Planning Commission Meeting   1/9/2024

Good evening and welcome to the January 9th Planning Commission meeting.

My name is Michael Barnes, the new Planning Director.

Yes.

Ms.

Firehock?

Here.

Mr. Murray?

Hello, I would like to join remotely due to the circumstances of my road being flooded out.

Pretty much.

Well, be safe.

Be safe.

We did.

We had Mr. Claiborne made the motion.

Ms.

Firehock seconded the motion.

Ms.

Firehock?

Aye.

Great.

So thank you, Mr. Murray, for being here.

The second matter is other matters not listed on the agenda from the public.

Do we have anyone from the public who wishes to speak?

Okay, seeing none.

The next matter on the agenda is election of officers.

Do we have a second?

Second.

Ms.

Firehock?

Aye.

You can have faith in yourself.

All right.

Thank you.

Congratulations, Mr. Chair.

I'll let you lead the meeting.

I think I've done my damage.

Thank you.

Well, extremely well done, sir.

Thank you.

Apparently, being chair gives you two mics.

I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not.

You're in stereo.

Great.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

I appreciate everybody's confidence, and I really do respect this group.

incredibly largely a great deal.

And so I'm really thankful to have the opportunity to work with everybody for another year at least.

And again, thank you very much for your confidence in me.

So I think the next is to ask for a motion or a nomination for vice chair.

Great.

Are there any other nominations for vice chair?

I move that nominations be closed.

Great.

Thank you.

Yes, ready for vote.

Mr. Moore.

Aye.

Mr. Murray.

Aye.

Ms.

Firehock?

Aye.

Well, if I could just take this opportunity to before we move on to do a couple quick thanks.

First of all, I really want to thank our outgoing chair, Commissioner Claiborne.

I have to say the level of professionalism and really just your thoughtful approach to the position has been amazing and you're a real role model to me and hopefully I'll be able to measure up to that.

also thank Luis for being willing to take the vice chair position and as always I think we've worked together for many years even before this I'm grateful for the opportunity to continue to work and

Kevin McDermott who is hiding in the audience here sincere thanks to Kevin McDermott for being the steady hand on the tiller over the last how many years have you been in that just one year and it is amazing how Kevin I don't think you've ever not had an answer to a question and it's always been a right one so Michael no no pressure there but I think you've got big shoes to fill too

so with that we can continue thanks for indulging me we can continue on to the agenda and move on to the discussion of planning commission rules of procedures Mr Barnes I think it's you for that yeah as far as the rules and procedures there have been no changes this year okay they've been in the past great well I'm assuming you all have had a chance to look at them

Great.

Any comments or questions?

Do I hear a motion to readopt?

Great.

In a second?

I'll second.

Awesome.

Aye.

Ms.

Firehock.

Aye.

Great.

Thank you all.

And we will now move on to agenda item number five, the discussion of committees and boards and bodies to which commission members serve as liaisons.

Back to you, Mr. Barnes.

Before you and your package, you've got 15 committees there, of which the last one actually is a repeat of one earlier.

The NPO Citizens Transportation Advisory Committee, Mr. Carrazana actually serves on that.

Citizen Transportation Advisory Committee, which I think is item number six, I think, in your list.

And Karen was also pointing out that the capital improvements program oversight committee hasn't met in some while.

I see.

So, but the other committees are active and there are names of planning commissions associated with that.

Right now it's fine by me to be on the Places 29 for Rio.

More bandwidth is not something I need at the moment.

Great, and Mr. Bivins.

Chair, so I would only add one other piece here that I'm not quite sure where the University of Virginia Master Planning Committee, where it stands today.

I just don't know.

So until we have a sense of that, and maybe if the vice chair knows if there's has a sense of where that might be,

I but I don't believe it has met in a bit of in a bit of time, and so it may be that that's on a hiatus.

It's not as if there hasn't been a lot of plans that have come out of the institution that have been adopted by the Board of Visitors, and they've also come before us, obviously, but I'm not quite sure if that is a still a committee which is which is living and breathing.

Okay.

I can I can find out it.

I don't have a problem with how it is today.

The only other thing I would ask at one point, and the AC44 was a rotating, we had hoped to rotate each of us or some portion of us, but I know the plan has changed and how we're populating that has changed.

Correct, correct.

Yeah, okay, great.

Yeah, I do know the answer to that one.

They are going to change the working groups with people participating on that.

Okay, so let's leave that as an open item.

and keep bouncing around.

So Commissioner Bivins, Lupec, still good?

That's fine.

That's fine.

All the rest of them are fine.

Okay, perfect.

Got it.

I was looking for the second one.

And Commissioner Carrazano.

Step up and do that, okay.

I thought there was a difference between that and the MPO, though, so I think there is a distinction.

There is, and I thought you were on the MPO.

You were not on the MPO Tech.

No, I was in the CTAC.

Is Rory your chair?

Is Rory the chair of that now?

Just want to clarify here.

There are two committees with the MPO that are referenced, and I think there are supposed to be

representatives for both, although on the list it refers to both of them as the Citizens Transportation Advisory Committee.

That's one of the ones, and then the other is the MPO Technical Committee.

And I believe Luis was on that.

So it sounds like what the mistake was is that the names of the committee on the list are incorrect, but there should be two committees.

the citizens transportation advisory committee and then there's the MPO itself the MPO itself which the the Planning Commission does not need to appoint a representative to so I think I think that's the there should be the MPO tech down here which is the one that I was participating in so you're not on the SeaTac it or so I think they're meeting they meet

Got it.

I am fine staying on the MPO tech.

It's actually two different meetings.

There's one that's during the day that I guess you have been coming to.

That's the MPO technical meetings and staff.

mostly staff at that meeting.

Some planning commissioners are there.

Then there's the citizens one that usually happens in the evening at night.

Okay.

NPO tech.

Right.

So we should have your name at the bottom of the sheet there.

Okay.

We do not, we think that we do need one on the citizens, one that meets in the evenings.

Usually I think it's like the second or third Tuesday of the month.

Okay, got it.

The second one, we couldn't attend it.

Why don't we find out a little bit more information and follow up on this one.

I'm sure you guys can catch up on what they're doing on their activities.

Usually I've participated in the past in my previous role.

It was a citizen committee giving a lot of the same information that you would have dealt with on the NPO committee itself.

It may be advisable to have somebody separate.

Okay, awesome.

So you're good with that.

It looks like then the only open items remain AC44 and the CTAC.

Okay.

So is there anybody who would like to be on the AC-44 in rotation?

It was, I guess we had Commissioner Firehawk and then Commissioner Bivins.

Does anybody want to roll into that?

I think that Kevin, they meet three times.

Is that correct for the working group?

So it's a three time kind of meeting and a lot of the things you'll be working on is the, you know, you guys have been going through your goals and objectives and now they're moving into more action items and working on developing those five big moves and stuff like that.

So that'll be a lot of what this one will be dealing with.

I'd be interested in that.

You are interested, Lonnie?

Uh huh.

Okay.

Is that okay with everyone else?

It's kind of informal here.

And on the CTAC, anybody interested in... Just a question of looking, it usually meets Wednesday evenings, is that what I'm seeing?

Is that you Google that and figure that one out?

Okay, I think that's what I'm looking at here.

Thank you, Commissioner Moore.

and that I think fills all of the seats.

Second.

Great.

Aye.

Ms.

Firehawk?

Aye.

Moving on to- Mr. Chair, before you move on, I did find a few dates that I can't make, so I've sent them to you and staff.

Great.

Thank you.

All right.

Mr. Chair, before we do that, there's actually an associated motion on the scheduling.

Now that the board has adopted or the commission has adopted the schedule, there's actually a separate resolution to adopt sort of emergency meeting dates.

And it's kind of fitting that we're having this discussion this evening.

There's a resolution

although the PC doesn't have to advertise its meeting schedule in the event that the that there's inclement weather conditions or some other reason to cancel the meeting there needs to be resolution to automatically continue the meeting and the agenda to the next regular scheduled meeting and staff has included in the agenda package a resolution that allows the Commission to do that so before proceeding on to the consent agenda if there could be if there's any discussion and then motion in the second to adopt the resolution for

Oh, a link.

Okay, but we don't have it in front of us here.

Got it.

I move to adopt the resolution that has been presented.

Thank you and do we have a second?

Second.

Great.

Yes.

Ms.

Firehock, aye.

Mr. Carrazana, aye.

Mr. Missel, aye.

Mr. Clayborne, aye.

Mr. Bivins, aye.

Mr. Moore, aye.

Mr. Murray, aye.

Great, thank you.

Okay, now we're moving on to the consent agenda and I would like to ask if any of the commissioners would like to pull this item.

It is one item and it is approval of the draft meeting minutes from December 19, 2023.

And a second?

Second.

All right.

Ms.

Firehock?

Aye.

All right.

That was a lot of agenda items.

Thank you.

We are now moving on to the meat of the meeting, the presentations, and we will begin with Broadway Blueprint Phase 2 Corridor Plan.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

David Benesch, Development Process Manager.

This presentation is to make you aware of a corridor study we have underway for the Broadway Street Corridor and the status of the work that we've done to date on that project.

I mean, we're about at the midpoint of that work.

We have two consulting firms that are collaborating on this project, 3TP Ventures and Lining Grade Civil Engineering.

Rachel Falkenstein of 3TP Ventures and Daniel Heyer of Lining Grade will be taking you through the presentation of the work today and we'll have an opportunity to answer questions and receive comments from you after that presentation.

We also have JT Newberry from the Economic Development Office here also to help out as needed if you have questions.

Good evening.

Thank you, David.

Good to be here before you.

My name is Rachel Falkenstein for those of you who I haven't met and good to see you all again for those of you I've worked with before.

As David said we're here tonight to present where we are so far with the broadway blueprint phase two implementation study.

Just to orient you quickly and what we're talking about when we say broadway our study areas outlined in maroon on the map before you.

The Broadway study area is south and east of the city of Charlottesville and it sits just west of the convergence of the Rivanna river and Morris creek so it's kind of sandwiched in it's just south of the wool mills neighborhood in the city and it sits to the east of the Carlton Belmont city neighborhood as well.

So goals for this project are focused really on identifying some implementation steps that the county can take to support connectivity, placemaking and economic vitality within Broadway.

Want to work to leverage some past public investment that has happened in this area to continue

to build upon opportunities within Broadway and to support the county's economic strategic plan.

And then the last one is a process goal to work on collaborating with the diverse set of stakeholders who both live, work, and visit within Broadway, as well as our partners in the city, both staff and city officials, since it is just adjacent to the city and shares transportation networks with the city as well.

So just to talk us through our scope and kind of where we are in the project, as David said, we're about halfway through the study so far.

The first part of this study was focused on just information gathering, listening, stakeholder engagement, and trying to understand what the challenges and opportunities are in the area, but also building on the work of phase one that was done by the county a couple years ago.

and I've put the phase one intention up here.

This is kind of the outcome of that work and a result of the work was a recommendation to further study and identify some implementation steps.

So that's what we're doing with this project.

We'll share some kind of draft concepts.

These are really, we're in the ideas phase right now, kind of gathering what we see as some opportunities to receive input on.

And then after we get through this phase, we'll have some more refined recommendations to bring back before you all.

So far we've done a good bit of community engagement and tried to have different types of opportunities to meet with stakeholders in the Broadway area.

We've had some pop-ups, we've had some roundtables with businesses and property owners in the area, and we've had some

small group or one-on-one interviews with property owners and tenants as well to learn about kind of what the issues and what the opportunities folks are seeing having spent more time in the area and just being there in the day-to-day and what they're experiencing and so tonight we want to present kind of what we've heard what we see as some observations and opportunities and some draft goals for us to kind of work towards as we identify these implementation measures for Broadway

So we have four topics for you tonight where we're going to share some observations and opportunities.

And we're going to start with placemaking really because this is kind of a pivotal topic within Broadway.

It's an organizing theme of our work and it's really what we're trying to do in Broadway with this study.

And when we say placemaking, we're talking about what makes a place interesting and vibrant, what makes people want to live and work there, what makes a place a destination, and often it's referring to

planning and design of public places, but interestingly in Broadway we're seeing a lot of private placemaking going on from private organizations and businesses as well.

There's the work that's been done with the public investment in the woolen mills redevelopment and the placemaking that has gone on with that, but there are also some other really interesting things happening and more of a grassroots nature in Broadway.

So our observations related to placemaking have looked at the existing amenities and resources.

There's being at the convergence of the Rivanna River and Morris Creek makes it a really rich place with natural recreational and historic resources in this area.

So both the natural and the built environment we think are interesting amenities that contribute to making this an interesting place.

However, the visibility of these amenities are not super abundant.

If you're standing on Broadway Street, you might not know if you're not familiar with the area that you're a couple hundred yards away.

from the Rivanna River and the Rivanna Trail Network and all of the amenities along that.

So that's something that we noticed that is an opportunity that I'll talk about in the next slide.

And then secondly, local businesses and organizations.

As I said, there's a good bit of grassroots placemaking happening.

There are some local organizations that have art studio space, community garden, really interesting landscaping wildflower gardens on the properties.

there are opportunities to attend classes on woodworking and attend events in the space there are also private businesses really converging around beverage making there are coffee malting there's craft cideries and breweries all kind of converging in this space and providing tasting rooms and opportunities for kind of social gathering within Broadway

So we see some opportunities to enhance what's already there and kind of build upon what the work that's been done so far.

I think a really straightforward opportunity is better way finding signage, both within Broadway to identify those amenity spaces, but also telling people how to get to Broadway.

There are some transportation challenges with some of the city streets that are narrow and aren't designed for heavy vehicle traffic.

So also wayfinding within adjacent neighborhoods to let people know the best routes to get to and from Broadway.

continuing on the greenway connections that have already been made within Broadway and the county's doing the work of exploring opportunities to get across the Rivanna River with the pedestrian bridge we see this as an opportunity to become a kind of a trail hub for the community providing access to broader city and county trails but right now we don't have any public space within Broadway so exploring an opportunity to find a small public park pocket park or gathering space could be another opportunity to enhance

the public realm within Broadway.

Daniel's going to talk about kind of placemaking within Broadway Street itself, so I'm going to leave that off for now, but these are some other opportunities that we see.

Lastly, in placemaking, I want to touch on the county's role.

This is something that came up in the conversations we had with stakeholders.

Like I said, there's a lot going on that's kind of organically happening from the businesses and organizations that are down there, and we see the county's role in this work as a supporter.

and this might look like the county supporting a community organization, helping them out with a grant application or formalizing an informal trail network that crosses properties that the property owners want to see become more formalized.

So their role in that placemaking would be more of a supporter, but when it comes to the public realm, specifically Broadway Street, we think the county has an opportunity to be more proactive and do some improvements for placemaking within the public right of way.

And move on to land use and development patterns.

Our observations around land use really have been focused on the county's kind of policy and regulatory environment.

We looked at the comprehensive plan and the zoning map and saw kind of what was allowed today and what the future vision is for the area.

We've identified a mismatch that you all might want to explore as you go through your AC-44 process for the future land use.

as well as the ongoing zoning update that you're working on.

The mismatch is in some residential properties along Perez Row and Marchant Street where your comp plan calls for some residential and then some significant areas of green space but your zoning calls for the residential to be light industrial and then the green space is residential so it's a bit of a flip.

something to explore as you go through either your AC44 update or a future master plan update to see if maybe this area wants to become maybe continue to be residential maybe a little bit more infill development in the area or potentially mixed use but what's there today is residential so I'm not sure industrial zoning is the right fit but something to explore a little bit further

The existing uses are primarily industrial.

I mentioned kind of the beverage creation that's happening, as well as a lot of artisan manufacturing uses that are starting to pop up.

But all of these would be kind of categorized as industrial.

And we heard from the community they want to see this continue.

They like the industrial vibe of the area.

But some people want to see more residential infill.

but some people don't.

There's some concern about that tension that can exist between residential and industrial.

So I would say there's mixed support.

Some people really don't want residential and some do.

As far as development patterns, it's a low intensity kind of building environment there, mostly single storied.

You can see by the building footprints here that the buildings are generally set back from Broadway, located kind of in the middle of the property, not really conducive to like a human scaled environment, but it leaves opportunity for some infill on the site as well.

One other thing I'll mention is utility access is something that the county might want to explore further if redevelopment future if if the area wants to redevelop and more intensely in the future parcels on the west end of Broadway are downhill from the sewer main and have private pumps to access that sewer main so opportunities for maybe connecting to the city system which runs parallel on Franklin

could be explored, otherwise the property wouldn't have the ability to redevelop any more intensely.

So touching on a few opportunities for land use and zoning I already touched on kind of retaining the industrial uses, at least in the near term for this property for this area, but perhaps expanding some flexibility of other uses mixing in with the industrial, such as commercial retail uses that support current industries, for instance, a tasting room can be challenging because of some constraints in your zoning right now.

maybe expanding some flexibility there to allow those to happen more easily.

Arts work, arts uses and live work are other uses that came up as things people would like to see more of.

If a mixed use future is desired for this area, it's something that the county might want to do some live work on now.

And I'll touch on this a little bit more on my next topic.

but the market is kind of pushing this area towards mixed use just because of land values and the proximity to the city so that could be something the county wants to explore for the future and there are some steps that can be taken I'll touch on in the next topic to get this area ready for that.

There are, as I mentioned, those resources, environmental and historic resources on the site, doing some analysis of what resources the county wants to protect and being really clear about those in your policies and plans I think will help provide some clarity about where development should occur within Broadway.

And then the last topic I'm going to touch on before Daniel talks about history is business retention and affordability.

Our observations around this topic came largely from discussions with the community, with the businesses within Broadway, but then we did a little bit of market analysis and what we heard was largely backed up by the analysis and the market data we pulled.

So, Broadway historically has been an affordable place to start an industrial business within the county, but that has been changing over the past few years.

We have seen assessments gone up significantly in recent years as land costs have increased.

We looked at 2022 to 2023 tax assessments.

they went up an average of about 7% though some properties went up as much as 10% in that single year so that concern is real and it's being felt by the property owners down there and we heard some concern that doing this study and identifying more opportunities for public investment would further exasperate that that pinch that they're feeling so that concern is out there people have have concerns that they won't be able to afford to stay and if so where will they go and we looked at local inventory

You have a very low vacancy rate for your industrial properties.

It hovers between zero and two percent, which is really low, and that means people don't have places to go if they need to leave.

So that's something we've observed as something we heard loud and clear from the community.

It's a concern that's out there.

But these are essential businesses and organizations to the county.

They're valued community jobs.

They provide goods and services that we all rely on.

So I think it's in the county's best interest in trying to find a way to retain these businesses within Broadway and then broadly looking at kind of the county as a whole and seeing where these businesses should locate moving forward.

And so those are some of the opportunities that we've been starting to kind of think about.

What are some targeted investments and programs that can be focused on the Broadway area?

Arts and cultural district designation is one that the county could consider.

This wouldn't apply to every business within Broadway, but those are who are doing those arts types work.

work and organizations could benefit from a designation and the county could provide incentives, they could provide tax rebates and other programs for those organizations if they went down this route.

There's also several opportunities for incentives such as public-private partnerships or if a property does redevelop, the county could incentivize keeping space for existing businesses or providing startup space.

A business incubator space is another idea that has come up in our conversations.

So those really targeted programs that look at how we can retain these businesses.

within Broadway and then perhaps long term maybe elsewhere in the county and zooming out looking at opportunities to increase county-wide industrial land inventory is something that we think would be important to look at long term but maybe with the AC44 process if there's an opportunity to do that and then continue the business retention efforts that your economic development office is already is already doing.

And so that wraps up my portion of the presentation.

Thank you, Rachel.

Good evening, everyone.

So one of our guiding principles in this work.

Oh, I'm Daniel Heyer.

Thank you for reminding me.

yes it's very common for me to know who I am but I forget that I always need to remind them yeah well it is changing that's true things are changing thank you Daniel Heyer line and grade civil engineering as I was saying one of our guiding principles as we've thought about Broadway Street is implementable projects we don't want our recommendations to simply be

academic exercises we want to find ways of actually doing work on the corridor itself that results in change for those who use the corridor and protects their interests as they need to use the corridor as you know there's a lot of exciting transportation projects around the county that all need funding and so we've tried to frame our work on this study in such a manner that

projects can be implemented some of which have very low costs so that we're not just talking in vain so as we go forward I think you'll I want to specifically note that we're trying to think outside the box and some of our recommendations currently Broadway Street the roadway itself is a part of the VDOT roadway inventory as Rachel's initial slide showed it's kind of an island unto itself surrounded by city streets and hydraulic corridors

So in terms of VDOT's ownership and maintenance of the road, it's an island to them.

When it snows and their plot trucks have to get to Broadway, they've got to come through the city to get there.

The pavement itself is variable in width, as this graphic shows, which is interesting in terms of what we'll recommend to bring some cohesion to the corridor.

As Rachel mentioned, historically, the corridor has been supporting industrial businesses

but as the corridor is trying to learn what it wants to be we're thinking about that one thing we've heard loud and clear through all of our meetings from the land owners adjacent to the corridors because they're light industrial or industrial uses they have large vehicles that come to their properties regularly.

and they are worried that street improvements may make access for vehicles, specifically their delivery vehicles to be more challenged.

So we're certainly wanting to be mindful of that.

If you were to walk along Broadway in its current form, you would notice that does have a lot of interesting things to provide.

There is

great landscaping along the corridor in certain areas there's mature trees along the front edge of the roadway in certain areas so we're not necessarily starting from a negative like perspective we have some good things along the corridor itself that we'd like to to use in our recommendations the character of the corridor itself I'm inclined to say is kind of a rural and urban mix it's surrounded by city streets and yet

there's no you know there's ditch sections along most of it so it has this kind of interesting hybrid character similarly because the roadway asphalt can be so wide we do experience or have heard specific counts of speeding along the corridor you can you can get moving pretty good through here you might want to be you know taking a small airplane off in certain areas so it's you can get moving along the corridor so

With that, I'm going to try to identify near term, midterm, and long term thinking for your feedback, and we would love your feedback on these items.

So you may or may not know that here within the next couple of months, the Albemarle County Service Authority is doing a water main replacement project along Broadway Street.

and as a part of their work they intend to mill and resurface the entire length of it and so this is a very near-term opportunity for us to add paint and that paint while really just a very innocuous like implementation can provide begin to provide certain boundary conditions on a relatively ambiguous corridor so what we are asking for consideration is that upon milling and resurfacing this road we put some paint down

And if we choose to do some additional work to kind of feather in the margins along the roadway to keep the width more consistent, you might end up with paved shoulders that are available for someone who might choose to walk there.

I'm specifically not saying it's a pedestrian facility.

It's just a roadway shoulder.

but the striping itself could contribute to you know mitigating speeding and while at the same time not inhibiting large vehicles from moving we've discussed this with VDOT's local staff and they have been supportive and they are actually trying to help us identify some similar projects where VDOT has done similar things so that we have more of a you know an example of where this has been done but all initial conversations have been been supportive

So that would be a very near term, like in the next couple of months, like this year sort of opportunity.

The midterm improvements, this needs some explaining.

What we were hearing in some of our stakeholder engagement was that kind of this grassroots type energy on the corridor.

Some people have used X art park as another simple like the vibe they're trying to go with along this corridor.

It's industrial, it's artistic, it's creative.

There's makers, you know, making amazing things.

And then there's also, you know, just a light industrial uses.

And so X art park came up as a unique example of an informal, informal, creative community.

and as currently conceived here in this midterm improvement example or idea we would kind of well first of all it would require the county to think about becoming the owner of the road as opposed to VDOT which has been an interesting conversation to have the county is becoming more urbanized in many respects but it doesn't exactly have its own street standards it would adopt VDOT standards typically

and it doesn't always, I think the county is just starting to get into having the equipment required to maintain some of its streets.

So if the county was willing to become the owner of the corridor or otherwise maintain it and VDOT would be very eager to have that conversation, we might have some opportunities to do some more non-VDOT style improvements, which might include converting some of those roadway ditches into rain gardens and things like that,

starts to, you know, I've shown some pollinator gardens along the side.

There's just simply there's opportunities to think about what this corridor might be that's not a VDOT highway so to speak.

The county may want to consider designating the paved shoulders as pedestrian facilities, but that would require additional improvements in certain areas to make sure that that pedestrian facility can actually meet the letter of the law in terms of what the law requires for a pedestrian facility.

So this midterm improvement idea certainly requires additional conversations and additional engagement with the county and VDOT to really flush this out, but this was largely a concept that was informed by stakeholders into what they were looking for and hoping for.

And finally, this is this long term improvement, which would be more costly, but also more traditional than what you might expect along the corridor.

I'm trying to put this out.

20, 25 years from now within a broader network of multimodal and users of various kinds.

This is a traditional shared use path type arrangements.

I think whether this is to be considered and implemented largely depends on what we see over the near term.

If we see more people walking along the roadway margins where it's striped, I think the county can observe and then have an interesting

correlation between how the corridor is changing and what the use might want to be.

Certainly, this type of project would be a substantial investment with the stormwater drainage improvements that would be required to really implement this.

But it's not a far stretch for reasons that Rachel mentioned, you know, with the Rivanna Trail Network and people trying to get to downtown Charlottesville and just the broader network of how non-motorized transit

operates in the vicinity.

So this is certainly worth considering, but I think we're recommending this to be a wait and see type concept to see how near term improvements might enable people on the corridor to use it in a different way than it's currently being used.

And with that, I think we're sort of done.

I'll end with this was a very quick kind of dash on an update.

So there's a lot more nuance to some of these roadway items as

well as land use and placemaking, but we're happy to take your questions, let you dialogue or, you know, work through whatever you want.

Great.

Thank you both.

Well, why don't we start with questions?

And this is sort of presentation slash work session, so you can be informal about it.

Might as well start at this end.

not to put you on the spot.

Sure.

No, we can we can stick with this side for now.

It's funny, you know, with the Broadway presentation, the first time I went to Visible Records, maybe three years ago, I didn't even realize I'd left the city limits.

And at some point, I probably saw it on the map, like, oh, that's part of the county.

But it's definitely been this like tucked away part of a little forgotten part of the county, but like right wedged in the urban zone.

I read through the presentation earlier too and then listening here there's a little element of like all things to all people in some of these ideas because we've got like nature trails and arts district and pocket park and we've got big trucks delivering things and it's it's a little hard to figure out how does that all work together in the long term.

I mean I think it can, but I think there's some things that could happen if we do.

And what I mean by that is that with the private place making like visible records that's it's like Charlottesville's little version of an underground arts collective and.

The idea of an arts and cultural district there's is really interesting I think that could be a really cool.

Use of the area I mean they're already kind of doing it and then it's across the street from like you know.

a warehouse.

It was a warehouse.

It still is partly.

The example of XR Park is one that I can speak to a little bit because I'm on the board there and it is informal and creative and unique.

over time, the industrial uses basically go away aside from brewing alcohol.

And that's just like a reality, plus there's the financial realities of running an arts district, which are very difficult.

And so that's just considerations there.

The interest in more mixed use and arts district and all these things, I'm wondering, you know, like when something gets too cool and well known, the prices all go up, right?

And that's something that you all addressed in the report.

And I just wanted to sort of dog ear that.

So there's a couple questions that don't really have full answers, I'm sure, but just like questions I wanted to sort of hypothetically ask.

One is if we've learned any lessons from any other city anywhere that have actually been successful in terms of dealing with gentrification pressures when there is something like an arts district, you know, put in place.

And then the other kind of question is if and when that happens, which, you know, the market pressures are probably going to make it happen at some point one way or another.

and this is definitely beyond the scope of this study in neighborhood, but when does the county get more zones for economic development?

When do we designate more industrial spaces for this kind of thing that are affordable so people don't have to pick up stakes and do the wainswere or whatever?

So those are my broad questions.

That was great.

Watch what I do here.

Commissioner Firehock.

I thought that was very interesting.

Those are along the lines of some of my comments, just that I was reading this and thinking about, you know, like it allows some of these more funky uses and it's industrial and it's a teeny bit run down looking the street itself.

But then we do all these nice improvements and then their assessments continue to go up and we kind of lose those sort of more organic funky places.

So I guess I have mixed feelings unless the county could

if the county wanted to invest money in sprucing it up, but then do some kind of special district for it, like some lower, you know, some enterprise zone or something they wanted to make out of it where they would give a tax break for those who locate there so that they wouldn't be penalized for all the improvements.

I'd really like to see something creative.

I'm no local taxing expert, so it's not going to be me coming up with it.

But otherwise, I just worry we'll just, you know, we'll use it up to the point where it's no longer affordable.

And I run a small business and I know what it's like looking for space for nonprofits.

And then the other thing I just is more of a question is whether or not

Any thought was given to putting stormwater treatment along the sides, because you could have vegetated bioswales that were fratting beautification, but also dealing with stormwater treatment on an older road that probably doesn't have stormwater treatment.

So that could be a way to potentially fund it, because there is more money than ever before through the Infrastructure Act and other sources for low impact development, BMPs, retrofitting.

So if maybe it was that kind of a demonstration, we might be able to leverage more funds for it.

It is an industrial road, so of course we have to be cognizant of tractor trailers sliding off the side and, you know, the various things that happen with deliveries.

Anyway, I think would be neat to encourage an arts district, but again I'm just questioning the affordability and.

Last thing is, I would like to see mixed use in there, I think if you it depends on the type of people you attract I think we think of residential like people little bungalows with picket fences.

But you could have like a very whole industrial type vibe there and and it would could still blend with industry other cities do it all right i'm gonna stop talking now.

Commissioner Bivins.

Thank you, Chair.

So I just have a couple of questions for us before I sort of go off on my on a seasoned rant.

So a couple of years ago, I don't know if it was this year or that last year, there was a project that came to us for the to try and do something with the Delorme building, which for those of you who are

new to that kind of level of sheetery.

That's a high-end French company that happens to have a, happened to have a distribution center here.

And if you go to the downtown mall, it's right there in all of its $200 for a duvet cover of Gloria.

so I wondered what happened to that to that place there because they were trying to do something interesting there and just as just as a as a piece of knowledge because I think they were trying to do something that was both industrial but also looking to the future to do something that was right up against the the the abandoned trail rail the railway railway trail that was there so that's that's a question and we may all just be remembering it fondly but

I think that's part of the thing that I would want to know more about because that would give me some currency into what's happening there that's come before us.

Not what's happening there organically, but what's coming before us.

And I forget who presented that, but I'm just gonna ask that question.

I'm struck by on this piece that says, under connectivity and getting around, that VDOT doesn't know what that road is.

it doesn't have a number so it's not a six or it's not a two digit number it's that's something that I find odd that a road that is in the Commonwealth does not have a VDOT characteristic to it and so I wouldn't want to know more about how does that happen and do we have any more rows in Albemarle County which are like that because I can tell you it's going to be a snow plows owned by the Albemarle County chance in hell

that the county takes that road on, because why would it take that particular road on and not take some of the other roads, which we've all heard about the Free Union Express roads that are always in bad condition and that always need some taken care of.

So while I think this is an interesting idea, I'd want to know more about why it's an unknown, it's an orphaned road as far as the state is concerned.

and so when I when I saw that I was like well that's a really interesting thing it's an orphan I'm just curious as to whether that does impact how it's maintained or not that's where I'm coming from yeah the class yeah thank you for bringing this up this is a prior technicality the class and I wrote that the classification is like feedback classifies the roadways to typologies and so this one doesn't have a type it's not like I can say it's an urban

It's an orphaned road.

I hesitate to say it's an orphaned road.

It's a foster home.

It's a foster care by VDOT.

I think it provides more opportunities okay that's what I was yeah thinking yeah because but again I will say I cannot believe that the county supervisors will take on a foster road because then I mean that would be the I'd want to know what the inventory before I recommended that yeah I'd want to know what the inventory of roads like that might be so because I don't believe if it's a one-off then I think someone like Mr Barnes can have a conversation about

why is it like that and how do we get it to be not like that you know that's would be one of the as opposed to why do we take it on but I have more yet I have more so I'm fine with that yeah we can talk more about that but yeah is it yeah I think that's it so so the thing that I'm I'm I mean I'm very excited about what I what I read but I'm also very sort of nervous about what I read

because those of us who are a certain age and come from a certain place remember when West Broadway in New York was this really industrial place and I lived in space up there for nothing.

I could not do that today, even if I had followed some particular career options that I did not.

And so what I would not want this to happen, what happened here,

has given its closeness to Carlton Avenue, which I believe is going to come under pressure.

Carlton Avenue is going to come under pressure unless the people who own the sort of community there.

And then I think my recollection is that there was also a community near Morris Creek that was of similar type.

So that what we will eventually do by improving it,

We will challenge it to remain as eclectic a place as it is today, which is sort of grown organically, which is why I think we see both the ability as you see in lots of sort of commercial space that converts to artist space because commercial entities leave it and then you have artists sort of come back in and they backfill the space until it becomes so hip and so well developed that they then get pushed out.

And unfortunately, in our community,

with our rigid land use percentages, there's not very many places to go.

So in essence, what we will be doing is moving people out and away as opposed to within Albemarle County.

And so everyone's heard me say this before, this is not the first time I've said this, the decision about how we use our land

really goes to how eclectic our community is going to be, how diverse our community is going to be.

And if we continue, even though I'd love to see some of the ideas that were brought to us by our former colleague, because I think it makes sense, I would not want that to be the tipping point to then turn it into a part of our community that those interesting and those types of businesses can no longer be in.

You know, I don't want to have to pay travel time to have the rug cleaning person come from Waynesboro to clean my carpet.

First of all, I don't want to have to drive that far to drop a carpet off.

It's bad enough now, it's bad enough now, those of you may know this, that Salem Easeway, who used to be on the downtown mall,

is now in Greene County.

So if you want to take your Aunt Alma's rug to them to get it clean, where you used to be able to take it to downtown, to the downtown mall, you now have to take it up there by the Lowe's in Greene County.

Nice drive, and there used to be good food up there, but we're pushing people away, which in essence is making it more expensive

for people to live and do their work here.

And so that's going to be my piece.

I love it.

I think there's some things which we can do to make this a place that attracts that eclectic and artist type, but I'm fearful that it's going to drive that artist and type away.

And where are we going to drive them to?

To the emerging Waynesboro, to the reemerging Waynesboro.

To the reemerging Waynesboro.

I do have a question.

Isn't there a bridge that goes from

Woollen Mills, not Woollen Mills, from whatever that place is called, Willowtree, thank you.

That goes from Willowtree across Morris Creek.

Can you talk about the new pedestrian bridge?

Yeah, the pedestrian bridge.

So what I'm asking and what I'm suggesting is that let's amplify the things which are there.

That's with wayfinding.

Yes.

So a couple of things.

First of all, I've actually ran on that in that area and quickly looking at Strava on heat maps in the area.

That area is currently being used by cyclists and runners.

So it's not a question of by adding the striping whether pedestrians will come or not.

They're already there.

So I mean, that's definitely going to provide safety for those people that are already using that for walking and running.

I'd also second Karen's suggestions about sustainability and stormwater management.

I wonder too, you know, I think there's some opportunities here to use incentives to encourage sustainable development in that area.

You know, perhaps offering, you know, TIF, for example, for, you know, people willing to redevelop in a sustainable way.

I also strongly support mixed use in that area.

And I think, you know, opportunity, I would rather see, given the proximity to the river, I would prefer to see more vertical development and more buffer on the river than to see more development spread out and just single story.

Great, thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Actually, I do have a couple of questions for the presenters and then I'll leave with some comments.

I'm not sure if you want to come up to the podium, but I'm curious if you could talk a little bit about the road networks leading up to Broadway and your thoughts

on how that starts to impact how you think about Broadway.

And I used to live off of Linden Avenue, so I used to run.

I don't run as much as Commissioner Murray.

My runs are like two and a half miles.

Those are 20.

But I would sometimes run down that street.

Sometimes I had different experiences.

I didn't feel like it was always safe.

And so I'm curious if you could speak to that piece.

And then the second question is, do you know the economic impact of this district as we're having this conversation?

I can try to speak to the roadway network component of that question, but did you have any specific questions nested in that?

I guess from the context of if we want to make a destination, which is drawing people in, when people are traveling to get to that destination, whether it's by foot or bicycle, whatever it may look like,

It does, and I think there's a number of different ways to answer it, I'll take a stab, and you can correct me if I'm going the wrong way here, we actually did meet with the city NDS of James Fries and some of his colleagues regarding their understanding of the adjacent roadways

and also if they had any planned improvements along those roadways.

And we heard some interesting things, although I think it's all very long range aspirational thinking, but they had intention to put either a broader sidewalk or a shared use path along East Market Street, actually, which I think is a very aggressive project to pull off.

Carlton itself, coming down toward Franklin, toward Broadway,

is an interesting stretch of road that there is bicycle accommodations along the road there's no current planned improvements along that roadway itself from the city that said so from a bike and pedestrian network standpoint I can see that our most valuable connection points from along Broadway itself will likely be pedestrians or bicyclists either continuing up Carleton to try to get

over to the shared use path by beer run that comes into the city proper but there's there's a missing link there basically from the intersection of Carleton and Carleton to be run more or less and I don't know the city has any specific intentions to to infill that I do think there's natural connections that are being made under the one-way tunnel under the railroad track along Franklin going over toward East Market

And in fact, some of the wayfinding we'd like to implement and we've coordinated with the city on is actually putting wayfinding on east markets to sort of say.

Broadway that way, as opposed to cars going all the way down east market and ending up going the wrong way in a one way road where it's kind of a cluster of sorts with angry residential neighbors and you know.

validly angry neighbors at that but it's a little bit of a cluster with the wayfinding scenario of how am I supposed to get to Broadway where exactly is Broadway I feel like I had one more point to make oh I think the final point to make related to connectivity and the broader network is actually a little bit of concern around continued large vehicle access to Broadway and how large vehicles are actually navigating through the city

to get there and how challenging it actually already is.

You can come through the Hogwall and Franklin, you can try to navigate from 250 up Meade, down Carleton, onto Carleton.

It's a little bit of a mess.

And because we, the county, or VDOT in that sense, have no control really on that network, further improvements on those networks could further constrain vehicle movements that are trying to get to Broadway.

I think it starts to answer I would just encourage you as you start to tell that story that that part is in there.

We don't have a lot of cohesive data on that.

We could look into it a little bit further.

What we have been able to pull was focused specifically on job types, what types of jobs are within Broadway.

And we found that it has a higher proportion of low and medium income jobs than the county as a whole.

So the county as a whole is about 50% and this area is about 70%.

And then we looked at types of jobs and wholesale trade jobs and arts and entertainment recreation are a higher percent than the county as a whole.

And this area has about 12% of the county's wholesale trade jobs.

So it's pretty significant for a small area.

No, just trying to get some context to it.

So thank you for the answer.

And I'll just make us a couple of comments and I'll pass the floor back to Mr. Chairman here.

I guess when I first started looking at the presentation, just inherently light industrial and residential, for me, it feels conflicting.

And so just watching how you grapple with that would be important.

And I'm just going to push a little bit on that slide.

I think it showed you a midterm kind of solution.

Just thinking of, so I'm someone with two young children

If we happen to live there, and I've seen the vehicles that use that road, I'm going to push a little bit to explore that solution a little bit more.

I think you said you might have had some other tidbits because you were rushing through that.

If you wanted to share those, I'd love to hear that, like how you would be addressing that further.

The second portion, the arts and cultural district piece, my initial reaction to that was that feels like that would be like in the heart of a development area.

As you look at various options with a on a research innovation district right you think of.

Willow tree and you think of entrepreneurs who are starting breweries and things like that does that open up doors more funding and I guess economic development could probably speak to that, but they have go Virginia grants growth and opportunity grants under research and.

Innovation.

Does that start to play a role?

Or the Community Investment Collaborative, CIC, which caters to graduating entrepreneurs year after year after year who are still in the community, starting businesses and doing things like that.

Does that start to help the cause and telling the story?

And then lastly, I'm curious about the river as a destination beyond recreation.

Can this become a place where I want to eat and have a view of the river?

Is that allowable?

Or are there places where as I'm enjoying a nice brew that you can hear the water rushing after the rain?

How does the river become a destination beyond just tourism?

Thank you both for the presentation and the insights that you brought on this locality.

So a lot of what has been said, I certainly am in agreement with.

I actually have more questions for you guys.

And one of the questions has already been alluded to here by Commissioner Bivins in terms of the pressures that are impending pressures on Carlton Avenue area, particularly with the city's rezoning.

Have you given some thought about how that would impact

Broadway Street.

We'd love to get your thoughts on that.

Particularly, I mean, I know you guys were meeting and talking with the residents there, the people that work there.

They are, and what we've heard is concern about displacement.

They've already seen the land values go up and their assessments go up, and I think as the area around it redevelops, that pressure is only going to continue.

And so there is concern about if there's a future for some of these businesses and startups in Broadway or if they'll be displaced.

So that came up time and time again in conversations we've had with people.

some of the infrastructure improvements that we can make, but with the foresight of what is coming or potentially what is coming.

It is prime.

I mean, you could see this is the corner of Franklin and Caldyn that those are areas that are.

Our targets with the new zoning.

And the density is going to go up.

And I can't imagine that it's going to slow.

Unfortunately, I can't imagine it's going to slow that the the

the increase to the cost of doing business in Broadway.

So unless we have some magic bullet on how to either incentivize this idea of mixed use and some adaptive reuse, some infill, there's certainly opportunities for infill site and some densification within the Broadway area.

I would love to see that incorporated, that kind of thinking of

how can we work with a community to think of what their future might look like potentially and as we densify and provide some of these infrastructure amenities which are beginning to tackle with the road the road is safety issues I agree with my colleagues here there is a conflict already with the with the light industrial and the trucks and the residential and the pedestrians and the recreational uses there I'm just wondering

Is there some insight that we can glean as we get this crystal ball and begin to think about what will be happening next door?

As soon as these zoning changes happen in the city, it's going to have a major impact on this area.

Maybe it's just that question mark of let's think about as we continue with your, I would love to hear what your next steps are on this, but

I would love that to be part of the thinking, you know, not just think about the county, but what is the city going to do that's going to obviously have a significant impact.

I think anecdotally what we've heard is that demand is already there.

Some of the property owners shared that they've received phone calls from developers, cold calls, about selling their property for development.

But your regulatory, your zoning map right now does not allow mixed use development.

So it's not allowed right now.

I think if you change that, there would be demand for mixed use and residential down there.

We've talked to property owners that want to develop residentially, but they're not allowed to under the county's current regulations.

I think there's latent demand, and this is an opportunity for the county to think about what it wants Broadway to be, whether it should continue to be industrial,

or it should be something else.

Just a quick question.

I'm sorry if you already mentioned this.

One thing that would be useful additional data, which I'm not saying you have tonight, is just to get an understanding of the proportion of buildings that have rental tenants versus ones that are owned.

I would think that the rentals, the ones who are renting, would be much more fragile in terms of displacement if, you know,

So right now you you you you pointed to the.

the discrepancy that we have in some of our zoning documents right now.

And so, but what you're saying is if this moves to mixed use, there are developers out there that are already very eager to take advantage of that.

And what it can, obviously, I mean, to me, I think there's a lot of opportunities there for mixed use, and probably that's where it needs to be.

But it's also gonna,

The downside of that is it will displace the people that are there.

Yeah, I was going to say, I don't have numbers for you on owner versus tenant occupied, but we can pull that.

Yeah, I just wonder if our economic development department and we have a new director that could help, like,

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, I would just say that there should be particular care given to the parcels next to the river to not create an intensity of uses there that would further impair the buffer of the river or cause conversion of that potential green space to other uses.

One thing I'd add too is

You know, one of the people have often talked about when we talked about the Rivanna River about, you know, the ability of restaurants or other things that could look out on the river.

And there there does tend to be a conflict between having a restaurant or some other business like right on the river.

It's like looking out on the river versus conservation of that natural resources.

But I think there's an opportunity, though, if you have a taller building, then you can indeed look out on the river without actually

be impairing that buffer.

So I think, you know, as you go up and hide a little bit, you do develop those views of the river that you don't have if you're a single story.

Thank you, sir.

I mean, I think it's helpful to look at whatever this document is.

There is just going to be, and the reality of it is there's only

We will only be able to make this area so attractive given there's a water treatment plant there.

Or is it sewage or water treatment?

A sewage treatment plant there, which in this case I think is a good thing because it means that there will always be sort of a drag on flipping the property there too quickly.

because it is going to remain industrial unless someone here can tell me that, I forget the initials that go, but whoever these people that go with this thing, that they would pick it up and place it someplace else, which I don't believe they can do because the underlying infrastructure can't just be picked up and placed someplace else.

So I think as a near term, what we really are talking about, how do we sort of encourage an area that has been sort of

that is in foster care right now.

How do we encourage it to have some of the amenities, some gentle wayfinding, some reestablishing or configuration that takes place on the roads which are there that is not necessarily in conflict with what it is.

It is the remains of what used to be a factory at one end that now happens to be this technology place that may or may not be here in three years.

which actually that parking lot could be an excellent place to put a really tall building in my in my portfolio versus a place that we don't have a lot of space for businesses like this in Albuquerque County.

And while I have been noisy about taking commercial space and turning it into residential space,

I will really, really be noisy about taking industrial, light industrial artist space because I do think there's some value to having space in our community for artists to create things.

I remember when McGuffey was this place that you could go in there and you'd find these people building very big sculptures or very big paintings.

Today you can't do it because they can't afford to do it anymore.

So where are they going?

Oh, that would be that place I said long ago, Waynesboro.

I would not like to export our artists community to Waynesboro.

I think it is very important for the kind of place that claims that it has this heritage of Thomas Jefferson, you know, the Renaissance people, that we have arts.

in this community that is a critical piece of who we are.

I agree.

I think a lot of us are saying the same thing.

The question is, how do you counteract the pressures that are coming?

Oh, it's already happening across the road.

Now, the one thing I will say is that the salvage company is probably, I can't even imagine with the salvage company on Carlton, what it would take to make that a reasonable place.

You know, that's that whole swift there.

I don't saw in my lifetime and maybe in all of our lifetime, it's always going to be a salvage place.

And so I don't think without some sort of significant sort of

um infusion of big dollars that comes to come to that part of the city county line over there I don't think you're going to happen I mean many of us have been here long enough know about the east market street fight even when the place would flood out how they wanted nothing done there because they did not want that lower part of east market to be changed

Awesome.

I have a few questions and comments too, but before I do that, any other questions, comments, hands raised, all good?

So I'll just say a few comments and probably more comments than questions.

I echo a lot of what's said here.

So some of what I'm going to say is plus one, but some of it is to try to categorize it a little bit to sort of summarize where I think we're going.

And one is the question of proximities and partnerships.

so as you look at the study you know and you've done a lot of this already but thinking about the James freezes thinking about the adjacent zoning and partnerships with the city under the categories of uses adjacent uses and you know what's on the boundary and how does that how is that impacted either by the revised zoning ordinance that's coming through the city or

you know how do they interact the natural features right how they can be benefited or and and benefit each other and in connectivity whether it's transportation or pedestrian and thinking through those and again some of these you've you've categorized the second thing is the property and I guess there's a question on this one when and

based on what I've seen with topography.

And I would say you could maybe go 15 to 20% over what's there.

Yeah, exactly.

And so along the same lines, the question of what are some of the issues that you're facing?

Are there critical slopes?

Are there floodplains?

Are there things that that is all woven into that as well, right?

so that's something to consider the third area so it's partnerships proximities property plan I don't know if maybe I completely missed this so forgive me if I did but we've talked a lot about different uses we've talked about preserving established preserving and supported supporting established uses arts etc is there a master plan is that one of the goals

So this study is focused on identifying implementation projects rather than being a planning exercise.

However, we hope to take advantage of the planning exercises you're already doing.

You're doing the AC44 update and so that would look at land use.

So we hope we can hand off some recommendations to that team as well as the ongoing zoning ordinance rewrite.

awesome thank you that's that's helpful perspective because I was just thinking about you know establishing established and supporting existing uses how do you introduce mixed use into an area that is already pretty developed

thinking about reuse and reclamation and how that can be included in this and then the layer of economic development.

And then the last thing I'll mention is priorities.

And I think you hit a little bit on this when you were talking about the creativity and getting connectivity and getting around.

You know, that is a priority, right?

It's near term.

It's going to happen.

There's a utility infrastructure that's going in and that's a decision that needs to be made

early to take advantage of that.

So I don't know how that all plays in, but I think what you're hearing, unless someone disagrees, is if there's a way to have some sort of a multi-use path that could be incorporated into that as well.

That would be a preference.

It just seems like good design, especially in an area that could be potentially walkable.

So I don't know if that's helpful at all or if you need more near-term direction, but

That seems like the midterm improvement option.

And then the last thing I'll say I saw in that option starting there was lighting.

I may have missed that in your narrative, but is that one of the things that's also being recommended?

Awesome.

So to that point, just safety and security is another general topic.

Great.

Great presentation.

Any bounce backs?

Did we lose Commissioner Murray?

He's there.

He's there.

Awesome.

Great work.

Okay, we will now move into the public hearing section.

And we will begin with SP 2023-7, Home Depot Outdoor Sales, Storage, and Display.

Welcome, Maliszewski.

Yes.

Yeah, I want to go there.

Okay, good evening, commissioners.

It's nice to see you all.

I'm Margaret Maliszewski.

I'm one of the managers in the planning division of community development.

When I last presented to you was in September of last year.

I'm presenting tonight on the same topic, and that's the Home Depot request for a special use permit for outdoor storage display and sales for their new store that's proposed at the Fashion Square Mall.

As we discussed in September, the proposal was to demolish the Sears store which is located at the north end of the mall and replace it with a new Home Depot store with a garden center.

Areas for sales, storage and display were to be located in and around the garden center and along the front of the new store facing Route 29.

the applicant has discovered that the condition of the mall is such that a portion of the north end of the mall must be demolished in addition to this year's building that means the parcel to the south is now part of the project that parcel was not included in the original application and to meet legal requirements the project description needs to be updated with that parcel and that means a new public hearing is required and so here we are

With this shift in the project, the applicant has taken the opportunity to make a few changes to the design.

The Home Depot store is now proposed as a standalone building with a travel way between it and the mall.

There have been minor changes to the size and shape of the building and the garden center and areas proposed for sales storage and display have been redistributed along the building elevations to coordinate with those changes.

Those redistributed display areas and the changes in the architectural design don't really change the visual impact of the proposal on the entrance corridor.

This plan shows you the current proposal in the overall mall site and the new travel way is that pink highlight that you see.

this is the architectural design of the current proposal also as we discussed in September most special use permits are reviewed under section 33.8 of the ordinance SPs for outdoor storage display and sales are reviewed under a different section that's under 30.6 which is the entrance quarter overlay section that section limits the factors to be considered to determining whether the use is consistent with the applicable design guidelines those guidelines are the entrance quarter design guidelines

The ARB applies those guidelines.

The ARB reviewed this revised proposal in December of last year and the ARB voted unanimously to recommend approval of the request with staff's recommended conditions.

these are those conditions the ones that the air be recommended they're very similar to what you recommended in your September meeting with just two minor changes the first is a change in condition six you may recall in our discussions that the applicant requested that it be made clear that planting along Route 29 requires VDOT approval we acknowledge that at the time that VDOT review and approval would occur with final site plan but we've taken this opportunity just to clean up that condition to clean up the wording of it

The second change was a merging of what was condition eight with condition one, and that was really just for consistency with our standard language for SP conditions.

Great.

Thank you.

Great report.

Any questions from the Commission?

Yeah, looking pretty, no questions.

Okay, great.

All right, well, thank you.

And with that, I'll open the public hearing.

Would the applicant like to speak?

I do.

Sure thing.

You have ten minutes when it goes yellow.

Skip to your most pertinent points.

Because when it goes red, I'm cutting you off.

But please state your name for the record.

Megan Nadostep with Williams Mullen here representing the applicant of Home Depot along with me.

is John Karakas with Home Depot.

And our architect is also zooming in if there's any questions that we can't answer.

So first, I want to thank Margaret and staff for their patience as we work on this redevelopment and changes.

Can you tell me who the- I'm sorry?

The name of the architect, just in case- It's Dan Boyle with MG2.

is he you don't see him on there okay okay well hopefully we won't have that issue can answer any questions thank you again thanking Margaret and staff for their patience as we discovered some issues with the construction and the change to the plans so it's been a little bit of a challenge so I appreciate all the hard work and

Margaret went through this already.

We're redeveloping Sears.

So just to expand a little bit on the construction, when the construction crew of Home Depot went into Sears,

the first thinking was oh there's just one there's two walls one for the Sears building and one for the mall well when they got in there and got all the plans and dug them all out of this big room that had all these old 1970s plans they discovered actually there's only one wall and so therefore we need to take a portion of them all out

And so we had a conversation and decided an opportunity was there to take more of them all down and implement and start the framework for the Places 29 redevelopment plan to have that travel way go through.

So that's why we're before you tonight.

Just quickly reminding everybody of the views from 29 and Rio Road.

And as Margaret explained, this is another map showing kind of the portion of the mall that's going to be taken down on the aerial photograph.

You can see this here is where the orange star is.

This plan was submitted and I know there's a lot going on, but just to quickly walk you through this orange line is the new

footprint of the proposed Home Depot, and the gray area is where the Sears is and was the prior submittal, and then the green area is the portion of the mall that will be removed, and you can see where the travelway is now going.

One of the opportunities that we also found was, if you'll recall, there was a

tool rental center and in that area there are tools and it was actually going to be visible from portions of Raya Road, but we were able to tuck that kind of around the corner and it is located here now, which has less visibility for the display areas and the entrance corridor.

So Margaret showed this plan too, just quickly, what you saw before in September on the left and on the right is the revised concept plan.

You'll see that planting area that we talked about was implemented with a note that says it's subject to VDOT approval.

Another change was we adjusted the spine of the pedestrian access and created that more

direct access.

Also, one thing to note is it's hard to see in this one and maybe the next one we can see it better.

The expansion of the display and sidewalk area actually we designated and expanded the front of that pavement to include a sidewalk that actually goes and makes that pedestrian connection as well as

formalizing that connection from Rio Road down to the store as well.

And so if somebody wants to get to the mall, they're able to go and there's room with the display area to walk.

Here's a future closeup version again of the display areas that were just adjusted.

Again, that tool rental center was tucked away.

the temporary staging areas stayed basically in the same location as you previously saw this is a proposed parking again quickly going through same we're still working through ARB and we'll be back before the architectural review board for all the landscaping along Rio as well and here's that closer enlargement of

that planting area that we're proposing and hoping to get feedback from VDOT during the site plan and ARV process.

Front elevations, these are close-up versions.

You can see that tool rental center again that was coming out towards 29 is now away from the face of the building and around the corner.

And the garden center stayed virtually the same.

So that concludes my presentation.

I have four minutes left, so it's pretty good.

Great, thank you.

Any questions from the commission?

So good to see you this evening.

Nice to see you.

where the tool rental center is?

Is that undercover?

Correct.

And then this is more for staff.

So there's that big green piece of property across the street from this on Ryle Road, that there's been a lot of discussion about that becoming something new and built upon?

for all these years.

It's sort of, I think the front piece of Avenity or something like that.

Will there be a cross, if that gets developed, will there be a crosswalk to get people across there so that they can connect up to, if you go to your, there, so that they can get to that sidewalk or are they gonna have to, and that can be, we don't know.

Oh, look who's standing.

Already?

Already.

That's right, there is a habit trail there.

And one other thing, Chair.

So if I'm understanding it correctly, on the front bit there that's facing 29 where you show plantings, everyone will remember that I was the voice that said, why are we making them do something when it wasn't there all these years?

That's right.

If it conflicts with the utilities.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

Yes.

Oh, yes.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

So I was noticing in the images, some of the pictures of where trees were, that they were raised up and surrounded with concrete.

I don't know if you'd ever considered as a suggestion, lowering those so that you can put curb cuts to capture stormwater as opposed to keeping stormwater out of the areas with the trees.

I don't anticipate any of the trees being lifted up.

He means bioswales.

Yeah, we'll certainly take that back to the team for discussion, but we haven't discussed that to date as part of the outdoor display.

But as part of the site plan, we'll definitely consider that.

Thanks.

Thanks, Commissioner Murray.

Any other questions?

Commissioner Murray?

No?

Commissioner Claiborne?

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

One quick question probably discussed at the ARB.

I was just curious for my own self-satisfaction.

Did anything come up regarding visual access of rooftop equipment from Raya Road?

I was curious, how was that addressed?

Yeah, well, for the outdoor display areas, and Margaret can correct me if I'm wrong, they're just focused on the display and the garden center.

Got you.

I just had a quick question.

this one or that one that'd be great and I don't have a pointer but I'm just trying to understand so you will be taking down and rebuilding a wall that's right and that's an arbitrary location or is that there because there's actually a structural wall there's actually a structure and John could probably speak better to this but there are bays yes of the structure and so it was discussed on how many bays needed to be taken out and

Got it.

Thank you.

It will be similar to the existing mall because it's going to be a temporary

wall, we hope, for the redevelopment of the mall.

But we are actually submitting, we submitted an application to the ARB for that demolition and minor amendment at the interim condition.

Thank you.

And then, and the reason I ask that,

is obviously that area right there with the two walls, it's going to be a terrible place to be.

And I'm just trying to think if there were ways, if that wasn't arbitrary, and you could widen it slightly and create, I don't know if anything would live in there, to be honest.

I appreciate those comments and the challenge has been the balance of taking enough of the mall down and structurally but also having their tenants still in the mall and keeping the space for some of those tenants we've their Home Depot is actually relocating some of the tenants in order to go back the four bays but we don't want to have too much disruption in the interim but

Great.

Thank you.

So we're still evaluating that as part of the site plan process and in conversations with the ARB.

Thank you.

Great.

All right.

Thank you very much.

Appreciate it.

We'll move on to comments from the public that are attending this evening.

I don't see any.

Madam Clerk, anyone online?

Okay, awesome.

So I will not offer the applicant a follow-up opportunity because there was no comment.

So I will close the public hearing, bring it back to the commission and open it up for discussion.

Give it a second for further discussion if there is any, but otherwise I can make a motion.

Sounds like you're open.

I move to recommend approval of SP 2023 quadruple 07 for Home Depot outdoor storage display and sales with the conditions outlined in the staff memo.

Thank you.

Any additional discussion?

Mr. Missel?

Aye.

Ms.

Firehock?

Aye.

Thank you.

Thanks staff.

Okay, we will move out of the public hearing.

and into the committee reports.

Do any commissioners have reports to share?

Yes, sir.

We had a CAC meeting last night and heard, I guess it's a special use that's going to be coming to us at some point.

It has not been scheduled.

For the Charlottesville climbing gym.

Sorry, which CAC?

Charlottesville.

Oh.

Jack Jewett, Jack Jewett, that one.

I don't have my aid next to you.

It would be Places 29.

Oh, you know, it's Greer.

I go to Greer once a month.

And so the Charlottesville Climbing Gym

came before, had its public hearing at its community meeting last night, and for those who would like to know where that's located, if you come away from foods and you're going down Old Ivy Road, so you go under the trust trestle, and you'll notice that there's a gray building on the left-hand side that used to have true courts in it and some other items in it, that building right there, the owner and a new business owner came before us to put in consideration of putting a

Interesting, something that we've talked about, but I've rarely seen here, actually taking the roof off and increasing the height of the building so that we can put a tall wall to climb in, climb off there.

And so it'll come to us at some point.

But the interesting piece for me on this was, and you can tell, is that it had already been to the seat, it had already been to the ARB.

before it came to us.

And so that's the perennial thing for me, the confusion of when the ARB says, oh, that's a good plan.

And so the applicant was feeling as if he had a good plan, which he may in fact have a good plan, and he comes before us and it's like, okay, now you're gonna get asked a lot of hard questions.

And so it still feels as if that process is out of sync

for my non-ARB mine that they get a really good they get lifted up at the ARB and then they come before us we're part of the legislative process and then and then it goes to the supervisors who the ultimate ultimately is and it would seem that the ARB would be part of the site the site review plan

which happens after they've already been told, yes, you can build this.

So I've said by the supervisors.

When the supervisors say, yes, we approve this SP, then they go through a site review.

I would love to hear staff's thoughts on this.

My understanding, which may be wrong, was that ARB comes in as sort of advisory to

the Planning Commission in a sense, and then when we get the application, we see ARB comments and then are able to use those to help weigh in and make a decision.

Does that sound right?

Am I missing that?

I will share if that makes sense, but that's certainly not how it feels to me in the staff report.

When I read the staff report,

and the fact that there's a vote.

The only reason I, and we'll hear what Kevin's about to say, he's going to correct me, but the only reason that seems to make sense is because I recall years ago when I was on the ARB in like 2006, we didn't have an opportunity, the ARB didn't have an opportunity, as I recall, to weigh in on zoning

at that early stage, and then that actually did come about.

My understanding is that the ARB is a separate application.

Who are you again?

Kevin McDermott, Deputy Director of Planning.

Thank you.

The ARB is a separate application that could be tied to either the site plan or the rezoning

Well, the ARB, as you know, has a number of different roles, they they issue certificates of appropriateness, they can also act in an advisory capacity on certain other matters.

The ARB could take a vote if there was an ARB application.

They could also be approached in an advisory capacity and be allowed to just make advisory comments.

I understand that.

I also have witnessed or I have observed

That's a great point.

I can tell you what they proposed from the meeting, which was last Tuesday.

they wanted they really were asking for a special use permit to provide the applicant with the comments listed in the staff report amended as followed to be addressed with the next submittal so they were just getting they were talking they talked about the entrance corridor the visibility you can find the final action memo for the ARB on the calendar it tells you that they talked about planning of trees and shrubs so that they could for the canopy to you know be

It's a good point.

Yeah, particularly if there's a special use permit, I mean, it's got to come here.

So I'm not trying to be sort of dismissive of the process.

Yeah, and even if it ends up being, as part of that, being a way to communicate to the applicant that clarifies that.

That's all.

That's right.

Thank you, Chair.

Great.

Any other committee reports?

All right, I'll turn it back.

So since your last meeting in December, there's only been one board meeting and that was one that they had last week, which was their organization meeting.

And so Mr. Andrews was appointed to be the chair and they worked on their other committees and stuff like that.

They're meaning that the normal sort of business meeting will be tomorrow.

and I think one thing to let you know is that the Montclair rezoning was supposed to go to a public hearing tomorrow in front of them.

We apparently have had sort of a snafu in the database systems and a date wasn't affected and so out of prudence that public hearing has been pushed back into February.

Thank you.

Great, thank you.

Yeah, and if you don't mind, you know, in our little fun that we started at the beginning of the meeting, I didn't get a chance to introduce myself.

I was thinking that same thing.

That'd be great.

If you don't mind, I'll just take two seconds.

First of all, I'm very excited to work with you guys.

This is day three for me, I guess.

But I did this weekend go back and listen to your all's planning commission on the

the comp plan stuff from last month.

Really enjoyed the conversation.

Thought you all brought up some great questions.

And so I'm excited to be working with the planning commission.

It's obviously very thoughtful.

I mean, I appreciate that.

I've worked with other planning commissions who are not as much.

And so I'm looking forward to working with you all.

My background is quite diverse, quite honestly.

I've done environmental planning.

I've worked with the county.

2000-2003, right at the beginning.

I think they adopted the neighborhood model like the month before I showed up.

So I got to see that sort of go through the beat grinder.

And then I worked for about six or seven years in the private sector locally here.

So trying to entitle plans and working a lot with road design and layout of stuff.

And you may criticize some of the work that we got accomplished, but it was a very educational experience for me to sort of see what it was like to be on the private sector side.

understand profit motive and work on design and really start to understand what it is to make sense of place of reality.

Market fell out in 2007.

I have a firm I was working with, went out of business and I ended up in Waynesboro for about eight years.

you know hey listen there's all that success that we laid forth it's like stealing your business from here I guess now but anyhow Waynesboro was a very formative thing and I really enjoyed working there I've been working at VDOT for the past five years doing two different jobs one was working with the money that was coming from the state and the federal thing to move forward your capital improvement projects with the city of Charlottesville so learned a lot about how that works and then the past year and a half as a district assistant district planner

but I'm very excited to be back here in Albemarle hopefully that wide breadth of experience and different things will prove to be of use to you all and to the county in general so again I'm very excited to come and work with you all in the county awesome so thank you

The update on the comprehensive plan, obviously, you all just had your second work session on the latter part of the draft goals.

The first one that was dealing with environmental historical resources, parks and rec, housing, and I think industrial uses, that's going to the

Board of Supervisors for work session January 17th and then they will be getting that second package of stuff that was the land use rule and development area land use transportation stuff as an information packet in mid-February I think the 21st and then they'll come back on March 20th for the Board of Supervisors to have a work session.

Obviously we're continuing to work on the conference plan.

I've already had a couple meetings on that.

Sounds like good stuff moving forward.

But we'll still be working on it, but I think we're waiting for the board's input before we really start moving on to phase three in late March, early April.

Thank you, I think it'd be great if you could send the work session dates to the commission.

Okay.

It'd be good to know.

Yeah, okay, gotcha.

Gotcha.

I think Lonnie is going to that.

Great.

Thank you.

Can I just clarify?

Yes, sir.

The actual meeting is not private.

Yeah, and that one is the first one on the 24th, January 24th.

And then the second one is the ESMOT one in early February.

Yeah, the second week of February, approximately.

That'd be great.

Chair, could I ask a follow-up question to Mr. Barnes?

So do you have a sense when the Planning Commission will wrestle with the tax incentives that hopefully will come out of a joint meeting we had with the supervisors?

Was that last year?

Was that last year?

Was it in November?

In November.

Okay, okay, okay.

This is just something that there was a half-day meeting between our supervisors and us with people from the community, well, I shouldn't say people, with developers, private equity developers, except for two of them were, well, one's not a

Is it a public hearing or is it a work session?

That is just a work session or presentation.

No vote necessary.

The board has already approved.

Moving forward with tax incentives, they're really just

hammering up the details of that right now.

Oh, they have?

Oh, okay.

So will someone... It's part of Housing Albemarle.

Because I thought that was one of those pieces that the supervisors had been sort of wrestling with which direction did they want to sort of go off in.

And I felt sort of comfortable where they were going after that meeting.

I should say, I felt quite obvious where the majority of their supervisors were going in that after that meeting and didn't

Yeah, so there will likely need to be an eventual vote by the board to implement the actual tax changes, tax code changes, but they've already approved moving forward with developer incentives, even if they had not known the details of how that was going to work.

But yes, Stacey, we're back here to present.

what they want to how they want to move forward with doing those for PC feedback before going to the board in February.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good question.

Okay.

Yes, Mr. Chairman.

If you recall from last year, there was a moment we were carrying an item under this category that was city county joint PC meeting.

Great point.

Thank you.

All right.

Any other old or new business?

Any items for follow up?

All right, before we adjourn, just one thing to mention, you may all have a Virginia Conflict of Interest and Ethics Advisory Council in front of you.

This is a great opportunity to sign that and give it to Madam Clerk.

Thanks for printing those out.

It's really helpful.

And with that,

I will adjourn the Albemarle County Planning Commission to the next meeting, which will be scheduled for Tuesday, January 23, 2024.

I'll see you all then.