Planning Commission Regular Meeting   10/28/2025

Great.

Thank you.

Good evening, everyone.

I'd like to welcome everyone to the October 28th, 2025 Planning Commission meeting.

It's good to see you all.

and I'll begin by reading this.

The public can access and participate in the meeting through information posted on the Albemarle County website, specifically on the Planning Commission homepage and the Albemarle County calendar.

During the meeting, there will be opportunities for public comment on specific agenda items where input is invited.

With that, I'll ask to establish a quorum.

Ms.

Firehock?

Here.

Here.

Awesome.

We are a full house.

Thank you.

We'll move on to public comment on matters pending before the commission but not listed for a public hearing on this agenda.

Do we have any signed up?

Nobody has signed up.

Is there anyone in the audience who would like to speak on items not before us this evening?

All right, seeing none, we'll move on to the consent agenda.

Second.

Any discussion?

Ms.

Firehock?

Aye.

Mr. Missel?

Aye.

Mr. Murray?

Aye.

Excellent.

We are on to items requesting deferral.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Tonight, the Belvedere subdivision has before us a rezoning application.

It's essentially

Changes to proffers from the original rezoning, as well as adding some townhouses.

The applicant has had some issues that they're working with.

They requested deferral initially to November 25th.

As recently as this week, they asked, actually, could we move it to December 9th?

Great.

So the applicant has requested a deferral to December 9th, the date specific.

Is there a motion to approve that?

So moved.

Second.

Any discussion?

All right.

Yes.

Ms.

Firehock.

Aye.

All right, thank you.

Thank you, staff.

We'll open with that.

We'll open the public hearing and we'll go to SP 2025-3 flow HCDJR outdoor storage display sale expansion.

Yes.

Good.

Good evening conditions.

My name is Chris Taggart and senior planner with the planning division of Albemarle County Community Development.

I'll be giving staffs presentation for the special use product

permit application as with all SPs will need a recommendation to forward to the board.

Subject property is located at 960 Hilton Heights Road and contains the flow Subaru Honda and Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram showrooms as well as associated outdoor display.

Display area subject to the pros amendment highlighted in red is located in front of the Honda and Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram showroom building.

The special permit request is for this expansion outdoor storage display and sales of vehicles in the entrance quarter overlay district.

I'll refer to this as outdoor display.

To accommodate this expansion, the property owner is acquired a little over a third of acre right away from VDOT.

The concept plan shows that a portion of the existing landscape area along the frontage would be converted into paved parking, which would include triple stacked parking arrangements on both the northern and southern sides of the right entrance.

To mitigate this expanded outdoor display, the concept plan shows new landscaping consisting of large shade trees, ornamental trees, and shrubs between the frontage and the display area.

Motor vehicle sales is a buy-write use in the zoning district, but the outdoor display is a special use.

SPs for outdoor display are reviewed under Section 30.6.

This limits the factors to be considered determining whether the outdoor display is consistent with the entrance corridor design guidelines.

The architectural review board applied those guidelines in its review of this request in September of this year.

The ARB voted to recommend no objection to the SP requests with conditions approval that are standard for this type of request.

The conditions are listed here and we can bring them back up if needed.

A favorable factor for this request is the outdoor display use would be consistent with the entrance corridor design guidelines if the ARB's recommended conditions are upheld.

For this reason, staff recommends approval of the special permit for outdoor display.

Great.

Thank you, Chris.

Any questions for staff?

Chair, I have a question that's related, and I don't know how you want the time.

If this goes forward, I would like to ask staff about a VDOT issue at that location.

So you can say whenever you want to.

That's good.

Thank you.

Just a clarification on the drawing.

So the outlined trees that are over top of the grade, I have been to the site.

So those are the existing trees that are going to be cut down.

Has there been any work to analyze the canopy equivalency, in other words,

The trees are a certain size.

Okay.

All right.

Thanks.

I'll just add a couple of quick questions.

One is, and maybe this is for the applicant, I know they acquired some of the VDOT right of way.

Correct.

And do you know if the utilities that would preclude some of these plantings to occur?

Let's see.

Back now.

It's been going on all day in the office.

It is on the screen.

Yeah, I can't turn it off.

There's easements and the new proposed landscaping is in front of the easements closer to Seminole Trail.

So the proposed landscaping is outside of the easements.

Got it.

Okay, thanks.

And then the last question is

I noticed in the conditions from the ARB that they said they could not park on the sidewalk or on the paved areas.

Is that correct?

Okay, so to be clear, right now, at this moment, there's a sidewalk-type bump out and there's a car on top of that.

I'm just trying to understand if that kind of thing is allowed in the future.

I was trying to understand what the ARB was restricting.

Okay.

Right, they literally have no space.

I was just there and there was no space.

Thank you.

Any other questions for staff?

All right, I know we're working on IT-related issues, but I would like to ask the applicant to come up.

I do, but if we have technical issues, Commissioner Firehock summed up the application very well.

We have no space.

And that's more or less why we're here.

Yeah.

I'll just do a very short presentation.

Take your time.

I'm Justin Shimp.

I'm the engineer for this project, Shimp Engineering.

Chris Marshall from my office has joined me.

He's the project manager for this project and all the flow projects, which we've been working on a bunch of them around Charlottesville, Albemarle County, really, for the last several years.

This site is, of course, the Honda Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram site.

Subaru is actually on the site too, but the special use permit really is about the parking for the others, not Subaru.

Site's right up on 29.

I think everyone's pretty familiar with the location.

that the area of amendment shown here have a three-dimensional view.

You'll see this display parking there now and some landscaping and quite a lot of grass.

And my work with flow started several years ago and brought me out to this site and said, well, we have not enough parking here.

What do we do about this?

And upon some research, I found that because of the slope of the site directly to the right of this view,

as a very steep slope.

And what VDOT did when they took the right of way for the 29 widening originally, they angled over basically, my picture should show this.

Go back.

They angled it over as that gray line is shown to go up to the top of the slope.

Oh, I got you.

And so what we discovered was that area was unnecessary.

VDOT needed it necessary.

We were able to request to purchase it from them.

But stepping back a minute,

Just a little bit about Flow Automotive.

You've seen them all over town.

Don Flow, the owner, is a UVA graduate and likes to invest in Charlottesville.

Again, Albemarle County, all the dealerships are located in Albemarle County.

They employ 465 people right now, and I don't know if they'll hit a million dollars in taxes this year, but they are a big contributor to local economy.

and provide a service for a lot of folks who need car serviced, want to purchase a car.

Since we've been working with them, I've done all but one project.

They're at $60 million is their capital expense in Albemarle, Canada, about halfway through that right now.

One of the issues they have, this site was developed, they struck a deal with Sam's Club and they have this sort of off-site parking agreement of sorts, but it's not a great spot.

That area is also used sometimes for county police for training and things of that nature, other activities, and so it's not reliable.

It's also a little bit of a security issue in storing cars back there, so they have the space, but it really

is not a great space to use.

They really can't use it very effectively.

And as was noted earlier, they have very little space on the site.

They are by the brand standards.

So every manufacturer gives you a standard.

Say if you're going to sell a Honda, you need to have X number of parking spaces.

In total for the five or six brands here, there's something like 400 parking spaces short.

are the manufacturers requested in.

But you can see if you go there, you notice there's no place to park.

So those are different than the county standards.

They do meet county parking standards.

But what the manufacturers recommend for their storage is woefully short.

So when I went site, what we discovered was there was this opportunity to purchase this little strip from VDOT.

The development here started back 2003, was the original SP for the Brown Auto Park, which is what the main project is.

Revision started in 2022 to that site.

There was site plan for the Subaru side.

Then I got involved just after that and was asked about parking and discovered this right away that was available.

And then July or September 2023 to July of this year, we've got a purchase done with VDAS.

Lengthy process.

This has been going on for a while.

This is the display area.

This picture here shows the existing trees to be removed.

The other picture that was shown earlier showed all the trees and it's in.

So to answer a question that Mr. Firehock brought up, we're losing about 12 existing trees that are larger than adding 22 new trees.

We didn't do a straight canopy for canopy, but we were sort of worked out with ARB that we should do more than the bare minimum because of the proximity and the replacing the more mature trees.

So that's how the design ended up the way it did.

Here's that picture that shows the future landscaping.

This is the green trees, the shadow ones are the existing trees, and all the solid green are the proposed.

That really is where I can end it.

Great, thank you.

Let's have a quick one.

So just, Mr. Shim, just so I understand, that gray line was what VDOT was originally going to grade that, but then they didn't need it.

Is that what you're saying?

That land that's below the gray line?

That's right.

And because the

Slope starts immediately up at the Hilton, or at the hotel up there.

And was it usable because the flow auto came in later on after the widening and graded it flat?

I believe that that was basically left in that condition from the right-of-way.

I don't believe anyone did any work on that area.

The site that Toyota, the original Brown, sorry Brown was there originally, built the site with that 2002 McKee Carson plan and this plan was just grass that was left over and was landscaping some places.

There are a lot of utilities in this area and they run basically parallel with the gray line.

So there's actually, there are no utilities right along the back of sidewalk there on 29.

Okay, and then you show two trees on my left being removed down close to the road.

Why are those being removed if they're not in the way and they're not in the parking?

Just below that thing that says, yeah, those two.

Why are they being removed if they're not?

The previous slide here, this one shows the removed trees.

So these trees in black here are removed.

And in fact, these trees are all planted in fiber easements.

OK, it's confusing.

Thanks.

Any other questions for the applicant?

Good afternoon.

The areas that say new display on there, there's no material identified, I don't think, but looks like new pavement.

They are, if you pave of some kind, there could be pervious paving.

We haven't finished our stormwater design.

That is expensive.

It has some cumbersome challenges to it, but there's a trade-off, you know, the applicant, the owner can choose on that.

But yes, it could be.

It would be a hard choice.

I think maybe a good question was brought up earlier about the parking vehicles, kind of parking pads.

I think there are possibly.

Some spots of cars are parking looking like it's a sidewalk, but it's probably not part of the original SP, basically.

Is it being considered?

Is that what you're saying?

I'll give the owner the options for here's your stormwater compliance option.

There's X, Y, and Z. One of them certainly is the pervious pavers.

They have taken into account cost of that, a trade-off of maintenance, and so forth.

We've gotten to where I like using these underground chambers

that have a sediment filter mechanism in them.

And we typically will use those.

So we're actually more often than not doing some onsite stormwater treatment, even though it's not required, because this underground chamber produces some sediment capture as a matter of its functionality.

Yeah, you have bay savers?

Can I ask a follow-on technical question?

So with the permeable, and I'm not talking about this interlocking pavers where the grass grows through.

Those are annoying.

The pavers that are interlocking, but they're solid, right?

And then underneath them, they have a layer of sand.

And that is providing some water quality filtration as the water goes through.

And then it just is absorbed into the ground.

Is that getting better water quality treatment than, say, the chambers that you're talking about?

You said they have a sediment trap, but it's primarily for volume.

I'm just wondering if the pavers are also helping with water quality better or not.

That's not a leading question.

That's a good question.

I probably shouldn't off the top of my head.

Each measure is tested with the state and given a treatment capacity, basically.

I know the filters have a

They get an 80 some percent sediment capture, which the state then cuts in half for the treatment quality they give us when we do our calculations.

I doubt the pervious pavers are more than say 50 or 60 percent.

So you might be looking at a 40 percent versus a 50 to 60 percent trade off.

If you have good soils for infiltration, you'll get that.

Maybe we might be very compacted underneath it.

Okay.

And all the stormwater, everything we're talking about will be discussed and I guess reviewed at the site plan stage, right?

That's correct.

Okay.

I think what you're hearing though is that since you're doing this anyway and there are going to be changes to landscaping that I think while certainly you'll handle stormwater however you handle it, I think there's definitely interest in the community and if there can be something done for stormwater quality that we would certainly like to see that.

Maybe a positive thing can be done.

I mean the landscaped areas too.

I mean right now it's just grass.

But you know, there's ways too of just taking that area as you plant these trees and you put in some of the lower heightened shrubs where the utility easement is.

Yes, understood.

And say those are things we get to in our design.

I don't want to commit to something that I honestly have control over per se.

Our clients choose that.

But I will say, interesting fact, just for everyone's knowledge, interesting.

So the turf, the grass there, right, that you think of maybe as having some filtering, the state did a study and they just reworked this VRRM spreadsheet, our water quality spreadsheet, and you know this I'm sure, upped the managed turf and reduced the impervious.

So you look at your, you run your numbers,

A turf area actually is much more equivalent to impervious area.

Essentially, if you go and douse with a fertilizer on that lawn that you see there now, you also produce a lot of nutrient runoff, in perhaps some cases more than what you would in asphalt.

So, lots of technical details there.

Any other questions for the applicant?

That's right.

Basically the power line across at an angle and there are trees on the left side of the screen are behind the power line and the trees on the right hand side are in front of the power line, basically.

Has there been, and maybe this is a question for staff, has there been any discussion with utility companies about putting those underground?

Because I know that's been discussion elsewhere in the county.

Not with those.

You may not know, but that line there.

runs down the side of 29, and it moves.

I don't know what the capacity of the energy is now, but I did it at one point.

They're high-density, and they don't tend to bury those for a whole host of reasons.

They tend to run above because they can quickly deal with them and stuff like that.

And this line was feeding, well, probably as a continuation of the line that's up at Rivanna Station, too, where we, a couple of years ago, we had to deal

increasing the capacity coming down on 29 South to be able to get energy back and forth between the university and what's going on up there is a part of that.

It also carried some data.

Great.

Commissioner Bivins, any questions?

I do.

So good to see you.

So an editorial question.

You know where you have the list of the automobiles that are dealerships?

Please add the other ones.

Mercedes isn't on the site.

And it's on the list.

You can go back and we can have that conversation if you like.

That's one of the things I do really well is keep track of cars.

That's what I do.

That's like, you know, so I just say, if you're going to have that list, either take the ones out that aren't there of our original.

Yeah.

And you have that up the front of each line.

Could you

When you were looking at this front piece here, was there any consideration about going further, extending the northern parking lot further up a bit?

Because you've got land that you could do that with to get a couple more spaces, because I'm sensitive to the fact that you're right.

Lots of dealerships, lots of manufacturers are saying you have to have the number of spaces we want.

We went through this similarly when we looked at the piece up on 29 when they were redoing the Toyota and the Mercedes dealership up there.

They needed to put some additional parking in the back so that they could say to Toyota and the Mercedes, yes, we have the number of parking spaces, the display spaces that you say we have.

This, that slope begins right in here.

If we could have, we would have.

And then here, if you just sort of, I think I saw a design, or I saw a sheet that had parking spaces on it.

They're all back to back.

So they'll be 3D.

They'll be 3D.

No, it's not striped in the site plan for some reason.

Okay, so it will be three there as it will on the other side.

Yes.

Okay.

The dark green, the trees are filled in by the proposed trees.

The trees that are a green outline are the existing trees that remain.

Great, any other questions from anyone?

Just have a few.

One, you probably heard me when I was talking to staff about them.

First of all, I'm assuming you're going to stripe a crosswalk across the entrance there.

Think of this one already there.

There might be.

There should be one.

That would be basically that's in Route 29.

So we actually, our scope wasn't really involved.

That's existing.

Got it.

That's a good point.

Okay.

And you answered the questions about the utilities.

answered the question about pavement and stormwater.

All right, I don't have any other questions.

I'll put it out here now, because this is my question.

So if you go further north on the south side, there's a VDOT sign that says, turn right at the next signal.

The next signal words are so small that I have watched people turn right at the next signal, not realizing it's not the next signal, but going into this place.

And it's like, because that looks like a turn right at the next signal.

So this was what my question was.

If this goes forward, would it not also have a conversation with VDOT to say, can we move that?

It's not called a peno.

To be fair, it was there before they owned it.

It was, it was.

I have almost made that mistake for myself.

I have no responsibility to design.

That was before my time, so I can't tell you.

It is strange how it's worded, but again, once those things, those signs are up in the right-of-way,

Coles as too.

So they've got other parks, you know, just in the in the fullness of disclosure.

Great.

Thank you.

No more questions.

Thank you.

Is there anyone in the public who would like to speak to this?

Okay, we'll close the public hearing bring it back to the Commission.

Can I ask the staff one more question?

Of course.

We asked the applicant how many trees they were planting and they said basically twice as many as are what are there now.

But then the plan itself says this is only conceptual exact number of trees and shrubs to be determined.

Yeah.

It would be safe to assume that because this, the, the, whoever site plan would need to go back in front of the ARB for review.

There could be seven more shrubs or two less shrubs.

Okay.

Right.

Great.

I'll do it from Rio here.

I move to recommend approval of SP 2025-00003 flow Honda CDJR outdoor storage display and sales with the conditions as recommended in the staff report.

Second.

Great.

Further discussion?

All right.

Mr. Firehock?

Sure.

Aye.

Great.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thanks.

All right.

So I just have a question, kind of an administrative question on the next two items.

the Attain on 5th Street items.

Are we treating these as one public hearing or are we opening this up for two public hearings?

Any suggestions?

I think it'd be fine if it's one public hearing.

One public hearing, one staff report?

It'll be one staff report.

Yes, and two separate actions.

Okay, great.

Okay, so we're not reviewing a special exception.

It's just for your information.

Yeah, not for your action.

All right, so I'll ask staff for ZMA 2025-4 slash SE 2025-19 attained on 5th Street, phase two R-10 to PRD and the same, nope, ZMA 2025-5 attained on 5th Street phase two steep slopes preserved to managed.

Could we have the staff report, please?

Yeah, good evening.

Thanks for the alphabet soup before I could.

Good evening.

My name is Sid Shoaff.

I'm a senior planner with the planning division for the county.

Tonight I'll be giving the staff presentation for four applications related to attain on fifth phase two.

There are two rezonings and then two special exceptions.

The subject property is tax map parcel 76-54A1 and it's 14 and a half acres.

It's located between I-64 and Old Lynchburg Road and Fifth Street with access to the site through Wahoo Way, which intersects Fifth Street and through Old Lynchburg Place, which intersects Old Lynchburg Road.

The subject property was first developed as a student housing in 2002 and was previously known as Sterling University Housing and then later Cavalier Crossing.

There are 13 existing buildings on the site, 12 of which are multi-family residential with 144 units and the other is a leasing office.

There are 13 different addresses all associated with Wahoo Way which are referenced in the staff report and there are also 660 parking spaces and amenities for the residents on the property.

The subject property is zoned R-10 residential, and it's within the entrance corridor, the airport impact area, and the steep slopes managed and preserved overlay districts.

The surrounding properties include the Fifth Street Apartments, which is zoned R-10 to the east, Region 10 Community Services Office to the west, which is zoned Commercial Office, the Albemarle Business Campus, which is a mixed-use development that is zoned Neighborhood Model Development, and to the south across Fifth Street is the Fifth Street County Office Building, which is zoned Commercial Office.

There are three comprehensive plan designations for the subject property.

The primary designation is urban density residential, which allows for density of all housing types or housing or all types of housing and for residential density between six to 34 dwelling units per acre.

The secondary designation is parks and green systems, which is consistent with the steep slopes preserved areas on the site.

And then lastly, the minor designation is community mixed use, which allows mixed use development.

So there are four proposals related to attain on fifth phase two.

I'll go through the two rezonings in my next few slides.

And then the two special exceptions do not require planning commission action and staff are recommending approval for both.

However, I'm happy to go over both of them at the conclusion of the rezoning presentations.

So the main application is ZMA-2025-4, which is zoning map amendment application to rezone the 14 and a half acre parcel

from R10 residential to planned residential development, also referred to as PRD.

The applicant's proposing for an additional 165 multifamily units on site, which would be dispersed between five new buildings.

There would be a maximum of 309 units for a gross density of 21 dwelling units per acre on the property.

The applicant's also proposing to reduce the overall parking on site from 660 parking spaces to 460 parking spaces to construct some of the new buildings.

The parking reduction is one of the special exceptions and I can elaborate further on that at the end of my presentation.

There are existing amenities on site which include a dog park, basketball court, volleyball court, clubhouse and pool.

Additional amenities will be provided at the site plan phase if this rezoning were to be approved.

The applicant's also proposing 65,000 passive recreation area, which is shown as light blue on this map.

In addition, the applicant's proposing to improve pedestrian and bicycle connectivity to and within the site.

They have proposed new sidewalks and crosswalks to connect the existing buildings, as well as existing and future connections to and from the site.

They're proposing a shared use path along their frontage, along Fifth Street, and proposing improvements to the existing bus stop at the corner of Fifth Street and Wahoo Way.

This is a map to provide further context around the future and existing shared use path facilities around the subject property.

Currently, there's an existing substandard path from the Fifth Street Department's development that extends south to Ambrose Commons.

It varies in width, but it appears to be approximately four feet and protected by an existing guardrail that's shown as the dashed lines towards the bottom left of the map.

There are several funded projects in the area, which include a VDOT project to construct a roundabout at the intersection of Fifth Street and Old Lynchburg Road.

The adjacent property for the Albemarle Business Campus will construct a shared use path along its frontage from the subject property to the corner of Old Lynchburg Road.

There's also improvements on Old Lynchburg Road to enhance connection between the county and the city of Charlottesville for amenities such as the Rivanna Trail and Azalea Park.

Additionally, the county is pursuing a pipeline study for improved connections across Interstate 64.

Lastly, for this project, the applicant's proposing a new shared use path, which is shown as dashed along its frontage due to eastern property line.

And it ends at a substandard facility, which is approximately 270 feet from the existing sidewalk at the Fifth Street Apartments development.

Shifting gears from transportation to housing, here's a background on the county's affordable housing policies.

So Housing Albemarle was approved in 2021, and this policy recommends 20% of the new units on site as affordable.

There's an arm of housing Albemarle called Affordable Rental Housing Incentive Program, also will be referred to as RHIP, which was approved in 2024.

This program requires 20% of the total units to be affordable at either 60% area median income for a total of 30 years rental for rental housing or 80% AMI for a total of 40 years for owner occupied housing.

This RHIP is a separate grant application that is acted upon by the board.

Dr. Stacey Patitia is in attendance tonight if there are any questions regarding housing Albemarle and the RHIP funding.

So when applied for this site and this rezoning, the applicant is proposing for 165 additional units.

The applicant under housing Albemarle is required to provide 20% of the new units as affordable, which would result in 33 affordable units.

The applicant meets housing Albemarle's recommendation, which is sufficient for this rezoning before you this evening.

However, the applicants also going above and beyond in pursuing the ARHIP funding, which requires 20% of the total units on the site to be affordable.

And so with the total units of this rezoning were to be approved, they would be required to provide 62 units to qualify for ARHIP.

This is above and beyond the affordable housing requirements.

And as I mentioned before, this is a separate action by the board of supervisors and not part of the rezoning before you this evening.

So in sum, staff found three positive aspects for this application.

The first is the request is consistent with the land use recommendations for the Southern and Urban Neighborhoods Master Plan.

The second is that the proposed rezoning meets the strategies of the growth management policy to promote density in the development area and recommendations of housing Albemarle.

And lastly, the request is consistent with the comprehensive plan neighborhood model principles.

We found no concerns with this application.

Staff recommends approval of the zoning map amendment request for ZMA 2025-4.

Great, thank you.

Just because of the history of the property, I know a lot of these existing three and four bedroom apartments are being converted to one and twos.

With the number of total units being added, how many

How does the total bedroom count compare, if that makes sense?

Yeah, I have a slide.

It's related to the parking reduction request.

And so as I mentioned or alluded to, this site was developed as student housing.

And so at the time, 2002, 2003, there were a number of three-bedroom student housing and four-bedroom student housing.

And so there was 528 bedrooms.

And then now with their proposal, they're shifting from the individual bedrooms to a more traditional multifamily development.

And so they're going to, they're proposing 309 units.

That's not exactly a one to one.

Please go to your next slide.

Yeah I mean to be honest we did look at it that way from a staff perspective.

Exactly.

That's all taken into traffic.

Yeah.

I think Mr. Moore's question is, oh, thank you.

But I just have Mr. Moore's question is how many bedrooms?

This is unusual in that regard.

Great.

I had a question on the housing.

Um, so the additional, uh, the additional, yeah, so they go to the 62 affordable units that's contingent on the grant.

From my understanding and the applicant can speak further onto their, their application or their pursuant to this application.

This might get punted to the applicant as well, but this will for clarification as I'm trying to track the housing policy.

So before housing Albemarle was adopted, a rezoning would require, was it 15% of the units to be at 80% AMI.

And then here now that this seems like it's subsequent to Albemarle, housing Albemarle being passed,

It's now a recommendation of 20% of new units.

Is there still a requirement, I guess, as opposed to a recommendation?

Is there still a requirement for new units to have an affordability piece to it?

It's a policy and not a regulation.

So when you say requirement, I take that to mean something that is required in the ordinance, you know, you know, you'll have X number of spaces per bedroom minimum requirements.

So this is the policy that we apply to rezonings.

So am I thinking about it incorrectly if we rewind pre-passing of Housing Albemarle, the 15% of 80 AMI, that's a recommendation as well.

That's not a requirement.

Stacy, would you like to come up and answer some of these questions?

Call a lifeline.

Stacey Pathea, Director of Housing.

You're correct.

The 15% of total units at 80% AMI, which was the previous policy, was a recommendation, not a requirement.

That's good to know.

Dr. Pethia, could I ask you to stay up there for one second, please?

I just had a follow-up question, but I don't want to cut you off.

No, sir.

Mr. Chairman, go ahead.

No, I'm sorry.

The affordable units that they're saying here is dependent on the RHIP award.

If the RHIP award does not come through,

They may or may not choose to build 15% at 80 or any other percentage, right?

That's all at their discretion.

No.

So the difference between housing Albemarle is that the recommendation of housing Albemarle, the housing policy, is that 20% of the new units would be affordable.

In this case, it's 60% AMI as rental housing.

With the RHIP, it is the 20% of the total units that are already in existence.

So the RHIP provides a rebate of property taxes that are paid and that is contingent upon the property taxes for the entire parcel, not individual buildings.

Got it.

That makes sense.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yes, sir.

I had a question about housing also, just to make sure that I understood.

So we got a note saying there's been a change in this particular, in attachment three.

And when I looked at it, I noticed that in the previous attachment, there was an option one for a cast proffer.

And then this particular page, the page that we're seeing now, page six, that option is no longer

being included, or it's not being offered, I guess that's what I'm saying.

The new units, OK.

Correct.

May I also interject?

Commissioner Murray, you were... Yes.

So I'm noting in here that it says that this is in the dam break inundation zone.

Yeah, so if a property is within the dam break inundation zone, if this gets approved by the board, it would be subject to the different site plans and subdivision plots, et cetera.

So are the units in the dam break inundation zone?

Of my understanding, no, they're not.

That was confusing.

Thank you.

Okay.

So they're proposing in this map here, the bottom of the map is the shared use path is shown as green.

It would be built to Virginia Department of Transportation standards.

They're building it along the frontage of their property, which is on Fifth Street.

And so we just noted that it ends at their property line and where it ends actually looks like this.

And it's not a factor unfavorable, but we were just noting it for the staff report.

Yes.

Yeah.

And the picture on the left, the attain development's further down and it ends at some point where their property line is.

And so I noted that it ends at this substandard facility, but there is an existing sidewalk at the Fifth Street Apartments, which would be a better location for it to end.

So, Sid, what's your recommendation here then?

I mean, what should be done differently or what could be done differently?

Within this rezoning, I don't think there's much for staff to comment on.

They're meeting the county's requirement along their frontage.

You're just saying it's less than ideal.

Right.

To be clear, yeah, so the ordinance is trying to get the

I know that's how we get this little gap between there and the fifth street apartments.

So what could be done?

I mean, you know, there's always an opportunity to offer something to be.

I just want to be clear that, you know, what we're talking about here, but staff didn't push it that way.

Staff just try to get them to stop to the edge there.

And I would be negligent if it didn't say that VDOT has been sort of questioning that a little bit.

We've been trying to work with VDOT.

They've got recent

comments from them.

They're worried about new facility on attain terminating at this substandard facility.

We're taking the position that some connectivity is better than not very little.

I mean, I don't, I'm not out there surveying the site or anything, but it does look like it could be fixed.

It's not like we've had past applications where,

the path ran into a cliff.

You couldn't go forward.

I will, maybe the applicants or applicants, engineers speak a little bit more to that.

It would be an expensive fix to board a sidewalk.

or even to get a buffer between the guardrail and a path.

Okay.

Well, when we make unsafe walkways, people still walk on them.

On that note, and this is really sort of going back into the midst of times,

I think I have a recollection, albeit foggy at this particular point in time, that the ABC applicant was going to do, in addition to adding some money for the roundabout there, was also going to do a bus stop, was going to improve a bus stop on a bus stop.

And the question is whether or not it was going to be on the west side of the thing or on the east side of the thing.

But the ABC person, the ABC guy, said that he was going to contribute some funds to improving a bus stop there, or to placing a bus stop there.

If that is an accurate statement, it would seem that we'd release this applicant from that and perhaps the applicant would be so inclined to fix the sidewalk.

But I would just like some clarity on that because there was a lot of discussion with the young man about roundabouts and bus stops and coffee shops of which there are no coffee shops.

I'll just say the roundabout.

Thank you, Commissioner Bivins.

Kevin McDermott, I'm Deputy Director of Planning.

Just to clarify, the ABC development, which you can see on the bottom left of the screen here, the green line is representing the shared use path that is actually being built by a combination of the VDOT project and the developer out there.

So across that section from Old Lynchburg to Wahoo Way, that section will be built by those two entities together.

That ABC development had proffered a bus stop on the corner of their property, on the southern corner there,

However, once VDOT got into the design of the roundabout, VDOT decided to move that bus stop on the other side of Old Lynchburg Road there.

So the new bus stop will be going on the south side.

That will be constructed by VDOT through that roundabout project.

This developer has proffered upgrades at the existing bus stop in front of their property just to the east of Wahoo Way there.

And then they are providing that shared use path in front of that right by the bus stop from Wahoo Way to the edge of their property.

Great.

Any other questions for staff?

All right.

The second rezoning application is to rezone 0.55 acres of steep slopes preserved, which is shown in green, to steep slopes managed to construct the additional proposed buildings.

Staff reviewed this proposal by analyzing and comparing the characteristics of preserved and managed slopes, which are outlined in our ordinance.

And we believe that these slopes meet the characteristics of steep slopes managed

There was a previously approved site plan from 2002 that provided evidence that these slopes were approved to be graded with the construction of the original development on this property.

And then this map here is showing the concept plan of where those steep slopes are being preserved for those new buildings on site.

And with that being said, staff recommends approval of zoning map amendment request ZMA 2025-5.

Thank you.

No, just, just a comment though.

If you flip back to that, that slide there, um, where you're showing that, yeah.

Okay.

So I don't think with the steep and steep slopes and manage slopes.

Okay.

Thank you.

So just comment there.

I see that that lake is not on the property, but I see that those are managed slopes.

And I assume that's because that's a manufactured lake as, as all lakes in our area are.

But I would argue that when we look at these in the future, we should make those to be preserved slopes.

Yeah.

Oh, it is.

Okay.

When you have like a permanent standing water like that, do you apply buffers on it or?

All right, any other questions for deep slopes managed to preserved or preserved managed?

Something.

That's important to get that order right.

All right, thank you with that.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the commission.

I'm Valerie Long with Williams Mullen.

We are representing the applicant Bonaventure Holdings and its entity that owns the property.

Joining me this evening is Sam Tricoli, who is the director of asset management for Bonaventure, as well as Clint Shifflett with Timmons Group, the civil engineers for the site.

I'm going to skip through a lot of my slides because Mr. Shoaff covered a lot of it, and it sounds like you all are very familiar with it.

I'm happy to come back to any slides.

This is obviously the context of the site.

I think you're familiar.

I thought this aerial image might be helpful.

This was taken several years ago before any renovation or anything occurred.

This gives you an idea of just how much excess unused parking existed on site, particularly in this area and then this entire area back here.

was open.

So I just wanted to provide that early on.

Again, this is a zoning map.

It's within quite a patchwork of other zoning districts, likewise with the comprehensive plan.

You probably are all generally familiar with this location off of Fifth Street.

Just for context, this is Wahoo Way in the entrance.

This is the existing bus stop.

And this is the start of the asphalt path.

We have some additional photos that we'll show you of that later.

Again, just showing you how the property is quite mature, was built quite a long time ago.

Lots of kudzu there helping screen the buildings from the entrance corridor.

And this is the entrance from Old Lynchburg Road, the opposite side of the project.

This is the existing site plan in the areas in the yellow circles to show where roughly the new buildings are going to be located or proposed to be located in those vacant parking areas.

There's 12 buildings there now that are units and a leasing office has noted 144 units, just under 660 parking spaces because they were built as student suites, which requires 1.25 spaces per bedroom.

Always there have been way too many spaces.

Phase two is proposed as the Brown buildings.

It's a new 165 units in a total of five buildings.

and this is just the concept showing where those buildings would be in relation to the aerial plan for a little easier to see.

Along the bottom as Mr. Shoaff described is the proposed upgrade to the existing asphalt path that the applicant is proposing to upgrade to a shared use path meeting VDOT standards, usually a 10-foot wide path.

They're also proposing to upgrade the existing bus stop, which is just a post with a shelter that has a bench, kind of really upgrade it, make it more comfortable for everyone.

And that area there highlights where those proposed offsite improvements would be.

We also worked carefully with staff to identify opportunities within the existing site where we could upgrade the existing sidewalk and pedestrian connections.

So all the areas in yellow are new sidewalk connections.

Some of them, like these over here, would be required regardless because they're part of the new phase two.

but this for example is an area where we just identified we realized why is this segment of sidewalk missing?

We need that there.

Staff had pointed out some of these crosswalks could be added and then also this connection here looks like was probably supposed to have been built originally and wasn't for some reason likewise here so we worked hard and got really good feedback from staff on how to make those improvements and now we can show how there will be a

Direct pedestrian connection from one side of the community to the other, which we think is a big improvement.

We did want to just touch a little bit on the Preserve Steep Slopes.

I think you all are familiar with this.

Those slopes are, no question, are man-made.

They're shown on the site plan for the existing buildings.

They meet the criteria for managed slopes and you'll note that the property line roughly forms the boundary between preserved and managed so that you'll see that's the case along the interstate and regardless of where they meet the criteria or not if they're in the right of way they're managed but if they're on private property they're preserved.

As noted, and we can come back to talk about this more, we're proposing that 20% of the total unit count between phase one and phase two would be affordable, total of 62 units.

And as Mr. Shoaff indicated, that is contingent on the board approving the ARIP or the tax abatement or tax incentives program.

I'll come back to this later as much as you want, but I did want to just provide sort of a breakdown of the phase one units, 144, phase two, 165.

It increases the density from 10 units per acre to about 21, which is obviously a significant increase, much more consistent with the comprehensive plan designation for up to 34.

I mentioned the off-site improvements we are proposing and then just provided for information some of the amenities that are there now and Bonaventure has been, some of you all indicated renovating the existing phase one units and as part of that they've also been making improvements to the existing amenities.

There's a basketball court that's been converted or will be converted to pickleball court for example and they've completely upgraded the

We did do a traffic study as part of the rezoning application and to our pleasant surprise, even when you add 165 new units,

The traffic study shows that the number of trips actually goes down because the student suites have a much higher trip generation estimate than non-student suites.

So the good news is that combined with the future roundabout that is being built fairly soon, that there are no recommendations for any road improvements.

And I did want to provide a little bit more information here on the shared use path situation out front.

As noted, there is an existing path there.

The area shown here is what Bonaventure has committed to build as part of the project.

This is an aerial, all of the areas in yellow are steep slopes.

It is, and again, there is an existing asphalt path all the way to here.

It's not great, and I'll have some photos I can show you as well, but I wanted to at least provide the context of what the existing terrain looks like there.

Even this segment along the property frontage, it's a very expensive upgrade to that path because of the terrain.

This is, if you're standing kind of right near the bus stop at the entrance, Wahoo Way, the entrance to attain looking, I guess that's north towards the interstate.

Just wanted, these were taken this morning, so very current photos.

It is, it's obviously not current standards, but it is functional and usable, but this is the segment or the areas that Bonaventure will be upgrading to the standard

10-foot-wide path.

There'll be a lot of filter that has to be brought in to make that work, as you can imagine.

Significant expense, but we think it'll be quite an improvement.

This is the path looking from the opposite direction, south on Fifth Street, looking towards Wahoo Way.

This is the end of the sidewalk, right at the entrance to the adjacent community, which I think is called Fifth Street Place at Afton Pond Court.

Again, the path is there.

It's not ideal, obviously, but it is functional and usable.

The challenges of upgrading that further with these utilities here and the steepness of that grade is challenging.

We pulled the site plan.

Again, this is our Afton Pond Court.

This is the Fifth Street Apartments.

This is Attain for reference.

So in blue is the segment of the path that Bonaventure will upgrade to standard shared use path.

And then the yellow is the existing asphalt path.

But we wanted to just demonstrate or flag for information.

the other utilities, the easements that are there.

And again, you saw the image with the existing managed steep slopes as well.

It's not an easy project to make those improvements.

But we want to highlight the project benefits.

I think many of you have touched on them and the staff report did as well.

It's infill development in the existing development area, much higher density rate that's much more efficient use of the limited development area land.

Bonaventure is making

sort of substantial improvements to the existing student suites.

I should have mentioned earlier they're converting all of those student suites that were three and four student suite bedrooms units to two and three bedroom units.

So much more appropriate for families and non-students.

going to have the affordable units.

If the grant program is approved, we're making improvements to the pedestrian network, no impact on traffic and the offsite improvements.

These are the summary of some of the updates and renovations to the phase one units.

Again, Bonaventure has been renovating them and releasing them.

Some of the previous residents when it was Cavalier Crossing had been able to stay and they found new roommates and are leasing up the units.

they've had lots of resident events to help people find and meet new roommates so they're not renting a bedroom with strangers anymore like they were when they were living in the student suites so there's been a lot of good things happening and these are just examples of the renovations sort of the standards and conditions of the units before Bonaventure took over and the quality of the renovations that they're making after so those building renovations continue to be underway

and I think that was anything finished right on time.

I can, if you would like, if you'll indulge me, I did try to do the math on the bedroom count change.

Originally the bedroom count was 528.

With the renovations, the phase one bedroom count will be 384.

And the phase two new units, the bedroom count is 250.

So the new bedroom count is 634.

So it's actually an increase in beds.

But we think it'll be, Bonaventure's confident they're already seeing a lot of success with the renovation of the units.

So we think it'll work very well.

Awesome, thank you.

Appreciate it.

Any questions for the applicant?

I was going to ask about the affordable housing incentive.

I know if memory serves, our policy the county passed is that 20% of the units come in at 60% AMI for 30 years to qualify for the property tax discount.

It looked like you're proposing 10% of the units at 60% and 10% at 80%, and there's little variance there from policy.

Yeah, that is what the project will support.

Doing 20% of all of the unit count at 60% AMI just doesn't make it viable.

It's a real challenge.

So originally, we started with, as Mr. Bivins noted, we had a couple of options.

We had a cash option.

That proved to be a little bit just unwieldy with there not being policies really in place for how to manage that or review it.

20% of the new unit count only.

The county expressed in some meetings we had that they really wanted to see more affordable units on site.

So they were flexible with us on the the AMI mix.

Commissioner Bivins, any questions?

I do have an observation at some point, but not right now.

My only question was, you know, we've talked about this in some places that I think this would be one of the places that could work, particularly

You don't have numbers, but the building that's all the way back at the sort of the perimeter buildings.

This one?

Yeah, particularly that one could be a bit higher, have a bit more density to it.

And so, you know, I'm always looking for, I understand that would not want that kind of height in the front part of the building property, but it seems in the area where there's

Good coverage and lots of katsu that we could sort of frame this whole thing in, that there could stand to be a bit more height or a bit more density in there, particularly in the one, the little one that's over here.

Closest to Fifth Street, thank you.

He's this one here.

All right, Mr. Murray, any questions?

Actually, I'll just second what Mr. Bivins said.

Commissioner Clayborne?

I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you.

I'll second what Mr. Bivins said about the height.

I have a comment and then probably a question for Dr. Pati.

The comment is, Ms.

Long, thank you all for just being willing to be creative.

and trying to push the needle forward.

This is probably one of the very few projects we've seen with 60% AMI just at all, so it just doesn't happen often.

My question is regarding the grant program and it was enacting 24 is what I believe I read.

Are we seeing much appetite for that?

Is there a high demand for dollars or is this

This will be the first project that's come forward to you.

The staff is in conversation with a number of different projects.

I guess as a follow up to that, probably unrelated to this application, but there might be an opportunity for us to just reconvene that collective group that met two years ago.

Like if we're just not seeing any traction,

It's got to be something there, so just planting that seed.

Yeah, so my question is on the housing as well.

So I had not seen any project come forth with the grant.

So my question to you was, how is that process so far?

And when would you hear?

So what's the length of the process?

We are at the early stages of it because as the application has worked, the rezoning application alone has worked through the review process is when we got some feedback and we refined the affordable housing.

So we had originally we weren't proposing to have the 20% of all of the units, just the new ones.

When we got the feedback that the county really would like to see more and that they could

perhaps be flexible on the AMI breakdown.

Bonaventure had to go back and look more at the numbers.

They actually have two different investor groups involved.

So they have to really figure out what can we do.

So that's when we came back with a new commitment, but they have not yet submitted the application to the county.

There's a lot of paperwork as part of the application that has to be assembled, but we hope to do that very soon.

And then the county, we know the county will have

Dr. Petey and her team and others at the county will be reviewing the application.

There will be some time.

What we recognize is we hope to have an answer before we go to the Board of Supervisors on the rezoning.

That might be a different meeting prior to the board hearing on the rezoning applications.

It might be just earlier in the same meeting.

But we would really need to know at the beginning, prior to the public hearing on the rezonings, whether it'll work or not.

Got it.

It does.

Units?

Well, the proposal is that if the grant is approved, grant tax abatement incentives, that of the total 309 units, 20% of those would be affordable, 10% at 80% AMI and 10% at 60.

All right, so that's a little different than my understanding.

We have to reevaluate and see what works.

That's the challenge.

The grant program is incredibly important to make it work at 60%.

and even that does not cover the gap going from, you know, somebody asked at the beginning, what was the old rules?

I think Mr. Clayborne was you.

Prior to the March 2024 adoption of the new grant program, the expectation was that 15% of new units would be affordable at 80% ANRI for 10 years.

So then you shift it sort of all three tiers or dials, I've heard some people say.

The AMI dial went down to 60, the percentage went from 15 to 20, and the term went from 10 to 30.

So that's substantial financial impact.

So the grant program's just 15% of the total tax.

but it's an important figure regardless.

So it's really important.

So we'll have to, we don't wanna make commitments without knowing what our options will be.

Thank you.

Okay.

Yeah.

Sorry.

Just as a follow-up, every time I think I got it, I don't.

So if the grant falls through,

I know you say you have to go back and look at the numbers and everything, but what policy is in effect if the grant falls through?

Is it back to the 15%?

So there's nothing on the board.

I think the expectation, if I can phrase it that way perhaps, the expectation would be that 20% of the new units would be affordable at 60%.

Oh, at 60.

Maybe, but that's the policy.

Perhaps the board would be flexible on the AMI count as well.

We don't know.

Candidly that's part of the challenges of knowing what to do is what would the board support.

The applicant obviously has to make certain that the commitment is financially viable.

But it's hard to know.

So we're hopeful that the grant program will work out so we can bring the full 20% at that blend.

I think I got it.

Thank you.

Bottom line is that grant program has to work out.

If we don't build phase two at all, currently phase one does not have any affordability restrictions because it was built as a buy-write project.

In practicality, though, some of them will be in the 80 to 120, give or take.

But there's no, right now, there's no inventory that has to be there.

So the inventory becomes

There becomes a potential inventory, to use the good counselors for it, a potential of inventory.

If there's a grant, and if the grant occurs, then it covers the entire property.

Right, and I guess what I'm grappling with, were you better before this policy was even passed, right, where you were almost guaranteed

Theoretically, I guess nothing's guaranteed because there's not an ordinance, but you are almost theoretically guaranteed the 15% at 80.

And now it seems like with this new policy, I'm not sure what you're going to get, right?

We got, we got to scrap and beat and bang to get it because the number has went from 80 to 60.

So I'm almost like, which is better, pre or post?

I don't know.

attract that part, but I'm saying it seemed like more proposals were not even thinking about it as an option.

They were just coming forth as 15%, 80% AMI.

It was almost a given, even though now that I'm thinking about it, in my mind, I always thought it was a requirement until tonight, where clearly it wasn't.

But everything that came before us had that, and now it's a big debate.

So that's the part that I'm really grappling with.

I might suggest, too, that there'll probably be more conversation about this when we go into discussion, because I've got some questions about it, too.

So any other questions for the applicant?

Yes, of course.

I'm not going to ask you about affordable housing.

I wanted to ask a little bit about this layout.

The two units, two apartment buildings that are replacing the rows of parking at the top,

I'm trying to get my head around what those would be like in reality.

I mean, I know you're just showing us brown blobs and you've done some calculation, your engineers have calculated how that breaks out into units, but it just seems like those would not necessarily be very pleasant buildings in the middle of the parking lot.

The other units have trees around them.

I just, can you comment on that?

I don't know that they've designed them yet, but they do have a vision for two-story buildings with garages on the ground floor and units above.

So they were just trying to be creative with infill and using those unused parking areas and adding a variety of unit types as well.

I look at that building in the far corner on the bottom, and I don't have a site survey of this site, I don't know what the soils are like in that corner, but could that building be bigger?

Because that is a much more pleasant place to be located.

You're up high, you're looking down at the pond, you're looking out at the trees.

I see your point.

It certainly makes a lot of sense.

Right.

I see your point.

It kind of seems like it could fit in better.

Right.

You would have all this buffer.

You would have some view.

It would just be more pleasant instead of being stuck in the middle of an urban heat island.

You're surrounded by pavement, all sides.

It does provide, like I said, as I understand it again, I haven't seen any designs, but that there was a vision of maybe having different unit types with the garages that you wouldn't have with typical multifamily as an option.

But it's really good feedback.

In general, I'm supportive of reducing parking and adding units and we applaud

developers for coming forward to try to take advantage of the comp plan and also our expressed desire for density.

So that's all fine.

And I'm not asking you to relay at your site tonight, but just those sort of bothered me.

And I thought, wouldn't it be so much more pleasant if I'm if I'm the new resident, I'm living surrounded by all that buffer and a little bit of peaceful oasis instead of the middle of the parking lot.

So that's OK.

Great.

Any other questions?

Yes, sir.

Just one of the suggestions.

I think there's also another opportunity here, which I hope you'll consider, in that you're removing much parking and you're putting new structures where that parking used to be.

If you were to put green roofs on any of those new buildings, you could go to some great and greatly improved stormwater situations.

So you could take something that was completely impervious surface and now make it something that treated stormwater quality.

Well, hopefully those are all great suggestions and I wasn't aware of your comments earlier about the different types of pervious pavers and how there were better ones than the old ones that had problems.

Yeah, Soil and Water Conservation District has done a lot of work on permeable pavers because that's something that we fund.

All right, any other questions for the applicant?

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

And we'll open it up for public comment now.

I have one person on the sign-up list.

It's Mr. Michael Monaco.

Thank you.

Michael Monaco.

I'm in the Whitehall District.

I also do happen to be the chair of the Crozet Community Advisory Committee, but that's not the capacity I'm here in tonight.

I'm actually here on behalf of Livable Seaville.

That organization wanted to express its support for this plan, this site, this project.

Livable believes this represents a real shot at good, smart growth in the urban core of Albemarle County within the development areas where we should be developing.

This is a development that we believe would make it easier for people to live where they work, work where they live.

All of the improved internal walkability, the added bus shelter, improving that shared use path, that connection along Fifth Street, all of that goes a long way to advancing principles of good, smart development.

especially the reduction in parking spots as well that we believe represents a really forward-looking perspective on mobility and transportation when it comes to new and infill development in Albemarle County.

We also see that this does represent an opportunity to create homes for people at a range of income levels.

We've heard a lot about the ARHIP grant, and I think everyone's fingers are crossed that that process works and works well.

We were glad to see that some people were able to retain housing or remain where they were when Cavalier Crossing changed over, but we know that was disruptive for a lot of people and caused disruption to residents who were there.

So I think I can speak for Livable.

We hope that this represents a chance to create more affordable housing in this spot and really make something positive out of the site where Cavalier Crossing was.

Yeah, we believe that this site plan represents

a project that would advance all of Albemarle County's goals around growth, mobility, housing, and want to express support for that tonight.

Thank you.

Great.

Anyone else in the audience who would like to speak to this?

All right.

Seeing none, is there anyone online?

Great.

Thank you.

Would the applicant like to come back up and speak to anything?

All right.

Thank you.

With that, I'll close the public hearing and open it up for discussion.

So I do want to commend the applicant.

So this is probably the first example that I can think of a meaningful infill project where we're going back and taking advantage of that lost opportunity that we've had in terms of development.

and increasing the density, I would encourage them to look at increasing perhaps even more.

So you have what you're going down from six to 34 units.

And I think you were saying you're going to be somewhere in the 26, 21 to even less.

So obviously there's still the parking considerations, but I think some of the comments that you've heard here today, if you take out those ones in the heat island, the heat island units,

and increase the density of the ones around, you would pick up some parking.

So I would definitely advocate for you to look at higher density and even more infill here.

It's a perfect location for it as has been stated.

So I understand the challenges with the with the affordable units and hopefully the grant will go through and we would be able to get some units at at 60% because

that is not going, it's not becoming less.

EMI continues to grow and grow and grow.

So those numbers just keep getting, they're still not, it's still not what I would consider affordable.

But anyway, the 60 gives you a shot at it.

So that was very well said and echo many of those same sentiments.

I think this project does a lot of nice things.

And again, it's probably the first one I've even seen the 60% come across my desk.

There might be another one I just can't remember, but it's the first one I can actually think of.

I think my comments would be more

Global in Context and How We Work.

And I was saying, as this new album role, housing album role is starting to be picked up, one, track data tightly.

I would love to see us, just as it kind of be like more proactive at, you know, if it's not working, let's get in the room, wrestle with it and figure something out, right?

Like how do we proactively workshop together across all the disciplines and by disciplines that's

Board of Supervisors, us, staff, development, community, like we did two years ago.

This has been on the books for a while, and I just feel like it's moving grossly slowly, and it's not a shot at staff, it's just something's not clicking, right?

Either the money's not working, something's not clicking.

And I would certainly expect to have seen more, like more movement by now.

And I think my biggest fear after hearing this, and I'll go back to

I think the worst thing that happens is you are worse off after this policy than before.

But when we were getting, you know, construction costs have doubled and tripled in some cases.

So I just had some portraits put on and I had my little budget.

Yeah, so it is not the same.

Yeah.

Could I just interrupt for once?

I think we're in discussion.

I think it'd be good, that question of are we worse off would be good.

Can we ask Dr. Pathi to come up and just address that?

Tell us what you think about that comment.

Excuse me.

We're not worse off at the moment because the

The board had asked that Housing Albemarle not be fully implemented until an incentive program was approved.

And so while Housing Albemarle was adopted in 2021, the board did not approve an incentive program until three years later.

So this is really just kicking off now.

What staff has done over those three years is really put the pieces in place that once this incentive was approved, we could start moving forward.

If you look at the affordable units that are already in the pipeline, there's about 2100, 2200, somewhere between, I don't remember the exact number right now.

Those are all at 80% AMI.

But approximately 20% of the population households in the county is at or below 80% AMI.

So 20% of our households cannot afford to purchase any of those proffered units that are in the rent or purchase.

Any of the units that are currently in the pipeline.

Correct.

And so all of the proper units that are currently in the pipeline are priced at 80% AMI.

So they go to a very small group of people, not that 80% AMI households don't deserve to have affordable rents.

It's just we're leaving 20% of our households in the county.

That number is going to grow.

It's growing right now, unfortunately, with the current situation with unemployment going up due to federal layoffs and all of that.

So we're not worse off.

I think staff is getting ready to review Housing Albemarle and look at all these things again.

We are waiting for the new updated housing needs assessment from the Planning District Commission to be completed.

There should be preliminary data that comes out hopefully in January that we can then start to use.

It doesn't make any sense to start messing with the housing policy until we know what the new numbers are.

So that changes are probably coming.

One thing I'm curious to, and I think I'm going to come close on this.

I heard recently that people who can afford 80% AMI are likely not to

I have not heard that.

Those are having difficulty finding people who can qualify to move into those.

But if you look at our current area median income is $125,800 and so for a family of four, that's $100,000 a year salary.

It's just interesting to, you know, when we talk about this in the future, it'd be interesting to know how many, like the 60% am I, they're having difficulty renting them.

It's because of the way the low-income housing tax credit properties work.

And they're just, they struggle to be able to afford those rents.

So those rents are set by the state.

And so people, lower-income households are having difficulties renting those without additional subsidies that currently don't exist.

So there's a lot of things that are playing out.

And if you manage to get on one of those lists, good for you.

Thank you for sharing that.

Glad to hear we're not worse off, right?

And if 80% units come online and are not being used, then maybe it's okay to have just less units in general at 60%.

I don't know if that's the right way of thinking about it, but it sounds like 60% is the sweet spot.

And I'm glad you heard there's some flexibility in how some of those solutions are designed.

It's what I heard from the applicant, like they'll go back and there's a little bit of push and pull with staff on what's acceptable.

Mr. Murray?

Yes.

So, you know, as we went through the AC44 process, you know, we talked about the huge, vast areas of unused parking in Albemarle County.

And so I'm very excited to see a project like this come forward, where we can start to address that issue.

And I hope as we look at projects like this, we can start thinking about, you know, how we calculate the capacity of the growth area.

Because I think this demonstrates that we have a lot more capacity than we're actually

we're actually using.

I think also what this calls out to me too is that if during AC44 we had said we were going to expand the development area, we would have made projects like this not viable.

Well said, thanks.

Commissioner Bivins?

Well you know of course I have to take issue with my colleagues last statement because saying that if we had larger if we had added additional parcels

does not align with an owner who's presently looking how to maximize his or her current parcel.

So owners of units are not going to necessarily go to a different place to do units because there's a whole different set of construction costs that go with a greenfield than it is in an existing property where they can go to, they can engage in conversations about investments.

Those are very different projects.

So whether or not I build something from scratch or I come and I'm going to renovate in this particular place, investors will come to different types of projects depending on their risk and depending on how long they want to be in the game.

So there's a balance there that I think is perhaps being not fully appreciated when we say if we had increased something, we would have done away with something like this.

What I will say,

is that what investors are doing in this particular environment they're in, they're having to play interest rate games.

And you're having to do that over 30 years as I'm having to commit funds for a long period of time where I can't predict as an investor what my cost of money is going to be or what my opportunity cost for money is going to be.

So if anything, if I were looking at something, I'd say, you need to reduce the length of time if you're trying to attract people.

Now, maybe you do something with percentages.

I don't know.

But I think asking someone to say that they're going to freeze their funds for 30 years is always going to say, I'm not going to do that in today's environment.

in today's environment where interest is not, where money is moving at very different clips and there are other ways that I can invest my money.

What I think and what I recall is that, remember, we used to be able to get a different type of affordability when we looked at density bonuses.

that there was a nexus between I want my density and therefore if I want my density, then I've got to bring something to the table.

To the moment that we keep, that the message is to developers, do it by right, we will never, in fact, we will often put in place barriers for that kind of affordability because I don't have to deal with the foolishness and I'm using these terms intentionally.

And so what we are, what I think,

The conversation, the sort of community conversation at some point will be how do we sort of give some, provide a bit of flexibility to both the county and developers so that they can come to a place where they can have areas of adjustments.

so that they can think about how do we do this in a way that both achieves your investment and achieves our significant increase in housing that is supportive of our needs.

And I will say, as I've always said, folks, this is also about the economy of this area and what our job profiles look like.

and we can talk about all the affordable housing we want, but unless we make as a community significant changes in what our job profiles look like, this problem is always gonna be with us, it's gonna get worse.

Because we're gonna see the movement moving apart significantly, more moving apart of those who have assets and those who don't have the ability to even create assets.

So I got off of that little bit of half there.

One of the things that I was concerned about here, and we talk about this in places that are much more affluent than this, is that we have a park.

Azalea Park is right there.

There.

It's right there.

I can't get any of those people there.

I can't get a single person to Azalea Park.

Now, I'm hoping that someone is going to say that there's a big discussion going on between the city and the county so that we could get people there.

But it seems to me we've done that thing that we often do, is that we create spaces that have access to all the car-driven parts.

and here's a place where we could have an interesting mobility to either a walkable, a strollable, or a bicycle, or it's probably a better word than that, or a bikeable park and they can't get there.

They can't get there.

And so this is the thing was we're talking about the use of land.

We also sort of talk about how we get people to places so they can use the full suite of land that's available to us.

Chair?

Yes, if you don't mind.

Just to let you know that indeed one of the projects that we are

Moving towards actually bid, coming up here is a sidewalk project that will link up here on the left hand side of the screen where the entrance is on to Old Lynchburg to go to the north to go underneath the interstate, a new sidewalk system.

We tried to work with VDOT to get that to be a shared use path a little bit.

We had a lot of issues in engineering.

Long story, but to tell you the long and short of it, at least we'll be able to get to the other side of 64 where Havana Trail is there.

Of course, the city bought recently the portion of Azalea Park.

They've expanded it to include everything between the Moores Creek and the interstate.

So yes, you'll be able to get to

Zoe Park with us.

We're working on lots of other things.

because we're also looking at that project further up that I think Riverbend did.

And one of the things they said that they were going to spill some of their people onto a road further down there.

So we're creating this sort of energy there.

And it's not real when you drive down that road to go where Fry Springs, Fry Springs, that thing is over there.

It's that is not it is not conducive to people who are not in vehicles.

And so that's an area that we're going to be pouring people into as a sort of a common relationship between us.

We should be thinking about how we make that area conducive to folks who do not have vehicles.

Yeah, I think other folks have mentioned several thoughts that are similar to mine in terms of this proposal.

I like things about it.

I like that the developer is willing to work with county staff and try and get affordable housing in there.

I like the willingness to consider, you know, even more density.

It's a good location for it.

It's right in the development area and it's, it's sort of ripe for some of that.

And I think having agreement from, from both Louisville Seville and the Piedmont Environmental Council in our, in our notes and our emails here, it's like, Oh, okay.

I do think, you know, there's a, there's a headline that I very distinctly remember from last year in Charlottesville tomorrow.

talking about this property.

Long in the tooth perhaps, but it was really cheap.

You know, folks were living there for $560 a month.

Now that was for a room.

That was a bedroom in an apartment with roommates.

And you can't find that anywhere here.

A scant few places in this area, you know, for that kind of thing.

You know, I was just looking at the AMI for a one-person household.

It's about $85,000.

And so even at 60% AMI, that gets us an affordable rent of like $1,300 a month.

So for the folks that were living there, and the county stepped up and found some funds to help them relocate that kind of thing.

Some are there now.

I know you all are working with them.

It's just really

I cannot imagine, you know, like, I got this good rent thing going and then, oh, it's actually gonna be two and a half times what it was.

And I can't fault this particular applicant, right?

I mean, Bonaventure is a company and companies are going to be companies very long if they don't make a profit.

And I would say, you know, for a private company, they're willing to work with county staff on this.

I just think, though, that if we zoom out, we're really still failing at homes for people who work for wages.

We're using a carrot that's kind of hard to understand to get private developers to carry water for us on this.

And what I think we still need is a social housing sector.

You know, this should have been bought by the county and operated as a social good.

And it wasn't.

And so we have a good private proposal here.

Interesting, thanks.

I'll throw out a couple of thoughts and really a lot of these I won't restate what a lot of folks have said with the exception of obviously promoting infill.

It's key.

Adding the shared use path I think is key.

The parking has always been an issue, right, that we've talked about and this is a great example of how I think best to use excessive parking for additional units.

I would say that we would want to in the minutes just and I know the Board of Supervisors is hearing this from all of us that we are strongly in support of the application of the RHIP

Grant, and then we would strongly request that that be done.

I mean, I think this is a case study.

It's a bit of a study out in front of the rest as we've discussed.

And I would also say to the applicant with

It would be great to get some feedback on how this is going and where it can be improved in advance of maybe those discussions that we would have, as Commissioner Clayborne recommended, which I completely agree with, a continued dialogue with developers, staff, and others.

So I think all of those things resonate, I hope, with everyone else that basically was repeating what most people said.

And I also would like to echo that tracking the data, the metrics piece that you mentioned as well.

I think that was really important.

So with that, I'll entertain a motion.

Is there anyone who'd like to make a motion?

It is, I'm happy to make a motion.

All right, I've moved to recommend, well, I guess I should ask this before I make this motion.

Is there any discussion on the steep slopes?

I assume not.

We would have probably covered that, but just want to double check.

OK.

All right, so I'm going to make two motions.

I move to recommend approval of ZMA 2025-4 attained on 5th, phase 2, R10 to PRD for the reasons stated in the staff report.

Second.

Any discussion?

Yes.

Mr. Bivins.

Aye.

Ms.

Firehock.

Aye.

Thank you.

Thanks to the applicant too.

Appreciate everything you've done.

All right.

We move on.

We are done with the public hearing.

We're moving on to committee reports.

And open it up for anybody.

Obviously, a reminder that I think Thursday night is the All CAC meeting here, right?

I don't know if everybody's able to attend, but those are always fascinating.

So that would be great.

Any other committee reports?

So we lost our meeting space for affordable housing for historic preservation because of the voting, early voting that has kind of taken over the building where we meet.

There's no room for us to meet here anymore.

Mr. Murray, did you have anything?

Yeah, I was just going to mention at the October MPO tech meeting there's a significant discussion about the

The interchange over on Barracks Road and a lot of interest there in terms of how pedestrian traffic would be accommodated there.

Because one of the proposals is talking about increasing the lanes to two lanes there.

And so there's currently a lot of people that walk along that area to get from some housing developments in Charlottesville.

I thought there was a very interesting discussion that that was brought up as a concern.

And so it's something I think that I'm certainly going to be more engaged with.

But I hope the rest of you will look at that too.

All right, no other reports.

We'll move on to review the Board of Supervisors meeting from October 15th.

Thank you, sir.

So on October 15th, we had one item considered in the evening, and that was the adoption of something perhaps you've heard of, the AC44 comprehensive plan, which was adopted that evening.

Great.

And it was, by the way, followed by a round of applause.

So congratulations again.

I will say, I said it to the board, and I'll say it to you all, thank you all.

You know, it's a pleasure coming back to work in Albemarle County.

The quality of the discussion that happens at the Planning Commission, while sometimes long, is always interesting.

Thank you.

New or old, but it is question on, so we got the change for the four.

Were you going to update?

Yeah, two things.

First of all, as you mentioned, tomorrow is, or excuse me, this Thursday will be the all ACA, all CAC meeting.

It's not intended to be a public meeting for the Planning Commission.

If you all attend, which we'd encourage you to, you don't certainly have to, but if you would like to attend, we just ask that you not discuss

You know, you participate in the meeting and not discuss business between yourselves, various applications and what have you before us because that would run afoul of public notice and FOIA regulations.

Okay.

So we have two people come into the meeting, and maybe Julian.

You all just can't congregate and speak about business.

So you can be in the same room.

It's not a meeting.

Just don't clump together and start discussing matters.

And then the other.

Birds of a Feather fly together.

The other item is Belvedere.

You know, we were trying to get it on the 25th, and that's why we were working to see if we could accommodate it with the earlier work session.

Now that it's moving to December 9th, we're just going to go ahead on the 25th and hold it at the normal time, that meeting at 6 p.m.

So no early work session.

Okay, we're not moving it to the fourth.

Okay, great.

It will be at six o'clock on the 25th and six o'clock on the ninth.

Yes.

Yes.

I do actually.

It's on your schedule.

And I believe Carolyn sent out something either yesterday or today.

Same meeting as Belvidere.

All right.

With that, I will close the Planning Commission meeting and adjourn us until Tuesday, November 18th at 6 p.m.