Architectural Review Board Meeting   2/6/2023

All right, well, by my watch, it's 1.03 p.m.

I'm calling the February 6, 2023 meeting of the Albemarle County Architecture Review Board to order.

Yes.

Mr. Stoner?

Here.

All right, thanks.

Today's meeting is a hybrid meeting.

The public may access and participate in the meeting electronically.

Instructions for doing so are posted on the Albemarle County website at the Albemarle County calendar.

The public has real-time audio visual access to this meeting over Zoom and real-time audio access over telephone.

Both is provided in the lawfully posted meeting notice.

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

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

All speakers, when it is your turn to speak, please first state your name for the record.

Applicants who are making presentations, note that your presentation is limited to a total of 15 minutes, which you can divide among your team members.

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

If applicants in the meeting room

have team members attending virtually who will need to present.

Please make that known when you come to the podium.

Everyone who is participating virtually, please mute your microphone until it is your turn to speak.

Yes, I have something to disclose.

All right, thanks a lot.

We'll move to the consent agenda.

There is one consent agenda item today, which is ARB-2022-111, Gold Eagle Pool and Health Club.

All right.

Thank you.

I'll second the motion.

All right.

Thank you.

Sure.

Mr. Henningsen?

Alright, thank you.

Uh we do not have any regular review items today.

So, we'll move right into our work session.

Uh there's one work session today.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you for your time today.

Let's get rolling.

Okay, great.

So today we're going to be reviewing the draft entrance corridor addenda for the northern section of Route 20, which goes from Prophet Road at the north to the intersection of Route 250 East.

This corridor we laid out to incorporate the whole of Route 20 in the county, which has a total length of 22.3 miles.

4.9 is in the northern portion, and the remaining 17.4 is in the southern portion.

So today we'll be looking at the northern portion again, which has been divided into two segments, Stony Point Rural and Rivanna Neighborhood.

This sheet provides the history of the full context of the corridor and then the next sheet with the general characteristics and zoning is really at this time only focused on the northern portion and we'll add the southern portion in as that is surveyed and we have the information at that point.

So onto the first segment, the northerner segment is four miles in length and primarily rural.

The road is fairly narrow alternating in heavily wooded borders and open views of rolling lawns and local topography.

The developments along the segment are primarily residential with older residences set back a ways from the road while newer buildings have narrower setbacks.

This is the precedent image sheet for the segment.

And then the southern segment we're calling Rivanna Rural, or I'm sorry, Rivanna Neighborhood.

And that begins at the Duryer Drive and Cassian Farm Road intersection, which is where we identified not only the transition between segments, but it also is the transition between the rural area at the north and the development area at the south as you enter the Pantops development area.

So we thought it was a natural breaking point.

Along the travelway, the Cascadia development signals the beginning of the development area and as development continues to become more dense and uses become more frequent and varied in the area as the road approaches the 250 East corridor and central spine, if you will, of Pantops.

And then this is the precedent sheet.

We've noted a couple of areas where we'd like to get our own shots.

as it continues to develop out.

And that's essentially what we have for the northern portion of the Route 20 corridor.

All right, I guess I'll just go through and ask individual members if they have questions or comments.

I don't have any questions.

Taro?

Well, I think this looks great.

Thank you for continuing this effort.

So in the one at the top right, what I'm hoping to capture is that right now it looks like a Google Street View has more of a construction site going on.

So what we'd like to capture is maybe a full bloom kind of spring where you can see the trees and the interaction of the outdoor space maybe with people in it and the building because that is a mixed-use building so we'd like to kind of capture that mix of uses and then in the middle picture

Cool, sounds great.

Sure.

I think this looks great.

Just to kind of follow up on the Riverside Village.

I think that building is really important and a really great example of a contemporary building that kind of incorporates some vernacular architectural elements.

And I think also the site design is really nice, how it's pushed up to the road and then how there's breaks in the building too that have

some kind of smaller people places like gardens.

And like, so the building is a little more porous, but I don't know if any one building gets more than one picture, but this one might deserve a couple of pictures.

And then, you know, beyond it's a really nice development kind of back behind it as well.

So good to highlight the successful.

Nice work.

Thanks, Dave.

I agree with my colleagues, appreciate the work.

It's another nice development of the study.

The break into rural and neighborhood makes sense to me based on the existing pattern of development.

So this is an image of the zoning in the area and this is essentially the route of 250.

So we have Darden Town on one side and the neighborhood model on the other.

Yes, so it's zoned rural on both sides, but it looks like this is already built out as a residential, but I think there's a church on this parcel here, and then I cannot recall what this parcel is.

All right, thanks.

I don't have any additional comments or questions.

This is a really nice map.

Just curious if there's anything in the, like,

This addendum that would highlight zoning.

I guess you list it, but you don't have a graphic or anything.

Right.

We haven't included, we haven't included those maps.

We have included narrative descriptions in the corridor sheets themselves under zoning and land use.

And that's how we've kind of combined them together.

I don't think I don't want to add any work.

I think it's in there and just this is very legible and nice.

Mariah, today's question about the potential of a change in zoning or a complaint amendment that might include areas north of the existing zone property.

Not yet.

The comp plan is exploring different strategies in that area just to mitigate the rising density that's expected, but they're in phase two right now and nothing has been concrete.

All right, well, there are no more questions or comments.

Thanks a lot.

All right, so we'll move to other business.

Hello, thanks.

My name is Whitney McDermott.

I'm with BRW Architects.

Thanks for taking the time to put me on the agenda and this project on the agenda today.

Full screen mode.

Again, I'm Whitney McDermott with BRW Architects.

Thanks for adding this project to the agenda, Hickory Hope Apartments A. I'm here today because we just submitted for our architectural review board application today slated by

March 20th official ARB review of the project.

But I wanted to come before you all today we wanted to, on behalf of our firm and Piedmont Housing Alliance who's developing the project, to just introduce it and

Give a brief history of the project and in light of the context also of the entrance corridor and the guidelines.

Just hoping to set up for maybe what could be a discussion about if there's any opportunity to not necessarily just to make a smooth ARB process.

And so this slide here is showing the context of the projects that set Southwood.

It's in the first phase of Southwood right at the intersection of Hickory Street and Old Lynchburg Road.

The project that we are here today are the two buildings with the red square around it.

They're the Hickory Hope Apartments A.

Like I said, it's being developed by Piedmont Housing Alliance.

They are also developing the building across the street, which is also affordable housing.

This is an affordable housing multifamily project.

And the Hickory Hope Apartments A has two buildings in which there are 71 two and three bedroom all affordable rental units.

100% of the units are designed to accessibility standards for meeting universal design.

There are elevators in the building.

It also has community space within the building along fronting on Hickory Street and fronting on what's also shown here at Community Park.

And that community space is open to all of Southwood.

It is also slated to host a MACA Head Start Early Childhood Development Center, all kind of right there at that nexus in the corner of what is kind of the highest density hub of the proposed Southwood Phase 1.

Development.

That's a context for the project.

And I also wanted to give a little more context from kind of the timeline side, setting up for the discussion, which I have on the next slide.

So this is part of Southwood phase one, which was rezoned in 2019.

from my records.

And part of that rezoning, there was an architectural review board internal to the Southwood community that was required as part of that NMD.

And so we went before that Southwood internal ARB in February of 2021 and got approval for the project and then proceeded to

Go through all the processes I failed to mention.

This is a LIHTC project, Low Income Housing Tax Credits.

That's the funding source.

That's what makes it the affordability side of this possible.

And those were awarded in June of 2021.

We then jumped into just designing and developing the buildings, having gotten our internal review.

And the site plan was just approved the end of January.

And so we have jumped into the building permit process because of the LIHTC funding, putting some constraints on overall timeline.

We really need

to start construction on site to secure that funding in May of this year.

We're working with the county and community development to make that building process as smooth as possible.

And we recently became aware of the fact that the entrance corridor guidelines had been applied

are reapplied to Old Lynchburg Road.

And so that's kind of what's in green above this is during the bulk of our ARB Southwood process, I believe that Old Lynchburg Road did not have arterial status.

And so we were not aware of the entrance corridor guidelines at that point.

And so having just received word when we dove into the building permit process that we are in fact

in the entrance corridor and therefore have to go through the ARB process.

That's kind of why I'm here just to talk about that late breaking news and what we might be able to do, what we can provide for you all to help the process go more smoothly so that we can hopefully continue to hit these really critical deadlines for the funding.

And so that's what I've tried to capture here in these four points.

So the Southwood NMD was established.

During the time when the internal ARB, or sorry, with an internal ARB prior to the time, or during that period of time when the entrance corridor didn't have guidelines applied to Old Lynchburg Road.

Same with when we went before the internal ARB.

And so there's a question there about how do we approach the two board reviews?

I wouldn't want to diminish the Southwood ARB's ruling.

Obviously, the county has a

vision there as well.

So how to reconcile those and then also how do we continue to meet the deadlines associated with county approvals and permits pending this process of the ARB.

It's my understanding that

We have to have ARB approvals prior to the building permit going through the entire approvals process.

I think we're already working with community development to see if we can't have simultaneous review.

But those are kind of the questions I wanted to present to the board today.

So that's what I have.

All right.

Well, thank you for the presentation.

The two boards have kind of different purviews as far as what requirements they're trying to apply or at least what constituency they have in terms of like what the review is supposed to ensure.

So I think at least my personal opinion is that as a county,

Board member, I'd certainly take into consideration what the South would have thought about it if that information is offered as part of the submittal.

that I felt was not in conformance with the guidelines that we have to operate under.

I would still probably feel that I'd have to make a comment.

But I think in consideration of your position having to satisfy two words that possibly could have conflicting comments, I think we would,

Thank you.

Quick jump in.

If you could speak into the mic.

Oh, sorry.

Yeah, I think I appreciate your comments.

And I think that's a good point.

I think it would be helpful if there are conflicting, you know, the Southwood ARB is conflicting with our entrance corridor guidelines.

Maybe we bring that to the forefront.

And that's one of the things we focus on.

I wouldn't say necessarily in conflict.

It's more of maybe where to front the building.

I think the community likes fronting on that park, which I know isn't necessarily adjacent to the entrance corridor.

And then I would say, you know, maybe we look at,

the site plan and you could talk about what you're thinking for the architecture materials just preliminarily that would help us just from an education standpoint.

Full disclosure, I probably should not participate in this discussion because I serve on the board of PHA.

Having said that,

I would wonder whether it's possible for this project to be grandfathered given that site plan approval was granted prior to the implementation of the new quarter guidelines.

It feels like there's a bit of an unfair situation to put them in at this late date.

I would let Margaret jump in because she's spoken with our accounting attorney.

Are you able to hear me?

We have checked all through this with the County Attorney's Office and the site plan does not require ARB approval but the building permit does and so that is the

the work that we need to get through.

No, I appreciate you bringing it before us ahead of the formal review and agree with my colleagues that I think it will be reasonable and helpful for you to present the circumstances that you have here and maybe a little more detail about the boards and the reviews and also about the site plan approval.

I guess two primary criteria that I guess the current design doesn't comply with are relegated parking and orientation to the EC.

Those are the two that jumped out to me as I was writing the narrative for the project and I tried to address them from our own perspective.

Well, I think maybe perhaps as part of the application of the presentation and forthcoming

So for example, I think the site plan currently shows a very wide vegetated area in front of the parking center that I think could be a mitigating factor.

In terms of precedents, I don't recall clearly the development of the wooded roof end property, but I seem to recall that we may have at that location because of the site geometry,

also allowed a little bit of deviation from the strict frontality or perpendicular orientation.

Okay.

And I have some prior knowledge of this project as well.

I worked on it

and my previous employer, but my recollection is there's some grade change between the parking lot and the road that perhaps screens the parking.

I think the parking is set down below perhaps.

The neighborhood model also requires relegated parking from the neighborhood.

Yeah.

All right.

Thanks.

And then as far as the funding deadline, that's kind of another procedural kind of technical question that I'm not sure

how that would go.

I think we have had applications where we have viewed it once and then thought that it was close enough on first pass to let staff follow up without another hearing.

So that's a possibility.

One more procedural question, I guess.

Since the site plan was approved prior to the entrance corridor guidelines, is it possible to limit our review to the buildings themselves and not the site?

Yeah.

Can you hear me?

That is the intention that the site plan does not require ARB review.

So no, none of the site layout will be available for you to review or comment on.

Okay.

Interesting.

That's helpful.

I mean, in some ways, this could be the preliminary review or a lot of times we'll see architecture very early, sometimes with a site plan.

So I think this would satisfy that.

Maybe if we spend a little bit of time talking about it, even if it's conceptual.

I do.

I have one.

I could have been more prepared.

We have plenty.

We did just submit the application today.

So we have a whole presentation on, submitted to the county, but there is a small render at the top of this page and the building on the left, and this is the approach from Old Lynchburg Road down Hickory.

And so

It's not necessarily the best vantage for understanding the building and its relationship to the street and that corner park, but it does turn, I guess if we go back to the site plan or the plan, it does turn around this corner park, like I said, with kind of the main entry points of the building in this area.

There's a plaza there.

and entrances into the two different lobbies of the building under an open air building connector with landscaping to kind of define that part.

And that is really kind of the main interaction between the building and pedestrians and the main

Entrance sequence to the building.

And so what you're seeing here is more the overall understanding of the building.

Like I said, 70 units split between two buildings.

And so that means there's 31 units in this one building along Hickory.

And the short side is what you're seeing that would face Old Lynchburg Road and the longer side here.

Basically, it's a bay system on the

at the undulating with kind of like the rhythm of the units within there's brick over 80% of the building has to be big brick per funding and so we've hit that this whole there's two color schemes of brick there's a kind of a whitewashed one in a lighter

brick, and then there is some fiber cement panels just on occasion at the top of the bays with the brick panels running between.

The neighborhood of Southwood wanted to break down the scale as much as possible for such a large building and so what we tried to do was to

Find something that was somewhat simple to hit also the funding requirements of cost constraints but also to try to make it feel like more of a downtown that was the vision for this area from the residents of Southwood.

This is downtown Southwood, you know, we're not in a downtown but

of this area, how can we make it feel a little more urban, but also feel a little bit like a residential downtown area, townhomes perhaps, and that's kind of what the rhythm of those bays are.

That's a quick overview without much to look at, but that's that.

And the windows are, I think they're going to be Pella's according to the contractor, and they have a fossil color.

So it's a little bit like a gray, which is similar to the mortar color, all in the ARB application that we just submitted today.

That's building- That under construction.

Just to the building itself, there are entrances in that first corner.

Let me go back to the site plan.

There are entrances in this area.

There are several, many onto the green itself, some from Hickory down here, though, and some from the parking lot side.

There are egress from stairs back here and over here.

But there aren't any direct access between the units and the street themselves.

So no, there aren't any doors at this area of the building.

The white is like a, it's like a whitewashed looking brick.

It's called Dover White.

It's called Charleston.

It's also a brick.

There's only a bit of fiber cement in that.

here and then on this front hickory facade kind of connecting the buildings in that recessed brick panel.

There's a different color of hardy panel or fiber cement panel.

Well, thank you all again for your time.

We'll plan to come with that information to our meeting and hope for the best from our end.

Thank you.

All right, we'll move on to approval of the January 3rd minutes.

I'd like to make a motion to approve the minutes of January 3rd, 2023.

All right, Carolyn, can we put it to a vote?

Can you hear me?

All right, thanks.

Thank you.

All right.

And sorry all this is me taking some of your time.

This is brought up by the Visibility and Mechanical Equipment on recently approved ARB projects Fifth Street and 2415 and 2415 Ivy Roads now known as Bell Airplace.

Here goes the aerial shot of the visibility level or the viewpoint from Fifth Street into Fifth Street Commercial.

You can see the bottom right hand corner street view from July of 2019.

You can see the vegetation on those trees.

So the visibility is the rooftop of the buildings hadn't been completely finished, but the rooftop is kind of obscured in that view.

And then the area again, top left corner, and then you can see the bottom left and right are the

photos from February of this year that show kind of photo and then zoomed in photo of the rooftop equipment staff and they believe this visibility is minimal but we wanted to get your kind of your thoughts on this level of visibility and what staff should do on this kind of

R.E.A.

approved project.

I have a question.

Did you go back and look at the application?

The parapet wall, it was reviewed with the parapet wall, but I guess this viewpoint or vantage point, because this was reviewed before my time, wasn't considered.

And Chris, I appreciate your looking into it and getting these shots.

I think that it's visible even when you make it past the tree cover.

Do you have any shots, Chris, closer to entrance to the parking lot for that building?

This is probably the closest one I have through the entrances.

as you aren't viewing the screen.

This one's the closest one I have to the entrance and it's just right there.

I didn't notice the rooftop equipment when I pulled the roof.

Were you with somebody else driving?

Yes.

Somebody else was driving.

I was driving.

Good to check.

Well, I guess is the question sort of like,

And just verifying really where you are in the topography from the corridor.

There's a change in elevation as it goes down on Fifth Street.

I think the thought was just getting kind of either a confirmation agreed with kind of staff and needs.

Margaret, could you jump in on this one?

Sure.

Well, you could probably talk about the other example that you had as well.

We would just double check that the drawings are clear, that the equipment was supposed to be completely screened, and then we would contact the property owner, present the issue, and ask them for options for how they would like to resolve the problem.

When it gets to this point, it's difficult.

It doesn't happen very often.

There have been a few examples in the past where screening was added.

We would get with our code compliance officers and see what the next steps would be, you know, identifying it as a violation and then moving forward through those steps.

Thank you, Margaret.

and then the locations 2415 and Ivy Road, also known as or now known as Bellaire Place.

This one was an instance of a rooftop mechanical equipment unit being identified as to be removed on the plans.

And as you can see in the photos, just that front one that was existing, it wasn't removed.

They placed screening in front of it, but the screening doesn't go all the way back to fully screen it.

I've spoke with the applicant and the owner just this morning actually.

They're going to add additional screening to fully screen the sides and request a photo once that's done.

It should be resolved pretty quickly.

This wasn't an instance of we didn't anticipate the disability.

That's helpful to hear that you reached out.

Did you reach out to the 5th Street

No, not yet.

I mean, maybe that's just the next step.

I mean, I would think you're not threatening a zoning violation or anything, but this has come to our attention because it's been documented now in our meeting minutes and we've noticed that mechanical units are visible and it's a requirement that they be screened.

I mean, you found that an applicant or an owner was willing to

I mean, and I think when people go through the application process, right, like when you're responding to the comments, you're like, yeah, OK, we're going to it is still

They've kind of agreed to make it happen.

So that seems pretty reasonable.

Does Dade have an official role that I don't know about on the airplane?

I don't think the board wants to be in the business of determining at exactly what point we're going to determine that it's visible and not visible or not visible or it's a little bit visible.

We're going to let that go.

It seems like something that at a staff level, some determination should be made.

I just want to make sure we're consistent.

Definitely look into that.

Yeah, I think it is pretty straightforward.

We would just go back and double and triple check that that

The information is on the plans as we think it is.

And Frank, I appreciate your comments and agree with the follow-up.

If it's visible, it's visible, and it makes sense to be clear.

But appreciate the follow-up on the matter, Chris.

All right.

Thank you.

Are there any other items?

All right.

The next ARB meeting is scheduled for February 20th, 2023.

This will be an in-person meeting.

I may not be here either.

I will let you know by email for sure as soon as I can.

Everyone else.

I shouldn't be here.

We've got, can you hear me?

We've got one regular review item.

It's an initial site plan.

I just, I might be having a baby then.

Yeah.

I think Taro might have some issues.

Right.

And so Frank, I know you're not available.

Confirm for sure.

Well, in that case, this meeting is adjourned until the next meeting, possibly on February 20th.

By my watch, it's 1.58.

And thanks, everyone.

And we'll see you next time.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.