Architectural Review Board Meeting   11/20/2023

It is 1-0-1 and I'm calling the November 20th, 2023 meeting of the Albemarle County Architecture Review Board to order.

Mr. Stoner.

Here.

And Mr. Hancock is absent.

All right.

Thanks a lot.

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 calendar website at the Albemarle County calendar.

The public has real-time audiovisual 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.

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

Do any ARB members have anything to disclose?

No.

I do have a scheduling item.

In the event that we're still going at 2.40 p.m., I will have to leave and we'll hand the reins over to Dade and hopefully that won't happen and will be done before then.

Are there any members of the public that want to make a comment about a project that is not on the agenda for review?

All right, great.

We do not have any consent agenda items today.

So we will move on to our regular review item.

There is one and it is ARB-2023-92, Dunlora Park Phase 2.

Yes.

Good afternoon.

My name is Mariah Gleason.

I'm a Senior Planner II in the Planning Division of Community Development.

Today I'm going to be presenting ARB 2023-92 Dunlora Park Phase 2 Townhomes.

This project is, or this is a first review of the architectural designs.

The proposal requires ARB review due to its proximity to the Rio Road East and John Warner Parkway entrance corridors, symbolized in the orange arrow.

The subject property, shown in red, is comprised of three platted and graded townhouse lots located at the southeast corner of the intersection of Dunlora Drive and Varick Street, approximately 280 feet from Rio Road.

East entrance corridor.

The townhouses are part of a 34-unit residential development known as Dunlora Park.

Residences within the development are typically two to three stories, single-family attached and detached units.

Dunlora Park is surrounded by other residential developments to the north, east, south, and KTEC is located west of the site.

The subject property is separated from Rio Road East and John Warner Parkway entrance corridors by two parcels that contain a multi-use path and are planted with various trees and grasses.

That block, shown in white, contains a grassy berm at its southern end in a sunken central area towards the middle and northern end.

These images were taken from the entrance corridors to understand the expected visibility of the site.

What they show are that the townhouses, particularly the western elevation of Lot 31, located closest to the entrance corridors, identified with a star, will be visible from the Rile Road East entrance corridor.

Due to the topography of the planted block, only the upper stories and roof lines of the townhouses are expected to be visible from the Parkway entrance corridor.

The site plan for the three townhouses was approved under the Dunlora Park phase two site plan, which was later amended by a major site plan amendment.

The proposed architecture of lots 29 through 31 is generally compatible with the characteristics of existing units.

These images demonstrate the proposed architectural features, colors, and materials.

The primary issue staff found in the report is the design of the west elevation of Lot 31, which is expected to be most noticeable and visible from the entrance corridor.

This elevation uses arctic white siding, which will draw attention to the unit, and the elevation is mostly blank.

Other minor issues included needing additional labels on the material selections document, confirming window glass material and the location and screening of mechanical equipment.

This is the full set of recommendations and recommended points of discussion.

All right.

Well, thanks a lot for the presentation.

I'll just roll through and see if there are any questions.

No.

No questions.

And I don't have any questions either.

Thanks.

So the applicant is here and has a presentation.

Thank you.

I'm Chris Schooley with Greenwood Holmes.

We don't have a presentation, but we just have any questions.

It seemed like reasonable recommendations for us.

Sure, I'm never too quiet, so try to be louder.

You can only see the top half.

We usually surround the mechanical equipment anyway with a fence, so that's not a big deal.

We would just ask with some flexibility that kind of moves a little bit on the side of the house, depending on where it fits the best of the house.

I think other than that, probably landscaping is the best solution for that side, and we don't mind moving the arctic white to a different one of the three townhouses or not using it altogether.

I think that was it.

Was there anything else?

Okay, yeah.

The only issue we had that we talked about was that we black out the dormer windows, but that's on the front, so you couldn't see that anyway.

All right, I guess we'll just see if any board members have any questions.

Tara?

No, thank you, sir.

Clarifying, appreciate it.

Thank you.

All right, are there any members of the public that want to comment?

All right.

So the ARB will now go into discussion.

No further ones.

Appreciate Mariah's good report and the applicant's willingness to incorporate the staff comments.

So thank you.

All right.

Thanks.

Same here.

Thank you very much.

Thanks.

Yeah, I think the only question I'd have really relates to the compatibility of the architecture proposed in the new building with what's in the neighborhood is it's kind of a unified concept through there.

I don't know if probably should ask that of the applicant, but did you guys maybe outside or a purview as well?

So this group of images was taken from a visit to the site and demonstrates the design character of the existing residential units within the development.

Overall, there is strong consistency between the units.

They use lap siding, muted earth colors and gabled roofs, dormer windows, and

Porch Accents, these townhouses are on noticeably smaller lots and due to the visibility of what you would see from

The distance from the entrance corridor, how much would really be visible, we thought that the architecture proposed is in the same family and consistent that way.

But they will look different.

OK, thanks.

I guess I kind of share a Dade's opinion that the staff comments seem reasonable and since the applicant seemed to think they were reasonable too, I don't really have anything to add so I guess we could take a look at the motion just to see if anybody has any adjustments.

I don't have any to the staff comments.

I don't know whether the motion allows for administrative staff approval.

Personally, I don't see a need to see the application again if staff is satisfied with how those are incorporated.

Yeah, it didn't sound like anyone had any tweaks.

I'll second.

Mr. Hank?

Mr. Stoner?

Aye.

Mr. Matsuno?

Aye.

Alright, thanks a lot.

All right, so we have two work sessions today.

Good.

So I think it was back in September, maybe August, the board discussed, looked at some images, sort of before and after images of the Presidio project.

And we've been working with the applicants to sort of figure out what happened between

Sorry about that while we get that fixed.

So we had discussed the befores and afters and working with the applicant to sort of bring some greater explanation of that for you.

And so that's why Bob's here today.

Thank you so much for your time.

So this is a, we went through the kind of some of the specifics, which I'm more than happy to do.

I wanted to give you a deeper view into some of the things that we're doing as a workflow process, just so you understand the context of it.

And then we can get into the specifics about working with Margaret.

We've been in front of the board a lot over the years and just from a, I find that the 3D world or the technology associated with three-dimensional workflows are advancing at a pretty fast rate.

We've always been trying to be at the cutting edge of that.

and so this is a quick hopefully you won't find this too boring but a little bit about us a little bit about the work that we've been doing for the last almost 20 years here that's associated with three-dimensional

perspectival images and how where we came to is specifically with Presidio but also as a bigger item when you see three-dimensional items before you, what is the standard, where did they come from,

How were they produced?

What was the intention behind them?

I think that's a bigger review.

So kind of philosophically, where does this stuff come from?

Where's the technology heading?

There are new advances in technology that make my job even easier.

So our job at design development, the design community.

So basically,

I hope this is not too boring, but I just want to give you a background.

Using technology to tell more compelling and accurate stories.

That's what we try to do on a day-to-day basis.

We have two teams, one in Baltimore, one in Charlottesville.

We're using, there's little white figures behind, because we've added three to our staff.

But we've been around since 2006, 2007.

Go to the next slide.

So this is the partnership.

We have 11 people.

And that's me and the studio director for Charlottesville, Kevin Shaffer, which he's presenting in front of you all the time, and our Baltimore studio head, Kanyu Wang.

So technology and workflow.

I'm going to kind of break this down into three things.

So this is the reason we love three-dimensional work.

I'll get into that in a second.

But it's really about synthesizing all of the constraints of any of our projects, being able to talk about those constraints, how they influence design, how the client can participate in the resolution of those, and then presentation.

So presentation, when we come to you, it's towards the latter part of that discussion.

What do you want, client?

How does it look?

How does it fit in the context?

So we're presenting images not really just for you, but these are at the end of our design process and now architectural review, BAR review, things like that.

So this is a quick story.

This is my 2004 aha moment.

I was designing a building for a couple.

And after about an hour and a half of looking through the elevations and the sections, a client turns to me and points to the door and says, what is that?

It points to the door signal symbol.

Go to the next slide.

And goes, what is that?

You can go one more.

And that's a door symbol.

But for people that they're a very smart couple, they just didn't know the language of architecture.

The language of site design, the language of architecture, everybody's got their own kind of slant on how they present things, but a lot of times it doesn't mean anything to somebody else because it's kind of my language or the site plan or a civil engineer, a mechanical engineer.

They convey information, but a lot of times to somebody who doesn't understand them, it's more confusing than not.

This particular couple an hour to talk about their confusion.

My job is to give them what they want, and I'm talking a language they don't understand.

So we're born into a three-dimensional perspectival world when it comes to talking about what we want, or as a community, in this case, what's acceptable.

Talking in a language that everybody understands seems like a very natural progression of thought and technology.

So my journey with this came from the Boston area, came down here, quickly met Brian Wheeler from Charlottesville Tomorrow.

And I was kind of telling him about this, how the process of debate on a community level with built structures is kind of confusing.

And he showed me, he goes, well, the Ragon Mountain Dam project was happening at that point.

And he showed me an eight and a half by 11 sheet of a section through the dam.

And to me, it looked like, well, that's no big deal until I found out every half inch was 100 feet.

So being able to scale that drawing or scale that so that the community could understand what was coming, we started thinking about what's something that somebody knows that's in the community.

They know the rotunda.

They know how big it is.

Well, this is three rotundas with all of its side buildings right next to each other.

And there's still room for more.

So it was kind of this beginning of helping the community understand visually the things that were coming and democratizing these things so that they're perspectival, scaled, shade shadow, texture.

You can go on to the next slide.

So we started doing a lot of things with Charlottesville Tomorrow when Brian was there.

We started doing something, The Restoring Station, which was a Joe Higgins project on 29th, very controversial for whatever reason.

Well, we showed the plans in context at scale and you could see it from the entrance border.

So the whole idea of visualizing where you were at specific points was an easy thing to do from a technological standpoint.

We also worked with him to, and you can click onto the Western Bypass.

So at the time the Western Bypass was, you know, happening and nobody knew about it.

Again, these kind of

drawings that were very hard to stitch together and to understand.

So we modeled everything three dimensionally with Google Maps.

And I'll get into that in a second.

But Google Maps brings to scale drawings with photorealistic material with it, topography.

So we overlaid the plan of

The Western Bypass onto that, showed vignettes of it, tried to let everybody understand what the context, you could blow little sections up where there was complexity.

I think see how, yeah, right there, that's good.

So we did that.

That was very well received and people printing it out and as on a public forum, people could now understand it a little bit better.

Next slide.

We also did something for the Southern Environmental Law Center.

This was called Let's Go 29.

You can click on that.

This is a video.

It's kind of not photorealistic.

And this is one portion of it trying to describe how traffic flows might work and this spooey.

which was going to happen which hasn't happened yet but letting trying to give somebody graphic sensibility of what's happening and why and in this case we were trying to tell a story so this was narrated you can't hear that this was a while ago technology has changed a lot since then we were stitching together a lot of nascent workflow

Most recently, we did the Rivanna Station for the county and this was all about visualizing this tract of land that I think it should be a video that loads.

but again using the same kind of technology, the Google Maps, the site plan that was given to us, a little bit of invention when it came to.

I think if you accept all, it should be an animation that runs or maybe it's loading.

Oh yeah, maybe in that bottom left-hand corner.

So this is all about storytelling and with accuracy.

It's not down to the,

Foote, but it's down to the, you know, as far as the information that's readily available to us.

So topography, the building form, some existing parking, others that has been, you know, other building form and site plans that were really depicted, you know, a kind of rudimentary

but we were able to model those things and again trying to tell a story of what could be coming.

So this was successful in that the county had a vision that they could let everybody see, anybody who can see and see things visually, three-dimensional, perspectival and shade, shadow but also scale.

So what's this whole thing look like?

What are certain parts of it look like?

and as a community we can debate whether we want them or not want them, but this is hopefully a true version, an accurate version of what was being debated.

Next slide.

and our own work in front of, I've just got some examples of ARB work, but we also do a lot of work in the city.

Subaru, we just finished that, Region 10 Women's Shelter, that was four or five years ago.

We're open, you can see on the bottom right-hand side, all the IV proper to go through a couple, Presidio is on there.

We'll probably go back, actually, why don't you go on that?

And then we can come back.

and if you don't mind, go to ARB images.

So, and you can just kind of click through any one of those.

This was, that's the Monticello.

So again, seeing what Monticello, you know, what was the impact from Monticello standpoint.

But this is a good image to start with because this is where the images in question came from.

But I want to talk about process.

So we modeled three dimensionally the existing topography, the road, the bridge, Route 64.

And so we have a very, very accurate

Depiction of at scale of the entire site and then after that depends on where you take a picture from You know, so the camera can go to any one of these spots, which is part of the storytelling part of it What do you want to know and where yeah, so we can

you know the idea is to tell you a picture take a picture from the bridge above it around it facing south facing north anything you want to do you can explore that model and it should be very very accurate so that's the work you know there's a lot of work that we've done in front of the board yeah I think a good one Margaret would be one that kind of shows

like the 19 or 20, yeah, that one.

So this is proof of concept and working with a client, we went through a lot of iterations.

We weren't the base architect, but we did help the owner make improvements, facade improvements.

So we started with the model, we started with

Things that could be improved upon, and then the site was modeled at scale with all the retaining walls, the right elevations, things like that.

And then it's a question of materiality, color, form.

And these are things that we debated with ARB, but also the client chose.

And we can show you basically at any vantage point what it might look like.

And the great news here is that for the couple of images that are in question, we can talk about what happened there.

But basically, the entire site, all of this is built to a very, very high accuracy to what was built.

and also a depiction of the materials.

We don't build it obviously, but these are all indications of what it would look like if the material palette used was done.

Okay, let's go back to the slideshow and go to the next slide.

So I want to talk a little bit about new technologies and workflows.

I just got back from a conference at Trimble, which is a geospatial organization in Las Vegas.

It was amazing what they're doing and what's coming.

So we've

Trimble has bought SketchUp.

That happened about five or six years ago.

So SketchUp was our primary kind of narrative tool or three-dimensional tool.

So we got our 3D topography from that.

We could also model from that.

We could take pictures from that.

So that was our base.

That's what a lot of the work you've seen before.

It's still a big part of what we do, but we've also moved to Revit.

You can go to the next slide.

So SketchUp was our base, and now the state has flown using LIDAR the entirety of the whole state and has made that LIDAR data available for download.

And what's amazing about that LIDAR is that it not only gives you incredibly accurate ground plane, it also gives you incredibly accurate canopy and building information.

So you can go to the next slide.

and using something called segmentation, you can run automated AIs kind of moving into this world, into the architectural world as well and using AI and or algorithms.

What it does is it looks at the data that's captured.

Does anybody know what LIDAR is?

Yeah, so LIDAR is not that, it was invented in the 70s, but basically it's a light pulse that goes out and it hits until it hits something that stops it, it measures that point in an XYZ coordinate system, and it does that hundreds and hundreds and billions and millions of times.

And what it does is it produces a three-dimensional duplicate of the existing conditions.

So a digital duplicate at scale.

So what you're looking at here is a portion of a lidar image or lidar data that was captured.

And then using segmentation, you can distinguish between ground plane, vegetation, power lines, buildings, things like that.

So it automatically pulls that information out.

This is useful for us because it's not only available publicly and for free, we can now visualize our buildings in any context at a very, very high level of accuracy and without a lot of work, without a lot of extra work.

So this is an image of a winery that we're doing.

And on the top image, you can see a picture, a photograph of the site.

And then this is our model.

And in the background, you can see the lidar information that came off the state.

So now there's this parity between, visually speaking, between what we think was there and it's also capturing tree canopy as well, which has always been a bit of a challenge for us because we didn't have an accurate source except through

Kind of guessing what a tree you know trees grow and they move and they get cut down It's part of the part of the issue that happened in Presidio.

We had a very very accurate topography and road elevation and building but it was hard it was more subjected to understand where what trees were being left and their impact on the on the so I think we've solved for that at to this point and

The other thing we're doing is 3D point cloud scanning.

What you see there is a scanner.

It collects 125 million points in three minutes.

And it digitizes those points, takes a high resolution image.

And unlike the image you saw before, which were kind of colors, this adds an RGB value.

So if it captured this surface, that would be black, that would be brown.

So it's almost like a photorealistic version of the as-built condition.

So the amazing thing about that camera, you put it in here, you capture 125 million points, you go to that doorway and open it up, capture another 125 million points, it stitches those together, and then you go around the whole building and you get, you know, in a day or so, I'd probably do this building, not as a big building, maybe two or three days, we get a digital duplicate of the building itself.

So every measurement down to an eighth of an inch across the whole building,

This is just to say where we're going.

I think you might want to click onto that link.

This is a little video that we did.

And Margaret, if you go to about the midline, I want to just show you.

Let's try that.

So here's a good explanation of what we're trying to do here.

So what we have, yeah, if you could pause it, that would be awesome.

So what we have here is a 3D point cloud scan of the transit center in Charlottesville.

And we just use this as an example.

Very, very hard to get as-built conditions on a building like that because it's in a public way.

It's tall.

It's not orthogonal.

It's pitching back.

So our scanner catches all that information.

Then we bring it into what you're looking at a SketchUp and we can model to it.

So we understand, you know, you're you're drawing a vector line drawing to the existing conditions.

And then you're getting a very, very accurate representation because you're using that

The old days, the way we used to do it five years ago, we still do it, some people.

You take a tape measure, you measure this building.

This is curved, a little curved.

So the question is, how do you get good accurate as-built?

It's actually quite difficult the old way.

I feel like we jumped from like a caveman, but where we were to astrophysicists in one fell swoop, not that we invented the technology, but we're using it to our highest advantage.

So the good news there, you can go down to the next slide, is that using the point cloud and for the work of the ARB, this is another example of honing in to what's the story you want to tell and how accurate it is.

And there's always been, and there probably always will be, a subjective reality to the story that you're telling.

Where's the image?

Where did you take the picture?

Why did you take the picture?

Where you took it?

What are you trying to show?

What are you not trying to show?

This, and I won't say that we're trying to show our best light, you know, for our projects, and we're also trying to show areas of impact, like if there's an intersection that the ARB cares about,

and obviously we but we basically put the camera in that location and take a picture you know so there isn't a lot of gamesmanship being played here we're not trying to you know to show you something that's not there and so this is a picture of just how buildings are represented a point cloud just like this building we could scan it

It would look like the thing on the left because all the point clouds build a comprehensive idea of the building, and then we model to it, and then we take that building and put it into the site model.

So anything that you saw, you could have an incredible amount of strength or understanding that it was as real as we could get it.

Next thing.

And then how the point cloud works into making construction models and images.

So what you're seeing here is that orthogonal view, elevational view.

So this is blending that whole world of the plan section elevation.

Back to what's necessary to build, let's say, or I know some people just want straight elevations.

That's how they've compared other projects.

So this doesn't preclude that.

It allows for all of that investigation.

And it's also, again, in the case of the architecture profession, we're trying to make good, accurate stories that democratize the design process so that the owners can be part of that

of their experience with things that they want, and then we're showing you to the best of our abilities the reality of what it will look like.

So that's kind of the end of my presentation.

The problem with the Presidio was basically it came down to one element, which was the existing trees.

And we had a sharp embankment.

The viewpoint, if you look at the images that we have, and then if you can go to Google Earth and you look at the maps and how you can street view.

So the buildings are perfectly situated elevationally.

They're exactly right.

Problem was that there was a slope that came up, and the level of disturbance, it was the trees, since we didn't have the lidar, it was more of a guessing game of how far the disturbance was, and how far the trees were, because it's hard to designate how high they were.

So the trees were taken off of the slope further than we thought, and they weren't as tall as we thought, and that was what created the problem.

So there's a slope there.

You can imagine a slope that's populated with trees.

We had an image of a street map.

So that's the image that we used to identify the perspective.

What we didn't know was how far the trees were that were going to get cut down.

and their relative height.

So if they were higher, closer to the bottom of the heel of the site, they would have done a better job of protecting it.

As it was, a lot of the tall trees were on the upslope, which we couldn't tell from, and admittedly, it's one of the, because it's not subjective, we'd have to go out there and measure trees to understand their impact.

That's where the majority of the problem of this image came from.

But again, the visual parity between

Elevationally, the bridge and where the site was and the site walls and the buildings and all that was tied to the two elevations of not only the highway, but also the Sentara driveways, the Sentara circular path.

Thank you for your presentation, Bob, and thank you also for all the presentations you've made before the board.

I know all of us really appreciate the clarity and the thoroughness that you bring to the work and how you help us understand the projects before us.

Appreciate as well the background on this view and what data there was and wasn't.

I guess, well, I don't know, Chris, to refer to you, are we just, we're in a work session and discussion?

So,

I think it's a good question.

I think it's a question of process.

And the question I would ask, I feel like we've been, if we were doing this,

Hapaz would be in front of you a lot, just from all the things that we've done.

And if you go and compare, they're close facsimile to each other.

So I think a bigger question or a question to ask, which is the root of what you're asking, where are these coming from?

How do I know as somebody who's reviewing them?

Oh, yeah.

Sorry, sorry.

So there's always a subjective reality to perception.

So a site plan, things get missed.

I think that's why people like what we do, because there's less subjectivity to them.

I might ask the question, what was your process when you delivered these images?

And especially because it's so new, it's kind of the wild west.

There aren't a lot of rules.

What was your process?

What was your intent?

Can you describe where these things came from as a board?

And just knowing how things are derived, is this a image that you drew over?

What was the level of technology that you used to come to this conclusion?

Bob, it looks like in the original rendering that you guys did that the wall structure at this particular project was different than what ended up getting built.

All I can say, are you talking about the retaining walls?

All I can say is we don't go back and verify.

We model what was given to us from a site plan perspective.

So we take out top walls, elevations that are driven.

You might go back to the presentation, back to that presidio, because there's an overall view image.

So yeah, go down a little.

Yeah, you're right there.

And do that one right there, that page 32.

So relative to the retaining walls, that's

That's what's built.

And Bob, some of the 3D views included trees at the steps of the retaining wall.

We're going back a couple years now.

I typically would render whatever's there.

But I think earlier in the review process, there might have been landscaping shown on the site.

I would have to show you what I modeled and when.

The objective is to model it very accurately with the latest information that we have.

So that, you know, when this was submitted to us, we were modeling, you know, basically CAD models which were driving the site submission.

So that's what we're modeling.

If that makes sense.

Now something, did it change during that process?

I don't know if that's the case.

So just counting the number of retaining walls, one, two, three, four, five in our model.

Do we have a perspective from 64 that would have shown this?

If you go to that aerial, looking down, and we can, you know, even in

Oh, yeah.

So there's five walls there.

So.

That was that 19.

Right hand side.

Yep.

Sort of the shift in looking down at them to looking up at them.

Yeah, I guess a philosophical question maybe for my my fellow board members is, you know, so often as we're looking at projects and trying to understand their impact, we're considering the landscape.

And frequently that landscape is outside of the applicant's control, as is the case here.

Is there anything that we should

Consider in terms of restricting what landscape can be shown to only that that's proposed with the site plan or otherwise to avoid any future scenarios where we evaluate something and its impact based on screening that may be part of the application.

I mean, on the one hand, there are many projects probably that don't have an impact because of the screening outside of their control and might not be as feasible if they had to be as completely screened within their own borders.

And yet, certainly this project has a much more dramatic visual impact on the corridor than I think certainly I anticipated.

Yeah, I guess to me there's like two...

I kind of have two observations.

One is just Bob is almost not a good example to use because he's so good at that.

And these two images, the rendering that was produced versus the actual

If the rendering that was submitted was the kind of like rudimentary crappy rendering that like I might do, then it might, it might not even be an issue.

It would be like, well, you know, it doesn't look like the rendering.

Well of course it doesn't look like the rendering because the rendering is like obviously an artist's impression of what it might look like and it seems like the better the rendering, the more accurate or more realistic the rendering gets, I think the more of an expectation there is that it's

really going to look just like that when and that kind of gets me to my second observation is that design or at least in terms of the building maybe not as much for site plans but like at least in terms of buildings frequently like at least in my experience like the design of the building itself

at the stage where you're submitting for ARB consideration is still like very preliminary in terms of the overall design of the building.

So there's still a lot to be ironed out.

So there's this problem, and I don't know that I'm arguing for anything specific, but just observing that like a lot of times

Building design will be submitted that looks further along in its development in terms of the design than it really is.

And it's like how much, when you get approval from the ARB, I guess there's a little bit of a, just speaking not as a member of the ARB, but as an architect, you might,

How much does that approval like lock you in to what was submitted?

Like how much can you take the kind of what you perceive as the intent of that approval to develop the design further to where you need it to go?

And how much does it have to retain the act appearance of like what you it and sometimes that

comes back to quality of what is submitted or at least like maybe not it's not even a quality issue but like you're able to get approval with some images that are kind of vague and maybe not show certain aspects of the bill and that kind of gives you more latitude in terms of like

future, you know, your ability to adapt.

Whereas if you're very specific, at least, and I'm just talking about the three-dimensional images that are produced.

I mean, plans should be, in my opinion, it's easier for like plans and elevations to be three-dimensional imagery.

It's like,

almost gives an advantage to somebody who's less specific about what they're showing and that depending on how much they're held to that in terms of like what the final product looks like compared to what was submitted

I don't quite know where I was going with all that.

What recourse does the board have in the event that somebody submits a perspective like this, for example, where there's a clear disconnect between what happened in reality and

what we were shown.

Is there any recourse?

Can you go back?

Could you go back to Riverbend and say, hey, the walls, you know, this isn't what you submitted.

Now you're going to need to plant in front of that.

Well, it's a good question.

I think in this particular case, well, I guess the question would be,

Go back to the approved documents.

Is it just the plans and the elevations and the site plans, or is it also the 3D images that are approved?

I think we could ask some others about that.

I'm not sure what the answer is.

I think in a case like this, particularly when it comes down to the retaining walls, there isn't a whole lot of opportunity to go back and plant trees like they're shown there.

It's just not going to work.

We have limited opportunities for making up for it after the fact.

We have looked at this, all the landscaping that's on the approved plan has been planted.

I think they're all real small at this point.

No, not on the retaining walls, on the other side of the pond.

So between the pond and the interstate, there are trees there.

But isn't that like, I guess that's where I'm, I think there's like a question of like, sort of where do we, you know, what perspectives are we shown and what appears on them?

But I feel like there's a couple of things in this one that I'm noticing, like,

I don't think, it doesn't look like we got the view from the corridor that we were most concerned with in the package, in the ARB package, right?

I didn't see a highway view.

That's the image.

Okay, well then, okay, so maybe we got the image, but we did get just a depiction of landscape that didn't end up getting planted in the original project, in the eventual project, right?

I see.

Yeah.

So what we rendered, you know, I have to look back on the date, you know, because I think we're talking about process and choices along the way.

And to your point, there's a beginning of this and then there's resolution like testing the architecture and the materiality.

And there's a whole, you know,

40 page document on cladding and windows and views and all that kind of stuff.

So I'd have to go back to see where we were in process.

But we didn't make this up.

So I think you can see all this landscaping here.

That doesn't have an impact yet from the interstate.

I'd have to go back to the preliminary plan and see if that one showed planting at each of the levels of the retaining wall.

I mean, you can see that lower retaining wall with that big swoop on the right-hand side.

That's what's showing up on the plan is one, two, three, four, five.

One, two, three, four, five.

And there's even a little sixth one on the top.

Yeah, it's just the landscaping that's not... Landscaping, yeah.

Accurate.

Well, and the spacing of the walls and the elevation of the walls.

If you look at the rendering or the picture, the photo from 29,

Yeah, they are, they are tiered and you just, there's no, there's no, any, any planting that's there is just not tall enough to, you're not seeing it.

Back to the approved site plan, Margaret.

I guess I think that there's this really practical matter.

There's a lot of landscaping that's shown on the rendering that does not appear to be reflected in the site plan.

But they're showing a whole series of trees behind that clubhouse or whatever, the garagey thing.

Yeah, the other rendering, right?

It's relatively, we modeled what we saw, what we were given at that point.

Yeah, yeah.

Outside of the existing trees, that was a tough one.

But the other ones are just like a building or a wall.

It's just not a diminished tree, but we take a tree at scale and put it in where there's a circle.

So it's just not subjective.

It's whatever the site plan tells us to do because we don't have

And I guess for us, too, it's just maybe next time we see an arrangement like this, know that it's probably not possible to put trees on that retaining wall the way that they've shown, right?

That would imply that the retaining walls are much further apart than what the reality is.

You know, like that should have been self-evident, I guess.

But the presumption was you wouldn't, you weren't really going to be able to see any of it anyway.

Who done that?

Right.

Which is really, comes back to your initial point.

And I think the other thing sometimes we rely on is tree buffer during the summer months.

And then all of a sudden in the winter.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And construction.

Yeah.

Takes a toll.

Well, Bob, I appreciate your presentation and obviously the care and the accuracy that you bring with the information that you have available to you.

And so thank you.

Thank you for that.

Lidar stuff is pretty cool.

Seems like you're doing good work on that.

Yeah, it's all evolving, too.

Technical question for you, if the state's now done Lidar on the whole state,

Has there been any progress in getting from LIDAR to CAD?

They're working on it, but it's not there.

The other bigger problem is using the data for site because it's not certified.

And so nobody will, even though it's more accurate, no one will accept it.

You can't submit it because there isn't a licensed surveyor that said, you know, that's

It's more accurate, I think, than a ground survey in a lot of ways.

All right.

All right.

So we'll go on to our second work session, which is the comp plan goals objectives.

Yeah, if you're ready.

Great.

So we want to do a work session on the goals and objectives for the comp plan today.

You may recall both in March and June of this year, we had some discussions on the goals and objectives and overall process.

At your places, I've printed out the comments that you had on those days.

So you have those for reference.

I also have it at the end of the slideshow here if we need to display it for any reason.

Tori Kanellopoulos is here with us today and she's on the team that's leading the comp plan update efforts and we may ask her to pop in or she may have questions or comments for y'all as we go along.

What we want to do is go through each of the draft goals and objectives and ask you if they address all the comments and concerns that you've had or if you have ideas for additional comments to make at this point.

Just as a reminder, the goal is the high-level, long-term direction.

The objective is a more specific outcome or target to accomplish that goal.

after we have to get through the goals and objectives.

Actually, we've already started work on the action steps.

So the action steps are the even more specific points that would fall under each of the objectives.

So we don't have those for you today.

Goals and objectives first.

We'll get to the action steps later.

So I was just going to go through, read the goal, give a highlight of the objectives, and get your comments.

First goal, Albemarle County will recognize, celebrate, and increase awareness of the broad range of historic, cultural, and scenic resources that contribute to Albemarle's unique sense of place.

We've got three objectives under this goal.

The first one is about identifying, mapping, and documenting all those resources.

The second objective is about sharing the stories and the information related to all those unique resources.

And the third objective is about identifying and protecting against potential threats to the resources.

All right, I guess we'll just go right down the line.

I don't think I have any comments either.

Sorry to disappoint, but I don't have any comments either.

Okay, well let's go through each one.

If they're all speedy quick then get Tori to come up and help us figure out what we need to do next.

Okay, goal two.

Albemarle County will protect its historic, cultural, scenic, and rural resources and natural environment while considering the future trajectory of development in the community.

Again, we have three objectives under this goal.

The first one is encourage greater preservation and protection of the resources by

the landowners and business owners through incentives, grant programs, and other funding streams.

That's about encouraging it through incentives.

The second objective is increase the preservation and adaptive reuse of historic and cultural resources through county programs and updated regulations.

And this would be also in this objective as

Information about energy efficient upgrades and also documenting resources before demolition.

Sorry, would you mind flipping back to the last one for a second?

The first one.

Recognize?

Okay.

Goal three, Albemarle County will have opportunities for all community members to access and enjoy local, historic, scenic, and cultural resources.

Three objectives here again.

First one, provide both online and in-person opportunities to access the resources and to increase awareness about the benefits of preserving them.

Objective two, protect, enhance, and recognize the importance of local viewsheds and landscapes that contribute to the county's identity, especially around historic and cultural sites and landscapes, mountain resources, and waterways.

And objective three, reduce light pollution to protect and enhance the dark sky while balancing the need for a safe and built environment.

Goal four, Albemarle County will have attractive and scenic entrance corridors and other important county roadways that support the county's natural environment and unique sense of place.

First objective under goal four is to elevate the quality of design along designated entrance corridor streets and encourage the use of renewable energy sources and sustainable building materials.

I guess I have a question about that last one.

A state scenic road doesn't have any requirements associated with it, but when we get to the action steps here, we may

How many designated roads are there currently in the county?

Scenic roads?

They're not that many.

No, you're quizzing me.

I did not spend well enough.

It's actually in, if I had just brought the current comp plan that weighs 20 pounds, I could go right to the page and list them off for you.

Under objective 4.1, I guess one question I have is how do we balance the sort of quality of design with potentially renewable energies used in the form of solar panels, for example.

Exactly.

Yeah, that's a really good question.

Could we go back to goal two, maybe?

No, no, I was going to say, maybe we go three to this.

Okay, sorry.

Sorry to jump you in line.

You know, I mean, I think that there's a way to say, you know, that, I don't know, that growth within the county, because it won't look exactly like things that, precedents that we have within the county.

But I think we still want to encourage a high level of design quality and consistency within those new development areas.

I guess sort of related to that, I had the question looking at this one, because on the one hand, there's the active verb that a county will protect, it's historic, etc., but only consider its future trajectory.

So I wasn't sure whether there

whether the development of the county is addressed with an active verb elsewhere in the polls outside of this section.

I guess I'll try to change it to well-developing.

I'm going to ask Tori.

Good afternoon, Tori Kanellopoulos.

I'm a principal planner in community development and thank you all for your discussion and input today.

I think it's really helpful.

I think for this one it was kind of meant to acknowledge that, you know, development is going to continue to happen, especially in the development areas.

And a lot of those more specific recommendations for how and where that should happen would be like in the land use section of the comp plan.

But in this section just kind of considering what some of those chapter considerations are going to be related to historic, cultural, and scenic resources.

and also I'll note the discussion on solar panels and the entrance corridors is something we've talked about too and I know we're not quite to action steps yet but if you all have any thoughts on action steps or implementation we're happy to hear those and consider them.

and we've presented these goals and objectives to the Planning Commission and got their input and I think they generally thought everything was going in the right direction.

I think they had some questions about Objective 4.1, kind of similar to that, what's the kind of entrance corridor piece versus the renewable energy and sustainable building materials piece and then we'll share these with the Board of Supervisors in January.

So quick question on objective 2.1, incurred greater preservation and protection of Albemarle's historic level.

Well, we don't have any incentive programs really at all in place, so I think the action steps will focus on finding some of those incentive programs and finding some funding streams.

We haven't figured it all out yet, so we're still working on that.

I think

Yeah, I think it's really about the incentive programs.

We've been finding that some of these objectives overlap from one goal to the next, so there are other programs that could be put in place, like the Historic Preservation Committee has recommended.

And just as a comment like I do appreciate that what's being discussed is like incentives rather than like

you know additional like yeah mandates or regulation that would like you know require additional reviews and all that kind of stuff which I think incentive is a better approach assuming the incentives are

Right.

Well, under this goal, 2.1 is about incentives and 2.2 is about potential additional regulations.

So I think where we're headed is sort of a balance between them.

The other issue about funding is if you have a local historic district with local regulations then you can become a certified local government through the Department of Historic Resources and you can become available or eligible for grant programs through that organization.

You can't be a certified local government without a local historic preservation ordinance in place.

Mariah has done the research that I did not do.

Thank you.

So we are working on action steps.

Tori, we do plan to bring those back in the future next year.

Yes.

We do plan to share those next year.

So I think the anticipated timeline would be rolling out action steps for all comp plan chapters, probably in like mid spring, you know, April timeframe.

All right.

Thanks a lot.

So we will move on to other business.

First is approval of the October 2nd, 2023 minutes.

I'll move to approve this.

I'm sorry.

Actually, the minutes that we want to approve are November 6th.

Sorry, different dates there.

Oh, thank you.

Okay.

I'm sorry.

Mr. Matsuno.

Aye.

And Mr. Van Der Werf.

Aye.

All right.

Thanks a lot.

All right.

I will ask that question.

Thank you.

The one other item I'll mention is I think folks are aware that the county is reviewing its cell phone personal wireless facility regulations based on the survey and

The study that's been done, there's a recommendation to significantly relax and allow administrative approval of increases in height up to 30 feet above trees.

No limit on the extent of antennas.

I have an open question I just sent to Bill Fritz just to ask

whether sites that were previously, well, entrance corridor sites that required ARB review to determine that there was appropriate screening, whether those would, under this ordinance, be administratively approval for greater height and number of towers.

So I think it might be worth, if that is the case in the current proposed legislation, are maybe meeting with planning and reviewing that.

And I think there is gonna be

Planning Commission meeting early next year.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Certainly, there's about 30 years of, I guess, board and staff time invested in the current regime, which has preserved a good part of the visual character of the county.

Thanks.

All right.

So next ARB meeting is scheduled for December 4th, 2023.

Are there any board members here who do not think they'd be able to attend that?

All right, I think it sounds like tentatively we have four for that one.

So in that case, this meeting is adjourned to the next meeting on December 4th, 2023.

And it is 2.30.