commission Regular Meeting   6/14/2022

This meeting of the Albemarle County Planning Commission to order for June 14, 2022.

We have one of our staff is remote.

Yes, are you ready?

Yes, I can.

Can you hear me?

All right, we'll just go down the line and just state your name and say here for the record.

Can you hear me now?

Can you hear me?

OK.

All right, everybody.

Ms.

Firehock?

Here.

And Mr. Murray?

Here.

So would you like to say a few words of hello?

Sure, it's a welcome to serve.

All right, thank you very much, and thank you for agreeing to serve.

Welcome.

So with that, we will now move on to other matters not listed on the agenda for the public.

These are matters that are not currently scheduled for a public hearing.

So if there's anything that is not on the agenda for this evening that a member of the public would wish to speak to, now would be the time.

Oh, yes.

Thanks for reminding me about remote.

OK.

We'll move on now to the consent agenda.

Does any commissioner wish to pull the item from the consent agenda?

Madam Chair?

Madam Chair, while I would not like to pull anything, I would like to offer a sincere appreciation to the developer of Galaxy, to the Galaxy project, on the naming of the streets of that particular development.

I want to thank her for being so bold as to name them after STEM women.

And so I assume people will know what STEM is, but if not, Google it, please.

So noted.

Any other comments or anything you wish to pull from the agenda, consent agenda?

So moved.

All right, it's been moved and seconded.

Any discussion?

Ms.

Firehock?

Aye.

All right, we've adopted the consent agenda.

We'll now move on to the public hearings for this evening.

We have two public hearings, even though there is one site that we're considering, but there's two specific items that have to be addressed separately.

So the first public hearing item is ZMA-2021-00008 Old Ivy Residences.

Good evening.

Can everyone hear me okay?

My name is Rebecca Bagsdale and I'm a Planning Manager with Community Development for Development Review and I'll be joined by Kevin McDermott, who is the Planning Manager for Transportation.

We have a number of requests to cover.

As you said, there's two separate rezoning requests and then along with the primary rezoning request is a step back waiver and a parking reduction request.

So we're going to step through each of those and pause as we need to for questions and then

action at the end.

Kevin will be doing the transportation segment of the presentation.

As I mentioned, the primary rezoning is the residential rezoning and then the associated rezoning is the amendment to the steep slopes overlay zoning district.

We're going to start with orienting everyone to the location of this site.

It's at the corner of

I'm going to get my pointer here.

The 250 bypass along Old Ivy Road.

The site is there and is about 35.5 acres.

It's near that intersection with Old Ivy and the on and off ramp.

You've heard a great deal in terms of its location being significant from some of the letters of support and mentioned in the application it is within close proximity to a number of employment centers such as UVA, commercial destinations, so it would be convenient for residents of that area.

Zooming in a little closer to the site, you can see the surrounding properties that are closest in proximity to it being University Village, Huntington Village, Ivy Gardens down Old Ivy heading east into the UVA area.

And then across the road are some properties that have been developed with UVA offices that are commercial.

And then to the north, of course, is the Darden Business School at UVA, North Grounds, including the law school and other UVA nearby destinations.

Segueing to the zoning request and the specifics of that, because this one does have a great deal of specifics to it with the five different parcels.

with three different zoning categories of R10, R15, and R1 that comprise the approximate 35 acres.

And those do include R10 and the R15 properties have proffers associated with them.

And one of those proffers is that the R15 properties are limited to R1 density until transportation proffers are deemed satisfied by the Board of Supervisors.

Kevin's going to go into that a little deeper later in the presentation.

Overview of the request, just a few highlights of the proposal.

It is a request for 525 residential units, would be a mix of at least two housing types, maybe more because it will allow apartments, single-family detached, single-family attached duplexes and will allow the range of housing types.

They are providing

Open space and preserving environmental features and allowing for adequate amenity areas for active recreation and accommodating the Rivanna Trail, providing a transit stop crosswalk across Old Ivy to existing pedestrian connections, and then a proffer for offsite pedestrian connections along with affordable housing.

So those are sort of the general details that we'll get into in a little bit more specific as we looked at some later slides.

We've reviewed this request against the comprehensive plan and I'll get my pointer again over here.

The green, the parcels are outlined in yellow and they include parcels designated parks and green systems of about 20.6 acres and then the orange is urban density residential which is designated for up to 34 units per acre and it's consistent with the housing types and the density in terms of

The number of units, with one exception, there are some green space areas that we believe should be redesignated portions of parcels that we think is a little bit of acreage that would be appropriate to use in the density calculation.

The comprehensive plan would suggest up to 500 units and the proposal is 525, as we said.

There's a lot of history associated with these parcels and the land use designation, some of which ties back to it being a corridor for the western bypass, which is no longer a project.

And we have with rezonings, as you know, with some of them you've seen in recent years, we get into a finer level of analysis in terms of the environmental areas and

and what areas should be used for development.

Keeping in mind that we want to preserve those areas, but also this is in the development area where we want to make sure we're utilizing the land efficiently as far as one of our other comprehensive plan goals.

This is an overview of the concept plan, which I'm sure that the applicant will go into a lot of detail about some of these features of the plan.

And I do need to reorient you because we've pivoted a little.

North is now this way.

There's the north arrow.

Old Ivy Road is to the left and then the bypass is to north.

to the north well to the west rather and then to the south is Huntington Village and University Village.

So the tan building envelopes would be the apartment building envelopes and the blue going back along this vehicular travelway up and around sort of the L shape there, reverse L in the blue, the light violet blue areas.

And then you can see how the internal travelway and the parking areas are laid out in the hatched area.

And in the comp plan designated green space areas are those environmental features, the wooded areas, stream buffer, and some managed slopes that are being preserved as open space or green space on the site.

This is an R-15 development, so unlike the plan development districts that require the plan as part of the ordinance, the mechanism with an R-15 district is proffered, so major elements of this plan are proffered.

And I'll point out a couple more things.

The blue lines are the multi-use paths.

And that's along the Old Ivy frontage.

And then the purple line is emergency access for fire that sort of meanders through the site.

Very important in terms of the Rivanna Trail is allowing for its current location to remain in some places and then allowing for its relocation, meandering a little around and through the site over to the connection here in purple on the left.

So the purple is the existing trail, the green dashed line is the relocated trail, and the Rivanna Trails Foundation has indicated that they are, they don't object to that relocation and Parks and Rec has also

So those are sort of the general specifics.

There are opportunities for interconnection and future pedestrian access points if the applicant is able to work with the adjacent owners.

Some of the transportation and multi-use aspects Kevin's going to go into a little more detail in a minute.

With regard to this project, there is one of the issues to be raised was consistency with the affordable housing policy.

The county's policy is that it's recommended that new residential units, the total of the new residential or the total residential units within a new development would provide 15% affordable units.

The application proposes 525.

and they proposed 14, the way the math might work is 14 affordable units and the applicant has based their calculation on the difference between what they believe the buy right yield would be if those properties

were able to develop at an R15 density up to 430 units.

But staff has provided in the report that the difference is significant in terms of doing that calculation, which is not consistent with the policy.

Providing affordable units consistent with the policy would provide about seventy eight point seven units.

And those are offered as rental units.

And that that is a note on the plan that the affordable units there is an affordability note on the application plan.

So that's one of our concerns.

And then we have also raised transportation as one of our concerns.

And Kevin is going to

start his portion of the presentation, unless I went through all that too quickly and we wanted to pause for questions.

Like I said, we wanted to make sure we paused at certain intervals, but I think we're going to wait till we got through the first rezoning to get to questions if that's okay with the chair.

All right, thank you.

Once again, Kevin McDermott, the Transportation Planning Manager here at Albemarle County.

The Old Ivy Residences did perform a traffic impact analysis as part of their proposal and the

The incident traffic engineers trip generation calculation for the total number of trips for this project would be 4,326 daily trips added to Old Ivy Road.

The traffic impact analysis, or TIA, did identify that existing conditions in this area, primarily on the western side of the bypass, at the locations you see there numbered one and two.

One is Ivy Road.

and Canterbury Road intersection.

And number two is the old Ivy Road 29 off-ramp.

Existing conditions at those are currently failing for many movements and poor all around.

I will add that I will add that

The county and VDOT have been aware of these issues out there and we have been studying the situation, trying to identify potential improvements.

We have not fully identified or vetted specific improvements yet, although there are some options that we're looking at.

We are still evaluating those to find out if they're feasible.

And then if they are determined feasible, we would need to identify funding for that.

So that's where that process of evaluating potential fixes for some of those alternatives are or for some of those issues are.

We are also looking at the other end just north of the number five you see on the map there.

Old Ivy Road crosses under the railroad line and it is a very narrow crossing.

We see a significant number of pedestrians going through here, which has also been a cause for concern from the county, from VDOT and from the university.

And we've been looking at trying to find opportunities to improve that situation.

Once again, we have not identified specific improvements or funding for it, but we are looking at some potential options.

The traffic impact analysis did also show that with the proposed addition of that 4,326 daily trips, there would be additional delays primarily at those same intersections.

So the delays would be extended beyond what they are currently with this proposal.

So getting to the 1985 proffer that Rebecca mentioned, the ZMA 1985-21 was approved with a proffer that limited density to the R1 level until Old Ivy Road is

improve to the satisfaction of the Board of Supervisors of Albemarle County.

There is not a lot of specificity to that proffer, as you can tell.

The minutes from that presentation

The board hearing did discuss such improvements such as the lack of curb and gutter throughout the entire corridor, narrow lanes, and the desire to have a 30-foot roadway width from curb to curb to fit those 12-foot lanes, which would be ideal.

Some of those improvements have been complete.

I would say actually most of them have been complete.

There's curb and gutter along a lot of that section of Old Ivy now, and most of the section does have that 30-foot width.

So a lot of that piece has been complete.

Another item that was discussed in that public hearing was the realignment of Old Ivy Road under the railroad underpass, the one I pointed out to you earlier on near number five there.

There has been no change in that, as I mentioned, it is still a cause for concern for us.

and also the provision of sidewalks on at least one side of Old Ivy Road.

That is partially complete on the south side of Old Ivy Road with all the development that the university has had out there.

They have added sidewalks along a significant portion of that.

but definitely they do not go through the entire corridor.

The intersections west of the bypass were not specifically identified at that time but we do know now as I mentioned they do exhibit pretty poor operations and based on that analysis the staff doesn't really consider that the 1985 proper has been satisfied.

The proposed improvements that the applicant has committed to through either their application plan or for proffers include the following.

They propose a future bus stop along the site frontage of Old Ivy Road.

Currently, that area is not served by any transit service, but it is very possible that we could get transit service.

At one point in time, the university did have some transit service out on Old Ivy.

It just no longer exists right now.

Another item that they are proffering is a shared use path.

They have that shown across the frontage as you can see there in the solid blue line.

And then they have also proffered to extend that shared use path all the way through to Ivy Gardens.

You can see that in the dotted blue line shown on your screen there.

They have proffered to construct that if the necessary right of way is donated by the current property owners.

If the owners will not donate that right of way, the developer has offered to provide the county with $500,000 for construction of that path so that the county could do it as a public project in the future.

They have also added a pedestrian crossing of Old Ivy Road at the site frontage.

As I mentioned, there is sidewalk on the south side right now, so that would provide some connectivity.

And also that provides the connection for the Rivanna Trail, which goes through there and crosses the road.

Also a right turn at the US 29 bypass lane there, just on the west end of their property.

There are other potential improvements such as a shared use path connecting to Leonard Sandridge, but all that is subject to the availability of easements and discussions that are ongoing between the developer and other property owners.

Overall, staff sees a lot of value in those proposed improvements.

However, there are remaining unaddressed transportation issues.

and those include the poor operations of the intersections west of the bypass in both the future no-build condition that get measurably worse with the proposed development.

The railroad overpass on the eastern end is severely constrained.

It's got poor site distance.

We have

We're aware of flooding issues, insufficient width, and then the angle that it hits Ivy Road at makes it a substandard intersection.

You can see the pictures of that overpass and the issues are pretty apparent there.

And then the lack of pedestrian connectivity to the surrounding system, as I mentioned,

There are some existing pedestrian facilities on Old Ivy.

The developer is proposing to provide some more, but those do not connect to anything beyond that small area of Old Ivy right there around the development in some of those UVA facilities.

We mentioned that there were two other requests associated with this, one of which is the step back waiver request.

You've seen that as a as a frequently requested item with apartment buildings that want to go up to four stories.

So this request would apply to those multifamily or apartment buildings that would potentially go up to four stories that would waive the step back requirement.

And staff doesn't have any concerns about it as far as it

producing what we call the canyon effect or any concerns with buildings and spaces of human scale with the building spacing and the setbacks they indicated on the illustrative plan.

And you can kind of see that on the illustrative plan.

So we recommended approval of the step back waiver provided that we get a little more information about setbacks on

The application plan and I've shown you the setbacks for the R-15 district.

The front setback is five feet, but it looked like that was a little bit increased from Old Ivy and that was a factor that they indicated in their step back waiver request.

That was one of the many items in your packet this round.

The second reduction, or excuse me, the second special exception request was for a parking reduction.

And we provided you the reduction in requests in terms of what the ordinance requires for those types of units, one bedroom, two bedroom apartments and townhouses and what the proposed parking request was.

And that was based on IT figures, comparison of similar sites, including experience that Gray Star has with their properties and other locations.

There was

and you know we've talked about how the transit stop will be provided and their opportunities for multi-use paths to be provided.

Staff's recommendation at this point is that if the reduction requests were approved that it have a condition that those connections have to be made or at least the connection to Leonard Sandridge.

Typically these parking reduction requests are reviewed administratively and sites must provide certain things

And then the zoning administrator can reduce the parking, but because these things are not currently in place, it needs to be processed this way as a special exception.

We can pause now or we can go through the steep slopes overlay district.

I know we're taking a little longer than we usually do with our presentations, but we do have the four separate items.

The last thing is the steep slopes overlay rezoning.

It's alright, we'll just keep going and then I think we can.

We just wanted to make sure we gave you that opportunity because of course you want to run through it too fast.

So the second rezoning request and the last item before you, the fourth item, is a request to amend the steep slopes overlay district.

It's a district that was established in the zoning ordinance and created what we call preserved and managed slopes.

So the preserved slopes are shown in green and the managed slopes are shown in yellow on the map to the right and then the applicant provided a detailed analysis of the slopes which are located on the northern portion of the site and western along the bypass and then as we've indicated here on the map.

They provided in their packet an overlay of potential footprints in areas that may be disturbed.

and that's shown with the left on the left the slopes are shown in red and then there's another plan sheet that I'll show you that zoomed in a little bit.

It's 1.54 acres of preserved or excuse me preserved slope that they'd like to rezone to manage.

There was that detailed analysis that gave the history of the site.

We mentioned there's a lot of detailed history related with this property that the slopes are man-made and they're not associated with

a perennial stream or adjacent to a perennial stream and that the applicant said that in some cases there might be improvement to runoff.

This is the plan set and this is the area that I mentioned extends the travelway extends all the way back and up to adjacent to the bypass.

The slopes are shown in these areas adjacent to the bypass and then in the middle of the property and you can see the areas that would be affected along the edges.

near the green space area or open space area is where some of the wetlands are located or the wetlands that are closest to the slopes and potentially disturbed areas.

The county engineer did not object to the request, but we did point out in the staff report that wetlands are called out for preservation in the comprehensive plan.

And as part of the zoning ordinance analysis, we raised some concerns about

both the note on the plan for wetlands preservation, rewording that so it achieves what I believe the applicant intended as far as not disturbing wetlands unless they absolutely had to and then rewording it so that that would be subject to county engineer approval is one of the things we discussed with the applicant.

I'm sure they'll bring that up with you.

And then we suggested maybe

A second look at the areas where the slopes were because the request is to rezone all, change the zoning map to change these from preserved to managed.

And the distinction is preserved slopes only allow for very limited things like trails and public facilities that can't go anywhere else.

Managed slopes allow for all of the underlying by right activities.

Both are subject to the design standards that are in the steep slopes section of the zoning ordinance.

I wanted to mention all the public comment that we've received.

We've received both letters of support, touching on some of the things that I've already mentioned as far as the location and providing housing types.

And then of course we've covered the traffic and safety concerns and the

condition of Old Ivy Road.

Just wanted to acknowledge that commission and staff has read all of those.

In summary, we're not recommending approval at this time.

We acknowledge the positive aspects of this proposal, but as we've noted, we have concerns with consistency with the affordable housing policy and the traffic concerns.

So that's our that's the conclusion.

Okay, thank you.

Questions for staff?

Anyone else?

Sure, real excited.

Well, thank you for that great presentation.

Let's have a handful of questions.

There were two intersections, Ivy and Canterbury and then Old Ivy Road and 29 off ramp.

I guess my question, I want to use the right wording.

Are they volatile?

Maybe that's the word I'm looking for.

Like, are there a number of traffic incidents there?

that currently happen as is.

We have not identified those as significantly problematic safety issues currently.

The biggest concern I think we have with that area is that primarily in the AM peak hour, we are noticing that the

OK.

Thank you.

And then the second question is more from my knowledge.

Do proffers, for lack of a better term, have a statute of limitations on them or anything?

Like 1985 was almost 40 years ago.

So are they in perpetuity?

The short answer is yes.

OK.

All right.

I have two more, and we keep going.

OK.

Could you define in layman's terms, what is a class B type one primitive trail?

Sure.

Okay, and then last and final question, I promise.

Does the county have standards that define like what's acceptable for documenting sites and buildings before they're demolished?

I just read that it was a property with some outbuildings on the parcel there.

Is there a standard?

Right, the Historic Preservation Planner demolition permits are required and as part of that then the Historic Preservation Planner takes a look at them and they will typically reach out to the applicants and discuss with them you know voluntary documentation and we offer assistance either with the Historic Preservation Committee member or staff person so that we can get that level

of detailed the applicants or the property owners aren't required to provide us that access.

They could do it themselves, but we provide them as much guidance as we can as part of that process.

Could we go back to one of your first maps where it had the various

the various parcels, and then they were in, I think, a mustard color or golden color, and then they had- The zoning map, sir?

Keep going, that's where you- Or did you want the zoning map?

This is fine, this is fine, that's fine.

Where you've landed is fine.

Yes, sir.

So these parcels, the, I'm not using my pointer, I accidentally turned it off.

So the dark brown is R15 that is subject to that R1 parcel, excuse me, proffer.

And then there's this little bit of lighter brown that is also subject to the proffer.

The avocado green, we do call this our retro zoning palette, is the R1 parcel.

And then this table is what was provided by the applicant.

So if I understand it, the R15 is about 27 acres today.

If I did my quick math, it's about 27 acres.

I don't use the point somethings, I use the whole numbers.

I'm sorry, I didn't hear the last part.

Yeah, so that board would have to take that matter up to make that decision.

But the R1 density.

Right, but not as the R15.

But not as the R15, thank you.

Anything else?

I have just a quick question, or maybe I hope it's quick.

Not, well, you know, my role's changed a lot over the years.

So my memory, there's back to 2010 and then there's today or December going forward, but no, not, there might've been one along the way that was a long time ago, but recently we saw this type of request with another one, but I don't know which one it was off the top of my head and what those numbers were, but I think it's been some time.

I am just trying to get a sense of how unusual that is because I have been on this commission for eight and a half years and I don't recall one, at least in terms of this body.

All right, I just wanted to understand the uniqueness of that.

Let me just add one thing.

So let me just add a piece to what you respond to my colleague, Corey, about the AM lineup on, I guess it's the St.

Having spent a great deal of time over in that particular area because of having offices and things like that over there that my staff was in, it happens in the afternoon too.

In fact, we've been advising people never to use that road there, but to go underneath the interpass and use the cloverleaf because

um that is an unpredictable sort of intersection and particularly I mean it's probably better now because the kids are out of school the St.

Ann kids are out of school, the Belfort kids are out of school but during the year it's don't ever we I mean it's it's to the point where we don't advise people to go to do that just to let people know that um yeah so you should so you should know that if you only see it in the a.m you should know that in the p.m during school it's

You did remind me of another question I had there related to traffic, which was, did the traffic study that was done account for the new UVA buildings that have been built and all of the additional, is that traffic fully flowing?

I mean that they build a number of new structures that have added traffic and I'm just...

Yes, it would have been done.

Let me try and pull that up.

If you can get it to us at some point today because it would be interesting to see if that was done during a time where COVID was in play and certainly the one UVA structure that's there on Old Ivy Road

I will add our standards for the TIAs.

If we believe that COVID may be a factor in the existing counts, we have been having the developer or the traffic engineer add traffic into those counts so that we can accurately predict that.

There is a background growth rate that's assumed in there as well.

So we didn't find any issues with the existing counts.

I know that the traffic engineer that performed that study is available from when the developer comes up to speak.

I just have a couple of questions.

I think most of mine have been covered.

And Kevin, just clarification on the VDOT efforts and planning that

I believe there are several planning studies that have taken place, including underneath the Trussell.

Can you tell us where those are at?

I mean, have they been completed?

Are they still looking at that?

The planning is funded.

VDOT is performing those studies with state funding, state planning funding.

They had put together a draft report that identified some options that may have worked really well.

However, most of those options were

too expensive for us to move forward with.

So where they are right now is they have gone back and they are evaluating some lower cost solutions.

And there are some that we have identified that we think are promising.

Some that would be well under the half a million dollar mark.

So something I think would be reasonable for the county and or VDOT to identify funding for.

But what they're doing is they are currently evaluating those options, running them through models to make sure they will work, and then we've got to find the money for it.

So I think it's probably going to be a few more months down the line before we see any results from those studies and find out whether or not those options are going to work.

and then once again, then we have to find the money to implement them.

Is there anything more for the staff?

Okay, I think they were ready to move on to hearing.

Sorry?

Yes, I have some questions.

There's an unusual spot where the Rivanna Trail seems to be constrained between development on the map

And I was wondering, how is that going to be characterized in that area?

It doesn't really look buffered by vegetation at all.

What exactly is that site going to be like, the character of the trail in that area?

So yeah, you're on it right there.

That spot right there.

What is that exactly?

Is it a strip of green space?

Yes, it's one of the amenity space areas.

So it would be routed through green space behind.

As it gets closer to units, it is going to be routed between them.

It looks like buildings are coming pretty close to there.

The applicant may speak to what they intend, but there isn't any higher level of detail for that area than what's provided on the application plan.

As far as green space, there isn't a certain planting plan that's been proposed or anything since it is a

a concept plan at this point, but those things are what we need your feedback on.

In the preserved slopes, I assume this is not an all or none proposal.

That is something that's not what's before us this evening, but there have been rezonings in the Commission, sorry, before you, just before you, that we would need to establish a new plan and a topo line or something for us to follow on GIS.

Okay, another question regarding transportation.

My wife and I had observed a car flooded up to its windows within the past month or two under that railroad.

That would not be included in our crash data for that.

It is something that I believe VDOT could track because when those issues come about when people call in and they get a service call for it, they do record that.

I don't have the numbers for that.

The emergency access is provided and the fire marshal has reviewed that as far as the emergency access connection.

And then when we get to site plan, they'll need to meet all the fire code requirements.

Thank you.

OK.

All right.

So we'd like to hear then the presentation from the applicant.

Whoever is going to speak, approach the podium and then please tell us your name and organization.

And you may need to move the mic around.

Madam Chair, commissioners, my name is John Clarkson.

I'm managing director of Gray Star Real Estate Partners.

We are based in Charleston, South Carolina.

I represent division in Washington, D.C.

We're extremely excited to be here tonight to talk about this very important project.

This is actually we do entitlement across the country.

It's the first time in two and a half years that we've been able to do this face to face.

So really appreciate you all having us.

This project to us is critically important.

You know, there's an affordability crisis going on across the country.

I don't need to talk to you all about it, but it's certainly you're not immune to that here in Albemarle County.

We think we have a project here that is very appropriate for what is defined by the zoning.

We intend to build a very

Thoughtful and well-designed project that meets the housing demand but also while doing that appropriately with our neighbors and becoming an important part of the community.

We intend to adhere to young professionals as well as grad students.

We have two students, former students with us today from Darden know the community well and it's critically important that we

designed this to meet the needs, but also to become an integral part of the community.

And so with that, we're going to talk a little bit more about the proposal.

Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the commission.

I'm Valerie Long with the law firm of Williams-Mullen.

You're representing the applicant, as they said.

Thank you for those good questions.

I do have some quick answers, but I'm very cognizant of my time.

So I might ask to come back and address those later, if I may.

I'm going to skip through the areas that you've already seen and talked about.

We're happy to elaborate more on the zoning.

Mr. Bivins, specifically to answer your question, I think Ms.

Ragsdale answered it.

But just for clarification, she's correct.

Until the proffer is deemed satisfied, the proffer requires that the R15 parcels could only be developed at an R1 level of density, which of course is not at all consistent with the comprehensive plan.

There is quite a history about the comprehensive plan.

We covered that in great detail in our narrative, but in case you didn't have a chance to read it, the primary reason based on our research that the area in green was shown that way was because when this map was adopted in 2015, the property was owned by VDOT because it was part of the western bypass land.

Not too long after, the project was canceled, the land was sold back to the owners.

Unfortunately, the map has not come back up for amendment since then.

But staff, this is one of the very first things we discussed at the pre-application meeting.

And we were advised by senior staff that they understood the issue, they would not interpret it strictly, that what they would be looking for was for the applicant to preserve the sensitive environmental areas.

And we believe that is what we're doing.

We hope you will agree.

Happy to talk more about that.

This is the prior land use map from 1996.

The most prior version to that, as you can see, the entire area was shown for urban density residential at that time.

We have maps of the area.

I'm sure you all are familiar with it.

You may have been out there.

As Ms.

Ragsdale indicated, there are sidewalks in many of the areas, not all of them.

This is what would essentially be the existing driveway or the future driveway as well as the existing driveway.

There's sidewalks and utilities there as well.

You can see the entrance up above.

I'm going to be quick because of our time.

That there is a building that was added by the university.

Recently, this shows the entrance to the Rivanna Trail.

As you can see, there's no sidewalk there, whether along Old Ivy or across the street.

We would address both of those issues.

We've had a lot of meetings with the community over the years.

As Mr. Clarkson said, they have from the very beginning been very focused on being a good neighbor, outreach to the community.

We've had neighborhood meetings, several meetings with our most adjacent neighbors at University Village and Huntington Village.

We've worked very closely with staff, resubmitted the application a total of four times in an effort to continually improve it based on the staff's feedback and comments.

This was included with our application to specifically address the 1985 proffer.

Again, I would be happy to discuss this in more detail, but as hopefully you'll see there have been in fact quite a number of improvements to this corridor since 1985, most significantly the university's construction of Leonard Sanders Drive.

which obviously took a tremendous amount of traffic off of Old Ivy.

But as Mr. McDermott indicated, there's been a lot of widening, curb and gutter, sidewalks.

Essentially of the three deficiencies that were discussed in the 1985 proffers, really the only outstanding one is the railroad trestle.

We certainly understand and agree that is a problem.

and we are comforted and encouraged by Mr. McDermott's comments about how closely they are working with VDOT and the university representatives to address that issue and that I know that VDOT has some ideas they're working with, as he indicated nothing's been funded yet, but we're optimistic.

Gray stars

indicated a willingness to contribute to that solution, that request or offer remains outstanding.

So we think based on those issues being satisfied or potentially able to be satisfied in the near future, combined with all of these other improvements that have been made, and frankly, combined with all of the development that has occurred around since 1985.

We think the most important thing is the location of housing inside the existing scarce development area, close to our community's largest employer, and not to mention graduate schools and other destinations close in.

That is how we think we'll serve the community the best.

Not approving the project will obviously not make the transportation challenges go away.

It will only exacerbate them.

we think that the proffers and other commitments that the applicant is making will certainly overcome any additional trips that are added and we think improve it at least to a marginal degree.

Mr. McDermott highlighted the proposed improvements along the frontage, most significantly the pedestrian bicycle path across the entire frontage that will also connect the end of the Rivanna Trail to the sidewalk here in this location.

people using the trail could come across and then this committed sidewalk that would cross them over to the exist where there is an existing sidewalk substantially improving the safety for users of the trail and of course just the fact that the applicant is voluntarily committing to retain the

Rivanna Trail for the benefit not only of its residents, but the community is significant.

It's not required.

The existing easement is a license that's revocable.

We've also proffered to either construct or contribute financially to the extension of that multi-use path, bike-ped path,

across the frontage.

If so, that would be an additional distance of 1,275 feet of bike pet trail.

And in a moment, I'll show you how that, if that were to happen, that would actually connect to an existing path that goes all the way back to Leonard Sandrich.

As you can see, there are a number of sidewalks.

The entire plan is committed to those sidewalks that are shown in blue.

there.

We think these frontage improvements are substantial.

The applicant cannot make off-site improvements voluntarily or unilaterally.

What it can do is control and improve its frontage, things that it has the legal ability to do, it is committing to do.

There's also significantly a full turn lane that's dedicated to the northbound ramp, so any residents

Coming out of the project could immediately get into a right turn lane and then get on to the northbound ramp if they were heading downtown.

So even if they have to get in their car to go to work, they will be able to jump right on the bypass.

and not contribute to the traffic, at least in the mornings in the areas where it's congested.

And again, as Mr. McDermott said, in 1985, the concerns did not involve those congested intersections over at Canterbury and by the Bel Air Market.

The concern was about Old Ivy itself.

I'll be quick.

I've got one more minute.

This is our application plan.

As Ragsdale covered most of it, we are obviously happy to go into as much detail as you would like.

We think the amount of commitment here is substantial, commitment to two different types of housing, lots of open space, lots of sidewalks.

We are very hopeful we'll be able to construct that path.

We don't have the ability to do it on our own, but we are

in conversation with some of the adjacent landowners and we will continue that.

The density, when you factor in the issues we described about the master plan, we're preserving over eight acres in open space.

It's fully consistent when you look at it in context with the comprehensive plan.

There's some detail here, types of properties, variety of housing types.

As I think was noted, this will be an entirely for rent community, which is a type of product that's not available in this area at all.

And then finally the project benefits.

Obviously it's central location.

It's a unique housing type.

It's consistent with the comprehensive plan, preserves the sensitive environmental areas.

We're also committing to a transit stop on site.

We hope that UVA shuttle will come back.

And I didn't have a chance to talk about it, but we also, Bracer was very intentional with how it designed the site.

to have the higher density and taller apartment buildings as far away from their neighbors as possible, and this lower density, shorter buildings closer to them.

And we'd be happy to elaborate on that more.

Thank you, Ms.

Long.

This is the period where we have time to question the applicant about anything in the application itself or anything that Ms.

Yes, thank you for reminding me.

This is a slide I didn't get to, so thank you for the opportunity.

This is an illustrative plan based on our, if I can back up just for clarification,

This is our proffered concept plan.

So we're committing, and our proffers state this, that we would develop the property in general according to this plan.

And then we specifically identify important elements of this plan.

And one of them is the Rivanna Trail.

So this is the conceptual plan that we'll be binding, including all those notes that are on there.

But we know that's kind of hard to understand what you're looking at.

So we also had a land planner

prepare an illustrative plan showing the vision here.

And if I may here, this is the proposed location of how the trail would be routed through.

It's a little hard to see.

I could zoom in a little bit.

Let me see if I can make that work.

There we go.

We have identified that area with sidewalks and designated open space so it would go through kind of a little green space area to, you know, it obviously will be going through a neighborhood so we want to highlight it, but we also want to integrate, Grace wants to integrate it into the neighborhood so it becomes not only an amenity for those using the Rivanna Trail and passing through the community, but also the residents of the community.

So that is one area.

You know, most of the rest of it, it will go through open space in the natural areas.

But in this area, because we need to connect to where it ends off site, that's how we designed it there.

Again, this is conceptual for now, but we did commit to having some green space around.

You say that you're preserving environmental sensitive areas.

What are you doing to protect the integrity of those environmental sensitive areas, including the wetlands?

Don't know that we've gotten into the issue of invasive species at this time.

We do show that on the plans, there are a handful of isolated wetlands areas.

And on our concept plan, we're showing that those areas are not being disturbed.

As Ms.

Ragsdale indicated, and you probably saw in your staff report, we did indicate that we tried to demonstrate a very high standard and commit to a very high standard for not disturbing those wetlands.

to the greatest extent possible.

However, our engineers have clarified and made us aware that because they haven't designed the site yet,

They don't know with 100% certainty they can stay out of every single square inch of the wetlands and there is a process you probably are familiar with too in those events there is a process to work with the Corps to allow very very limited disturbance if necessary.

There's all sorts of mitigation requirements as a result and so what we did was

We weren't comfortable saying 100% we guarantee will stay out of every inch of wetlands, but we added a note to the proffered concept plan that says it is the intent of the applicant to not disturb them at all and to use

I think it's the maximum extent practical to avoid them.

But however, if we need to disturb any, we'll coordinate with the core and with the county and any other parties to do that.

So I just wanted to clarify that issue.

Ms.

Ragsdale did suggest that it might be better to change that language or at least add to it to say that that the county engineer would have to review that and confirm whether that standard has been met.

We think that's implied, but we're certainly happy to add that.

So that's with wetlands.

With regard to the other sensitive environmental areas, there is a stream over here that has a water protection ordinance buffer.

And while you can't see it on this plan, on our concept plan, the outline of that 100-foot WPO buffer, stream buffer is shown, and we've committed to stay out of that area.

We also had that area delineated early on by the core, so we were certain to know exactly where its boundaries are.

The other issues are preserving the natural wooded area here.

The Graystar representatives will tell you one of the main things they loved about this site from the time they saw it was its extensive natural area and the ability to preserve as much of that as possible and make it an amenity for the community.

So we've really worked hard to do that.

With regard to the preserved slopes,

As Ms.

Ragsdale indicated, they are zoned as preserved slopes, but they are no doubt man-made.

When the Western Bypass, when Leonard Sanders Drive was constructed, this area was permitted as a

which the term is a waste area.

So the dirt from building the road was piled here.

And that was just one of numerous times the area has been disturbed over the years based on the aerial imagery.

So while it is near this pond, those man-made slopes don't have the same characteristics as other preserved slopes.

And I can, I'd probably want the civil engineers to provide more detail about it.

But what they've explained to me is that

I think one of the great potentials of this site is if there was a mass transit option

that you could have a pedestrian-oriented development here.

I think one of the big concerns for me are definitely the cars.

And for that matter, you couldn't get a bus under those railroads right now, I don't believe.

And so I think, have you considered, I think you're proposing something like 1.35 parking spaces per unit.

And just to clarify, it's 1.35, I believe, just for the apartments.

For the townhouses, it's 1.6.

And then no change for other single family.

First of all, I will say that the, and I think many of you maybe know this or would agree, certainly what our developer clients tell me is that the county's parking regulations substantially or require substantially more parking spaces

that are actually needed for multifamily units.

Sounds like maybe you would agree.

But regardless, what Graystar has asked is to not have to build more parking spaces than it needs.

it would much rather save that land and put it towards amenity areas, green space, et cetera.

So they manage a lot of apartments around the country.

And so based on their experience for a community like this and a location like this, they have looked at this very with a lot of fine detail and what they've proposed they think is exactly the right amount.

They have to have enough to be able to lease the units

They don't want to build more than they need.

If things work out well with transit, as I think we stated, we're committing to have a transit stop on site.

We'd coordinate the location of that with CAT or maybe UVA if they reinstate their old IV shuttle.

That could prove to be significant enough that they could reduce it even more.

But what they've asked for is what they think is the right

ratio right now based on what they know.

They always have the ability to build, I shouldn't say they could build less if they'd want, they'd probably have to come back and ask staff for an amendment to that parking reduction request.

But what they've proposed in that request is what they think makes sense.

So you may be right about the railroad trestles.

I think the one near the Bel Air Market might be OK, but even if it's not, there are other again, the UVA shuttle bus was essentially like a jaunt bus size, something or like the buses that are out in Crozet, the Crozet Connect buses, shorter ones that can navigate those railroad underpasses more effectively.

Those are things we haven't worked that out, but those are the types of things that they are hopeful that could be implemented.

Hello Ms.

Long, thank you for being here.

And I just have a couple of questions and I'll pass the buck and I'll have more later depending on what my other colleagues say.

But could you, I think the elephant in the room obviously is the affordable housing determination.

Sure.

First of all, they're committed to affordable housing and

I've proffered and put a lot of thought into this.

As noted earlier, the land is zoned R-15, not all of it, but the vast majority, as Mr. Bivins indicated, about 27 acres are zoned R-15.

So we're not asking for an increase for those parcels in terms of units.

Yes, the 85 proffer does regulate that for purposes of traffic.

but for purposes of actually allowing those units, that land was rezoned to R-15 back in 1985.

So what we did was we did a granular look at exactly how many units could be built by right across the entire property based on the R-15 zoning for

those parcels and the R1 zoning that's on, there's a five acre parcel that's zoned R1.

So, and the reality is you could build 430 units by right.

And so what we're asking is to go from 430 to 525 and then commit to have 15% of the units over and above be affordable housing.

There is

President for this.

The county has approved that.

I know you asked Ms.

Ragsdale, it may have been for her time or wasn't involved.

Two that I was involved in personally.

One is the project on Rio Road called Oakley.

That project, I worked on the zoning for that twice.

Originally, it was zoned R6.

And we rezoned it, I think, to neighborhood model.

And it was going to have, I can't remember how many units, but when the assisted living facility came along and wanted to, we had to amend the zoning to allow the assisted living facility, which reduced the number of units.

and when we came back and amended the proffer, we asked for, the county had begun to grant so-called, the term used is buy right lot yield credit.

At the time it was against cash proffers when those were being accepted as well as affordable housing.

We asked for that credit and the board granted it.

Likewise, I was also involved in a project on Rio Road.

It's called the Lofts at Meadow Creek.

It's across from Treesdale.

And likewise, the board granted buy, write, lot, yield credit for that project as well.

So a lot of times when you see rezonings,

Some I've been involved in if the underlying zoning across the board is R1 or RA such that the buy right lot yield credit is very small.

It's kind of not worth worrying about because you're not.

It's just not worth worrying about.

So it's the easier thing is just say, OK, fine, we'll do 15 percent of all of those units.

It's really a difference of maybe sometimes two or three units.

In this case, it's a difference of a substantial amount of units.

And so we're trying to

Again, keep in mind, we very intentionally did not propose to increase the zoning on those parcels above what it was approved for back in 1985.

So we think it's appropriate given that we're not essentially up-zoning those parcels to commit to the affordable housing that reflects the up-zoned units.

So again, I hope that answers your question.

I know that it is a challenge right now.

No one disputes the challenges of affordable housing, housing in general.

We think that the benefits this project will provide to the community by having this many units close in to our largest employer

in an area obviously that's designated for much higher density and can contribute to some improvements, multimodal and others, that when you balance all of that together, along with the affordable housing that has been proffered or committed to, that that addresses the policy.

Thank you for the background info.

I think you're aware of just the perception of how challenging that would be to have 500 some units and you walk out with 14 affordable.

So just kind of putting yourself in my seat, that's going to be very, very challenging.

In terms of sustainability, and I'll ask this question to almost every applicant that comes up here.

You know, that's really important to our community and our vision, sustainability, climate action, our comprehensive plan.

and so forth.

Can you talk a little bit about, you know, how you're going to help us take steps towards achieving that vision through this project particularly?

So whether the site design or building design, I know it's early, but I do, I'm an architect, so I know these conversations are happening right now.

Yes.

Well, first, thank you.

I'm glad you asked me that because I neglected to raise that as one of the many benefits of the community.

I know that there's many who say that one of the best things you can do for reducing carbon emissions is have people drive less, whether it's transit or having them be able to walk to work, walk to destinations, frankly, use their car less.

And so, frankly, by virtue of locating these homes,

within a close in location, close to a large employer, close to other destinations, that that will have a significant impact on climate action just by definition of its location.

The fact that the community has been designed with sidewalks throughout the community to foster and support that will help.

We're committing to the multimodal improvements, the bike ped trails in numerous locations, the transit stop if available.

All of those things will help.

Graystar also in its

communities regularly incorporates features like bike storage lockers in their buildings and bikes that you can borrow to use, programs like that.

Did you talk any about the building side?

I mean, once you build them, they're here for 50 to 75 years.

I don't know that we've gotten to that point yet.

I'm going for down, Madam Chair.

Sure, thank you.

And just for the record, we are not asking you to proffer design things on the spot.

I just want to be clear that that is not happening up on this dash.

No, he will not be.

Thank you.

Who would like to go next?

Yes, just a clarification.

So the density is happening in the gray blocks that we're seeing right now.

And beyond those gray blocks, we don't really know much about it, right?

So is that all four story buildings, setbacks?

Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Because again,

So first, just clarification, this is an illustrative plan, but I'm happy to go back at any point to the concept plan.

Sure.

Hi everyone, I'm Dan Nickerson.

I've been working on this project since January of 2020 and the design is the fun part so I'm happy to walk you through some of that.

So a couple things, one additional thing that we do specifically to climate change is we add EV chargers to all of our projects.

We see more and more cars going that way and people wanting to drive cars to reduce carbon emissions and we're planning on adding EV chargers, charging stations to this project.

Here's some illustrative renderings of the project.

So this is of the townhomes as you're going towards the stormwater pond.

Obviously, these are not the full details.

These are very early renderings.

But just to give you a sense of scale and size, here's another one just farther above how we've tried to hide the parking.

to your point earlier about what you run through kind of having these muse and having these areas where people can really enjoy their neighbors.

Here's another one.

You can see, to your question, these are four-story buildings, the main apartment buildings, and I think a little later.

So the kind of those big white blocks in the back that aren't very- Ones that look like barns.

Sure, sorry.

Can you?

So, just to be specific, those are not, and I'm going to get to it in elevation, that is not detailed out yet in these renderings.

These are really just to give you a size and shape.

So this is kind of an early design concept that we have.

These are four-story buildings.

They're elevators product interior corridors.

All five of those are the same scale.

Yes.

Including the ones that are up against the road.

Yes.

Right now, we don't really understand what the setback is.

I know you're asking for a step-back amendment, but we don't really have anything that's showing setbacks anywhere or even height of building, right?

Yes.

I didn't see that in the application.

Yes, and from my understanding, and Valerie Price speak more to this, from my understanding at this point, we don't proffer any of those things, so we don't necessarily, and we haven't gotten to that level of design.

I'm asking to understand it, because you're asking for an amendment to a waiver,

along the travel way.

Well, of the step back.

In order for us to understand that and, you know, begin to review whether that we can grant that waiver, we really need to understand more about the building, the height, the setbacks and so forth.

This is a copy of the proffered concept plan.

And the areas in tan are the building envelopes committed to for the buildings.

We weren't aware of the concern about needing a setback to be established until we saw the stock report.

But I think the suggestion was for a five foot setback along the front.

We could certainly do that.

regardless, we have proffered or committed to develop the property in general accord with this plan, which would require the buildings to be located in those envelopes.

And so I believe that effectively creates some setbacks, but to the extent that's not sufficient, I think we're happy to clarify that on the plans to address the concern.

you know part of a subdivision plot where you'd have each of those lots subdivided in the future with each one each individual lot having a setback established we understood that the entire the R-15 setbacks would apply to the entire parcel regardless

we're fine committing to adding a five foot setback so that those, to just confirm and give everyone the comfort of knowing the building's not going to be right up next to the road.

It will be close to the road.

We think that is consistent with the county's neighborhood model principles, but we don't want to, obviously we don't want to crowd the land.

We've left room for the multi-use path and other things.

Well, it clarifies that we don't have a setback to really understand or even evaluate the step back requirement at this point.

My question was, I want to make sure that I didn't miss it.

It doesn't exist right now.

But we can certainly add it.

I believe, perhaps Ms.

Ragsdale could clarify, but I believe the R-15 front yard setback

would apply at least to the buildings, right?

So that's where in this situation, you know, the narrative requests for the step back said generous setback from Ivy Road.

So, you know, putting the zoning hat on when we get to site plan, you know, is it, you know, is it 20 feet from from Old Ivy Edge right away?

These are things that we think are important to establish for enforceability later on.

You know, I said in the staff report that based on what I could see from the illustrative that there was those

We talked a lot about the vehicular travelway, which is technically not a street, but in my mind, it's functioning like a street and we should establish setbacks from it.

So there may be places where I thought it was appropriate to establish a front setback where technically one wouldn't apply.

just based on some ordinance definitions.

But when you look at it and, you know, I picked this up from a planner that's on vacation.

But, you know, the I don't know the timing of these things, but we've also had some other special exception requests that you all have reviewed more recently that weren't at the beginning of this, you know, review for this rezoning.

So I'm not sure what the right number is from old IV.

I just wanted to point out that the maximum setback is twenty five feet in the ordinance.

So if that's going to be a problem, then we need to address that.

But it sounds like I just don't know what that number is.

And I think with the update, we could certainly at a minimum indicated a measurement the distance from the property line to the edge of the building envelope and make sure that it's within that five to say twenty five feet distance.

if that would help.

And that would at least make it easier, as Ms.

Certainly.

Just a quick question.

Is the multi-use path running in front along there as well or not?

Yes.

Yes.

So there would be some distance for that whatever that width would be eight to 10 feet.

Correct.

And then some distance between that the building and then some distance between the path and the road.

And that's indicates a little hard to see, but it is indicated you can see hopefully there is space between the.

Yeah, we do have zoomed in, bear with us and we'll get to that precise page.

That probably shows it at least right there.

Right.

I just wanted to point out that they can kind of mentally put that into your calculation.

But it's hard to see when we're all zoomed in.

We don't have a scale.

Thank you.

We can certainly add those measurements.

I think it always is when you're asking for it.

a step back, an exception because we have granted those, but in the ones that we've granted recently, they've been in a case where the building was far back from the road.

So it wasn't impinging on anybody's feeling of the cavern effect that was referenced earlier.

All right.

I have just a few sort of clarification

If we can go back to the image that had the concept one of the layout of the properties, not this one.

But it was more sort of you got to bring the other ones.

That's fine.

I don't know what that is.

Illustrative plan.

Sure.

So we have two clubhouses kind of right.

And sorry, you can't see my cursor there.

Right next to the pools, we usually put clubhouse.

There's one kind of near the single family and duplexes as well as one near the apartment buildings.

So those would be all year round.

We also have sports courts, which

while outside.

We would expect that people would use them for the vast majority of time.

Is that the area that's noted here as recreation area?

Yes, maybe I'll just zoom in here.

So there's one here, or two here, and then there's two over here as well.

We also plan on having a dog run

We haven't illustrated that exactly on the plan as we're still trying to figure out where those would be.

I'm good.

You've answered that question.

Can you speak to them?

There were a couple of punch outs there.

So there's one that looks like it's between, let's say not at six o'clock, but maybe if we go from single family over to the left, and then there's the one that's sort of single family, Florida.

There's no politics.

It just looks like a single family, Florida, down to what, just from my eyes, it looks like it's Florida.

I knew what you were talking about.

Thank you.

I knew you did.

That's what I said.

What's the purpose and when is that going to happen and what will that do?

Sure.

These bump outs right here and then over to the left, I believe.

Yes.

So this is a pedestrian and bike path.

There's an easement that kind of runs around the site.

We plan on building out that pedestrian and bike path on this side.

Laser pointer.

Ah, there we go.

There we go.

OK, sorry about that, guys.

So this is the one pedestrian path, bike and pedestrian path that brings you around the site and we're trying to work on

finalizing and coming to an agreement to eventually connect that to Leonard Sandridge or a development that does have a future path to Leonard Sandridge.

And I can, we have another slide that kind of shows, here's kind of that easement and this is kind of that back part that you were talking about.

and eventually ideally we're connected here.

There's a future development that has a kind of path or a connection all the way to Leonard Sandrich.

And then the other one that you referenced was in this area.

And this is a future interconnection point.

We've been talking with our neighbors on connecting with them.

So the other thing that I was trying to get a figure of, so while I know other people have sort of feelings about parking, but it seems like you're parking, and I'm not necessarily saying that I think the parking should be reduced, even though I know that probably runs counter to some of my colleagues up here.

And the reason I say that is because you use, for example, Charlotte and Raleigh, which, while I'd like to think we were like Charlotte, you know, we have the villa after us, which sort of makes it a smaller Charlotte.

And while I might go that we look like Raleigh, the triangle that we sit in is not the research triangle.

So I wanted just to be clear about this.

So using those places to say what kind of public transportation this piece of property would have access to gave me some pause.

because, A, I don't believe we're going to get that transit up there, having been part of a decade's worth of discussions about getting transit from either UTS announcing conversations with CAT about what they're going to do.

So unless the project is going to buy a CAT stop,

which is possible.

It's expensive, but it is possible.

That's not gonna happen anytime soon.

So I should just sort of declare that I didn't buy your parking reduction.

So I think that your comment about Charlotte and Raleigh is well received.

I think what we should have done is kind of show a map of where those projects actually are, because we had said there in Charlotte and Raleigh as kind of that is the closest city.

But in actuality, these are projects that are significantly farther out that are suburban projects, very similar type of apartment projects to this.

And actually,

that they're not as close to the bus stop that's currently in front of North Grounds or other areas as close to the amenities as this would be.

What I might suggest to you is if you're going to carry that analysis through that you look at Ivy Gardens, you look at Huntington Village and ask how many of your vehicles are actually there during the day.

Yes.

That would then give you sort of a way to speak about what the local sort of use of those vehicles in that particular road are.

So let me just go to something else then.

So do you have just a ballpark?

I am not going to, so anyone who's writing this down, this is just so that I have an idea.

So the rents, depending on the units, we have a large variety of different units.

Anywhere from 1850 all the way up to 36.

So that's kind of our estimate.

We've been told we'll get a lot more.

Probably whatever happens in the next sort of rate hike or not rate hike, that'll depend on how much you're going to get.

So all I wanted to just sort of get a point that that's not an inexpensive

rent point rental point.

So that's all I wanted to say.

So here's the piece that really, unlike my colleague, here's the piece that really makes me

So we have Mr. Clarkson here who did this wonderful thing about talking about how he wanted to be part of the community, how he wanted to sort of make sure that this was a project that in fact stood on its, that sort of was embraced by the community.

And then you tell us that you're really going to stick to the 14 affordable units.

Now let's all be really clear, affordable units is not about poverty.

affordable units is about paying web jobs and because of our community morphing towards more of a service industry those jobs don't pay as much as some of the other jobs used to be so it's not about poverty it's about do I have a job that pays me this amount of money and so I think it would be really if this goes forward when it goes forward it would really be a strong signal that I really want to be responsive to the community if I'm not saying I'll give you 14 units

and so y'all go, you don't have to respond to that.

So you need to hear from me.

I'm not giving you a hard time about the rent.

I think that's not what I'm here doing.

What I'm saying is that if you signal to me that you wanna be embraced by this community,

Then I say, okay, that's a reasonable rent.

I get that rent.

I get these amenities.

That seems like a reasonable set of amenities.

I still have severe concern about the 1985 profit.

So I should just say that.

But then I have even, that even pushes me a little farther and your counsel will know that because she's heard me talk about these things before, that being able to have people who want to work here

and want to live here is very important.

And so when people talk about the largest employer, at the same time, I would advise you to go to the UVA HR website and see what the salary range is.

The people who are doing this are probably, I won't say full professors, but they're probably people who are not going to med school.

that people who are probably not going to law school, having been one of those individuals, and they're not probably people from some of your colleagues, your Darden colleagues, they probably stayed at Ivy Gardens, but that's okay, that's a law school Ivy Gardens kind of thing, Darden competition there, we can get into that at another time where you live when you're in those two schools.

But what I'm saying is that these aren't going to be the more modest roles among us.

who are going to be living there.

This is going to be people who just make decisions like I'm getting close to that.

I don't want a big house with a lot of property anymore.

I want to live someplace that somebody is going to take care of all that foolishness for me.

if you're gonna do that, then let's also think about what that community looks like and how you invite others in.

And so that's all, that's what I'm saying to you here, that I have a hard time balancing some of this given the wonderful set of words that your managing partner sort of shared with us.

All right, thank you.

So I think unless the commissioner has any more questions at this point,

We do want to get to the public hearing in respect for our audience who've been waiting kind of a long time.

Yeah, just some of the community that provided comments to us talked about their concerns with stormwater.

And as noted, there are significant issues with flooding on that road.

This will add a lot more pavement, a lot more impervious surface to this area.

What I can speak to there, I can't speak to specifics.

But what I can say is that... Could you move the mic down?

We always have to adjust some.

So I can't speak to specifics there.

We're still in conceptual.

There's a lot of variables that play into that.

They're not usually required to provide the stormwater management details at this point.

I just mentioned it since they had suggested that they were providing environmentally sensitive design.

It's a fair question.

It's fine to ask now.

Just letting you know we don't usually get it at this stage.

I often ask that.

OK, I thank you.

So commissioners, we will have more chance to talk and the applicant will also have another chance to come back up after we hold the public hearing and let the public who signed up to speak speak.

So with that, I'm going to move us on to the public contribution of this hearing.

and I want to just give you a few rules of the pool before we go forward.

We try to conduct ourselves in a very civil manner and so we ask that people not cheer, shout,

throw things, boo, hiss, whatever.

If you're in support of something, it's fine.

One thing we found works really well is to raise your hand.

And so then we can see that, yes, you agree with the speaker who just spoke.

You can put your thumbs down if you want, if you like.

But we just asked for no loud outbursts.

You'll each have three minutes to make your comments.

You'll see a green light come on.

That's your cue that it's time to go.

Yellow will come on when you're getting cautiously close to the end and red means stop.

So if you feel like you're speaking slowly and you're not getting your points, just cut to the chase and give us the most important thing you want to say.

It's also fine to say ditto if you agree with the person who just spoke before you and then you want to make a different or new point.

So with that, we have 20 people signed up to speak so far.

If you did not sign up to speak, that's fine.

We will give you a chance to come forward and offer your comments as well.

So there is not a limit on how many people may speak this evening.

What I'd like to do also to speed this along as I call the first three people and ask you to queue up.

That way we're going to have to wait as each person gets up out of their seat.

So I'm going to call the first three and you'll be speaking in this order.

If I butcher your name, apologies in advance.

The first person is Joel Loving.

Then we have Robert Whaley and then Donna Deloria.

So if we can have you three, beginning with Mr. Loving.

Sure, no problem.

It's Joel Loving and my family and I live at 17 Deer Path in the Bel Air neighborhood across 250 from this proposed development.

First of all, let me say we're grateful that representatives of Gray Star met with us or several of us from this neighborhood to last week to discuss their proposal.

The session was extremely informative.

It is forthcoming and appeared from the answers to the questions that we had at this meeting.

However, that and as you probably have understood as well, there were a lot of issues regarding the proposed development that had not been settled or even formally discussed.

with entities such as VDOT, the CSX Railroad, the County of Albemarle, University of Virginia.

It just doesn't sound like there's been much communication with the entities that really need to be involved with this.

And it's no question that adding as many as 1,500 residents and 1,000 vehicles to this small area will have a substantial impact on pedestrian and vehicular traffic, stormwater, the local school system, and I'm sure there's plenty more that will be discussed this evening that I'm not even

aware of or have thought of.

But as a frequent traveler on Old Ivy Road, typically multiple times a day, I just wanted to briefly address the traffic issues which I'm most familiar.

I think it's been discussed ad nauseam already tonight, so I won't go through all my details and save you one minute.

But

As it currently exists, the old lobby road is no thoroughfare.

It's a twisty hilly, at least on the east side.

It's narrow.

It's overcrowded, particularly for pedestrians and bicyclists.

It's extremely dangerous.

Let's just say it's not ready for prime time, and I won't go through the rest of my details here.

Now, in the meeting with Gray Star, we were told that none of these traffic issues had been addressed with VDOT or the University of Virginia, only that they had offered $500,000 to help traffic congestion problems.

I think we can safely conclude that even 10 times that amount is not going to help Old Ivy Road.

But I'd like to bring up one thing, and that's UVA's necessary involvement, and that's for two reasons.

Leonard Sandridge Road and North Browns.

Don't think any of that has been discussed yet.

As we understand from Gray Star's representatives, they believe this apartment and townhome complex will primarily house UVA grad students.

At least that's what they say.

While we're not convinced of this, if it were, then the most logical primary access and main entrance to this property would of course be over in the northeast end of the site from Leonard Sandridge Road.

We were told by Gray Star that they had asked for a meeting with the university officials to talk about this possibility, but UVA had chosen not to respond.

If there's no logical way to make old Ivy Road work with this community, and UVA is obviously not on board with access to Leonard Sandridge Road, I believe the proposal has a long way to go and needs to go way back to the drawing board.

Thank you.

Hi.

Hi, my name is Robert Whaley.

I live on Canterbury Road in Bel Air.

The only traffic entrance to Bel Air is off Ivey Road at the Bel Air Market Exxon.

This is the same intersection with one of the railroad underpasses off Old Ivey Road, the western underpass.

Maury Creek also runs through Bel Air.

The proposed gray star development is in the watershed of Maury Creek upstream of Bel Air.

I want the county to hold to the 1985 proffer.

The road should be substantially improved before any more buildings are added.

I think three things specifically need to be done.

The old Ivy Eastern Road underpass needs to be widened and a safe pedestrian route added.

Two, the old Ivy Western Railroad underpass needs to be widened and improved.

And three, the horrible cloverleaf from eastbound Ivy Road to northbound bypass needs to be fixed.

The problem is that the Cloverleaf merge lane is far too short.

Most people avoid this scary Cloverleaf by turning left from Ivy Road at the Bel Air intersection, going under the railroad underpass, and then turning right onto Old Ivy Road to use that ramp to the bypass instead of the Cloverleaf.

This impedes traffic on Ivy Road.

A proper Cloverleaf would be much more efficient for both Ivy Road and Old Ivy Road.

The other thing that worries me is stormwater.

In the 23 years I've lived in Bel Air, things have been getting progressively worse for us in Bel Air with regards to Maury Creek overflowing.

This increase of flooding coincides with much new development on Old Ivy Road.

The Gray Star Project would change the land from grass and forest that absorb lots of rain to parking spaces and roofs that absorb none of it.

Will their plans to mitigate stormwater runoff actually work?

No one will really know for sure until a hurricane or bad thunderstorm comes through during or after construction.

Graystar is trying to claim that this student is student housing and these students will have very few school aged children and will rarely drive.

Instead, they will walk to class and shopping.

This claim might help Graystar get the project approved, but it's really so.

Also once complete, a manager or rental agent for a property like Graystar with a mixture of townhomes, detached houses and apartments would rather have older tenants who will be more responsible and stay longer than students.

Regardless of what students do,

The older tenants will drive to work and will have kids enrolled in county schools.

I hope that the county will make sure that the roads are fixed prior to building this development.

Also, I hope the county will carefully review the stormwater plans to assure that folks downstream are not adversely affected during construction and afterwards.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm Donna Deloria with the law firm of Payne and Hodes, and I'm speaking on behalf of the Filthy Beast LLC and Father Goose LLC.

They're the owners of parcels 24C, 24C1, 24C3, and 24C4, which are part of the application.

I'm also speaking on behalf of their owner, whose home has been in Huntington Village for more than 45 years.

This property is neighbor to Ivy Gardens, which is 100% rental apartments, Huntington Village condominium, which averages about 65% rentals and University Village condominium.

The popularity of this location for people to live because it's close and convenient and right by the university and right by everything that the city of Charlottesville has to offer is

well known.

The county has deemed this property appropriate for development at urban densities since at least 1985, just like Ivy Gardens, University Village, and Huntington Village.

However, in the early 1990s, this property came under the shadow of the proposed western bypass, and it was not until 2020 that the final parcel was able to be reacquired from VDOT.

Graystar's commitment to understanding and responding to the site and the community is demonstrated by several things and first came to our attention when we learned that they would only seek 125 units, which is far less than has been suggested by other developers.

They also, on their own motion, determined that they would place multi-story apartments only at the lower elevations and two-story structures in the higher elevations.

They didn't wait for anybody to complain or ask for that.

They did it because in their assessment, it would accommodate concerns about views from University Village and the entrance corridor and still allow them to develop a desirable community.

And in fact, that community will be a unique mix of apartments and single-family housing that's purpose-built for rental.

It'll have the flexibility to meet changing housing needs over many years, student retiree,

whatever the community needs as time goes by.

It has the potential to serve as a model for future communities.

They've developed it as a flagship, and they also have worked not only actively to pursue transportation, pedestrian, bicycle improvements that are within a private developer's limited ability to impact, but they have also worked to connect those at the county, VDOT, and the university who have much greater ability to effect change.

They haven't said,

The railroad bridge is out of our control.

We're not gonna talk about it.

They've put people in touch.

They've talked to the university.

They have done many things and they continue to urge and to push that.

And these are the actions of a responsible developer which is committed to its community.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Elizabeth Kuchai.

For 48 years, I've lived in the city near UVA.

For 46 years, I lived in the city.

Not quite three years ago, I moved less than a mile to University Village and now find myself in the Jack Jewett district in the county.

So in more than 48 years, I've seen a lot of new buildings erected by private developers and by UVA.

I'm very concerned about Graystar's proposal to build 525 dwelling units on raw land fronting on Old Ivy Road.

This is way too many for the already crowded road.

The University of Virginia has already erected many new buildings on Old Ivy Road.

They also own Ivy Gardens apartments and have plans to redevelop that property, increasing its density by 150%.

That was a little fact that they tucked in one corner of one PowerPoint slide when they came and talked to us.

The university has already announced plans to add Darden graduate housing on the Ivy Gardens site to the tune of 440 beds.

They don't have to ask your permission to do this.

They're exempt from any zoning controls and the little road that we all use that will carry even more traffic as a result.

Gray Star says they want to max out

R15 zoning with 525 units.

The only reason I can imagine they want such high density and the problems it will bring is to make a profit after paying too much for the land.

14 of these will be affordable?

To me, this is the dictionary definition of chutzpah.

My long experience of living in this community and attending many meetings of city and county planners has taught me two things.

The university can and will do whatever it likes.

And two, private developers will relentlessly pursue their goal to get the highest possible density for their projects at the least possible cost to them.

Over and over, I've seen local governments cave in to pressure from developers who over promise and under deliver.

Thank you.

All right, Ellen Roberts.

Thank you for this opportunity to present this.

I'm Ellen Roberts, a resident of University Village.

The recognition of a traffic problem on Old Ivy goes way back and is fundamental to tonight's decision.

GRACIR asks the Commission to recommend overturning the 1985 road proper that limits residential density along Old Ivy.

To do so, the Board of Supervisors must find that the traffic problem has improved to their satisfaction.

Satisfaction is hard to define.

but improvement can be studied.

Gray Star had submitted a document that claims extensive and significant improvement of Old Ivy Road with 27 improvements since 1985.

But the evidence of improvement is questionable at best.

Their photographers' photographs go across time and do show that the development on and near Old Ivy has been extensive, including numerous housing additions and office buildings.

On the traffic problem side, that corresponds with available traffic volume information.

Traffic counts in 1984 were 4,011 trips per day.

And in 2019, it has jumped to 8,300 trips per day.

Clearly by imaging counts, traffic is far worse.

More than double than it was three years ago.

We can only guess what it actually is today.

Their figure of 4,326 from Graystar is more than questionable.

What about improvement claimed by Graystar?

A careful look at the location mapping and associated photos in the old IV improvements document shows the following.

First, six photos are entries to developments.

That proved that development happened.

They show that nothing that represents traffic improvement.

Second, 14 of the claims are of deceleration or acceleration lanes, sometimes with sidewalks.

One could say these show ways that make traffic less worse, but not improvement.

Third, two are away from Old Ivy.

Fourth and finally,

Five probably represent improvements, but they pale in significance compared to the 4,289 trips per day increase in vehicles.

Added burden clearly outpaced improvement, and all diving now has unquestionably worse traffic than in 1985.

Greater traffic volumes

but this greater traffic volume matters.

But this problem also involves additional safety and emergency access concerns caused by the railroad underpasses that more or less trap Ivy Road.

This worries me greatly for myself, my neighbors, and any future travelers along old Ivy Road.

For all of us, I ask the commission to reject the claim of significant improvement and to sustain the 1985 proffer limiting higher density.

Traffic growth on Old Ivy Road will only grow exponentially with the addition of the Emmett and Ivy Corridor.

The additional danger to both travelers and emergency vehicles should be avoided at all costs.

Thank you.

All right, unless I've gotten off, it's Lisa McDermott.

My name is Lisa McDermott and I'm a resident at University Village since 2016.

I'm an internal medicine physician and I work at several nursing homes in addition to occasional shifts at Sentara Martha Jefferson Hospital.

My concern is the inadequacy of roads and infrastructure around Old Ivy Road.

As I still travel to work on a daily basis, I'm concerned about increased traffic in the area.

I feel strongly that there needs to be significant improvement in the infrastructure as both vehicular and pedestrian traffic increases in the area.

I do try to avoid high traffic times, but cannot always do so.

My biggest concerns are, number one, the buildup of traffic on 250-29 southbound

exiting to Old Ivy Road.

High traffic times include both when St.

Ann-Belfield school lets out and in the afternoon and at rush hour.

Traffic often backs up onto the highway and shoulder.

This creates quite a dangerous situation as cars frequently have to slam on the brakes due to unexpected early exiting.

In addition, there's a law enforcement officer who must direct traffic when the school lets out, which does not seem a great use of resources.

My second concern is a railroad bridge at the east end of Old Ivy Road.

It is quite narrow, only letting one car go through at a time.

Cars coming from both directions must navigate this.

What is most concerning is that there's also pedestrian traffic, including walkers, bikers, and people on scooters.

Since there's no path or sidewalk, they must also use this narrow road along with cars.

This is extremely hazardous at night because there's no lighting in this area.

The concrete wall itself now seems to be crumbling, and it just seems a hazard all around.

I know there was a traffic study that shows significant problems on Old Abbey Road.

My own experience shows this every day.

I can tell you as a commuter, as a doctor, and as a resident in this area, I get very concerned about young people walking, plus commuters, plus children's parents trying to navigate the same underpass.

In addition, Morningside Assisted Living is also on Crestwood Drive and frequently requires EMS, as do some residents at University Village.

EMS having to negotiate the same challenges slows the response and puts lives at risk.

I hope you will consider upgrades to the infrastructure in this area before approving a substantial increase in additional housing units.

And also feel free to move that mic up and down.

Thank you.

Betty Natoli, I'm a resident of University Village and a really concerned citizen about the size of the proposed community.

Not the fact that it's there, but the size of it.

It's right to the west of University Village and walking, the biking and driving conditions on Middlebury Road.

consider they are a real serious threat.

According to the recent traffic impact, when complete, the proposed development will generate a total of 4,000 as had been said before, 4,326 average daily trips.

The safety of drivers and walkers on Old Alvey Road will be challenged, to say the least.

Old Alvey Road has problems at both ends.

On the east, by the mirrors of the Stoke Railway Bridge, which was a safety hazard to both walkers and drivers, to the west on Old Alvey Road is the 29-250 bridge, an important part of Greystar's claim of improvement of Old Alvey Road to safe pedestrian passage,

is the upgrading of the bridge that takes Old Ivy Road across 29.

In the initial application for Ivy Residences and in its revisions, Graystar claims in a most recent version that the upgrade is already funded and planned and will include a four-foot wide expansion to accommodate pedestrians and bikers.

A VDOT representative confirmed just this Friday, June 10th, this is not true.

There is no pedestrian improvement included with this rebuild.

The proposed width of the 601 bridge

State structure 6261 that crosses 250 is 2067 inches rail to rail.

Work will be done on the substructure to provide a minimum over 250.

And a new superstructure will be installed over the minimally modified abutments at piers.

This is a bridge repair and not a replacement.

Going back to the proffer of 85 which states that without serious improvements to the 29-250 bridge, development of the road would not be feasible.

and certainly not of this size development.

Clearly the proffer has not been satisfied.

As to the improvements of Old Ivy Road, which still have spotty, non-connecting sidewalks, no bike and walking paths, how can we handle an additional 4,326 average daily trips?

without creating a serious community problem.

These are not just words or statistics, but I live there and I drive Old Ivy Road almost every day.

And I fear that our community safety, our community being University Village and all the people surrounding is in jeopardy.

Please be aware of these problems because I am and I am a citizen of Albemarle.

Thank you.

Yes.

Good evening.

My name is Frank Weinkauf.

My wife and I live at University Village.

And let me preface my remarks by saying I'm not anti-development, especially not anti-student development, but I'm opposed to the development of the mis-proposed size, which threatens the safety of our neighborhoods and our surrounding neighborhoods.

on a two-lane road with limited access, no minimum sidewalks, no crosswalks, and no stoplights.

My wife, at age 92, regularly walks on Old Abbey Road, crossing the road twice on her two-mile route, dodging sometimes fast-moving traffic,

along with backers, cyclists, scooters, cars, and other walkers.

Safety is a concern.

And as we talked, Old Ivy Road is not just a housing destination.

Virginia, University of Virginia has a big presence here with offices and warehouses.

Also private office buildings,

and a very prominent restaurant on Old Abbey Road as well as access to highways 250 and 29.

Pedestrian safety at eastern entrance exit to Old Abbey Road is of a particular concern.

As cars and trucks take turns going through this one-way railroad tunnel, I have personally seen walkers, joggers, and mothers with baby carriages take their lives in their hands going through that tunnel, dodging traffic from commuters, moving vans, service vehicles, emergency vehicles, shoppers, and so forth.

Pedestrians have no chance.

Safety is a concern.

Now add the prospect of a large number of construction vehicles and eventually some 500 personal vehicles and Old Library Road is not only scary but maybe deadly.

With any of these concerns for safety without road improvements and or upgrades, any recommendations for a project of this magnitude may not be a prudent decision at this time.

Hello, I'm Deborah Shatten and resident of University Village.

I'll focus on my experiences and observations as a driver on Old Ivy Road.

Driving Old Ivy Road includes many problems.

And one of the most critical is ensuring the safety of pedestrians and bikers

while driving while there are cars.

Bikers, walkers, runners are often on the road itself, sometimes against traffic on the north side of Old Ivy.

While most drivers proceed carefully, some do not slow down, many swing into the other lane.

This is even more dangerous when bikers or pedestrians enter the narrow passage under the railroad bridge on the east end of Old Ivy.

I slow down or stop until they clear the passage.

Some drivers do not.

It is complicated even more when walkers are there at night or on their cell phones.

Unfortunately, there is no other route for residents of the old RV area to reach the stores on RV Road.

Because of this, I'm very concerned about any changes that will increase the number of non-drivers, and I'm interested in proposals that might make Old Ivy safer and more accessible.

The proposed multi-use path on the north side of Old Ivy would be helpful, but for two problems.

One is the narrow deceleration lane, steep hillside, and retaining walls that make passage along Huntington Village difficult, if not impossible.

The second is that even with a successful path along the north side, pedestrians, runners, bikers would still be unable to reach destinations along Ivy Road without going through the dangerous railroad underpasses.

The condition of old Ivy as a road is also a danger to drivers.

This is especially true in navigating the narrow passage under the railroad at the east end.

Like me, many drivers yield and take turns to facilitate safe movement.

Others do not.

and at times opposing vehicles and pedestrians are all present at the same time.

I wish they were an easy solution.

If full development happens, more walkers, runners, bikers, scooters, you've heard others, are expected as well as vastly more vehicles.

The difficulties and dangers will only increase.

It is my hope that reasonable decision makers will push hard for effective solutions before letting the problem get even worse.

Thank you.

Good evening.

I'm Lyle Halliwell, resident of University Village.

I'll concentrate on Old Ivy Road traffic problem concerns, which you've heard a lot about already, but I'm going to focus on the traffic impact analysis.

It shows many traffic problems despite the limitations of its methodology.

Those limitations relate especially to current usage sampling that was restricted to counts at five intersections for only two two-hour periods on a single Thursday, May 6, 2021, during the COVID pandemic.

The resulting undercount is acknowledged and corrected for volume by adding 10%, but that does not correct for traffic pattern differences.

Current traffic load is relevant and used for the future modeling, but is less important than the prediction of traffic problems after old Ivy Residences is fully occupied.

Accordingly, the old IV residence's application, the proffer of 11-15-21, planning staff review comments reference a 6 or 6.5% figure as the added traffic burden and the planning staff report before you concludes that traffic will be exacerbated quote by a small amount end of quote.

This seemingly small amount is calculated by taking the projected count of Old Ivy Residences traffic in the worst hour only, specifically 4 to 6 pm, and dividing by the projected total traffic count, both produced by modeling.

The worst hour total is further limited by including only three intersections and not all possible directional movements, so that a full count is not used in the calculation.

The 6.5% as a measure of future traffic load is problematic.

The worst r-effect matters, but so do others.

Traffic impact analysis modeling calculates an expected daily traffic contribution of 4,326 trips per day.

The 2019 pre-pandemic Old Ivy Road count by VDOT is 8,300 trips per day.

With the two combined, we get 12,626 trips per day.

This means that Old Ivy residences will account for a 52% increase in traffic volume and will represent 34.2% of all traffic on Old Ivy at that time.

These numbers suggest a large amount, not a small one.

Old Ivy will be significantly more traveled and is already beyond what in 1985 was said to be an intolerable traffic level of 7,500 declared by one of the VDOT reps at that time.

The planning staff have repeatedly acknowledged traffic problems in the review of the initial and revised applications.

It is now up to you as commissioners to respond and at the very least not make a bad problem worse.

I'm Daniel Lavering.

I live at University Village and I've lived there since 2004.

I am one of the few residents that's actually employed full time and I'm a librarian at the JAG school, which is on the other side of the law school.

I'm very familiar with this area having worked there and hiked around the area for years before North Grounds Connector and Leonard Sanders Road.

I'm here to request you to deny this project because of the lack of fire and emergency access.

The term of art is fire apparatus access roads.

And the Gray Store has a couple of places on their diagram, but I'm not satisfied.

that they meet two standard codes.

And those two codes are the International Fire Code and the National Fire Protection Administration or Organization Code.

And they both have very detailed requirements for fire and access to big developments over 200 units.

And what I'm going to suggest is that

You turn this back to Graystar and have them set out in detail how their two access roads that they show on the diagram that you have seen meet both of these codes.

We're talking about a very serious situation here.

You've seen the size of this development, the massing.

It is gigantic.

It's just mind-boggling.

And the problem with this is we have an excellent fire department here in Albemarle County.

We've been out the University Village several times.

We actually had a fire there a few years ago, and they came out and took care of it.

But no fire department, no matter how good they are, is going to be able to cope with a fire in a development of this size when you got people packed in there like sardines.

They're going to take a while to get there, and then if people are fleeing out, they're not going to be able to get in as quick as they would like.

I'll give you a good example.

In Overland Park, Kansas,

In 2017, there was a similar fire, got completely out of control, an eight alarm fire, 53 fire engines, hundreds of firefighters, and they couldn't contain it.

And that's going to be the problem here.

So may Graystar go back and show how their two access roads satisfies these codes.

Hi, everybody.

I'm Betty Dinwiddie.

I am also a resident at University Village and have been for 15 years.

This is my husband's and my second term in Albemarle County.

So we are happily familiar with it.

I was glad to get home when we came back in 2007.

I do not have a developer's mentality.

I do not see a piece of open land, green space, as a place to build something.

I lament the sacrifice, the destruction of our ever diminishing green spaces.

They cannot be replaced.

We aren't growing any more of them.

Development depletes air quality, water availability, it increases trash and human waste.

The Rivanna Trail system goes through this land pleasantly at present, and I know that the Trail folks have accepted the promise of the developer.

The fact that this piece of green is part of the viewshed of some University Village residents and the drivers along the bypass, I might add.

That is a consideration.

The fact that some of us at University Village enjoy a nature trail in the woods adjoining the land under consideration is under threat.

The air and sound pollution associated with the developing is to be dreaded.

Old Ivy Road, as has been noted by practically everybody, can barely handle the traffic it already carries.

And there appears to be no viable solution to that.

Add to that, construction vehicles first,

and with more potential resident vehicles to follow.

Again, for me, the worst violation as I see it is the permanent loss of a green area in this part of the community in Albemarle County.

Thank you.

Excuse me, I guess that's the correct sanitation and members.

I'm Bill Sherman, a resident of University Village, an age restricted condominium.

I'm on our board of directors.

Amusing to me is at age 95, I chair our long range planning.

That's planning five years out and beyond my expiration date.

In those roles, I thought we could resolve our concerns with Graystar's development in a friendly and neighborly way.

In 2021, we tried.

By year's end, Graystar gave us a flat no.

Graystar's emphatic no continues.

Its response to my ask, please keep the natural woodlands in the northeast corner of the project undeveloped.

For the record, this evening my clients were born and have spent their entire lives in Albemarle County.

I serve them pro bono.

They are the mature trees and other woodland creatures whose lives are at risk by your decision.

There are residents of a 1.6 acre part of parcel 6024C1 unknown to those their home place is learned are 10 and at risk of being replaced by human dwelling units.

In a recent report on the UVA project to provide 440 housing units in Ivy Gardens for graduate students at Darden, Grace's plans for likely competing grad student housing has the potential of offering forested hills to west, north, and east.

Sadly, Grace's concept plan envisions a serious break in those forested hills.

Those 1.6 acres now hold a mature stand of oaks and other valued trees if left unnatural on the order of 20 continuous acres of mature forest would wrap around the project.

In Greystar's May 16 narrative under impacts of environmental features,

The project is designed to conserve the existing forested areas as much as possible.

Specifically, the development layout focuses on utilizing spaces to minimize the disturbance to the surrounding forested area.

Hello, my name is Hillary Strubel and I'm currently the Director of Resident Relations at University Village located here in Albemarle County.

I've worked in this community for the last 20 years.

It has become my home away from home and the residents that live there, my extended family.

I'm here this evening to express my concerns about the potential problems resulting from the proposed Gray Star Sewage Lift Station.

The Virginia Administrative Code 25-790-380 Article 2 on sewage pump stations begins.

Sewage pump stations should be located as far as practical from present or proposed built-up residential areas, and an all-weather road shall be provided

Stations should have a proper zone of controlled or limited use surrounding them.

Within such zones, residential uses or high density human activities should be prevented.

The Old Ivy Residence's proposed sewage lift station is located on their plan in a small section of green space right between two of their proposed apartment buildings, as well as a set of townhomes.

Not only is this directly next to residential area, but there's no indication of an all-weather access so that this lift station can be properly maintained.

Sewage lift stations containing pumps, valves, and electrical equipment are basically a giant collection of moving parts that need continuous maintenance and repair.

Broken or damaged lift stations can result in a variety of negative situations ranging from unpleasant smells, standing water, to serious health violations.

Not only could this be an issue for future residents of Old Ivy Residences, but our six-story residential building is located directly downwind of the vent pipe for proposed sewage lift station.

This means that when the lift station fails, as they inevitably do, the noxious odors will affect all of our 120 residents as well.

And I may be known at University Village as the person who can find a solution to any problem, but this one might be too big for me to solve.

I ask the Planning Commission to consider limits of an R10 as opposed to an R15 across the land parcel.

That would limit the number of proposed residences to 350.

With only 350 homes, the possibility exists for a gravity-fed system that would eliminate these environmental issues for all of the current and future residents of Old Ivy Road.

My name is Peter Reitmeyer and I'm the Executive Director at University Village.

During my 33-year residential property management career, I've had the unpleasant obligation to tow a lot of cars from overly dense, poorly designed communities.

Today, I'm here to discuss the proposed parking reduction request.

The special exception application proposes a parking space to resident ratio of 1.21 to 1.46 with the aggregate being 1.35.

The problem with this is it's based solely on the number of residences in the complex.

Its total does not include any parking spaces

for the typical gray star generously appointed clubhouse, the prospective tenant visits, employees or guests of the pool or tennis courts, or even technicians servicing the private sewage pumping station.

When included, these requirements leave the community 85 parking spaces short.

Applicants Council is even asking you to believe that because of the proximity to UVA and Barracks Road shopping that their tenants won't have automobiles.

They will walk, ride bicycles or scooters to all of their points of interest.

Historical resident usage patterns at Huntington Village, which is right next door,

and whose ratio is two spaces per condo plus 20 guests demonstrate that is not how normal transportation in the area really is.

To compound the problem, the one road design with parking and driveway curb cuts leaves no place for moving or delivery trucks servicing these rental units.

which will result in a constant aggravation of the residents.

The applicant also stated they require less parking because they will build a bus stop for a non-existent, non-planned public transportation service on Old Ivy Road.

The reduction request included examples of similar Gray Star Garden style properties.

Metro University City Apartment in Charlotte, North Carolina is listed at 1.46 per residence.

Their website for this community states, our proximity to the Lynx Blue Line and the area's best shops is what makes us the perfect place to call home.

Those tenants are on a metro line, have shops very close by, and have more parking spaces.

Finally, what is the effect if their projection is wrong?

As there is no off-site overflow parking reasonably available, disputes will certainly follow, putting more burden on county police and others.

All of this can be avoided with less density.

All right, thank you.

And thanks for using the signaling system.

Good evening, everyone.

My name is Barbara Grismala, and I'm the president of University Village, an age-restricted condominium with approximately 120 residents who range in age from 55 to 101.

My first contact with Graystar was on a Zoom meeting sometime in July

2021, with our manager, Mr. Reitmeyer, and Mr. Sherman, another board member.

At that time, for the benefit of both parties, we proposed an interconnectivity path across our meadow as most destinations that persons from old IV residents will pursue will be to the east and will necessarily take them through our property

both going and coming home.

The proposed path for their tenants was rejected.

Gray Star then asked for our community to donate some of our furniture property so they could construct a multi-use pathway on Old Ivy Road to facilitate interconnectivity.

We agreed to provide them with our residents' information and informed them that 66% of our residents would have to vote to agree to the donation of our land.

They never followed through, so our solution to help with interparcel connectivity was never acted upon.

In April 2022, the Association bought back previously owned land from VDOT.

We informed Graystar of this purchase as it will enable them with an agreement to use the UVOA land in the Leonard Sandbridge vicinity.

This would allow for an alternative emergency fire access road and also to build a student pathway crossing to Leonard Sandbridge to reach their UVA destinations.

Once again, our attempt to help was denied.

We are frustrated by the lack of concern from Gray Star to its part to ensure that their development plan for old IV residences adheres to the county's neighborhood model, which emphasizes neighbors' mutually acceptable interconnectivity.

Please don't approve this proposed development or rezone this land until these interconnectivity issues are resolved.

Hello, I'm Sally Thomas, resident of University Village these days.

I spent 16 years arguing for and helping develop Albemarle's growth management plan that encourages compact developments and interconnectivity.

But what came quickly to my mind was the infamous, I knew Jack Kennedy, you know Jack Kennedy.

This old road ivy apartments project is not what the county hoped for in smart growth.

Why not?

It's certainly dense and within the growth area, but it's also like too many other projects.

It seemed to be desirable developments.

It overloads the present facilities and its interconnectivity just hasn't quite been developed in a way that will work for both residents in the neighborhood.

You've heard of several aspects that will greatly impact the neighborhood.

Sewage pumping.

I still remember the 250 West pumping station stink.

Inadequate parking with no

Public transit doesn't help residents reduce their driving.

Rather, parking conflicts and frustrations create the worst type of road rage.

And finally, there's completely inadequate Old Ivy Road.

We heard from the son owner of Crestwood Farm that even in 1975, the county board said there shouldn't be more residential development on this road.

How did that work out?

Who cares if it's not an ideal development?

No one in this room cares about the growth management plan as much as you all.

I'll be preaching now and urge you to shoulder your responsibility to the community as a whole.

No one else will but you.

Neighbors have our own property and resident safety and way of life in mind.

The developer, of course, wants maximum development.

The university is getting its own residential developments, greatly increasing Ivy Garden units to house 60% of Darden students.

So it has limited interest in this farther away development.

But uniquely, the university in Darden may have the answer to road issues with their planned development that provides an alternative to old Ivy Road

with new entrances to Leonard Sandridge Drive, only in concept so far.

Without it, this area is trapped.

You've been warned that you can't keep cutting proposed density and still keep growth boundaries, but that's attacking a mathematical model, not the underlying goal.

Having an attractive, safe, urbanizing area is the ultimate goal.

If a development is too dense for the existing facilities, it can destroy that goal

Thank you.

I'm probably the oldest resident of University Village.

My name is David Wood.

I practiced law here in Charlottesville for 45 years, and I've been retired for 30 years.

I think that the project that has been presented to you is not objectionable.

It's just simply much too dense.

The need to reduce the size of it would be acceptable.

They estimate that there will be a thousand additional cars between the two underpasses each day.

And I find that to be totally unacceptable.

And I would like to see you reduce the size of the project and

Go ahead.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you for coming out.

I'm Ivan Romanesco.

I live in the Jack Jewett district in Farmington, in the Ivy Road corridor, of course.

I've been a resident for about 48 years, Albemarle County.

I served on Disc 1, Disc 2 committees in the late 90s, so I feel like I've been following Sally Thomas for quite a while.

She was one of the supervisors back then.

I'm in support of the neighborhood model and the climate action plan.

I speak in favor of old Ivy residence plan.

I feel like I'm definitely in the minority here this evening, but, uh, I sent you a letter in support, but I'm not going to read the letter to you.

I want to tell you what I think.

I think that the comprehensive plan is in some ways on trial.

And so is the neighborhood model district in many of these cases.

But I think we've had many charrettes design review committees.

We've had many meetings and hours spent settling many of these issues, but they seem to come back every time.

The clock is ticking on the growth area.

I think that the double digit growth percentages that are occurring with population in Albemarle and the planning district

put pressure on Albemarle County.

And I would like to see the growth area accommodate as much reasonably good, well-designed development as it can so that we can preserve the beautiful areas of Albemarle County as long as we can.

We have tools available to do that, the neighborhood model.

But we need to get more comfortable with density and with the fact that population is growing and so is traffic.

In fact, I recall reading that, it's a quote from Sally Thomas years ago, that it seems like we can't get people out of our cars, out of their cars.

And so, but yet there's a way to do that and that's through the neighborhood model.

And I remember also reading or maybe hearing Sally say that if you have public water and public sewer, you can have high rises, you can have dense development.

Of course, that's the concept, is density.

So when we talk about the neighborhood model and what it's to do, it is to reduce car use.

It is to reduce the reliance on cars for everything that we do.

It's to preserve the environment.

I believe this project does have a scale and a size

to actually improve the prospects of preserving rural areas.

500 units, 525 units is a lot, no doubt.

But where else do you find a property of this size that can accomplish this purpose of preserving land?

So transportation and traffic is a hot topic

I'm not sure it'll be resolved, but I know that we citizens of Albemarle love to complain about traffic, but we really hate to see roads built.

I'll bypass and others.

Thank you.

Hi there.

I'm Sharon Donovan.

I've lived here all my life.

And I live in Bel Air and I work at McLean Faulkner right there at the Clover Leaf.

And let me tell you, nobody knows the problems of this location better than me.

I used to bowl at the Terrace Bowling Alley.

When I was a little girl, I used to play on the tennis courts on Old Ivey Road.

I walked under that bridge many times to the University Shopping Center when I was young.

So I've watched this grow and grow.

But, you know, it's I don't I love development.

I'm a real estate agent and I think we have a tremendous amount.

They've heard me talk about the need for the rental housing.

However, a couple of things going on here.

Even if we did provide a low income housing or meet that need for how do people work?

They have two cars that live there or they're going to get to and from work with this traffic.

They talk about the deceleration lane or the access to 29 South.

If you have those cars adding into that traffic, making that right hand turn in the morning, that just backs up the road.

over the bridge, which I use all the time.

So every single time you hear, oh, this is a good idea.

There are multiple bad ideas.

The other thing that's fascinating, and I was going to title my short story that I'm going to write about this, which is turning into a long, short story, is it's going to be called The Sidewalks to Nowhere.

And it's like really a bad idea if we have all these sidewalks that encourage pedestrian traffic to a very dangerous situation, which until we fix those dangerous situations on both ends here as well as bicycle traffic or scooter traffic, I don't see how we can move forward in any competent way.

Thanks.

All right, is there anyone else in the audience who wishes to speak on this matter who has not had a chance?

Yes, sir, come on down.

And I also will go to see if there's others online who might be waiting as well.

Good evening.

My name is John Matthews.

Mr. Matthews, you might have to speak up.

Okay, sorry.

My name is John Matthews.

I'm a Baller resident.

I live at 45 Canterbury Road in Baller.

I'm very familiar with this site.

I've ran around it and walked across it for the last 30 years.

My office for over a decade was on Old Ivy Road and my new office for the last 20 years is only a stone's throw away from the site as well.

Many of the points in favor of this project have been sent to you, I guess, and some of them have been mentioned already.

However, I'd like to add a few additional comments.

The applicant is asking you to approve housing close to town on a parcel that's virtually surrounded by university-owned or university-controlled property.

So if this project is not suitable in this location, where do you think it would be suitable?

It seems obvious to me that this is an ideal location.

So let me go out on a limb, but I believe it's a strong limb.

As you may know, a growing number of planning commissions and jurisdictions around the country have actually asked developers to increase the density of their projects.

This might sound contrary to everything you've seen or heard, but I suggest you do the same.

You ask the developer to increase the density, not decrease it.

and you might ask why increasing density may seem illogical to you on the surface, but it's not.

Increasing density promotes a more efficient use of the land.

The land is finite.

It really helps you utilise the land that's available.

It's more compact and it's a more sustainable development that some of you asked about.

Increased density would permit the developer

to provide a higher contribution to the improvements of Old Ivy Road.

I know the problems with it, we all do.

It would also allow the developer to increase his contributions towards affordable housing.

And keep in mind the benefits, the improvements to Old Ivy Road would benefit more than just the residents of this development, it would benefit the entire community.

I mean that should

should be obvious.

And I know you guys are planning on studying increasing the growth area or possibly increasing the growth area.

But to pick up on what the last speaker said, I think you should first seriously consider increasing the density in the most logical, reasonable and appropriate areas.

This project is a poster child for that increased density.

A vote on this project.

OK, well, thank you very much.

I would ask you to support the project.

All right, and I don't see anyone else lining up.

Yes, ma'am.

Please unmute yourself.

Please state your name and where you're located.

Thank you.

I'm Kathleen Jump and I live in the Jack Jewett District.

I submitted a long letter to you last week discussing how the Board of Supervisors in 1985 wrestled with this R-15 zoning application and the restrictive proffer that was offered.

And I thank those of you who have plowed through it.

Those supervisors agreed that it made sense that this land be built at urban density given its location and proximity to the university and the city.

But even in 1985, they recognized that although it had all the other necessary infrastructure, it did not have a road, thus the restrictive proffer.

And I was comforted to read that the planning staff agrees that this 1985 proffer has not been satisfied.

And I heard some commissioners agreed tonight.

In terms of added traffic from this project, you've already heard that VDOT's 2019 traffic counts were 8,300.

Gray Star Zone traffic impact analysis predicts 4,326 more for its project's contribution, which equals a 52% increase in traffic on Old Ivy Road due to this project.

A few more points about this proposal.

Graystar has submitted a list of 27 improvements to Old Ivy Road since 1985.

27 on aerial photos dating from 1990 to 2021.

Some of these are duplicates.

Some of these are mystifying.

Leonard Sanders Road, for example, was specifically built concurrent with construction of John Paul Jones Arena to carry traffic from the athletic precinct to the bypass.

And as staff itself notes, all these improvements were required as old Ivy Road properties were developed over time and none represent a net gain to old Ivy Road.

But if you look carefully at these photos, they do show something significant.

All the undeveloped land on the south side of Old Ivy Road has gradually disappeared.

It's been replaced by office buildings and parking lots.

And this is just the kind of activity that the board considered in 1985, when it admitted that if other development occurred, this land might never be able to be developed.

Gray Star proffers do not help Old Ivy Road as a whole in any way.

I'm not a historian, but I've come to learn and respect the history of county roads.

My impression is that Old Ivy Road is an 18th century road with a 19th century overpass, both of which have degraded since 1985.

Concrete falls from the bridge.

It's unlit.

It floods.

Rocks shut out from land near the Miller Center.

It's really a rattle.

It's totally out of place in this urban area.

VDOT and Albemarle County have been in conversation about solutions for years.

In terms of transportation, the UVA shuttle, which used to serve 2420 Old Ivy Road.

I'm sorry, ma'am, your time is up.

Oh, I'm sorry.

That's OK.

I did not hear a I didn't hear a warning.

So sorry.

Can I can I just finish?

It's true that Gray Star can't be held responsible for the current poor conditions of Old Ivy Road.

But in 1985, the board created a genie and put it in a bottle with a stopper and instructed that the bottle should not be open until conditions had improved.

Thank you, Ms.

Jump.

Is there anyone else who would like to speak who hasn't had a chance this evening?

I have three more people online.

All right.

I have Megan McGee.

Megan, please state your name, address, or affiliated with a group or organization.

You'll have three minutes.

Hi, thank you.

My name is Megan McGee, and I'm a resident and homeowner at Huntington Village next to this property in question.

I want to speak up because I believe I bring a different perspective to the conversation.

To give you more context on who's speaking to you since you can't see or hear me, I'm 28 years old.

I graduated from the Darden School where I was student body president and represented a student body of nearly 800 graduate students, at least half of whom live in the

Huntington Townhomes and Ivy Garden Apartment Buildings.

I'm a previous resident of Ivy Gardens and I'm a current homeowner and resident at Huntington Village.

I'm an avid runner and hiker.

I have two dogs that I walk every day along Old Ivy Road and I drive along this road every day to get everywhere in this community.

If this development had been around when I moved to this area in 2019, it would have been a contender for my living situation.

With that said, now that I'm familiar with the area, its residents, and land and road use, and I care about the responsible development of this area as a Charlottesville resident, I oppose this project for many reasons.

The three main reasons are that community need does not exist.

And when I say this, I'm speaking about the graduate student population, which I'm very aware of its lifestyle, the natural area and wetlands, and that the road is dangerous and unsustainable.

In terms of community need, the Gray Star representative mentioned there are no other rentals in the area that are fully rentals.

This is false due to the Ivy Garden apartment complex, which is located on this road and is owned and managed by affiliates of University of Virginia.

And the Ivy Garden complex has

plans to expand that within the next five years.

Because of this existing and future need or future

availability.

Darden and the law school both have sufficient housing already.

And like I said, they have plans for building more close to the school.

Secondly, the natural area and wetlands in this area are put at risk through the proposal.

The areas in the proposal with single-family and duplex housing that were on the plans take over the Rivanna Trail.

Sorry, your time is up.

Okay, thank you.

Next, I have Taylor.

Taylor, please unmute yourselves, state your name and address if you're affiliated with a group or organization.

My name is Taylor Olegren.

I'm a president and owner in Huntington Village.

I work from home, and my wife is going into her second year at UVA Darden School of Business.

I think everyone has made some really great points that need to get addressed if development does occur.

at Old Ivy Residences.

I agree with our neighbors at University Village that the road is dangerous, the Old Ivy Road is dangerous and there are many potential points of conflict.

Just quick two stories that I've experienced personally is I was running on the western end of Old Ivy Road just two months ago and I was at the edge of the road

running up the road after I crossed from Bel Air and a driver honked at me apparently for being a pedestrian along this edge of the road because they couldn't pass because other cars were coming the other direction and then proceeded to accelerate by me at about 25 miles an hour grazing the edge of my left shoulder.

On the other side, on the western side of Old Ivy Road, I was biking back up the hill from the railway bridge and a vehicle passed me at 35 miles an hour, honking along the way, just missing me by about two feet.

So these are examples of, personal examples that other residents in our neighborhood have talked about to illustrate the concern that I have about Old Ivy Road.

I do think there are some great suggestions from others about, hey, why isn't Leonard Sandbridge Road being utilized?

I did make a comment about that at the last planning meeting with Old Ivy Residences, and that hasn't been addressed, a multimodal path on Leonard Sandbridge Road

and also a vehicle vehicular exit there would be a great solution to making this happen.

So in summary, I think we've got some good aspects of this project.

I think I support rejecting the proposal as proposed and I look forward to the continued discussion to create the most

multi-modal transportation and outcomes for the entire community.

Thank you.

Carolyn, is there anyone else?

One more, David Sprague.

David, please state your name, address, your affiliate with the group organization, and your time starts when you start.

Good evening.

David Sperg here.

Thanks for having the Zoom connection hooked up today.

I lived in the Jack Jewett District at 500 Crestwood Drive.

Although I live adjacent to the property being considered for rezoning, I speak today not as a resident of University Village, but as a resident of the county who spends much time on old ivy and the adjacent roads as a walker, recreational biker, and a volunteer who regularly gathers trash along the sides of these roads.

I have written Mr. Cameron Langio about my observations concerning safety issues on Old Ivy Road and have communicated to him my observations how other communities in Virginia have successfully dealt with difficult traffic problems similar to ours on Old Ivy.

These suggestions for improving the safety of Old Ivy are listed in my mailings to Mr. Plangell.

And most importantly to note, don't presume new railroad overpasses.

I have been assured that you will receive copies of these communications and appreciate your reviewing them.

Consequently, I will not repeat the information in them now.

The county has decided that it is best for our greater community to concentrate development in limited areas of the county and to allow greater density of development in these areas.

Such an approach to be successful requires good infrastructure to be built if it doesn't already exist.

If high density development occurs with no provision for adequate infrastructure, a deterioration of the quality of life should be expected for both the new residents as well as for the existing residents of the county.

By infrastructure, I am referring to good road systems, walkways, bike paths, water and sewer systems, public recreational green spaces, and adequate control of noise, air, and light pollution.

My concern with the present rezoning request is that there is no good plan to assure the needed infrastructure will exist to support the higher density requested.

The most egregious deficiency is the state of the pedestrian vehicular road we call O.I.V.

Road.

Regardless of your action on this rezoning application tonight, I hope that this meeting will trigger a renewed public discussion of possible options that could improve the safety of O.I.V.

even if the overpasses are not destroyed and rebuilt.

That's all I have.

OK.

And I assume there's no one else from the audience who wishes to speak.

So what I'm actually going to do now is put this commission in recess for five minutes.

We've been sitting for three solid hours without moving.

So we're going to take a five minute break until 9 o'clock, and we will refrain commissioners from discussing this proposal in any way with anyone but yourselves during the recess.

You may speak to yourself, as you usually do.

We will now continue.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

We appreciate the opportunity.

I want to say up front, please know that we have responses to all of the comments and questions raised.

Since I don't have much time, if there's any that I do not get to, please know that it's not that we don't have one.

Please ask us.

We've got our civil engineer.

We have our traffic engineer here tonight, obviously, as well as others.

You've heard tonight mostly from the future adjacent neighbors.

we ask that you keep in mind several important things.

They live where they do because it's an excellent location.

You talked about how the Gray Star Darden students lived at Huntington Village.

Mr. Bivins, you're exactly right.

When I was in law school, my first year, I lived at Ivy Gardens.

Why?

Because I could walk to class.

It wasn't very affordable, frankly, because it was the only option.

It was really pretty expensive for what you got in particular.

But it was a fantastic location.

That's where most of the law students lived.

It was perfect.

I ask that you keep in mind the consideration, the needs of the future residents of Old Ivy residents.

those who are not here to speak tonight because they don't have a home to speak to live in yet in this location.

We know there's a market here.

Graystar knows there's a market.

They would not be going through this process in this incredible expense if they weren't very, very certain there is a market here.

Many of the speakers you heard from tonight, while they have raised concerns about traffic and safety,

moved to Huntington Village or to University Village within just the last few years.

So if the traffic was that bad, I'm not sure why they moved here.

Regardless, Graystar understands there's need for traffic improvements and pedestrian and safety improvements.

That's why the project commits to all of the improvements that we discussed earlier.

Lots of valid concerns about the lack of pedestrian, full pedestrian facilities on Old Ivy.

As noted, there are a lot of existing sidewalks on the south side.

Graystar would commit to a sidewalk that would go from the northbound ramp

all the way to Ivy Gardens.

And there's a map I can show you where there's an existing paved path that goes straight up from there between Ivy Gardens and Crestwood Drive, the driveway to University Village, goes right to Leonard Sanders Drive.

So we would be able to make that connection.

We would like to be able to make an additional connection, one that goes from the back

even more directly to Leonard Sandridge Drive.

As noted, however, we don't own that land.

We have to negotiate with our neighbors.

There were comments tonight that said that Graystar has rejected their reasonable proposals.

I'm happy to go into detail, but please know that Graystar has been negotiating diligently and in good faith with their neighbors for these access easements.

We have drafted written proposals with significant monetary compensation offers.

They've offered up to $750,000

for easements.

But unfortunately, the easement demand was $3 million.

So we want you to know that their negotiations have been in good faith, have been reasonable.

Unfortunately, the demand was for a large percentage of that money to be paid prior to tonight.

Obviously, we did not think that was a reasonable request or demand.

Unfortunately, that's where we are.

Gray Star has committed to continue those negotiations, has expressed that in numerous occasions.

I know they want to continue, but we want to make sure that you understand that Gray Star is not being unreasonable.

We're not sure it's really all about the traffic.

University Village has the ability to build three more phases under its zoning approvals from 1990.