Architectural Review Board Meeting   6/21/2021

Super.

Great.

Yes, we are.

Super.

Thank you.

All right.

Well, it's 1.01 p.m. And so I will call to order the June 21st, 2021 meeting of the Albemarle County Architectural Review Board.

This meeting is being held pursuant to and in compliance with ordinance 20-A16, an ordinance to ensure the continuity of government during the COVID-19 disaster.

A quorum is present.

Architectural review board members present electronically are Frank Hancock, Chris Henningsen, Frank Stoner, and myself, Dade Van Der Werf.

Opportunities for public access to this meeting are posted on the county's website at the county calendar.

The public has real time audio visual access to this meeting over Zoom and real time audio access over telephone, both as provided in the lawfully posted meeting notice.

This meeting is being recorded and will be made available on the county's website.

This online meeting is a public record and subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act.

For all speakers, when it's your turn to speak, please first state your name for the record.

And for everyone participating today, please keep your microphone muted unless it's your turn to speak.

For applicants making presentations, note that the presentation is limited to a total of 15 minutes, which you can divide among your team members as you see fit.

Carolyn will let us know when the 15 minutes are up.

Next item is disclosures.

Do any board members have anything to disclose today?

No, I don't.

Nor do I.

All right.

Next section is public comment.

Thank you very much.

There are no items on the consent agenda, so we will go to the regular review.

There is one regular review item today that will be presented by Margaret Maliszewski from the Planning Division of Community Development.

Margaret, will you share with us ARB 2021-51?

Great.

Make one more adjustment here.

OK, this is a proposal to expand the existing Crozet Animal Wellness Center with an addition on the front of the existing building.

and also to expand parking and to undertake related site improvements.

The property is located at 1100 Crozet Avenue.

It's on the west side of the street and it's a short distance south of both Jarman's Gap Road and Tabor Street.

Special use permit was approved early this year to allow the expansion of the existing veterinary clinic.

The current plan shows phase one of the existing, excuse me, phase one of the proposed expansion.

The future phase would include a new building close to the street.

The issues we identified in the staff report were all related to either landscaping or lighting.

We identified no issues related to the architectural design of the addition.

Visibility of the existing building is reduced due to the distance from the street and the curve in the road, though some existing trees that currently provide screening are proposed to be removed.

The architectural forms and features that are proposed in the addition are consistent in character and scale with the nearby buildings.

The landscaping issues identified in the staff report

include an insufficient number of trees along the frontage, along the south side of the driveway, and along the east and south sides of the parking lot.

The lighting issues we identified are related to the color temperature of the fixtures and various notes on the plan.

Note that proposed light levels do reach a maximum of 19.6 foot candles, and we recommended that the applicant consider reducing those levels given the character of the surrounding area.

We've listed those recommendations in the staff report as preliminary comments to be addressed in the final cycling of the middle to the Airbnb.

However, given the limited nature of the comments, the Airbnb may feel that the application does not need to return for a full review.

In that case, your action could be a vote for approval with commissions.

That's the end of my presentation.

Thank you very much, Margaret.

Thanks, Margaret.

I kind of missed the last thing you said that if maybe if I paraphrase that if we're OK with everything, we can move to certificate of program.

This is OK. That was the only question I had.

Thank you, Frank.

Margaret, I guess I'm wondering about the landscaping requirements, particularly those that would be impacted by the phase two development.

And I'm wondering if is that the reason why they're not currently showing the additional landscaping?

Is there an intent, I guess, to build phase two?

Some of those questions may be

that are answered by the applicant.

Since there is a phase two in the conceptual plans, I assume that they're still prepared to move forward with that.

Your guidelines are guidelines, and so you can take those sorts of characteristics or features into consideration when you're applying the guidelines.

Thank you, Frank.

I don't have a question.

Thank you.

I don't have any questions either.

Thank you, Margaret.

Hi, I'm Mike Whittig with Blue Line.

I'm the architect, and I will share my screen.

So as Ms. Maliszewski indicated, it's a single story structure currently, and we'll be expanding approximately a 3,000 square foot footprint, two stories, to house an expanding business for a veterinary clinic.

We'll be adding

lobby area and exam rooms and converting the existing building into more back of the house space, treatment areas, expanded surgery and some channeling opportunities.

Part of what we dealt with in terms of exterior design, you know, dealing with regulations for the architecture review board is that it sits primarily in a residential district.

So looking at context, we

We know that we're a business in that residential aspect and we wanted to try to strike a hybrid approach to remain in context with the building and still stay true to the surrounding neighbors.

So try to find a kind of a hybrid approach in terms of materials and massing and so forth.

So we've created two main masses to the building.

The larger one is the lobby area, the main entrance.

So it's created with a little more height, a little more prominence to indicate that that is the entrance.

We have a porch along the outside at the owner's request for

Warmer weather days when her clients and patients come in, they can sit on the porch and wait outside and perhaps it's a friendly environment for them rather than be around some other animals for certain animals.

The longer wing is primarily where exam rooms and office space and so forth are.

Try to limit the height, just create some difference between the two wings.

making the wing with the exam room a little lower.

Again, the larger mass with the lobby a little more prominent.

As far as exterior materials go, a lot of the neighboring houses and so forth have brick foundation bases or masonry foundations with siding above.

We've tried to maintain that general aesthetic as well.

Again, the surrounding context, the houses are a little older, so we're trying to maintain some traditional aspects of those houses.

As far as the wing, instead of having a long uninterrupted wing, we've tried to break it up, break the facade up with this vertical element that

breaks the masonry and so forth to try to give it a little interest and not have it look so uniform.

I'll cycle through some of the views that we have for the building.

This is from the northeast, and then the northwest, and then coming back around to the southwest, following up with a few perspective views.

As far as landscaping goes, Justin Shimp, I believe, is on the call.

Hello, everyone.

Yes, Justin Shimp.

I could address a few of those items.

Margaret, could you bring up that nice little exhibit you have showing the elements of concern of landscaping?

I can explain a couple of those.

We have some flexibility, but there was some logic to what we did, and we can walk through that and see what the board thinks.

Okay.

Yes.

So there were, so first of all, the lighting comments, those are things we need to clean up.

We'll have to talk to the owner about exactly how bright they want the frontage.

We may have it a little brighter than is necessary, but we'll address all those.

Not an issue at all.

And then on the landscaping, this is part of a future phase project.

I don't know what the current timing is.

Maybe Mike would know that exactly on sort of when phase two might occur, if that's a year or two or longer out.

But there's a few conflicts potentially with that.

On the front, we could put a couple more trees there, but there are some

existing Sycamore trees that are going to become fairly sizable.

So there's actually, if you look at the screens, a cluster of three up at the kind of north corner, and there's a couple more on the frontage.

So there's really technically three or four along there existing.

I think five would be required.

So I mean, we can put two more trees in there that may become one of these situations where in the future to satisfy the zoning for the downtown Crozet district.

We have to put a future building directly up on that street, which might make a challenge for landscaping, but that may be a problem for down the road.

So I think if we need to plant two more trees for the time being, we're okay with that.

Same trees on the left side of the travelway, that's fine.

We can add a couple of trees there.

Where on the south side, that arrow there, the problem there is there's a big utility storm drain there.

So we could not plant trees in that location.

That's whether or not they're, and we can't really move our parking lot.

You know, obviously working with an existing entrance and existing building or constrained a bit.

So on that one, we'd have to ask the board to sort of use your discretion in the guidelines and say, well, this circumstance, you know, we just can't make that work.

Existing utilities, existing road, existing buildings, it's just a different kind of site.

And then on the other, the edge of the parking lot,

There's a large holly tree there.

There are some of the trees there now.

That's where the, you know, obviously an expanded parking lot would go that direction in the future.

So those trees would be taken out at some point.

But again, that could be more than a couple of years from now.

I can't say that exactly what the timing is unless Mike knows more than I do at recent.

But that's why we left those off is that, you know, with the landscaping from the frontage and then the existing rather little triangle.

I think it's a big holly bush or tree.

We felt like additional landscaping there wasn't needed.

I don't know if they're opposed to putting in a tree or two, but it's also, they would be taken out at some point when it's expanded and given the setback from the entrance corridor and we could provide the shrubs.

It just didn't seem necessary.

So again, that's one where we prefer not to install new trees there only because we don't think they'll add too much and they'll be taken out.

But if we need to, we will.

And then the others, some we can comply with.

Thank you.

Any other presentation for the applicant?

I'll invite my colleagues if they have any questions.

Thanks, Dave.

I guess the only question, and it's really more curiosity than anything else, is it looks like you guys have elected to use dark trim for the most part on everything except the front columns.

That's a great point.

And I'll be honest, I don't have the best answer for that.

Gotcha.

Okay.

Thanks.

Thank you.

I don't have any questions either.

Thank you.

I apologize.

My connection dropped out as you were answering.

Mike, the question about trim, I had a question about that too.

I know frequently trim traditionally here is a lighter color than the building.

Yes, we're open to that fact.

To do lighter trim, I have no objections to that.

The answer that I gave was leaving the white columns just to kind of emphasize the main entry just as a contrasting color.

But if

You know, to be in context, white trim is probably a little more in line with what is in the neighboring buildings.

I think the owner has a desire for perhaps a little more modern approach.

So that was the reasoning for the dark trim.

Well, thank you.

Let's see.

And then I appreciate the use of sort of a traditional house domestic form to relate to the local condition.

I guess frequently in sort of development over time, the wings will be secondary to the original structure.

And I guess that narrative is evident here sort of to the extent the long building with the exam rooms is

We've looked at that and the fact we're pretty tight for space with the parking lot and with the desire to have the porch on the front of the building is in large part what drove that decision.

I get what you're saying

and seeing that being proud that the wing would make it a little more prominent and be in line more with some of the traditional aspects.

Justin, I don't know if that's, we've talked about that prior in coordination meetings.

I don't know if that would be something that would be possible given sign constraints.

Really, I believe if I recall correctly,

The fact that the grade is kind of the driving factor on that.

As we move farther from the building, we're getting deeper into the ground.

That's right.

We really don't want to push the parking lot any further up the hill than we have it.

Nothing's impossible, certainly, but there is a purpose for the layout.

There's also this idea of a future expansion, and that requires more space, and pushing that up the hill is something that we would like to avoid.

We're trying to get a little more landscaping space in front of the building, which we would sacrifice a little of that if we pushed that out.

So I don't want to say it's impossible.

I think it's undesirable from a site layout standpoint, site grading.

And it was also spatially, whether you need more room into that part of the building or not is a question too, I think.

Well, thank you.

I appreciate that additional background.

given the location on site and the likelihood of a frontage building in the future.

It's not a critical issue for me.

It's an existing easement that actually the county

Oh, okay.

For the Crozet streetscape.

Okay.

Thank you for that clarification.

I don't have any other questions.

Thank you.

We'll go into discussion.

Sure, yeah.

I did not have any concerns with the building.

I think it's a successful kind of application of the guidelines and I like how the mass is broken up to try and bring it down to that residential scale that the surroundings have.

My tendency would be to be a little

lenient on the landscaping requirements for two reasons.

One, because of the setback from the road.

And secondly, because of the possibility of a phase two that's going to more directly address the street.

I'm more inclined to let it go as proposed, but

Yeah, obviously, I'm willing to go either way on it.

Thanks.

Great.

Thank you, Chris.

I don't have any real concerns either.

I would probably echo Chris's sentiments with regard to the landscaping.

I think if they can plant a couple more trees out front, that'd be great.

I don't see much sense in planting trees that if there's a good chance those trees will have to come out and if it doesn't really have much impact on the visibility of the structure.

In terms of the architecture,

To me, it feels like a little bit of a mixed metaphor.

It's traditional forms.

I'm kind of with you.

The trim feels a little bit awkward and dark, but I also understand the applicant's desire to create something that feels a little more contemporary.

To your point, I wonder if you could break up some of that mass or address your concern with regard to the prominence of the primary facade, which is very sort of residential in size and scale.

Maybe changing the color of the siding on that piece just to create, I guess, that sense that things were added over time.

The primary form kind of maintains its integrity.

Thank you very much, Frank.

Yes, thank you for

Your presentation, Mike, I think I agree with my colleagues on the architecture and kind of what's in the staff report.

And I appreciate the kind of explanation behind your design thinking and kind of what you were setting out to do.

I think with the kind of exaggerated roof and with the front canopy,

and that bump out all in the main mass maybe kind of overcompensates a little bit or allows for the fact that that secondary mass is the one that's further out.

So I kind of think that's okay.

I think those elements maybe give it that prominence.

I think, so architecturally, I think, you know, I think it's appropriate contextually

material-wise, I think all that.

I think the white columns, I think that fits in, so I don't have any issues with that.

The landscaping, I do think there's a pretty big mass of plantings that are gonna be removed that really block the view now to the existing building.

And I think having some plantings along the frontage side of that parking lot,

would be important.

I understand the constraint on the eastern side, and I think maybe plantings on the ends, kind of the islands could maybe do the job there, but I think some large deciduous trees or something to kind of break up that, you know, I think you're gonna be able to see the whole extent of this building from the corridor.

So I do, I think,

I agree with staff's comment of adding the trees along the parking side that faces the entrance corridor.

That's all I have.

Thank you very much, Frank.

Yeah, I think like my colleagues, I think I'm inclined to leniency for the majority of the landscape conditions.

I appreciate Frank's concern about the appearance to the corridor, and I think would share his thought that it makes sense to include plantings at the east side of the parking to be sure that in the interim that the building is somewhat screened.

Again, appreciate the applicant's additional background on the siding and the massing.

And I think, you know, while it would be

more in line with the typical development for the massing to adjust.

I don't have any objection to it in this condition and situation.

And appreciate the applicant's openness to considering other trim colors.

And again, I think I put that in the category of considering.

I think in addition to being maybe more traditional, it might make the roof somewhat less massive in terms of the treatment of the cornice.

But certainly open and appreciate

the client being interested in finding contemporary ways to express those building traditions.

I just realized I might've had my cardinal directions wrong with the parking lot, but I might've referred to the east wrong, but I guess

Constrained condition is the south edge where the pipe is.

So that's where I think I would be willing to concede that trees are not required.

No, no, that's all right.

I've got the comments that were in the staff report on the screen.

I've added number eight in red, considered lighter trim colors for the building.

The two that I've highlighted in green are the recommendations about the trees.

Six talks about the south side of the driveway, seven large trees along the east and south sides of the parking lot.

So it sounds like there were some mixed comments there.

I think so, looking at number six, I would be okay to keep that.

That's along the driveway coming in, correct?

And there are no constraints there with utilities or anything.

In number seven, I think we would strike the south side of the parking lot, is that correct?

That's where that pipe runs between the parking lot and the property line.

But those are just my thoughts.

I think you had a good point about the existing plantings that are being taken out.

Can I just clarify what we're

The exact location of the trees we're talking about on the east side, I guess.

There are trees up on Crozet Avenue.

It looked like there were a couple additional trees, right, Margaret?

My understanding, these additional trees would be kind of immediately adjacent to the parking lot.

Right.

So the recommendation is to add trees immediately along the east side of the parking lot.

That's the street side of the parking lot.

And then to add trees along with up much closer to the street to bring the planting there and to meet what the guidelines call for.

Yeah, I guess I'm just wondering whether we need both of those or whether you have to either or.

And I think that's sensible to me, I guess, to Frank Stoner, sorry, Frank Hancock's point, since it's sort of indefinite when that other development may happen, I think,

I'm okay with it.

Okay.

Well, good.

I have the wording for the two different actions you can take.

If you don't feel like you need it to come back to you again, and then if you do want to see it again, you would just be providing comments for the next review in which case you wouldn't have to make a motion.

Sorry, go ahead, Frank.

Margaret, we would be approving the preliminary site plan.

Would the architecture come back for a certificate of appropriateness?

A final site plan submittal would still be needed.

The architecture would still be required to come in with that again.

So if anything

Big change or anything out of the ordinary was showing, we could still bring it back to you.

The material and color samples would be required with that submittal.

And again, if that's something you all want to see, we can make that happen.

Thank you.

Proceeding through this route with the preliminary site plan and then only if anything major changes then it comes back.

Thank you, Frank.

I'll move for approval of the preliminary site plan for ARB-2021-51

Crozet Animal Wellness with the conditions listed in the staff report amended as follows.

Edit item number seven to strike the words and south.

Thank you.

Is there a second?

I'll second.

Yes.

Yeah, thank you very much, everyone.

Thank you to the applicant.

All right.

Next item today, we don't have any work session.

So there's one other business item for discussion, a status update on the entrance corridor guidelines.

Sure.

So I can share, let me share my screen.

So at our last meeting, we decided that to move forward with Route 151 and coming up with a format to bring all the information.

Well, let me back up.

So a couple of meetings ago,

We came up with the outline of all the information, the different types of information that we thought should be included in each of these one-pager documents.

And then at our last meeting, we decided we'd try and work through Route 151 pulling all those different pieces of information together from the PowerPoint presentation that Frank did and see how that would progress.

So I put together this PowerPoint template to see if it would work, if it would help.

And I'll just run through this quickly.

And everyone can see the PowerPoint there?

Good.

So I'm just trying to make up pages for each so that everyone could pull the information from the presentations they already put together and just running through the outline that we had all reviewed.

So we talked about each one of these one pages needing a map of the corridor, defining the extent of the segments.

So these are the maps that were in Frank's original presentation.

So I just plopped those in.

We talked about having a

A very brief statement about the history of the corridor.

I think this is something that staff will need to provide.

And so I put a little blurb in here about Route 151, just saying it was established in 1990.

Talk about the extent of it and noting that it falls within the Greenwood Acton National Registry District.

Then a series of a few slides here.

that would provide a place to put the images of the significant historic sites that are within the corridor.

What we're talking about here, we said we should have a photo, we should have a construction date, and a statement about the significance.

That wasn't all totally available in the presentation, but this is just sort of a template.

So just pulling what I could to show how it might work, and a couple other blank slides there for other significant historic sites.

and we said we wanted historic use patterns.

Wasn't really sure from the presentation that I didn't find anything really easily to pick out, but that's something that's in the outline and we'd want to sort of work through that.

Also, elements of orderly and attractive development, predominant landscape characteristics, which had a, that item had a number of sort of subsections to it.

One,

being natural landscape features and characteristic vegetation.

So I pulled this image out of Frank's presentation talking about rolling terrain and mountain views beyond.

Another item there dealing with landscape features and their characteristics, the three or four board fences that align the perimeters of the properties that seem to be an important item there.

Patterns of organized site development layout, we need images for that, images for visual order and common harmonizing elements, images of integrated buildings within the environment.

Now we get to architectural characteristics with images showing scale and form and materials and colors.

And almost at the end, features of pre-entrance quarter development to avoid, there weren't

I'm not sure if there were any in Frank's presentation or not.

There might be some discussion that might need to go on there, decide which is which.

And then a list of ARB approved development was an item we talked about near the end of the discussion about including, and that's something that staff will work on to put that together for each one.

So, I don't know, Frank, do you wanna,

Yeah, I did.

And I mean, I think the information in our outline is

is important.

I guess the anxiety I was having as I considered the materials and research that would be needed to kind of fill in each one of those is that you could end up with a small book, particularly for the larger corridors where you have

lots of architectural precedents in the quarters long and the character changes and so I thought just a conversation amongst us about how far do we want to go with it and is there

Can we identify sort of critical elements that could be summarized on a page?

And maybe there's an appendix that then could be referred to.

I don't know.

It just, it felt like a lot of, potentially a lot of images to help illustrate whatever characteristics we're talking about or just keeping track of significant historic sites on some corridors could involve

You know, many images.

So we'd love to just have a conversation with the rest of the board about, you know, kind of where to go with this.

151 is not so much of a problem because they're, you know, one, it's a two mile corridor.

Two, there's almost no architectural, significantly historic architectural features.

So

You know, I think, Frank, yeah, I agree.

It's definitely a lot to gather.

I think if we think of 250 as breaking it down into segments, I think they probably become as manageable as

as 151, but as we then contemplate the larger project of the overall county, it does suggest that it's quite a lot.

I guess in some ways, would it be fair to say that this might be the appendix and by populating this, we would be creating the resources that staff would then condense into the one-pager?

Is that the thought, Margaret?

But yeah, I appreciate, Margaret, as well, you're creating this format, highlighting the different elements to be looking for.

But I don't know, Frank and Chris, for everyone, to the extent that we're either volunteering ourselves or not for it.

Yeah, my feeling is it seems like a lot.

And I think generally more information is better.

You know, using 151 as an example, you know, a lot of the criteria is just not applicable to that corridor.

And, you know, it is a two mile corridor that doesn't really have too much on it.

So I think maybe we need to come up with a very condensed, you know,

a literal one-pager and maybe work backwards and more granular to more like what we have here to consider.

And some of the corridors, I guess 151 being a prime example, like would just need a one-pager basically.

So, but I think what,

What you did is really good in terms of, you know, providing as much information as we possibly can for an applicant.

Does the applicant see this PowerPoint?

My thought was then

Gotcha.

Yeah, because there's still a fair amount to present, for us to present.

Well, that's true.

My concern is I'd like to get sort of through.

Yeah.

Margaret, can you go back to the outline of the front?

Well, I think what I can do is try to get this filled out as best I can for 151.

And then, Margaret, I guess you guys could take that, sort of condense it in whatever fashion feels appropriate.

We could review it again.

And just in the process of condensing, you may come to other conclusions about how we need to do this.

I'll do that and I'll have it ready for the next meeting or I can have it ready in advance of that.

Send it over to you.

I'll just, I'll plan on having it done by the end of the week.

And then you guys, hopefully, would that give you enough time, Margaret, to kind of condense it in, try to condense it into a one pager?

I think if we're going to go to trouble to fill out this PowerPoint,

for the various corridors, just to save effort on your part, maybe to Frank Hancock's point, maybe just take the PowerPoint and it becomes the appendix.

And you just have the one pager and people can refer back to the PowerPoint if they need to.

I wonder as we just walk through 151, for example, when you, historic use patterns is pretty easy.

I don't know.

That could be defined in a narrative format, I assume.

Let's see which one is that.

That's the, we can stay on here for a minute.

Okay.

Key elements of orderly and attractive development that contribute to unity and coherence.

Do you see that as a narrative as well?

Well, I was imagining that we would be able to find an image for everything.

Yeah, well, I think in this example, I put the,

the board fence in under design landscape features.

I suppose if you had a property that had created a berm along the street and landscaped that, that might fall into that.

If there were, I don't know, maybe like if we were looking at 29 North, it might be, you know, you're very,

regular alternating trees with a row of shrubs along the parking lot.

That would be a pretty standard design landscape feature on that commercial corridor.

Great.

And I think if ultimately, you know, there are a few blanks remaining, you know, that will be all right.

Just I think gathering all we can.

And then Frank, thank you for trying this out.

Sort of a first pass, I think, you know, based on what you find in this next run through, I think there's a possible way forward.

We could maybe divide up 250 West into the various segments and then,

take it on, maybe take five of those segments, I think out of maybe 10 that are there and learn some more and then gradually perfect this tool.

Great.

Well, Margaret, thank you for this outline.

Frank, thank you also for all your work, trying it out and look forward to taking the next steps together.

for our next meeting.

Thank you all for continuing to work on it.

Well, and thank you, Margaret.

All right, our last item is to adopt the minutes of the June 7th meeting.

Is there a second?

Mr. Hancock.

Aye.

Great.

All right.

Well, our next meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, July 6th, just after the July 4th holiday.

I will be.

Great.

Super.

Looks like we'll have a quorum.

I did end up watching the video and will add my voice opinion to the fact that I think the virtual meeting is a good format moving forward.

I don't know if I ever, I did not do the survey, unfortunately.

I meant to do that and missed that.

Thank you, Frank.

I agree.

It's been quite effective and efficient from my perspective.

Wonderful.

All right.

Well, thank you, everybody, for your time today.