Architectural Review Board Meeting   9/5/2023

Okay, that sounds good.

All right, thank you.

So it is 1.05.

I'm calling the September 5, 2023 meeting of the Albemarle County Architecture Review Board to order.

Thank you.

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 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.

Staff 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 was participating virtually, please mute your microphone until it is your turn to speak.

I do.

I have a time limit of 2.40, so if it gets close to 2.40, I will turn the reins over to Frank Hancock and abruptly get up and run out of the room.

That will go to public comment.

All right, thanks a lot.

We do not have any consent agenda items today, so we'll move to the regular review item.

It is ARB-2023-70 Home Depot Preliminary.

Wait for the delay to change.

While we're waiting for the display, just note that there was an error in the staff report on the first page under proposal.

It was a repeat of the last time you saw this.

Today, you're not reviewing that outdoor storage and display, so sorry for that error.

Here we go.

The subject of today's review is the proposed Home Depot store.

As you probably remember, in May you reviewed and recommended approval of the initial site plan for the project.

In August, you reviewed and made a recommendation on the garden center and the outdoor storage and display proposal.

So today you're reviewing the architectural design of the main store building for the first time and also included is continued review of the site plan.

As a reminder, the site is located at the north end of the Fashion Square Mall, where the Sears store is currently located.

The site falls within two entrance corridors.

That's Route 29 to the west of the site and Rio Road on the north, and the site is visible from both of those corridors.

You've seen these images before.

These are relatively recent photos from the Rio Road corridor.

Rio is elevated approximately 20 feet above the site, and that allows for views down onto the property.

This is a view from Route 29, and from here, the site is elevated above the entrance corridor street.

This is the overall site plan for the project.

In this slide, the orientation is 29 to the left and Rio at the top.

The garden center is also at the top of the slide, and probably looks familiar.

All the display areas that were proposed are along the front of the building in the garden center.

So again, the architecture of the main store building is really the primary topic for today.

The top elevation is the one that faces Route 29.

It shows the store with the garden center at the left.

The middle elevation is that same store elevation without the garden center.

And the bottom elevation is the one that faces Rio Road.

And it shows the garden center between the main store building and the corridor.

The proposed building form is a big box.

That form and the proposed design treatments are clearly contemporary and they do not reflect the traditional architecture of the area.

However, the building form and scale are generally consistent with the remaining mall building.

Note, however, that the mall predates the establishment of the corridors.

It does not comply with the guidelines and it will likely be replaced at some point in the future.

The building's deep setback from Route 29 and its position below Rio Road help reduce visual impacts.

And as indicated in previous reviews, landscaping that meets the guidelines can help harmonize this non-traditional development with the overall corridors.

It can help offset visual impacts and support unity and coherence along the corridors as called for by the guidelines.

The elevation facing Route 29 is a long one.

It's broken up by the main store entrance and the lumber canopy and by changes in color.

There are also changes in texture and some material changes proposed, but the color is what will be noticed from the corridors.

Incorporating architectural features that are noticeable from the street to help break up the mass rather than relying solely on color would be appropriate.

The methods of breaking up the building mass don't really achieve a human scale for the building.

Additional architectural features and detailing could be used to better establish that human scale and relieve blankness.

And we made a few suggestions in the staff report to that end, and they include extending that beam that's above the main entrance to create a canopy as seen in the example provided in the submittal.

That would not only provide protection, weather protection, but could also add visual interest in human scale and help reduce blankness.

Providing vertical supports for the extended canopy, which are also shown in the image in the submittal, would further establish human scale and a connection to historic architecture.

We've also noted that the entrance features share some design elements and we've recommended revising the piers and the siding element of the lumber canopy to match the main entrance for a more coordinated appearance.

Moving on to the Rio Road elevation.

Only the upper part of that elevation on the main store building is expected to be visible above the garden center.

That portion of the wall really has no architectural detailing.

The plan at this point doesn't show it, but rooftop equipment is expected on the building.

Given the elevated position of Rio Road, it's anticipated that standard parapet walls will not provide sufficient screening.

The bottom image in this slide shows a typical store with rooftop equipment.

So we've recommended that the standard information be added to the drawings to show how visibility of the equipment will be eliminated.

Cut sheets for light fixtures were included in this panel.

Lighting information is not complete, however, so we've made a few recommendations in the report to address that.

And then finally, landscaping is also part of this review.

You previously discussed landscaping along Raya Road.

Trees and shrubs there can contribute to screening of the garden center and the storage and display.

As a reminder, it was determined previously that the buffer alternative that's shown on the plans was not appropriate.

You also considered landscaping along the Route 29 frontage relative to outdoor storage and display.

Staff had recommended that entrance corridor frontage trees be provided given the extent of the redevelopment that's proposed.

Your decision was to recommend a condition requiring the standard planting or an acceptable alternative within the existing planting area.

The guidelines also call for interior parking lot trees, perimeter parking lot trees, trees along internal roads, trees along pedestrian ways, and trees to soften long building elevations.

The layout of this site is such that some of the tree types would double up.

For example, an interior parking lot tree might also count as a pedestrian way tree, but at this point only the interior tree count appears to meet requirements.

That's assuming you're not looking at the lot that's closest to Route 29.

So while there may be some double counting of trees available, additional trees are still needed to meet requirements.

So we've recommended several revisions to the site and to the architecture.

Those could be provided with the final site plan submittal.

All right.

Thanks a lot, Margaret.

We'll go into

Questions?

Just one question.

The last drawing we were looking at, Margaret, what does the yellow line represent?

OK.

But the property line for this,

Okay, perfect.

Thank you.

Thanks.

I don't believe so.

Thank you, Margaret, for clarifying the landscape revisions requested last meeting.

All right, thanks.

I do not have any questions.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, members of the board.

Valerie Long with Williams-Mullen.

We're representing the applicant, Home Depot.

We have a number of members of our team here today.

So just so you know, we do have our project architects here from MG2, as well as John Karakas with Greenberg-Farrow.

They both work on a number of Home Depots around the country.

My colleague, Megan Adostup is here, as well as David Ellington with Kimley-Horn, our civil engineer.

So we do have some slides.

I'll maybe go through some of them.

A lot of them you will have seen.

I think, Mr. Hancock, since you weren't here when we were here a month ago on the outdoor storage and display.

So we included them since you wouldn't have seen those.

And then I'd like, if it's OK, have the architects come up and talk more about comments one and two about the building design itself and the mechanical equipment screening elements.

We need to switch the screens.

There we go.

Sorry.

Operator error.

Pardon me.

Okay.

So we have a lot of the views from the various entrance quarters too.

Most of these were taken within the last few months just with cameras.

This is obviously an area of discussion along Route 29 and we have some additional photos.

That area in, you know, where there's no screening

There actually used to be very mature trees there before the grade separated interchange project was built when those trees were removed and a retaining wall was installed.

I'll show you that in a minute.

This is obviously one of the main entrances into the center from Route 29.

Mr. Hancock, you asked about the yellow lines.

Those are all new sidewalks that are being added, so including along this drive aisle here.

This is views from Rio Road entrance corridor.

Obviously it is a challenge to manage the redevelopment of this site, given the difference in elevation between Rio and the project site itself.

The Home Depot building will be about nine and a half feet taller than the existing Sears building, which we think will help quite a bit with eliminating the visibility of the mechanical equipment is going to still be a challenge from the highest point on Rio.

Our architects are going to talk more about that.

This is from the entrance if you were turning into the mall from Rio Road.

We want to just show the existing landscaping that's there.

All of that will be retained and then we're proposing additional landscaping pretty much anywhere that there's space to add landscaping where it's not already there.

This is one of the most challenging areas.

You can see on the left, very tall and mature trees, which help mostly eliminate or certainly mitigate the visibility of the development site from the road.

But of course, the pedestrian path, it's much more challenging.

We do have our plantings plan along Rio.

Plantings there that will certainly add, fill in most of that.

But, and we have some renderings we can show you.

And then again, it's just a little bit more close up looking and sort of here's what the existing conditions are.

Obviously, almost no, if no interior parking lot trees, that sort of thing.

So the new site would have to meet those guidelines.

This is probably the most challenging view with regard to rooftop mechanical equipment.

So when we talk about that most challenging view, this is the highest point on Rio.

This is obviously taken from the pedestrian sidewalk.

It's a little bit different, of course, from the westbound drive lanes.

but I just wanted to highlight that.

Margaret showed these.

We can come back to these as needed.

We have some closer up shots.

If that would be helpful, we can refer to.

Again, the architects will talk more about this but we wanted to just add to point out that the roof line is this dash line and the parapet is above it.

It does angle a little bit.

The roof slopes back towards the back away from the front of the building.

And likewise here, I think it's about

Eight feet tall, I believe the parapet was on this end, and it goes down to a foot or two on this other end, but we highlighted where the rooftop equipment is proposed so that, you know, to demonstrate that it will be not higher than the parapet roof.

These are some renderings that we showed last month with regard to how the garden center looks attached to the building and the outdoor display areas.

This is an image from, as it says, October of 2014.

All those trees you see in the foreground, this is of course Route 29, looking south, all of those trees you see in the foreground were removed as part of the project to widen Route 29 and add the grade separate and interchange at Rio in 29.

So I'll show you a second picture from the exact same spot.

Actually, this is an elevated image.

You can see here, the area in question is all here where they took the trees out.

And then there's a retaining wall that's under construction in this location.

So that's why it's challenging.

That's why I think the reason there's no trees that were returned is because the area is also full of utility easements.

This is an image of that same location there today.

So obviously the retaining wall and then further to the south on the road is where it's just grass is where those trees used to be.

There's a lot going on in this image.

This has Route 29 on the top of the page.

We show this area.

This is from an ALTA survey that was prepared recently showing all of the utilities in that area.

The highlighted area in green is the one area when we were here a month or so ago and talked with you about our desire to put trees in that location, but the limitations we already knew that we had.

Tight amount of space between the red line which is the right-of-way line and the curb which we didn't want to tear up yet because we know that will be redone as part of the second phase of redevelopment of the mall.

We'd hope to be able to use this entire green strip but the

There's a County Service Authority easement here.

There's utility easements when the project was done that VDOT reserved the right.

We hope to be able that VDOT will let us put some small plantings in this area, but we do have to get their permission.

But that would be the extent of the area that we have to work with.

This is image of our site plan with regard to I think it was comments number 10 and 11 about providing

More trees along Fashion Square Drive to supplement what is there already to meet the standards of 40 feet on center.

There's not a lot of room for that.

Each one, of course, would eliminate a parking place.

We still have to get Home Depot's permission to this, but we think we could fit two trees in that location that would each eliminate one parking space.

That would get about 50 feet on center, so closer to compliance with the guidelines.

And then two additional trees in this location.

This is the front of the store for reference.

and this is an example of the Costco store.

I think, pardon me, let me back up one step.

This, for lack of a better word, we're calling it a spine sidewalk through the middle.

It's always challenging with infill development like this.

We're not starting with a raw canvas in order to work.

We really want to add this spine sidewalk, but in order to comply with the guidelines to have

trees along sidewalks at 25 feet on center we would have to widen this area substantially and then add landscape islands all along the way much like this which is the new newish now costco

Obviously they had a greenfield site.

They had more room to work with.

This would, to satisfy this standard, would require about six additional feet on either side of that spine sidewalk, which would require eliminating an entire double row of parking.

So we're asking for your

support and a little flexibility on that guideline so that we can have the the plan look like this still have room for that spine sidewalk which we think is important coming from route 29 to connect pedestrians to the store but if we have to meet that guideline we would lose this entire row of parking

We can't go beyond this line, which is the property line.

Belk owns everything here.

So we're trying to work within the area that we have and get as close to the guidelines as possible.

and maybe it's just showing again closer up of some of the existing proposal landscaping.

This for Mr. Hancock's benefit we showed last week, this is the proposed planting plan roughly along Rio.

There is a condition of approval of the outdoor storage and display that there be greater variety in the plantings here, which were as was noted with our next submittal that would be incorporated.

but again let me go back showing that again we're adding trees and plantings wherever there is space.

It is tight in this area because it's a pretty steep slope down to the parking lot.

We showed you this view already.

We have some renderings.

I'm trying to demonstrate obviously this is without much really no landscaping.

We do think there is a tree right here that provides a little bit of screening right in this area but you saw from those other images

There's not much screening there now, but based on what we're proposing at full maturity, it would be substantially screened.

And then likewise, the view from Rio on this end with the plantings proposed, it will help break up the visibility fairly well.

And then likewise from this location for pedestrians walking along at full maturity there.

If I may, I will ask the project architects to come up and talk with you a bit about building design, rooftop equipment, and so forth.

You guys called out the lower heights location we recently built.

We're very proud of that project in Houston, Texas.

It's a great project.

I think we can use a lot of those strategies here.

As you pointed out in the recommendations, there's some changes there to the canopy, which I think we can look at adding here.

So that's a great way to increase the human scale of the entry there.

Adding the piers, again,

That's a direct thing we can take from that project, I believe.

And again, in that project also, we're showing some trellis elements along the front of the building, which will help to increase the human scale there.

So basically, I think we can take your recommendations directly.

Should be able to accommodate all of those.

We came with a round one revision, and we appreciate the comments.

We're here to have a dialogue on it, so we absolutely hear all those comments.

I think on that front,

We can pretty much come back with what you're asking for there for all of those elements.

For the second comment is discussing the roof plan in order to look at rooftop equipment.

I did want to mention, as Valerie had said,

on the elevations here.

We do actually show the rooftop units.

They're behind the parapet, so it may not be super clear in the elevations the way it's submitted, but she had called this one out here with some additional lines on it.

So we do show two lines of rooftop units, which are behind the parapet.

This parapet goes to 32 feet on this side, so we're increasing the height of the, compared to the Sears, we're increasing the height of the building by 10 feet.

This roof slopes back, which helps us a lot to conceal the rooftop units.

We're at three feet below the parapet on the front side of the building by Route 29, and we go back down to over eight feet at the rear.

So it's a pretty big slope, and there's a lot of room back there for some of the rooftop units to be hidden behind.

Also to that point, from the existing views on Ryer Road,

We're basically increasing the building height by 10 feet.

So that moves, if you look at any of these perspectives, that's going to move the parapet height up above the viewer's eyeline, which gives us a lot more room as you recede past the parapet to hide things because there's that angle of your perspective.

And I think that helps a lot in addressing that comment.

As regards to the third comment, I think the language is very strong there.

So as Valerie pointed out, we do have this rear corner, which is very difficult.

So I can't 100% know exactly what that looks like from here.

But we are adding that additional landscaping, which I think combined with the increased parapet height goes a long way towards reducing the visibility as much as feasible.

We'll just go through and see if board members have any questions.

I guess just to appreciate the additional emphasis on the landscape and the screening that that may provide and also the description of the parapet.

I think for future reference it may be helpful if you all could develop some site sections that would demonstrate whether they're visible.

I think my understanding is the guideline is written to require the elimination of any visibility and so I think that's the standard that we're working with

Under the current guideline, appreciate very much the mitigation and the reduction that the strategies that you've described will provide.

Secondly, appreciate the willingness to adopt and incorporate staff's good comments about human scale.

I don't know that they went as far as suggesting a couple other steps, but I think my understanding is the elevations are

Largely flat and there are differences in color between panels.

This is an open question.

Yes.

So I think that

Partly the existing canopies which we would increase per the recommendations do add some element of that but further, and maybe I didn't mention this as much, one of the things that is shown in the lower heights location and which we can certainly look at repeating here is trellis elements that are in front of the building and they do add shadow to the building.

Thank you.

Sure, thank you for your presentation.

It's especially helpful to see the diagram of the planting area along 29 kind of color-coded, what's available, what's not.

Still understand though there's restrictions on the area that was green and shown that it's available for planting, but under the purview of VDOT, is it a clear zone or there's some sort of easement there that there might be restrictions?

It's just fine.

We're happy to answer it.

The easement that is of record says

You can put some plantings there with VDOT's permission.

That's helpful.

And it may be that it would be a temporary, temporary plantings until again, what we call phase two redevelopment of the mall occurs.

Then those might stay, but as that parking lot in front, you go to that.

As this area redevelops with the next phase of the mall, there would be much more room to meet the guidelines inside the property line, but beyond the utilities.

Yes.

The other question I had, the spine sidewalk that I guess goes from Home Depot to 29, is that a requirement?

No, we're trying to add as much pedestrian connections.

Perhaps there may be some discretion on site plan reviewers' part to require that.

I appreciate that.

And I think, just off the top of my head, since it's not a requirement,

You know, I would, I don't know that we need to hold it to the same standard of the Costco example, but that's just my initial thought on that.

I think having the connection is more important.

And then, I apologize, I missed the outdoor storage review.

Thank you for catching me up.

There are some restrictions there as well, right?

Is there overhead power along Raya?

I believe there's some small trees and then kind of a line of the similar or the same symbol closer to the road.

So these trees are all down below next to the new parking lot edge there.

These, everything shown here is what we could fit in to that area beyond the overhead power line easement, but also as, again, it slopes down pretty steeply.

So we tried to do as much as we could within that area, but there is, there's two guardrails.

There's a guardrail right next to the road, dry vial, and then there's trees.

Let me go back to the original images

I find helpful.

So you've got the road, obviously you have the sort of road guardrail, then you have these large mature trees, sidewalk, and then a second guardrail, and then it slips down pretty steeply.

So what we've tried to do is as much as possible fill in at least with some small shrubbery, and then also mixed in with something a little bit larger there.

We did and for your benefit Mr. Hancock, we knew from the beginning this was going to be the most, this angle and then the one in the opposite direction would be the most challenging to mitigate the views of both the store itself as well as the rooftop equipment.

One of the options we proposed and we didn't really expect anyone to want this but we did look at it and say well if they really want to don't see anything we could build a wooden fence so that was a proposal we put forward it was very clear at our last meeting that that was not preferred which is fine with Home Depot it's just a matter of again trying to show that they're going to do everything they can with the

area they have to work with, but it'll just remain challenging.

So with all infill development when you're dealing with existing utility lines and strange topography and working with old building standards like this.

Thank you.

That's helpful.

Sure.

And then the only other comment I would make, I'd echo Dade's comment or suggestion that maybe we have a section or a perspective showing the rooftop equipment and the relationship between that and Rio Road.

That's the one thing that gives me pauses.

How close to those units to the parapet wall and

Mostly, yeah.

Thank you.

Alright, thanks.

And I just have one question about the another Rio Road mechanical equipment question.

If the

I'm going to let them come up and they can obviously talk with more expertise and eloquence than I can on those things.

Let me go to that elevation page to work from.

I know they've educated me that I said, well, can't you just make the parapet 10 feet taller?

You all will appreciate the challenges with that.

But Dan can perhaps discuss a few more strategies they have been thinking through.

I think what we can do is look at the site study that we'll prepare as part of the response to this other comment.

and see how much, if at all, we have to raise the parapet here to make that work.

That would be the strategy is to raise it.

Maybe we can raise it in parts and not other parts to create some visual interest there, but I think that would be how we would address that.

That would be the best way.

I know that adding screening around the units is not preferred.

So look at incorporating it into the building design itself.

All right, great.

All right.

I don't have anybody on my side.

All right, great.

Thank you.

It doesn't appear to be any in-person commenters.

So the ARB will now go into discussion.

Sure.

I appreciate the applicant's willingness to work to address staff's comments.

Sounds like they're amenable to making some revisions.

I don't really have anything to add on top of that.

Probably echoing what I said the first time this came to the ARB, I think it's a nice redevelopment.

Project.

I appreciate the connection, albeit very far distance from the building to 29.

I think that's important that the applicant's doing something that's not required there.

I think we'll be focused in on that view from Raya on

and any of the mechanical equipment, the visibility there.

So whatever the applicant can do to adequately address that or visualize that I think would be super helpful.

Thanks.

I echo Frank's.

I appreciate the applicant's willingness to work to meet staff comments and also do appreciate the detailed study of the landscape strip in front of 29.

All right, thanks.

I agree.

I look forward to seeing the next submission and

Are you ready to look at the list of recommendations?

While we're waiting for that to come up, we'll just point out that the site plan ordinance does require pedestrian connections, not necessarily in the exact locations that are shown.

As Valerie said, it leaves it up to the site plan reviewer.

It looked like there were two sidewalk connections.

There was that direct connection that you saw go kind of north-south on the page and then there was the one that went kind of around I guess Fashion Square Drive.

The ones that we would be looking most at would be, and this is again some subjectivity up to the site plan reviewer, which is me, full disclosure, we'd mostly be looking at a connection from the building to Ryle Road and to Route 29.

The advantage in the fashion square mall drive is it provides a cut through to pedestrians that are trying to go from the higher Ryle Road elevation to the lower Route 29 elevation if they are not going to Home Depot.

Great.

Yeah, I was just wondering if one of those sidewalks met the requirements and then the other one didn't, then to me that would give a lot more kind of leeway in terms of how to treat that second path, kind of as Frank mentioned previously.

It's almost.

Right, so the trees along pedestrian routes I believe is an ARV requirement, not a site plan requirement.

There are sidewalks is a site plan requirement.

The planting requirement along them is an ARV requirement.

I would say that there's an advantage to designing pedestrian ways a little differently because when you're at the entrance to a building, and I think we've all experienced this and you're trying to locate your car or a safe travel way, it's nice for that pedestrian way to look a little different.

So on the screen are the 14 recommendations that were in the staff report.

As for item 10, we didn't discuss the applicant's proposal to put the trees in at 50 feet on center.

That seemed reasonable to me just because there were, I think, some closer than that on center, maybe at the corner, so that in aggregate, they'd be average 40 feet on center.

I thought that basically the diagram that was provided seemed like a reasonable solution to me at least.

And to item 11 and what we were just discussing, I think, as Mariah points out, I think not only does it look different, but also practically having some shade in the middle of that kind of spot makes a pedestrian route much more tenable and comfortable.

But I don't know.

I appreciated your remarks, Frank.

I don't know.

Yeah, 25 feet on center.

Is that how it's written in the guidelines?

I apologize.

Seems tight.

But I guess maybe it doesn't call for large trees.

Maybe those are smaller trees.

I would imagine maybe the applicant would look to some existing routes to show maybe the requirement, and we might end up losing that sidewalk.

Any additional tweaks?

I guess the only small item 10 would be whether we wanted to say consistently at 40 feet on center with the exception that two trees may be placed at 50 feet on center and the locations noted today.

Just an exception, an exception.

That was exactly right.

What is your recommendation?

I think the applicant seems to be willing to incorporate the suggestions in the staff report.

I think we could.

And in the meeting?

If we may, regarding number 10, if I could be permitted to show our exhibits again, there I think we're at least four locations.

And if possible, we'd love it to maybe reference what we show on the plan.

But if I could put those back up, I think we need to switch screens again, maybe or maybe not, actually.

Let's see, where was that?

Okay, so because it covered a couple of different slides.

So there were two that we identified we could put here and that would close that gap to close to 50.

And then two more in these locations.

And there was a third area.

where we could put two new trees, but we may not have it on here.

They were, it gets right up in here.

That also is part of Fashion Square Drive.

We really looked anywhere there was a space where there wasn't a tree now.

Could we add more in to kind of make up for where maybe it's a little short in other areas?

We do have an exhibit that would show them here.

We still have to get Home Depot's approval for this, because each of those does eliminate a parking space.

So then that would be referencing what, sheets 17 and 18 of the presentation?

And then we could, we'll show these trees here.

There were two, is that the right, am I pointing in the right area?

Yes.

So then just to clarify, so all those trees in those two areas, technically we would consider those interior parking lot trees.

So they'd be doubling as your travelway trees, your sidewalk trees, perimeter trees, is what's shown there.

Are you satisfied with that?

No additional trees.

I guess I may not have been as aware of that.

I had understood that these were meeting one requirement.

Quantified?

No, I cannot.

Yeah, that for travel way trees, that was acceptable.

Okay.

and ultimately satisfy requirements.

And that is something that normally we will be reviewing as part of the site plan.

Well, it was architecture plus continued site plan review.

But I mean, at this point, it may be worthwhile just to leave the, well,

I think we need to switch to the, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, it's tough because it's a retrofit and we're meeting up with like,

We're calling it an interior drive.

I mean, it's essentially a drive aisle, a parking lot and spaces.

I don't know.

I don't know that I would hold it to that same standard of like an interior road or interior.

What's the language in the design guidelines?

Is it interior travelway or is it interior road?

Interior road.

Has a name, but it doesn't really feel like a road to me.

Yeah, I think by us leaving this comment in, I think it's still an issue for the applicant to address.

In looking at that exhibit, it looked like there was a little bit of room maybe to add some trees that weren't necessarily parking lot trees, but that were adjacent to the sidewalk, between the sidewalk and the curb.

So I would say I would encourage the applicant to look at those spaces.

But given this conversation, I think

Maybe we'd be a little lenient on that because the definition of a road is maybe a little nebulous here with whether it's a drive aisle or a real road.

And if you zoom out and look at the amount of trees that Home Depot is adding, I think it's gonna have an impact, especially considering what's there now.

But I appreciate the clarification.

Sometimes you do end up double counting and you just run out of space because you're also competing.

I don't think anything is really shown on this exhibit, but you're competing with a bunch of utilities.

You know, there's going to be storm lines running through here.

And so hopefully from this conversation, you know, we want a lot of landscaping at the ARB.

I've been, the applicant is trying to put it wherever they can, but.

It is, yeah.

I think those comments are helpful.

Just want to make sure everybody has the same expectations.

So I think if we leave 10 and 11 in as they are now, you'll have another opportunity to review a complete landscape plan.

Yes.

Yeah.

And like the applicant was showing trees,

You know, where they weren't really touching fashion square drive that was coming in, I think was coming in off 29.

So they're adding trees there.

So anything like that, I think we're willing to work with you.

So technically, this is a preliminary review.

So traditionally, what you've done for preliminary reviews is just come to consensus on the comments and provide them to the applicant without a motion.

Happy to stick with our past practice.

Yeah.

We don't need a motion then move anything.

All right, so in that case, I guess there's no motion, no vote.

So thank you.

All right, thanks a lot.

All right, so we'll move on to our work session.

We have one work session today, which is on the EC design guidelines, route 649.

Margaret's going to be driving today.

The cord isn't long enough to stretch to my computer.

So yes.

So thank you again, everyone, for your continued work on the effort to identify common elements and historic aspects along each of the county's entrance corridors.

Today, we have a draft of route

649 Airport Road for your review.

This corridor is a short one with a length of 0.7 miles.

The corridor demonstrates a range of development, which hints at its underlying zoning districts in the area that include industrial, residential, commercial, and rural.

Most developments along the corridor predate the establishment of the entrance corridor design guidelines, which is evidenced by unregulated parking, a lack of frontage landscaping, and buildings oriented away from the corridor.

Exceptions to this include Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Sheets.

Overall, there's an open character to the corridor with its broad street width emphasized by open space and deep setbacks.

Although this allows for distant mountain views in both the east and west directions, coupled with the preponderance of adjacent parking lots, automobile-related businesses, and the lack of trees near sidewalks, the corridor has an auto-oriented character.

As usual, we included a list of predominant structural and landscaping elements, as well as a list of features to maintain and avoid.

Some of the unique aspects along this corridor were more complex building forms seen in churches as opposed to other buildings and continuous sidewalks, but a lack of street trees.

In the precedent images, we show existing development examples, most having deep setbacks, but across different uses.

and unique to other corridors, a designed gateway to the airport road entrance corridor in the form of a low stone wall with signage on both street sides that curve inward towards the corridor, which is seen in the bottom right image.

Well tried, too.

I tried other colors, but it kind of got lost in the rest of the image.

So I stayed with red.

But if you have suggestions, open to suggestions.

So that's the end of this.

Well, that's all we have for this quarter.

Funny, is this the shortest entrance corridor in the county?

Or maybe 151?

It's pretty interesting.

I mean, it's as short but significant as it is since it's the primary entrance for everybody coming from the airport.

Yeah, what a mishmash.

Yeah.

And I guess your point about zoning is a good one.

That's not obviously the purview of this board, but I struggle a little bit to figure out how ultimately it's going to evolve.

in a coherent way when the zoning is just different across it.

I think that's heavy industry.

PDIP, Land Development, Industrial Park.

I should disclose that I work at the UVA Foundation, and we're working on the North Fork project.

I'll just echo Dade's comment of how important this corridor is or going to continue to be as it develops.

It feels to me like it's recovering from a VDOT project.

But like anticipating future growth, not saying that's a bad thing, but it's like it just hasn't grown in.

but the infrastructure's there and the sidewalks.

I think it's,

The document is really good.

I don't really have any edits on that.

It's difficult, though, because this corridor, I think there's a lot of room for improvement in terms of the corridor itself.

And you've kind of established a precedent with these pages of documenting

what's there and some of the entrance corridors that we have are like so rich with like excellent existing

you know fabric that you really want to keep it and you want to like explain to someone who would be looking at this book like why is Carters unique, why we want to keep it that way and then you have some other Carters which I would say this one's an example of where you like don't necessarily want to keep it the way it is now and it's not a

Really a specific criticism of this particular sheet, but it's just kind of how we've engaged in this process of like, what do you do in the corridors where you

Last one to emulate what's there and kind of like promote some kind of change in how it's going to look visually.

So I just kind of toss that out there.

That's a great point.

Yeah, no, I mean, it's a wonderful spread capturing what is there in the current state and summarizes well things to avoid and to do.

But it is provocative in terms of thinking about how important it is.

So I don't know whether it's actually whether the airport authority could expand its authority or

Those are all good comments.

Mariah and I have been talking about how to deal with the corridors that are like this, the few that aren't maybe the best examples or don't have the best existing fabric in place.

This effort is really the end product.

We're hoping it will lead to the list of fixes that need to be made in the guidelines document itself.

So without overstepping, without doing that in this document, trying to figure out a way to list out the points that need to be made to get us to where we need to be.

And in terms of the roadway itself, to Frank's point about recovering from a VDOT project, it does seem like no negative connotation.

No, no, no, no.

Grateful for transportation and the Commonwealth.

but yeah I'm just you know if even if it had planted median even I think it's just so vast in terms of the asphalt but we don't we don't really have any interface with VDOT as the

All right, so it's in the top five for shortest.

Most likely on the scene.

All right, great.

So let's see, we will move on to other business.

First of all is the approval of the August 21st, 2023 minutes.

I'd love to approve those.

Anybody feel like making a motion?

Sorry, I was too quiet.

All right.

Yes.

Thanks a lot.

So before we go into the Presidio Apartments item, does anybody have any other items for discussion?

No.

So Margaret will... Sure, just wait for the display to come up.

There we go.

So at our last meeting, there was a question about the project that, when this board reviewed it, it was called Presidio Apartments.

They're apartments that are here in Martha Jeferton Hospital.

and along the interstate and just there had been comments previously that there had been it seemed to be the development was more visible than had been anticipated so I've just pulled a few images together have a few slides to show you

On the left in this slide are images from the applicants submitted to the ARB and I tried to pull some Google Street View images from similar locations for comparison.

So I think you can see in these slides that

The retaining walls are significantly more visible after construction than was suggested in the earlier submittal.

These images are showing the same, possibly a little more visibility for the buildings themselves as well.

On this slide, we have Google Street View images on the left and then just some images on the right, some aerial views of the development from the other direction.

And those on the right, the interstate is at the top or the back of the development, just to show you a little bit of sort of the layout of the development and where the trees do stand.

And then in this slide, upper left corner, aerial view from the applicant in the earlier submittal, you can see there along the retaining walls, there are trees shown at each sort of terrace level.

Those did not carry through to the approved plans, and we stopped focusing on that based on the perspectives that were submitted.

We just didn't think that the retaining walls were going to be seen, so we didn't think they needed more landscaping to soften that view.

And this is the site plan that was approved for the project.

So I think what's happened is just the images that were

put together those on the left.

I think they sort of overestimated some of the wooded area that was offsite and how that contributes to or doesn't contribute to screening.

Also, the images on the right in this slide, the leaves, trees don't have all the leaves on them.

Well, Margaret, thank you so much for assembling these materials and the views, which I think are very helpful in documenting the issue.

I guess an open question I have for you and colleagues is, is there, obviously the applicant made representations about the visibility in their official submittal and presentation, which proved to be very different than the ultimate visibility.

The site plan is one thing and you're correct, it doesn't contain screening on site.

Those are good questions.

We can certainly talk with our code compliance officers.

I sort of looked at the site plan and assuming that the planting was done as it's shown here, are there other areas to add planting on site to help with that view?

And I guess, I don't know, I mean, I'd be interested, Chris and Frank, in your perspective, I think it might be constructive to ask the applicant to appear before us and to explain

Yeah although I

I think Marder brings up a good point too.

Whether or not the project is missing anything that was shown on the site plan too would be helpful because to a certain extent, it's like one of our requirements is 3D imagery.

To a certain extent, we're kind of relying on the skill of the renderer to provide what we hope is kind of an accurate depiction.

And to a certain extent, I think it's important that it be accurate.

But at the same time, sometimes it's

renderings can like stretch the truth one way or the other.

And sometimes it's just, you know, the skill of the renderer is also an issue.

Like I've seen some renderings where I think like it actually looks worse than it would have looked in reality.

So to me, I guess the,

Typically I'll take renderings with a grain of salt and kind of defer to the plan or when elevations are provided, you know, elevations.

But I guess that's the only reason I, if, I guess if the board approved a package that included a,

a site plan that wasn't compatible with the rendering images that they showed.

I guess if the renderings agreed with the site plan and what ended up getting built doesn't agree with either one of them, then clearly the applicant's at fault.

We've had a similar issue on a much smaller scale for a sign application and the drawings that were submitted, they're required to show the proposed sign on the building elevation and those proportions looked fine.

The sign got approved, the sign got installed, and the result was signs that were much bigger in proportion to the wall area.

that the size of the sign wasn't illustrated correctly on the rendered elevations.

Right.

No, I think Chris's and Margaret's point is a good one.

I think it would be good to know if there's anything in the site plan missing, because I think that would establish a clearer foundation.

You know, I do take it as a caution to myself for reviewing future applications, because I think I did, in this case, probably trust far too much faith in the accuracy of the representation.

Yeah, but it just feels like something where, you know, certainly it's a disparity between

Presentation reality I would like to avoid occurring again in my experience.

So I guess, so then it sounds like we, Margaret, it would be possible to ask a presiding enforcement officer to look at the landscape and assess if it matches the site plan.

Yes.

I guess we do frequently, just thinking about future applications, we frequently ask for images with and without landscaping.

One thing I'll just note, actually a couple things.

I'm sensitive to the fact that the applicant did gain a certificate of appropriateness and like went through the review, I think multiple reviews.

Secondly, I don't know, architecturally, there's any, I mean, it's definitely more visible than the renderings, but at that distance,

You know, I don't know that we would have gotten into a conversation on changing materials or changing the amount of blankness.

I think the thing that stands out to me is the blankness and visibility of the retaining walls.

And so if you were going to approach an applicant

You know, I think number one, it's perfectly acceptable to do the zoning compliance review.

You know that and this alerted us to it.

And so maybe that's why we're doing it earlier or why we're out there.

Sure, that makes total sense.

But secondly, if the applicant, if there were a conversation with the applicant and it was, you know,

Would you be willing to do things in good faith to kind of mitigate the impacts of these retaining walls on the corridor?

I think maybe it would be a path forward.

And maybe that's obvious, but

We don't want to open up a review where we're like looking at the building and we're looking, you know, it's more, it's like this one thing.

Right.

I appreciate those clarifications.

Frank can completely agree.

And, you know, I, it's not, it's really just about a question of the visual impact overall, because it's not buffered by landscape in the way we thought it would be.

It's not questions about the architecture.

And I think you're right that it is chiefly the retaining wall and its blankness that we're retaining walls.

It's tough to plant in between those walls because the roots will destroy the structure.

Yeah the reinforcing grid that goes way back.

But I mean, I think little things like trailing vines or shrubs that grow over.

I don't think we need to fill it with trees, but things that break up that just mass of the same color.

Well, and if there were room at the base of the wall to plant some trees of substantial scale, I think those could help to mitigate it too.

Yeah, so I agree it's a complex situation because obviously there's been a lot of review, a lot of process.

And I think, not this drawing, but there's one drawing that showed just a plan view of this site in relation to 64.

And in my mind, at least, I'm like, it's pretty far away from 64.

But yeah, the grade, the big part of the story.

It comes with the computer.

I was going to say.

All right.

So our next meeting is scheduled for the 18th of this month.

We do not have any regular review items scheduled for that date.

Everything that's come in is available for staff level review.

Okay.

Sounds good to me.

All right.

Well, in that case, the next ARB meeting is scheduled for October 2nd, 2023.

Frank and Dave, do you think?

I should be here.

Yeah, currently.

Yes.

All right.

And me too, I think.

In that case,

The meeting is adjourned until the next meeting on October 2nd.

It's 2 29.

And thanks a lot, everybody.

Thank you.