Planning Commission Regular Meeting   7/23/2024

Happy Wednesday afternoon.

I just wanted to see how many of you were all paying attention, apparently just one of you.

So thank you.

I'm calling to order the July 23, 2024

Meeting of the Planning Commission and would ask, well, first I'll read the opportunities for the public to assess and participate in the hybrid meeting are posted on the Albemarle County website, on the Planning Commission homepage and on the Albemarle County calendar.

Participation will include the opportunity to comment on those matters for which comments for the public will be received.

Great.

And Ms.

Firehock is absent, obviously, so that establishes a quorum.

And I will now open it up to the public for any comments on any matters not listed on the agenda.

Nobody online.

Big zeros.

Great.

Thank you.

I move on to the consent agenda and ask if the commissioners would like to pull anything, meaning the approval of the draft minutes from the consent agenda.

I move to accept the meeting minutes and the consent agenda as presented.

Any discussion?

Mr. Moore.

Hi.

Great.

Thank you all.

Good evening, Chair Missel, members of the Planning Commission.

My name is Kevin McCollum.

I'm a senior planner with the Planning Division of Albemarle County Community Development.

Tonight, I'll be giving staff's presentation for Community Christian Academy Modulars.

This is a special use permit amendment for an existing private school.

Community Christian Academy is an existing private school that's located within Cross Life Community Church.

It's located along Rio Road at the intersection of Rio Road and Old Brook Road.

The existing conditions of the site include two buildings, a parking lot and a playground area.

It's zoned R2 residential in its 3.14 acres.

The site's home to Cross Life Community Church and Community Christian Academy Private School, both of which have approved special use permits.

The most recent special use permit approval for the school was done last year, which increased the student enrollment to 150 students.

No other site changes were done or proposed at that time.

I have two slides just showing the existing conditions of the site based on Google imagery.

This picture is from July of 2023 and shows the existing conditions of the site from Old Brook Road.

That is the Parsonage building in the foreground of the image there.

This is also from Google Street Views.

This is January 2024, looking into the site from Rio Road.

That is the existing church building, which is also the school building.

Here is another existing conditions, conceptual plan layout from the previous special use permit that was approved in 2023, basically just showing those existing buildings, the parking lot, and the parent-student drop-off loop.

So you enter the site from Old Brook Road, loop around the parking lot, drop your students off, and then exit back onto Old Brook Road.

On the screen here is the proposed concept plan for this special use permit amendment application.

The proposed development includes the removal of the Parsonage building and in its place, a building envelope for modular buildings to be added to the site.

The applicant has provided that three, up to three modular buildings will be added to the site.

There's also a landscape buffer there shown between the proposed building and the parking area that ARB requested to be added to the plan.

Given that this is within the entrance corridor, the development will be required to go through the ARB's review process, which will review the proposed landscaping and the building design.

The project will need a site development plan and Virginia erosion and stormwater management program plan.

Through the site plan process, staff can request additional landscaping buffers, street trees, and any screening as needed.

To summarize, staff has reviewed the proposal and has no major concerns that aren't already addressed by zoning ordinance requirements or the proposed conditions.

And I won't read all through these, but I can certainly flip back to them.

These are the recommended conditions, which are pretty straightforward and we're simply updated to reflect the new conceptual plan.

The majority of these conditions remain the same from the previous SP approvals.

With that, that concludes my presentation.

Staff recommends approval of this special use permit application with the conditions as recommended in the staff report.

Are there any questions?

And I also have motions on my following slide.

Great.

Thanks.

Great staff report.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Yeah, that's correct.

We updated condition one to reflect the most recent conceptual plan.

You can see the date obviously has been updated.

that buffer area was included as well.

ARB wanted to see, I can't remember the term they used, but buffering between the proposed building area and from the entrance corridor.

Okay, I'm not seeking to change anything, but I'll ask the question.

Maybe you can pose an answer to it if it's appropriate now.

Why is there a need to legislate the age of folks that will be there, opposed to that being just an organizational policy?

Is this in the future when we have these conversations?

Sure.

That condition was in our 2023 approval and the original approval from 2012.

I think it's related to building code, but

I agree.

And it also may be, it also may, if my memory serves me correctly, if it's still intact from when I had a hand in pre-K stuff, there's a whole series of things about the number of teachers per class or number of children.

and the number of exits that need to be readily available if you have that level.

That's helpful.

Great questions.

If I understand this correctly, I tip it off for the applicant to be able to answer this question.

I understand in here there's one of the reasons that the applicant is coming before us is because their school on Insurance Road, which is at the Riverstone Church, is under threat of closing.

And so if that happens, this should accommodate the people who are up there.

Correct.

No, no change in enrollment.

That is, I'll let the applicant speak on that, but they have a few long term goals.

Yes, Riverstone Charter.

All right.

Thanks.

Any other questions?

Hi.

I'm Dr. Kimberly Moore.

I'm the Executive Director for Community Christian Academy.

And I will speak a little bit to a couple of questions that were previously asked.

You are correct that the two and a half year age requirement, I think, is due to the number of entrances into those rooms.

Now, that was decided was a preschool before we were there.

And that was a condition there.

And I do believe it's based on building codes.

With regards to why we are back

and it is partially correct.

There has been instability with Riverstone, a wonderful church.

However, they do not own the building where they are.

Excuse me.

I'm an asthmatic.

I'm not sick.

And so the church

has had a challenging relationship with the owners where the owners had not wanted to provide a multi-year lease.

They thought when I first came and requested it, because we were out of space at Cross Live and requested to move our middle school to Riverstone,

They were under the impression that when their lease ended that year that they would be able to purchase the property, which did not pan out.

And then the owners would only give them six months extensions.

Well, I'm here because you cannot move a school in six months.

You may not be able to move it in a year.

In fact, I just found out today that they have finally done a three-year lease agreement.

But this is the first time they've they've done that.

And so just found that out today.

So we need the stability of a permanent location.

The second thing is we would like to launch our high school and it will be small.

But

We need the space for that.

Otherwise, we're not at this moment asking for more students, but there is not enough classroom space for all of us, even at 150, for a K-12 program.

For example, I offer five different math classes for three middle school grades, and so it just won't fit that way.

And there's a little update on the building.

We originally were

looking at doing a couple of modulars and I'm sorry if I didn't make that clear with the update, but we are looking to put what will be one building and it'll look like one building.

I know you have a picture there.

A lot of people get concerned when they think about modular buildings.

Oh my gosh, is this those old nasty metal buildings?

No, actually, this will be a wood building with hardy plank siding.

And it may come in two pieces.

because our school does deal a lot with low income families.

And so in terms of cash, we don't know that we can do the whole thing at one time.

We want a 10 classroom building.

Great.

Thank you.

Any questions from the Commission for the applicant?

Nope, seeing none.

Thanks very much.

Appreciate it.

Are there any comments or questions from the audience?

Yes, please come up.

Please identify yourself and you'll have three minutes.

I might have to lower the mic so they can hear you on record.

Hi, my name is Donald Lyon, I'm president of the Rantry Homes Association.

This is the main corridor for six subdivisions.

Question is, what do the buildings look like?

We thought there was one, but now it's changing from one building is going to get larger and larger and larger.

That's one question I have in mind.

The landscape buffering, that's going to have to change as the building grows larger.

The entrance to the building is going to face the parking lot or buildings are going to face the parking lot, I hope.

The other concern is traffic.

You have right turns coming in via road to overgrow to the left turn into that school that

That street there is always backed up with city buses.

And if you're making a left turn from Hillstale to a left on, you know, Ryder Road and to a right on Overbrook, it gets packed up pretty quickly.

So there's a problem there.

If you're making a left off Ryder Road onto, if you're coming eastbound to the city from R29, if you're making a left onto

from why I rode on to Ulbric Road.

Now you're impacting a left turn lane too without it's traffic with opening and closing schools.

So that's going to put that left turn backed up considerably.

Just things to think about.

You know, in Ulbric Road, people travel to work every day going back and forth.

How is that going to impact the daily commute on a single lane each direction?

So these are concerns that neighbors have brought up to me.

We haven't seen the pictures.

I'd like to see what they look like.

They said it's wood.

Okay.

It's wood.

What does it look like?

How many buildings?

Did you say you're going to expand even larger?

Sir, I'm sorry if you could just not just direct your comments to us and then I think I'm going to expand larger and how big is the footprint?

Now, the setback of the building, is it going to be the original setback of the original postage house?

Right there?

That's not objectionable.

But these are questions we like to have answered.

Yeah.

You're welcome.

Is there anyone else who'd like to speak to this?

I'm sorry, I have it up.

I'm sorry.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

I'm sorry.

Yes.

This is not a change from what we had determined at the community meeting.

And it's not going to look like multiple buildings.

It's a matter of us being able to, can we afford the whole thing or only half?

So think of it as two halves of a house.

There we go.

So there's a picture right there.

The entrance will be on the church side.

We will not be entering on the other side.

And so in terms of the look and the movement of kids into the building, they'd be coming in in a similar direction that they already come in.

They'll just be going left and right instead of left.

So think about if that were cut in half this way, and we can build the half or get the half that's closest to the church first, and then the other half versus being multiple separate buildings, it will not.

it's just a matter of cost so we're asking for the whole thing and if we can't afford it then then we will do the half one for now but when the other half comes in it'll be bolted together it will look like one continuous building.

We are not asking at this point to have more more students we will be coming back as we do want to look at developing the site more but we've already had a traffic study done

Great.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Very helpful.

All right.

Well, I think if there's no one else, is there anyone else here would like to speak to this?

Just double check.

Yes, sir.

Please come forward.

State your name and you'll have three minutes.

Thank you, sir.

My name is John McDowell.

I'm also from the Rain Tree Homeowners Association.

And I appreciate what they're trying to do because both Donald and myself had our children educated at the school years ago.

My only concern is basically the footprint.

The applicant said that up to 10 buildings, and when the applicant showed the diagram, it looks like it pretty much takes up the entire floor space.

So my question is that, you know, what is it really going to look like?

I mean, you know, if they have one building up there as they demonstrated, you know, we may not agree with it, but that's fine.

But how are you going to put buildings there and, you know, in the available floor space?

That's all I have to say.

We just like to see what it is.

Thank you.

And as a reminder, this will be coming before the ARB.

So from an aesthetic standpoint, from a fit standpoint, they'll have oversight of that as well.

All right.

Well, with that, I will close the public hearing and bring it back to the commission.

If I might, since I see him sitting there in the second row.

I believe that area there is going to have a significant change in traffic pattern.

Thank you, Commissioner Bivins, Kevin McDermott on the deputy director planning.

We are currently applying for a smart scale project at that intersection.

There's two adjacent intersections that are signalized right there that I will just remind everyone that that is an application that we're submitting to a competitive process, no guarantee that something will happen.

But beyond that, there were identified

needs for improvement through the RIO corridor study at that intersection.

So it is what the county would consider a priority to address those, whether or not it happens through this project or not.

I can't guarantee, but we are looking at that.

Great.

Any other comments?

No, I think I was just as a point of clarification.

I did not read in any documentation that they're looking at 10 buildings.

I was only just looking in the documentation that I read that they were only talking about replacing the Parsonage footprint with some type of prefab house.

And so the commissioner from that area actually went to the

I'd be glad to and no there's no proposal that I know for 10 buildings maybe 10 classrooms but it was going to be in I think maybe two buildings but they would be sort of conjoined to look like one and function like one really which brings me my only comment which is that we do this for public schools all the time

when they're overcrowded, we put in decent looking modular classrooms out back.

It's a private school, maybe that triggers a few different things, but ultimately it feels very similar.

I do from that sort of bigger picture planning, and there's no change in enrollment, so presumably very little change in traffic based on what's already been approved and what's in place.

The longer term thing is for another day, I think between that sort of proposed peanut shaped roundabout that is

hopefully going to go in based on all the accidents that happened at that double intersection.

And some other concerns, there may be some bigger picture of things that have to move around in the future.

Thanks.

Any other comments?

Discussion?

No?

Okay.

If we could get it up on the screen again.

I move to recommend approval of SP202400016, Community Christian Academy Modulars, with the conditions as recommended in the staff report.

Any discussion?

No further discussion.

Great.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Good evening, Chair Missel and members of the commission.

I'm just my computer's taking a second to get this up on the screen, but go ahead and introduce myself.

My name is Cameron Langell, and I'm a principal planner with the Planning Division of Community Development.

And I will be giving you the staff presentation on this zoning map amendment tonight.

There we go.

Just for the record, the application number is ZMA 2023-01 and the project is titled 1193 Seminole Trail.

So before I get into all the specifics, there's actually two components to this.

And I just want to talk about them briefly.

There's the zoning map amendment application itself, which is a proposal to rezone a 3.23 acre parcel.

That's the TMP number we have from the C1 commercial zoning district to the neighborhood model district to allow mixed use development on the property.

I'll talk more about the types of uses and density that would be proposed on a later slide.

But that is the main aspect of this project.

There is a special exception application that is under review associated with it because the zoning ordinance requires any neighborhood model district to have two or more specific dwelling unit types.

There's like 10 that are spelled out in the ordinance.

Those dwelling unit types are supposed to be within the limits of that NMD district.

However, the zoning ordinance does have a provision that allows the Board of Supervisors to waive that requirement.

if there are two or more of the dwelling unit types within a quarter mile radius of whatever site is proposed to be rezoned to neighborhood model district.

So this is an aerial view of where this property is located.

It has frontage along Seminole Trail around 29.

If you look really closely at this image, you'll notice that you can see property boundaries north of the site.

and then to the west of the site and even to the east of the site.

But to the south of the site and there's no parcels, that is because that is actually the boundary line between the Albemarle County and City of Charlottesville jurisdiction.

So this is the southernmost property in Albemarle County that fronts on Route 29.

Greenbrier Drive is about 500 feet to the north of the site.

This is that intersection right there.

The property doesn't actually touch Hillsdale Drive, but it runs north to south right here.

Immediately across from our parcel is the former Commdial building.

And then as you go south along 29, you've got the post office right here.

Again, that's in the city.

Seminole Square Shopping Center.

And then all of this area over here is Stonefield.

That's the Costco building.

And this is the north of Grumman site.

So the current zoning, our property and most of the properties that it abuts, our zone C1 commercial, and that's noted by that pink color you see on your screen.

Across Route 29, the light blue color represents the light industry zoning district.

As you go further to the east where some neighborhoods are located, this is Brook Mill and this is Branchlands up here.

Those are zone plan unit development.

Further down south, Stonefield is actually a zone neighborhood model district as well.

Our property is only within one overlay zoning district and that's the entrance corridor district.

There's no WPO stream buffers, there's no 100-year floodplain, and there's actually no managed or preserved steep slopes on this property.

So this is the comprehensive plan.

Future land use recommendations, and you'll see that there are two different classifications that are applied to our property.

At the back, we have the orange color, and that represents the urban density residential classification that calls for basically any dwelling unit type at densities between six and 34 units per acre.

Based on the acreage of that orange color on the property within the orange area, that would be about 38 dwelling units.

The white and pink hatched color, that represents the urban mixed use category.

That allows between three and 20 dwelling units per acre.

Based on the acreage here, that would be 43 dwelling units.

It does also allow other uses such as commercial retail and employment supporting uses of things like professional offices, so on and so forth.

This site, it is within the lowest intensity center type that the Places 29 master plan has, and that is the neighborhood service center, which is what these letters recommend.

Basically, that urban mixed use, future land use classification is the main thing that calls out what you can do in a neighborhood service center, and I can answer any questions that the commission may have later if you need more details.

surrounding the property across 29 and then further to the north purple color represents the office flex R&D, light industrial, land use classification.

There is an institutional property over here, but the majority that's immediately surrounding our site is that urban mixed use or urban density residential.

So I'm going to have a few slides that show different pages of attachment four, which is the application plan for this ZMA.

This is page three.

And what this shows, it's the block plan.

So if the ZMA were to be approved, the application plan basically calls out block A, which is the part of the property immediately adjacent to 29, and then block B, which is further back.

Block A is the true mixed use area where they might have some residential, but majority non-residential and commercial retail uses, and then the majority of the residential would be actually in Block B within this larger building.

The maximum units requested by the ZMA is 165, and that comes out to about 51 dwelling units per acre.

There are some limitations on how much retailer commercial could be provided.

The ZMA would require a minimum of 4,000 square feet, but that could go up to 16,500.

This is page four of the application plan.

And what this shows is sort of the internal, I guess, transportation network.

Access to the site would be right here at this southern entrance, which would be right in only.

And then, of course, it circulates around the buildings.

There's surface parking between blocks A and B. And then to exit the site, this northern driveway would be a right out only.

The proposal is going to be providing a 10 foot wide shared use path along the property frontage, which is recommended by the Places 29 master plan and then multiple drawings of the application plan call out an area back here where a inter-partial connection could be provided at the time of site plan review if the developer can secure agreements with that adjacent property owner to obtain an easement.

One more thing I'll just I'll note is that the code of development, which is attachment five, that is where all the text that you see over here comes from.

This site would have almost 30,000 square feet of amenities or open space.

The Code of Development gets into all the specifics of that, but it could be things like tot lots, it could be pools, it could be a clubhouse building with fitness rooms inside that Block B apartment.

There are some just green space areas that could be provided on the exterior of the buildings as well.

So just a few more details.

This is page nine of the application plan, which again is attachment for, and this is a rendering to show the building heights and what it would look like if you were standing off site.

This actually is looking from the Southwest to the Northeast.

Again, the code development allows the buildings to go up to five stories or 65 feet maximum.

The code development also has some architectural requirements that are related to the entrance corridor design guidelines.

Our ARB staff have reviewed this ZMA with me and they have no objections to the way that the architectural standards are written.

The proposal does include to provide 15% of the total units at 80% AMI affordable housing.

So if they built out to that 165 dwelling unit maximum, that would yield 25 affordable units.

So these are the factors favorable.

The property is within one of the designated priority areas that is called out in the place's 29 master plan.

That's priority area to south urban development area.

But the staff report goes into a little bit more detail on what exactly that means.

In terms of the neighborhood model principles, this ZMA is consistent with 10 of the 12.

and then finally related to transportation.

It is providing the 10-foot wide shared use path along Route 29, which is a major transportation implementation project at the Places 29 Master Plan.

Unfavorable factors is that it exceeds the recommended residential density that is called for by the master plan.

And then finally, there's not any guarantees that vehicular interconnections would be provided to any of the abutting properties offsite.

Again, this would require the developer to get agreements with the adjacent property owners.

And at this time, nothing has really been secured or locked down on that.

So staff is recommending approval of the ZMA because we feel that the favorable factors outweigh the unfavorable factors.

And then staff is recommending approval, the special exception, because if you look at the attachment, the applicant has provided a detailed analysis that shows that there's a multitude of dwelling unit types within that quarter mile radius of this site, and therefore under county code section 18-20a.8a,

The Board could approve that request to waive the two or more dwelling unit types within the NMD.

So that concludes my presentation.

Awesome, thanks.

Great report.

I'll start with Nathan.

I do have questions.

So I'm going to go ahead and pan to this slide here.

This I believe is the final page of attachment

2, which is the work session minutes from the October 25, 2022 Planning Commission work session.

This applicant did something that we don't typically see, but they knew they were going to be making a request to exceed the residential density that's called for by the master plan, as well as exceed the building heights that are called for by the

Lange's classifications on the property.

So they wanted to gauge how the county would feel about that.

So they asked to come to a work session with the commission.

at that time, that original proposal was looking at doing 275 dwelling units.

And there was still commercial, I think it was 7,500 square feet.

It's in the staff report exactly how much.

The main difference between the ZMA right now and what we were looking at back then is the form of the site.

So again, the whole property is shown by this dashed line, but everything was gonna be housed within this singular structure.

Most importantly is that all the required parking for the residential units and commercial was going to be in an internal parking garage structure.

The building height was still the same at that point.

They were requesting five stories.

As I noted, the density was quite a bit higher.

I think it came out to 84 dwelling units per acre.

But at the work session, the commissioners, they really endorsed the proposal.

There was no concerns about the height.

They loved the form and felt that the way this looked, it was okay to exceed the density.

That is the reason why that staff called out the density still being a concern because it went from this sort of urban, really new, different layout to having more of a traditional large surface parking lot.

They were still exceeding the density though.

And so that's the overview recap of that.

I think that's my only question for staff.

Great.

So tell me again the difference in the amount of commercial that's proposed for this and the previous proposal.

Yes, so the when this went before the planning commission at the work session, it was approximately 7400 square feet of commercial uses.

And now I think that is Give me one moment.

10,000 square feet, maximum.

In terms of use types, it's still the general same kind of thing.

The actual page number at the bottom is page two, but it's the third page of your PDF if you're looking at it online or if you have the printout.

But Coder Development, attachment five, that page has a table.

that lays out all the types of non-residential uses that could be done here.

I'll just go ahead and read a couple of them.

You can have things like medical or dental offices.

You can have a drugstore, pharmacy, an indoor theater or a health spa, convenience store, grocery store, restaurant.

Any other questions, Commissioner Murray?

Good.

Mr. Clayborne.

I got a question in the comment.

So in terms of, I'm not sure that or characterized that we love the form of the last proposal.

I remember this, this presentation, we definitely felt that the density was appropriate and that we could potentially even go, go higher.

So that's, I guess that's a conversation or question that we'll have for the

or the applicant in terms of, I mean, we're actually reducing density, where I think all the commissioners felt that we could actually even increase density in this location.

There's one location that we can certainly do that, both in terms of height and maximizing the density is here.

We have the infrastructure.

So that's my comment.

The question I have, I know that this application precedes our new housing policy, but has there been conversations in terms of, because they can still take advantage of that policy?

Yeah, so during the review process, we were making, I mean, again, this came in the first time, I believe, in January or February of 23, which is not so far long ago.

I think we were working on the updated housing policy back then, but staff was commenting to the applicant, you know, be aware, depending on when you end up going to the Board of Supervisors for a public hearing, there may be a new housing policy in effect, and that's looking at doing 20% affordable housing for rezoning applications.

We couldn't require them to do that, but we said, you know,

It may be a very favorable factor if you voluntarily opted to raise that to 20% instead of 15.

I believe the applicant has said that for the finances of the project, they've looked at it and it would pose a viability issue and they would probably be able to answer more about that.

But yes, they've been made aware.

Thank you.

Great.

So thank you for bringing our attention to page two on attachment five because one of the things that I struggled with there is in the block the uses of the the by right uses in block A and block B, particularly now that block B looks particularly like a standard old apartment house in Albemarle County.

And so I don't know why those various commercial activities would be by right permitted in

and Block B that's basically an apartment house.

And so I don't know how we have that conversation, but certainly I'm not willing to support all of those uses in basically a residential area.

I was much more inclined to that when it was a much more unified project.

But now it's so distinctly commercial on the 29 and residential in the back that I have a hard time supporting all of those.

Great.

Thank you.

Any other questions for staff?

All right.

Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the commission.

Can you all hear me okay?

Great.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mr. Chairman, members of the commission, Valerie Long with Williams Mullen.

I'm sorry that I'm not able to be there in person tonight.

As you may see, my colleague, Lori Schweller, is there in person and also David Dees with Up Campus Living, the applicant.

We also have Clint Schiflett of Timmins Group in the room.

He's the civil engineer for the project.

Thanks for all those comments.

One moment.

A little out of practice.

There we go.

Got it.

Thank you for seeing the right one.

Thank you.

My screen is not advancing.

Would you like Lori to come up and do the presentation?

Good.

It's not advancing on my screen for reasons I'm not clear on.

Let me try it this way.

Okay.

No, I may need Lori to do that.

I'm not sure why it is not advancing.

I'm sorry, but we cannot have Lori show the presentation and you talk at the same time.

It's okay.

Let me try another way.

We've all been there.

I'm so sorry.

Sometimes rebooting works.

Loading it on here.

Well, that should work then.

Maybe that was a problem.

Thank you.

Again, I apologize, everyone.

All right, we'll start here.

You all know the site.

Wanted to have an aerial view here.

Great.

I wanted to also show some photographs from Route 29 of the existing site.

I know that many of you are familiar with it, but it's always helpful to have a current view.

These are recent street view images showing the sort of quality or lack thereof of the pedestrian infrastructure along Route 29.

It's just an old sidewalk.

There's no landscape plantings along the frontage.

obviously the building is set very far back from the road and the parking is not relegated.

As was mentioned, we're proposing to rezone from C1 commercial to neighborhood model.

We're committing to build the multi-use or shared use path along the frontage as well as a plaza area adjacent to the retail commercial space to help enliven that area.

The initial concept as was discussed was

We had the work session about it in October of 22.

We really appreciated everyone's input on that.

This was one of our plans from the time we've discussed the differences.

And here's that same image that Cameron showed.

The current plan, which you've seen, we tried to stay as close as possible to the original design, but also the challenges you all may imagine or know is the extreme cost

for public or structured parking.

The cost of parking continues to go up in the time since we, even since we submitted the application, the construction costs increased, interest rates rose substantially.

We also had an unfortunate situation where the Wawa ownership was no longer willing to participate and allow an access easement.

The original plan would have combined an entrance with the Wawa and allowed for some interparsal connections.

and most importantly, it would have allowed for fire and easement for fire and rescue to access the backside of the building in that location.

Hopefully you all can see my cursor.

Unfortunately, they were not willing to continue those discussions and so without the ability to have an easement for fire trucks to reach the upper stories of those buildings, there's no way to provide access in the original plan anymore.

So that's why we have it designed this way now.

with a shared use path along the frontage that will really improve things as well as a 10-foot planting strip for straight trees, really improve the views from that location and a plaza area with those small retail spaces there to provide some interaction and pedestrian activity along that corridor.

There's also continues to be a high amenity areas there.

As you can see in the middle, sort of typical amenities for an apartment building of this type.

And then as was discussed, we are very hopeful that eventually we'll be able to work with the owners of the parcel to the east and have at a bare minimum, a pedestrian bike connection, ideally eventually a vehicular one as well.

But just the timing, none of the parties are able to, at this time, commit to that process.

Mr. Langein showed the block plan.

And then we've talked a little bit about the comprehensive plan.

We appreciate the feedback on the density.

We agree that this location can support the higher density, despite what's contained in the place's 29 master plan, which I think is now 12 or 13 years out of date.

This location is obviously very good for its location or proximity to a number of destinations like the shopping center shown on the plan.

It is along the bus route.

All of the red bus icons on your screen indicate existing bus stops.

So it's really wonderful.

It's a location where residents at this building, if they didn't have a car, didn't want a car, they would be able to navigate around and access

just about anything they need, as well as with the Hillsdale Connection Road that exists now and all of the sidewalk and bike and pedestrian amenities around.

So it's consistent with the climate action plan goals and strategies.

It does include the affordable housing requirements that were in a place when we submitted the application a year and a half ago, does commit to the shared use path, recreation in many space.

There are no new traffic impacts that come with this project, which is, I think, one of the reasons it can support the increased density.

without creating impacts.

There are many elements of the COMP plan that talk that are applicable here, not just the color on the map with the land use plan.

As noted by Mr. Landryl, this is a designated priority area.

We had identified a number of other provisions in the comprehensive plan that support this project, including the one on the screen, the growth management policy about encouraging approval of new developments in areas, you know, in the development areas.

as well.

There's other provisions and goals and objectives in the development areas section about the riding sidewalks, about the challenges of redevelopment, about the need to use development area land efficiently to prevent expansion of the development areas, promoting density within the development areas, and infill and redevelopment that's compatible with surrounding neighborhoods and uses.

We contend that all of those goals are furthered with this project.

It also is consistent with the housing Albemarle plan about increasing the supply of housing overall and allowing, encouraging, and incentivizing a variety of housing types and promoting increased density in the development areas.

And as noted, the housing Albemarle plan lists the very high number of units overall that are needed to accommodate the projected increase in population.

There were some questions at the work session as well as in our discussions and review with the staff about how residents of the site would be able to access other areas within the community without the interpersonal connection.

As a reminder, ideally one day there would be a pedestrian bike connection in that location, ideally vehicular.

in the meantime, or if that's not ever able to be resolved, we note that pedestrians, bicyclists, and vehicles will be able to turn this way.

If they want to go downtown, they could proceed up to Rio Road.

If they want to go south, say, to Hydraulic or Route 29, they can use the new-ish Hillsdale connector to access that location.

as well.

We wanted to highlight the proximity of the project to the planned future pedestrian bridge across Route 29 and how in particular that would support pedestrians and bicyclists who want to access Stonefield, for example, and the various amenities and destinations that are in that location.

and noted that the entrance to the project to that bridge is just about a third of a mile.

So we think it's a walkable, bikeable distance even without vehicles.

That's all we had.

I'd be happy to discuss more and address better the questions or the comments Mr. Bivins had about the uses of the front.

I couldn't quite follow that, but I'd be happy to answer more questions.

Great.

Thank you, Ms.

Long.

I'll open up the commission for questions.

Good evening, Ms.

Long.

Good to see you.

So just before we get into page two on attachment number five, let me just ask another question.

So the parcel, which is

South of you, which now has the buffet, the buffet restaurant on it, that already has access to the back street.

Yes, there has been discussion about that as well, that property is being marketed for sale.

And so there,

That's just, again, part of the challenges of negotiating those types of things.

We are very hopeful and optimistic that we can work with either that property owner or the ones fronting Hillsdale at the appropriate time that it's challenging when there are so many changes going on in the area.

But we think it's logical and would be to the benefit of all the property owners to coordinate together to identify

And the parcel, just so there's clarity for everyone here, the parcel that's directly behind the site.

At one point, there was some discussion that that's where VIA was going to be using it as a parking lot.

It is, as far as we know, that is part of their sort of phase two plan from their campus expansion.

At this time there, again,

They are working to raise their funds for their project expansion so they don't know when they will need that site yet and nor when they would be able to purchase that land from the current property owner.

So again, they don't yet own it and aren't in a position to be able to commit to it.

I'm going to ask a couple of questions that I've made here on a number of things that may be helpful.

And I'm going to then come to the attachment five.

So in one of the things you've asked us, even though we won't weigh into it, but just sort of get some narrative going on to it, you've asked for us to sort of say,

to have a

The reason that this is a good idea and should be supported is because of the Brooklyn Mill and the Branchlands senior living communities that are just behind it.

And so before I sort of say, yay, no, or say, oh, yeah, that's a good idea to the people who might ask me this at some point.

Who is this project going to be marketed to?

So how much is it going to cost for somebody to live there?

Originally, the thought was that it would be a good location for a senior living facility.

But as far as I know, right now, the plan is just for it to be marketed to the general public with the idea that it would likely be most attractive to professionals living in the area.

One in two bedroom units, some studio.

So not, you know, most appropriate for most families, perhaps, you know, those with very young children, but not a long term location.

Okay.

But they're no longer connected.

Correct.

It's just by chance that we have overlapping principles.

That is correct.

Okay, well that's helpful to me because that was clearly in their portfolio that's clearly marketed as student housing.

Yes, I will clarify just

because some people know this.

You're correct.

Your assessment is just coincidence.

Mr. Steve Bus, who's the CEO of the applicant up campus, was working for a company called CA Living back 10 or so years ago that developed the uncommon on West Main Street, 1000 West Main.

Now that he and colleagues started their own company up campus, they are coincidentally for, I don't know if it's coincidence,

They are currently working on a development project in the city of Charlottesville along Ivy Road.

That's the nexus that I saw and I was just trying to figure out.

So the reason I'm pushing on that is that it was that was hard for me to appreciate that we were going to use senior housing as a sort of the variety of senior housing as the exception for this project.

When in fact, this felt like it was just another student, another sort of student housing project.

But now you're even saying it's even it's even sort of market driven.

Okay, and then I don't really only have two more questions before I sort of am quiet here.

So I want to confirm something.

My colleague will ask other questions about things around affordable housing, but I just want to hear that those individuals who are going to be in the affordable units will have full access to the amenities.

Absolutely.

Okay.

I've read some things recently that the people in the affordable units are told they can't use the pool, they can't use the weight room, but they can just sort of, we can talk about that offline at some point.

I was just like, oh, I should start asking that question around here.

Absolutely.

Thank you, that's very helpful.

Now, if you want to, I wanted to take care of what I thought would just be a laundry list of questions for you until we get to attachment fly page two.

And so what I was struggling with and which may in fact influence whether or not I'm in a yay or a nay on this project is the whole idea that in block B, which now that we have a plan, a building that I can say that I'm not

I'm disappointed.

I'll just say that I'm disappointed in what the building looks like today.

And that when we have this whole suite of items that can be by right, that many feel like they're commercial.

I struggle with that.

For instance, we have an indoor theater.

Well, I appreciate the feedback.

We were trying to keep the options open in case in the future ever there was an opportunity for some infill development within that surface parking area that we could perhaps add more office or retail or some use that if hypothetically some non-residential user came along and said we need some of that parking lot that we could accommodate that.

It was not at all the intent to have anything other than residential in the block where the residential apartment building is proposed.

That would be helpful for me.

And so here's the other piece of this, and I'm looking to staff on this, Ms.

Long.

So we still have today, and perhaps we won't

a year from now.

But we still have today a number of parking spaces per

per units, I guess that's how we look at it.

Do we have any sense on whether or not the number of parking units that are parking spaces which are outlined now on the surface lot, if there are any extra ones?

And if so, then what I also, and if there are not, is the applicant considering asking for an exception to that so that in fact you can have some of those commercial activities in Block B without having to wrestle with parking?

The answer is yes, Commissioner Bivins.

So we've looked at this with staff from our zoning division, the zoning administrator.

In the code of development, the ratio that they call out as the parking requirement per dwelling unit is 1.2 spaces.

That is similar to several other larger apartments that we've seen recently.

The reason that they don't need an exception to do that with this application is because the neighborhood model district is a planned district.

And so in the code of development, they can establish their own parking ratio, which may be different than what the zoning ordinance requires.

And again, we've looked at it and based on the maximum number of dwelling units they could do, we think they would be able to fit that parking within the surface area that they show.

And if they did do less dwelling units, then yes, there could be potential to fill in some of that with

So, Chair, I'm fine with that.

Thank you, Ms.

Long, for the presentation.

My question is going to revolve around density.

And so it was interesting what you just said about infill.

So leaving a potential for infill, that actually makes me feel a little bit better about this.

So what is your limiting factor, the developer's limiting factor on density?

It's really the challenges of going up more will, you know, increases substantially the cost of the materials.

If they go above five stories, they would have to switch to different construction type.

They also would have to, if they added more units, have to provide, you know, despite the flexibility that the ordinance provides with regard to parking, as Mr. Langell just mentioned,

from a practicality perspective and a leasability perspective, they would need to provide more parking, at least initially, to lease the space.

So they've identified how much they need, which is less than what the ordinance might require in some other residential zoning districts, but they still need to have it.

And also the parking is necessary, obviously, for the retail or non-residential uses, especially since they don't yet know what those will be.

Do you mean a podium style parking?

I'm not sure I know what a parking shelf is.

I'm not sure I know what a parking shelf is.

I'm not sure I know what a parking shelf is.

I'm not sure I know what a parking shelf is.

I'm not sure I know what a parking shelf is.

I'm not sure I know what a parking shelf is.

I'm not sure I know what a parking shelf is.

I'm not sure I know what a parking shelf is.

I'm not sure I know what a parking shelf is.

I'm not sure I know what a parking shelf is.

I'm not sure I know what a parking shelf is.

I'm not sure I know what a parking shelf is.

I'm not sure I know what a parking shelf is.

I'm not sure I know what a parking shelf is.

I'm not sure I know what a parking shelf is.

I'm not sure I know what a

To me, it seemed like there's a misopportunity to not bring the structure closer to 29.

Now, again, I think your comment of a future infill would be interesting.

You would still have to deal with the issue of parking, right?

So then that would almost force you into a podium situation at that point.

So, but I felt that it was a misopportunity by not engaging the street with the structure, I know you have some commercial.

but to me it seems like you want to make a bit more of a civic move here and engage the street.

I know that you're the first of a high density project on that side of 29 but you would start to set the tone for what could come in the future and these are the types of sites where we want to maximize in order to preserve

You know, the growth areas and maximum we can get out of them because we've been we've been not doing that for many, many years.

So I like the thinking of an infill, but of course, I think that would bring other challenges of parking with it.

That my comment on the shelf is, to me, that would be you move the building up and in the back.

taking advantage of the slope is not much, but you could potentially negotiate a shelf, which is much less expensive than podium or a full structured parking.

It's just some considerations.

And yes, the high rise, I guess the high rise is a matter of how high you go, right?

Because there is a point where you do get some returns on that.

So maybe if you just go to five, six,

I'm not sure what your floater floor is, but either five or six is going to trigger it, right?

75 feet.

But maybe you go to eight, because I believe that that's actually what eight is about.

And these are the sites that we need to maximize.

For what it's worth, I share your disappointment.

It's been tough for all of us, startling with the realities, and I had the same exact reaction when the applicants told us that they had to shift the design.

A lot of it, again, has to do with not being able to have emergency access.

The original project with that collar building had the building essentially up against the property line with the Wawa.

which requires that easement for access.

that just make it challenging.

I would note Mr. David Dees with UpCampus, the applicant and the developer is there in the audience and he would be happy, I know, to speak to some of the issues that and questions that you raised about options that they looked at.

when they had to make the decision to modify the project design.

So if you would like to call him up to speak, please feel free.

It's David D's, D-I-E-S.

He's ready to go.

I think we'll probably all have a lot of similar questions.

Probably have to move the mic a little closer to you or speak closer to the mic because it doesn't sound like it's on.

It's on.

It is on.

Try it again.

Hello.

There we go.

Please state your name and David D's of campus properties.

Yeah.

So Valerie, if you can pull up the the the previous presentation that showed, you know, the project that everyone seemed to like.

You can't.

I just want to kind of literally is a math problem because the parking deck has to be so wide and we had

Essentially, we were assuming, because we were told that we would have cooperation from the Wawa developer, that we would be able to largely abut that neighboring Wawa parcel, because we were hoping to get a fire access and share access to Route 29.

Well, once they got approval, they decided they no longer wanted to cooperate.

So we, therefore, had to provide fire access on our site.

And we can't, well, we can't, you know, we couldn't count on fire access being on their site.

Therefore, we had to move it back.

On top of that, we, you know, the parking deck has to be 100, had a minimum 120 feet wide.

Right, so if we're moving our entry onto our site, it squeezes the parking deck and we run out of space.

On top of that, the cost of the parking deck just makes it not a feasible project.

So, I mean, kind of coupling all of those things together is where we ended up, where we ended up largely.

I mean, I know we

We're excited by how excited everybody was when we previously presented about 18 months ago.

Thank you.

Mr. D's don't go away if you would stand there.

Any other questions?

Any other follow-up questions for Mr. D's about this particular subject?

I just want to Yeah, so so just, you know, this is also just sort of to the county as well.

I mean, I've only thought these redevelopment opportunities like this are a perfect case for tax increment financing, where we should actually be incentivizing structured parking.

Um, I mean,

I'm not entirely sure because of the restrictions of the site.

And like I was saying, we have to shrink our footprint because now we need to provide two accesses on the site specifically.

If tax abatement or TIF financing or things of the sort were provided to make these more financially feasible, then

Sure, there's a lot of things we could consider.

So I just had one quick question.

It's kind of bouncing off a little bit of what Mr. Carrazana was saying then.

So we see a lot, obviously, of podium parking where you have podium plus four or five stories up, stick built.

Yeah, I mean, ultimately, where construction costs are today, and frankly, we're, you know,

12 months ago when we kind of designed this.

It's anything more expensive than surface parking is a major challenge in this market.

It's just sort of as it is.

Okay, thank you.

Oh, sorry, I was just back to kind of his question of, you know, going through like hot like going higher eyes and changes material types and build building construction, anything over five stories, you can basically, you have to switch to cool form steel or, or, you know, type one concrete, which

Well, you would have to go to seven, eight floor.

Right.

But then ultimately you're boxed in again by the lack of parking, right?

So right now we're assuming 165 total units and we have like, you know,

Perfect amount of parking laid out to account for those units.

Right.

That's where you would need the back of the site to me.

I had a question somewhat related to Commissioner Carrazanas, but it's a big picture question because I don't know the construction industry in this way.

I did know about the five-story max to be able to build with wood under conventional methods.

But when you go to taller than five stories, you've got different materials, much higher costs.

I mean, there's pretty much, you know, any kind of, like in a vacuum, you can build, you know, full, you know, full form.

Typically you're going to be maxed out at nine to 11 stories over, you know, a podium or one of, or something like that.

You know, type one, you know, you know, post-tension constructions, you know, concrete constructions, I mean,

are building in College Station, Texas 21 story building.

So I mean, you could kind of, that's how you gain height, but the rents have to justify it, those kinds of things.

I realize it obviously gets into a very complex set of multiple moving numbers.

I don't mean to presume anything about your business, except that

It does feel like, at least what I'm kind of hearing from other commissioners is like, if something were to come to us, it said, yeah, we're going to use the more existing materials, but we're going to go 10 stories high.

I don't know that people would say no here, because it's kind of a prime zone for that kind of, I mean, we're like a new downtown, but essentially it could be.

As for Wawa and that property owner and what they've decided, this is a staff question.

Yeah, sorry, I should be more clear.

Yeah, I looked at the site plan for that.

It does not show an interconnection.

I wonder if a setback of zero feet on that side would be beneficial to this particular proposal.

I just...

So I keep asking about it, and I also wanted to ask about the property to the east with Viya.

It does look like they, it was long said they hadn't officially bought it, but it looks like they bought it on April 30th.

They own it.

I talked with Mr. Gillespie over there fairly often.

They're super cooperative.

They, you know, they

They want to cooperate with us.

We want to cooperate with them.

You know, without knowing kind of where our building is going to look like and to make, you know, additional financial investment and kind of the unknown is really not feasible.

So we're just, we're kind of taking it one step at a time and they are as well.

Like the Valley was saying there, you know, in their fundraising process and sure, but it makes sense for a lot of people.

They're looking for, you know, financial consideration to provide access to us.

They're a nonprofit.

You know, we

I mean, I push on it because I live in a neighborhood that just pours out into 29 and that's it.

There were other places that

just like Miss Long said, ideally one day we could add other connections, but then local opposition made it so that ideally one day has been 60 years down we still have no other connections to the Woodbrook neighborhood.

So that's like a personal reason why I push on it and sort of seeing and experiencing every day how it kind of sucks to always just only have 29 is my way to get out.

But the other piece now is that it also sounds like that's really a big limiting factor for additional units and additional housing that is very needed.

So that's why I'm kind of pushing on it and wondering how close we could be to make something happen.

But to put that as a question, is it fair to say that you're kind of just trying to get a good thing built that may not be quite what you were hoping for, but it's going to be a good thing?

Oh, yeah, yeah, of course.

We only, we only build great communities.

Well, yeah, I mean, you know, and, you know, it's not just like me being a braggart, sis, that in order to be able to competitive in this market, you know, you would have to build something very high quality.

So, you know, and regardless of how it works out with the BIA, you know, we have a fairly decent relationship with the Brownfields next door, those that own the Hibachi Grill, you know,

as they were saying that that property is being marketed.

So, you know, but I think that we'd be able to kind of work out some kind of access if if we weren't able to be IA, but I believe that the IA would cooperate.

Yeah, so I think, you know, I remember years ago, before Stonefield was Stonefield, and it was going to be Albemarle Place, and one of the great, and I was really excited about it first hearing about that project because the, it was supposed to be commercial on the bottom, and then there was going to be residential on the top, and I was thinking this is going to be great, it's going to be a much more like an urban experience, more like the downtown mall, and then

We all know that the developer that was in charge of that then sold it to an out-of-town developer and then we have what we have now where the commercial is completely separate from the residential.

There's residential and there's commercial and they're completely separate.

And it's not as good a project as it could have been.

I mean, it could have been a really spectacular project, as opposed to what it is now.

And I'm seeing some of that same thing, some of my angst about this is the same here, is that this could have been a really great project with commercial and residential mixed together.

But now the commercial is relegated over towards 29 and the residential is just this big apartment building in the back.

Can I interject here for a second at the risk of alienating myself from the entire commission?

I think we've got a general line of questioning that we've come through, and I think we're all sort of on the same page in terms of wishing there were more density, encouraging you to think through a lot of these things, structured parking height, right?

And part of it is because

In reality, you brought something to us initially to test the waters, right?

And we were all like, yeah, this is great.

This is where it should be.

This is what we want.

And now we're seeing something different.

And so, interestingly, had that strategy been a little bit different.

We might have been sitting here going, oh, yeah, this is great.

This is more than places 29 is actually allowing for.

So we're good.

We're headed in the right direction.

So I think that's a little bit about what we're struggling with.

I would suggest, and we're still in the question timeline here, that we sort of refocus our questions away from, could you do this?

Could you do this?

Could you do this?

And sort of refocus on the application that's in front of us, but also underscore, and we can do this in discussion as well, the points that we're making that we're learning from as part of this job.

But as far as the applicant's concerned, they're asking a pretty clear,

Request, and they've provided all the information.

So I would just encourage us to focus on questions related to the application rather than asking if they could stretch in certain directions.

That all makes sense?

Okay.

Sorry.

Yes, sir.

Could you talk a little bit about your anticipated project schedule?

I mean, that largely depends on how quickly we can get through the rezoning, the site plan, construction would be on a project like this roughly 18 to 20 months.

How about the soonest?

I know it's a big question, the soonest.

Three years.

So a question to staff then, do we feel comfortable that the impacts of this project would be mitigated by the new schools?

Yeah, so it looks like, I mean, the high school center too, for example, what the school system has said is that they plan to have that open and operational for the 26, 27 school year.

So that would be, I mean, I'm taking that as what August of 26.

And that was actually a pretty realistic expectation for

what it takes to get a site plan approved, I mean, 18 to 20 months.

And then for the middle school, I think it was another school that was over capacity.

Okay.

And we feel good about that schedule also.

Okay.

And then could you talk about the climate mitigating strategies?

I think Ms.

Long has something on the slide talking about

Climate Mitigation, Sustainabilities, what I took that as.

Could you talk about what you all are implementing?

I think Clint might be better suited for that.

Clint Shiflett.

I'm Clint Shiflett with Timmins Group, civil engineer working with the applicant on the project.

I'm sure there's plenty of mechanical features and building-centric things that would be implemented internal to the building to ensure efficiency and things of that nature.

Those things I can't really speak to, site-wide, though, from a climate, environment perspective, will be beholden on this site to Department of Environmental Quality, state regulations for stormwater quality and stormwater quantity.

which will be vetted through the site plan process.

Things like making sure stormwater runoff in its quantity won't adversely impact properties downstream and then making either on-site designs or off-site contributions to help protect stormwater quality to ensure that

streams in the area are protected from any adverse impacts that runoff may cause from this development.

It's also important to note right now it's just a sea of

Sea of asphalt on the site right now.

Pretty much 99, 98% of the site is covered in asphalt today, generating a lot of runoff.

That was paved before any sort of current stormwater regulations were in place.

So that water is just running off oil and all.

directly, you know, not being mitigated, just running off-site into ditches and eventually streams.

Thank you.

And then I just have one final question.

Right.

Yeah, I mean, you know, likely retails, you know, I mean, likely, you know, I don't know.

Some of the things that were mentioned earlier, like a bank, a drive, you know, we were proposing a drive through, you know,

Tennis Office, any kind of like, you know, local services.

I mean, it'd be service retail, basically.

All right, thank you.

To speculate, you know, who we would be able to attract is pretty difficult.

Yeah, I'm not asking if it's Domino's Pizza or anything like that.

Just general ballpark.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Great.

Thank you.

Any other questions for the applicant?

All right.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

I will open it up now to comments from the attendees, the audience, the public.

And I'll begin with the sign up sheet.

Good evening.

Good evening.

My name is Rob McGinnis.

I'm with the Piedmont Environmental Council.

All my notes, everything I was going to say, I parked it because you've said just about everything and I don't need to restate what you guys have been talking about.

It's really, really important.

I will make one observation and I don't know if Mr. Barnes, you were at the county back when the disc was in place.

We've been advocating for a development areas task force to deal with what Mr. Murray had just talked about and other solutions.

We're going to keep seeing these projects like this.

We love that project right up there, just like you did.

We need to find solutions and you're having the same discussions many times over and over again about these challenges that are being faced.

Call on the public sector persons, the private sector, the developers, Valerie Long, us, others come together and you don't have to wait for the comp plan to be finished.

That's a year from now.

We can do that now.

We can bring people together.

You've done it just with a solar ordinance and I'm not talking for a day, but trying to take on these problems to unlock the capacity, but also the quality of design.

Great.

Thank you.

Any other questions from the public?

Here, seeing none.

All right.

Thank you.

I wondered.

I mean, you're welcome to come up if there's anything you'd like to speak to.

Thank you.

All right.

So we are in discussion.

Pardon me, this is Valerie Long again.

I just wanted to add one more point in response to Mr. Clayborne's question about sustainability initiatives.

We did touch on this issue in our application narrative, which is Attachment 4.

But among other things, a really critical element of how this project fulfills or furthers the county's climate action plan goals

is its location and its density right in the middle of the development area and the ability for residents here, as noted, to reach so many other destination areas and shopping, whether it's downtown, Stonefield, 29 North, easily, obviously harder to reach certain places, but future Fashion Square Mall, when it's redeveloped, this is in a good location there.

So just giving the opportunity to or having the opportunity to walk and bike

to so many locations, kind of by its definition makes it very sustainable.

That is the best way to further climate action goals is by having people live near where they work and shop so they can get out of their automobiles.

Thank you all.

Thank you.

Okay, now we'll really close the public hearing and open it up for discussion.

Sure.

I mean, I'll start, I guess.

Go for it.

So, I mean, first of all, I'm obviously in support of density we're supposed to be in the growth area.

And I think, you know, it's true.

You're seeing a better design makes us disappointed about what we're looking at now because it's definitely not better.

And I think that

Certainly the county could, there's ways the county could step up to increase the viability of projects like this.

And, and I would, you know, I would encourage the county to do so.

Great.

Thank you.

I mean, I'll second Commissioner Murray's comments.

I mean, it is somewhat disappointing because there could be such an example set here of how we can develop a corridor with a higher density, which we need to do.

It is higher density than what 51 versus 34.

So that's definitely a huge improvement.

Can we do more in that corridor?

We absolutely can.

And so that's, I think, part of this conversation, what I've found in me, how can we resolve this issue of the parking?

There are ways of doing that.

There's plenty of examples out there nationwide and how we can partner so that we can create

in the areas that we have the infrastructure.

I mean, this is a perfect location.

And people don't necessarily have to have a car there.

They can move around the county.

They can move around, certainly around the city.

So this is where we want to, and particularly for our affordable housing, right?

And maximize that affordable housing as well.

So the more units we build, the more affordable housing we have as well.

So in a perfect location for that.

It's not a lot of

You're building affordable housing where we don't have the infrastructure.

We don't have the transit.

It doesn't quite help as much.

So I'm supportive of it as well.

I mean, we're still building more density than what we would have otherwise allowed.

And so I think I do appreciate that.

Thank you, Mr. Bivins.

So just a couple things.

So for the applicant, if you were on slide 17, just make sure you include the food lion on your walkabout there, because the food lion is a lot closer than some of the other things there.

It's a lot easier to get there than it is to get to Costco.

So when you talk, yeah, those little icons about food sources, so include the food lion, and even if you want to, the big lots.

and then for us, at some point, as we're thinking through the COMP plan or some of the ordinances, the zoning ordinances, we seem to wrestle a lot with people who bring in neighborhood model districts and then they say, oh, but yet we want an exception.

And the exception is really not.

The exception is because

They need some part of the neighborhood model to do what they want to do, but because of the way land is and because of the previous development that's happened in the county, they really can't come out with all the exceptions that they want.

Excuse me, with all the types that they want.

It just feels like we go through this process of saying, yes, you should have an exception when really

Development has changed.

And so while I can appreciate it, that's what it was 15 years ago, the built environment doesn't permit itself.

The realized built environment does not support or does not provide opportunities for the exception.

So if we can actually have some sort of conversation, so staff can have some sort of conversation with us to see, really, are these models really, are these neighborhoods really

I think that's going to be the rarity that we're seeing.

So can we just make sure that whatever the zoning is, that it's something that we can live into without having to have these sort of, these sort of ghost exceptions that are never going to happen, which is why I pushed on when you have your exception as senior living.

and this is not going to be a senior living apartment.

Then to me, I don't want to I will say to somebody if they ask me, no, there shouldn't be an exception.

And that's that's not helpful to getting the density or getting the additional.

But it's it's sort of this false.

This was setting up these these straw horse horses that are never going to be met by the by the development features we have here.

So that's my I'm just tired of saying, yes, we'll have an exception.

you know there's there's something wrong with our process of everything that we get that's a big thing has to have an exception to there's something wrong there so the other thing is i still will say and so i'm i will say here that i would hope that the applicant when they move this on to the supervisors have done some some some creative or significant um uh reduction in what can happen in block bay

and here's why I'm going to say that.

We just had the applicant come talk to us about construction costs.

And this isn't about the veracity of that applicant.

I don't believe that there's ever going to be a time when someone's going to be able to put a building on that asphalt at a reasonable price.

I just, I don't see it happening.

Now I could just be that I'm the doubting Julian right here today.

And so to live into my role as the doubting Julian, I would like, I don't believe that that's going to happen.

because then they'll have to come back and get an exception for having fewer parking spaces when they actually need more parking spaces because it's going to have commercial there.

So again, we're in this really, unless they do a shelf, like you're mentioning, which would have to be some additional parking someplace else.

And so I would like this, I will go, I will support this.

I will support it saying that I feel that

what's available to be put into Block B is unrealistic given the reality of they've already changed the plan because they couldn't afford to do the Texas donut parking with more real, with more commercial on top of it.

And I doubt we're going to see these little quants and huts there.

I suppose a different way of looking at that.

So I actually appreciate the fact that they're looking at ways, whether they do the infill or, I mean, it may be a long time, but at some point it will become economical to do that infill.

as land, the easy plots start to go away nearby.

You need to densify and you need to look at infill opportunities.

That could be a great infill opportunity in the future.

and I hope we would make it easier for them to build it, not more complicated.

So yes, you're right, it would have to be in a podium type part.

So they have to have parking, few levels of parking lot structure and then a building above that.

moving really forward.

Yeah.

I mean, and those are all things that they're going to figure out.

They will figure that out in the way that they'll figure it out.

I just, when I look at all the stuff that's going on in commercial, in the commercial landscape right now, and that the number of communities are having to wrestle with, how do we take these buildings and make them something other than a commercial spot?

Right.

Right.

So that I, in my mind, I don't see how just plain economics on what's going to drive people putting more commercial space in.

because the economics in the industry is we're trying to remove commercial space.

Well, I actually think, yeah, well, we've not had this cycle before.

Yeah, I agree with a lot of what I've heard so far.

And yes, disappointed from what I've seen previously, but certainly in support.

And I think the thing that really is just nagging at me a little bit is we have this new housing policy that's based on incentives and understanding they didn't have to go through that because of the time of the submission.

But I'm waiting to see when is that incentive actually incentivize people to do something?

and right now, every time, it's just not happening, right?

And so to see the fruits of that labor, I'm not sure how long we have to wait, but this is a, my commissions have said it, right?

This is the perfect location to go dense, to get more housing.

You have amenities around and particularly with the reduction in density from what we've seen before, which is a reduction in affordable housing.

I'd love to see this incentivizing start to be activated.

Maybe that's what I'm looking for, be activated.

Just echoing also general support and I do appreciate that it's a good dense space for with up to 170 some housing units.

I think that'll be a good.

edition.

I think what we're hearing, and this speaks a little bit to Commissioner Bivins, was all these exceptions.

And one of the first notes I wrote on this when I was looking at the proposal was, it's like, why on earth was this just designated C1 in the first place?

with Neighborhood Services.

This is the highway.

This is the right place for all kinds of dense housing.

And it's not fair to just put this on this particular proposal that they're the only ones who are going to solve this.

Of course not.

But I think that was where I was like, yeah, this is the space.

This is the way to do it.

And I think maybe the next AC44, we are going to have a real destination center, whatever that designation is that allows a lot of things and doesn't have to

quite be so exceptional to get exceptions, that is, for things like this and beyond.

So, you know, I think, though, there's, and while we're just kind of talking big picture stuff a little bit, you know, we have a lot of arrows in our quiver and we are firing some of them.

I do think, though, when it comes to how much housing we need in this community and how much of it needs to be, like, long-term affordable,

Yeah, going commissioner Clayburn, you know, we don't know yet what's going to work with those developer incentives, you know, I've talked with the supervisor about that and it's like, well, we hope we get some proposals but, you know, if not then what, and I think we have to figure out

I don't know if just market forces or even subsidized affordable developments in market forces are going to cut it.

We have to think about other arrows in the quiver as well that we have never as this county done things like social housing, but they're doing up in Montgomery County, Maryland, things like

Great.

Thank you.

I'll just have a couple of concluding comments.

I mean, it just strikes me that, you know, the goal of what we want to get to, you know, a walkable community, and you know, you heard Valerie Long say, you know, the importance of being able to live where you work.

I think we're a long way from that.

I think that's what we're really hearing tonight, and we're seeing some of the real challenges of getting there.

And it's not just, you know, having houses here and some commercial here, but it's having the ability to live near the places that you actually might stand a chance of working, where the people in those houses can access jobs that they would actually work at.

and having transportation networks.

Thank you.

I'll just add a couple of concluding comments.

I guess one of them is just acknowledging kind of the given, which is we don't have a window into the financial model of developers.

And that, you know, provides a little bit of a challenge for us.

And I'm not saying we should, because we wouldn't have the time to figure all that out.

I think that, you know, under the negatives column, there's the fact that this sort of is yet another similar development to what we've been seeing.

You know, the fact that the market is what it is is probably driving that but it is the reality that we're facing and, you know, and thinking about the

Interesting strategy of coming forward with a much higher density initially to get our read on that.

Actually, it is not a bad thing in that it's allowed us to really underscore the reality of needing to increase density in a place like this.

And this will go on the record as, you know, for future developments to really focus on these areas and increase density.

You know, walkability, affordable housing, yes, it's kind of a shame that it's the minimal affordable housing number, but it is what it is.

And to Commissioner Clayborne's comment, I'll be interested to see when the incentive program kicks in, is it enough?

Are we actually going to see it create traction in the affordable housing?

product in this area.

I would say echoing the building form, you know, there's a large area that is in Area B and that that could probably shift within there.

I think that fact that the ARB is going to be reviewing this and thinking through the site plan will be beneficial.

And thinking through sort of this phasing of the timing of the two projects, you know, one is going to screen the other one will screen the parking.

And so depending on how the timing of that all works, I think will be important.

I think that obviously the pattern of this being sort of redevelopment and infill I think is a good thing.

As Ms.

Long mentioned, it is sustainable in that sense.

And again, it just underscores the importance of bringing density to this area.

I believe it's my district.

If we could get the exact wording on the screen that might

Benefit My Feeble Mind.

Would that be for the reasons stated in staff report?

For the reasons stated in staff report.

Any further discussion?

A lot of good discussion tonight.

No.

All right.

Okay.

Great.

Thank you.

Thank you, everybody.

I believe there's a second exception as well.

Okay, got it.

Great.

With that, I think we'll move on to committee reports.

Anybody have any committee reports they'd like to share?

Yeah, I do, actually.

Luis and I have like the same information from the transportation folks, but basically shore version is the smart scale proposals are being submitted in a few days.

And the big one there is

Yeah, so the Diverging Diamond and Shared Use Path down at I-64 and Fifth Street, the Pantops batch of projects, including some sidewalks and crosswalks, and then over at Barracks, the intersection with Georgetown, doing some roundabouts there, and then also roundabouts as you approach into the city on Barracks.

So it's going to be a roundabout city over there if those hard-skilled projects go through.

And then also looking up at some other kind of interesting projects,

So there was an Ivy Road Pipeline Study, and so a lot of things looking at Ivy Road, not so much in front of where I work at WTJU, but a little further out Ivy Road, that sort of intersection of 250 and beyond.

Some of the proposals being talked about as sort of priorities for the future are going to be around about a Farmington, around about a Boer's Head.

roundabout at Old Garth and Canterbury, and then an extended acceleration lane under Route 29 North from Old Ivy.

So that actually would be very nice.

I've used that a lot and it could be difficult.

A few that aren't going to go through, but that's just, you know, other things that aren't quite as possible.

Yeah, and then we did have some discussion about

The really big problems at 29 with the new, if you're headed south on 29, as you are turning onto I-64, that double left turn lane is really just backing up traffic for miles and miles.

And there's just rear end, you know, accidents all the time.

I really kind of pushed to the point of embarrassing myself that we should have like signage and flashing lights there just to say like, hey, traffic maybe stopped.

And hopefully that was heard.

I don't know.

Yeah, so that's the really quick version of a lot of notes.

Oh, and then a few other real quicks.

So that was the sort of the CTECH, the combined metropolitan planning.

Smart Scale Concepts, but then the county is also submitting three of its own, the roundabout at Old Trail and 250, which you know about, and then the Railroad Peanut, which we kind of already referenced earlier tonight, and then Plank Road at 29.

This is not a roundabout, but right there in front of Dr. Hoes to make it so that you cannot just go straight on Plank Road all the way across 29 would have to turn.

More or less.

And then doing U-turn up ahead.

But just again, the number of accidents from people trying to go across traffic and make left turns from Plank Road onto 29 has been a safety concern.

So that's my report.

Great report.

Any other reports?

I don't have a report, but I did want to add something to that.

They also fixed one of my pet peeves is that, you know, when you go from Crowsey Avenue to where you go across and you could cross the Miller School Road, people have been off-roading there to turn right to go to the Western Albemarle and the Marshall Schools.

And so they finally did drop some asphalt into that place where people have been off-roading.

Well, I believe that.

and so on.

I've lived on this road for over 37 years and it was only a spray and tar.

You probably know what that means.

All of a sudden we've now turned into a real asphalt road.

Nice.

No.

Not nice.

No.

Terrible.

Oh, and the shoulders.

So while we have a nice road to drive down, stay on the road because if you don't stay on the road, you'll be like this.

That's fine.

Yeah.

Do drive a lot faster.

That is so true.

It was so much slower when it was just a spraying gravel.

All right.

Thank you.

Turn it over to Mr. Barnes for our AC44.

Well, actually, I'm going to start with AC44.

All right.

I would defer to the, well, the board supervisors spent on the 17th.

And one of the things we provided to them was the update on the AC44, the same one we provided you all at your last meeting.

I was actually out sick that week, so it wasn't at the meeting, but there was a considerable discussion, a lot of discussion about the need for increased public participation or maintaining the level of public participation and several other comments that were brought to our attention at that meeting.

So we were working on that and continuing to move forward with, you know, the AC44 plan.

Two other items that came up for public hearing were all of it preschool and tandem school applications that were for you a couple months back.

Both those were passed.

As well as the service authority easement that was granted across their public land for the benefit of 999 Rio Road.

And the final thing was the board did defer the wireless zoning text amendment.

And Mr. Fritz was kind enough to write down several things that were of concern to the board.

The board directed staff to make changes to the ordinance.

The changes included removing scenic highways and byways as avoidance areas.

removing historic areas as avoidance areas, although the board did direct staff to include provisions allowing for the consideration of significant historic resources such as Monticello and Ash Lawn.

They did, the board did recommend adding biodiversity and forestal areas that were identified in the conference plan as avoidance areas.

They clarified that additions to antennas of existing structures is a permit with a billing permit, which they currently are, but they just want to make sure that the proposed ordinance would retain those existing provisions.

Other point, allowing administrative approval of the most appropriate color for the tower and equipment based on the location of each facility.

They recommended removing the review of impacts to conservation easements on properties adjacent to towers.

And they also a recommendation for allowing the agent to determine when a tree survey would be required.

Those are the major points.

at the board director of staff.

We're supposed to try and bring the deferred action to September 4th.

Can I ask, I know we'd be able to find those in the minutes.

Could you, since that was kind of prepared for us, I assume, could you share that around?

I guess so.

It was really a bit of my benefit, but I just love to have that to reference.

Yeah.

All right.

And yes, sir.

I have one question about AC44.

I was just looking at my notes from the last summer together.

And it says summer fall of 2024, AC44 team will publish draft comp plan documents.

Will we talk about AC44 between now and then?

Because summer is almost over.

My staff is working on a calendar to bring forward, I think one of the aspects that were, I think it's still our intent to try and bring something in its totality, even if it's just part two, sort of like where the policies are going to play out within our community and part three that had the goals and actions, trying to bring something to

the community to sort of be able to see those things together.

I mean, I think we've taken to heart the idea when we were working on goals and objectives, we were sort of at a sort of very high level and people are sort of like, what does that mean?

So, you know, it may be that we end up bringing, instead of just bringing the whole draft to people all at one time, we sort of bring portions there of, with enough detail that you'll be able to sort of

Be able to wrestle with larger policy implications and some of the action stuff at the same time.

I think that's going to our tent.

How that happens exactly, again, we're trying to react to some of the comments that we received from the board, and more specifically, how to make sure we're involving, which has always been our intent, the review and the input of the general public as well.

I think it was a lot of discussion about making sure that we reached out to not only our working group that we have, but the CACs.

That was actually a question I had too about the community engagement process and their underscoring the importance of doing that.

Does that change anything?

It was never our intent not to sort of make this a, you know, have the community deeply involved with the process and give us feedback.

Yeah.

I think there was a sort of a need, the staff sort of recognizing a need to sort of be able to put forth enough information that people can sort of like understand both the high level concepts that we espouse with our goals and things we want to try and protect or promote, but also some of the actions that will actually get us to those points at the same time.

So that's been this sort of like tug back and forth of trying to get enough detail

when we're presenting the information so that people can be able to assess it on those two levels of higher goals and the actions at the same time.

So basically staying the course, in other words.

And so again, not to belabor this point, but I know it was an important point to many people.

Is the community engagement process being supplemented in any way based on input that you've received recently, or is that

I mean, have you guys rethought that and said, oh, well, CACs, that's a great approach.

And the reason I'm thinking about it too is as you develop your schedule, that's going to influence the schedule.

Which we're working on at the same time.

Great, thank you.

Any other AC44 update information, Mr. Barnes?

No, sir.

No?

Okay.

That's the new business, the 13th of next month.

Yeah.

We'll need a motion from you all to do that.

Oh, okay.

I was going to do that at the end, but we can do that now, actually.

So as Mr. Barnes mentioned, we will be canceling the August 13th.

And let me just say that the reason behind that was we had a couple applications that were slotted for that date and the applicants just pulled those applications.

So we weren't able to scramble enough to get something else on that slot.

Great.

Thank you.

So here I move to.

for the meeting on August 13th for the recent stated.

Is there a second?

Second.

Any discussion?

Mr. Bivins.

Aye.

Mr. Clayborne.

Aye.

Mr. Missel.

I do have a quick question looking ahead to the August 27th meeting.

All right.

Any other new business, old business or items for follow on?

Nope.

All right.

With that, I will adjourn the Planning Commission meeting until Tuesday, August 27th, 2024.