Architectural Review Board Meeting   1/16/2024

Could we call the roll, please?

Mr. Henningsen?

Here.

Mr. Hancock?

Here.

here, Mr. Van Der Werf here, and Mr. Matsuno is absent.

So I think I hand the reins over to Margaret.

So I'd like to ask if there are any nominations for chairperson for 2024.

I'd be happy to nominate Chris Henningsen.

Are there any, let's see, is there a second for that?

A second.

Are there any other nominations?

No.

Carolyn, can you call the vote, please?

Aye Thank you

I'll turn it back over to Mr. Henningsen, who can take the meeting over from here.

If we could call a vote on that.

All right, Mr. Van Der Werf?

Aye.

Mr. Hancock?

Aye.

Mr. Henningsen?

All right, thanks a lot.

Thank you.

I guess if we could call another vote.

Mr. Henningsen.

Aye.

Mr. Hancock.

Aye.

Mr. Stoner.

Aye.

Thank you.

No, thank you.

Frank?

So moved.

I'll second.

If we could call a vote on that.

Mr. Van Der Werf?

Aye.

Mr. Stoner?

Aye.

Mr. Hancock?

Aye.

Mr. Henningsen?

Aye.

Thank you.

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, thanks a lot.

Are there any members of the public that want to make a comment?

I do not have anybody online that wants to make a comment.

Are there any ARB members who would like to move that project off of the consent agenda for discussion?

No.

In that case, would anyone like to make a motion to approve the consent agenda?

I'll move that we approve the consent agenda.

If we could call a vote on that.

Mr. Van Der Werf?

Aye.

Mr. Hancock?

Aye.

Mr. Stoner?

I'm going to abstain.

OK. And Mr. Henningsen?

Aye.

Thank you.

Margaret, do you have a presentation for us?

Our recommendation is for approval with the conditions listed in the report.

Thanks, Margaret.

Dave?

Frank?

No, thanks.

If the applicant has a presentation, now would be the time for that.

But if you have any questions, Kendra Wahlstrom, who's the general manager, is also with me here today.

Sounds like maybe not.

I don't have anybody online with their hand raised.

I guess we'll start with Dade to see if you have any comments.

No objections to it.

I agree.

I agree.

Motion or recommendations and does anybody want to make a motion?

2023-19 Stonefield Tesla outdoor sales, storage and display with the conditions outlined in the staff report.

I'll second.

If we could put that to a vote.

Mr. Henningsen.

Aye.

Mr. Stoner.

Aye.

Mr. Van Der Werf.

Aye.

Thank you.

Margaret, do you have a presentation?

The Barnes-Lumber criteria, it just occurred to me that the applicant is not here.

Yeah, we could just switch them up.

OK. Why don't we do that?

I think Mariah has the staff presentation.

Are there any questions about the memo or presentation I can clarify?

Dave, do you have any questions?

No other questions.

Frank Hancock?

Do we, is there a motion for this or this is just a

Yes.

There will end up being a motion for this?

We're trying to move to motions for everything just to make sure everything's clear.

Very thorough.

Do you have any questions?

I don't have any questions.

So if the applicant has a presentation.

This is one of those single family homes and the retaining walls are on the backside of that berm from the entrance corridor.

So those will not be visible.

I don't think they were.

Okay.

And again, our consultants are participating remotely.

Frank Stoner, do you have any questions?

Not as much.

Dave, do you have any questions?

Great, thank you.

Frank?

Or are there, given the retaining wall, are there some that you feel are maybe not going to be visible?

from the property line.

Thank you.

Sure.

Are there any members of the public who would like to make a comment?

I do not have anybody online.

Do you have any comments?

I think that makes sense to me in terms of the scope of the review.

Frank?

So I'm comfortable either enabling staff to approve next round, or I'm not sure it needs to come back to us, I guess is what I'm suggesting.

If there are no other comments or questions, if we could go into a motion, if anybody's comfortable with it on that.

All right, to my question, does this have to come back to the board?

You can read the staff report and then if you see that there are issues you want to address, somebody can ask to take it off.

Yeah, that makes sense to me.

Is there anything we need to define more about the character or type of that screening?

A good amount of landscaping, and I think to Dade's point, there's kind of that one point at the end of that retaining wall, maybe up to the north, that if that were focused on some evergreen trees, or predominantly evergreen trees, I think that would mitigate the visibility.

Would fencing be subject to future review if they decided?

Yeah, if fencing was added and if it was visible from the corridor and it wasn't on the site plan, that would be an amendment.

Or does anyone have any tweaks that they'd like to make to the proposed motion?

So I'd probably suggest we simplify the list.

So it's really just confirming what's expected to be visible based on what was in the submittal for today's review.

Well, I guess we could leave it as is then.

And if anybody has any concerns, it can always be discussed.

I could see the applicant's case of why would landscaping still be required, but.

then trees at a regular interval along that might not be the best application of the ARB guidelines because it's essentially self-hiding, if you will.

Thank you.

I think in terms of number eight, it seems like maybe not all 19 will be visible, but I don't know that we know enough today to change that part of the motion.

It's trying to sort of keep today's review based on the submittal that was made for today and not get it confused and lose track of things along the way.

Yep, makes sense.

Do we have any amendments?

I'll second that.

Are you ready for a vote?

Oh yes, yeah, I'm sorry.

Mr. Henningsen?

Aye.

Mr. Stoner?

Aye.

Mr. Van Der Werf?

Margaret?

I don't know, in a work session, does that mean I can stay here and just not talk, or do I need to go somewhere else?

I think it's often accepted to sit in the audience.

Please note gestures or facial expressions that might be seen to influence the board members.

So just let me know how you'd like to proceed.

Frank, do you have any questions?

Is there an opportunity for applicant presentation or is this a work session so they'll

We don't have any specific process or work sessions.

Isn't there a park associated with this?

Do you mean the plaza?

Plaza, excuse me.

I don't think the plaza is actually identified on any of these drawings and so maybe we would be best to have the applicant address that.

Let me ask, does the applicant have like a formal presentation today?

It doesn't look like it.

We could maybe save time and like reduce confusion just having questions and just kind of a Q&A and open discussion with the applicant.

Is this the first application of the county's P3 sort of avenue to establish

This application is to establish the criteria for the county-wide certificate, so for the entrance corridor review of developments, applications that will come in.

Thank you.

So thank you.

any more than others, or were you generally kind of, I mean, Margaret's always reasonable, so like.

bake into the guidelines that will help staff and future applicants know where to go and get that predictability of process that will help this area flourish.

So, Dave, do you have any questions for staff or the applicant or comments?

Certainly appreciate the work that went into this outline and also Margaret, all of your work interpreting it and identifying issues for our consideration.

That sounds good.

Would that work for you?

Hope that helps.

Is that a fair description of how open the armature is at this point?

already kind of the downtown Crozet.

Right good point and so for clarification in terms of the zoning there's a minimum sort of backyard setback is that what this is considered or is it considered a front yard setback?

So zoning does have some setbacks that will be both generated by the whole parcel now but then applied when the breakdown of blocks occurs.

Thank you.

Would you like to start with the questions for the ARB?

Sure, sounds good.

Okay so under the view corridors and frontage topics, first question, are rear elevations facing the corridor acceptable?

Open question and a hard one.

but we need to try to improve upon it and so I think discussion about how that might be achieved would be helpful especially in light of what the ARB would consider.

And it's hard to imagine that the railroad would ever be realigned vertically and there could actually be connections between the entrance corridor and the site in terms of pedestrian or vehicular, right?

You know, maybe we have more clarity there and it matters less when we get behind the embankment.

Thank you.

or a particular given building face the corridor because then it's having to face the railroad tracks also.

Other things later, even though there are sound issues from the active rail line, I would support these buildings being transparent in the way the applicant has proposed and so that folks can see that they're inhabited and used.

Yeah, to add further to the conundrums, the view of that direction from upper stories is actually really good.

It's not.

I live next to the tracks in Velma, so it's not a bad thing.

Okay, so should trees be provided along the corridor when buildings are proposed without parking lots between the building and the railroad?

I think it's in some of the staff materials that so much of the 250 West corridor is bounded by landscape and then I think as you come into Crozet there are residential developments that still preserve basically a landscape buffer of a degree and I think that's a pattern that could be applied consistently here and then offer more flexibility and setbacks in development of buildings in the property.

And my point at the beginning is they're dedicating a large portion of this site to this public plaza that's a green space in a lot of ways that will provide a lot of that vegetation.

But it would be a different kind of edge than what I think would be appropriate if it's marking lots and fences.

Yeah.

I don't think that would happen.

trying to have two fronts, I don't know, that's not usually successful.

Yeah, no, and I don't think many of us is proposing two fronts.

You know, there's going to be relationships between them, but we're not going to look at a single facade or, you know, a single motif of expressed.

There's going to be some brave pioneer who goes first.

Yeah.

And then the next one, but they don't necessarily have to be immediately adjacent to each other.

We're building a town here.

It's a different, yeah, a building itself would be a lot easier than what we're talking about here.

We're going to one day look back.

So I don't know, I'm struggling, I'm making plainly evident to understand how we could prove the degree of flexibility that's inherent in these and have any real assurance of what would result.

So it's kind of hard to strike that balance.

Somebody will have a building that comes some distance away from that based on whatever kind of building they're building that will have landscape, go ahead.

I'm saying at least one aisle of parking.

and just be prescriptive to what those three would be with less control on the building related ones and more control on the parking lot.

Yeah.

who owner us in this.

Because this really mainly applies to canopy trees.

Yes.

So that makes sense to me.

The answer to number three is yes.

I think so.

And just going back to number two, I wasn't sure that there was consensus on that.

I think just to revisit number three, the question is related to the lot south of the new road, not north of the new road.

Yeah, is that visible?

And so we were hoping that the entrance corridor guidelines would not apply south of that road.

I was thinking about the entrance corridor.

I mean, so if development proceeds at the north first,

You have to do a certain amount of landscaping.

Right.

Otherwise, it's like dinged a lot.

that first line of development along the actual corridor.

And I don't know that that needs to happen on that southern block.

OK. Is there consensus there?

That's OK. Yeah.

I don't know how many more trees we're requiring.

Yeah, it might be a bit closer spacing.

The entrance corridor caliper at planting for an interior street would be two and a half inches, and I think the standard site plan is one and a half, one and a quarter, something like that.

Long building elevations, that would be entrance corridor facing long elevations?

I would say yes, but I'm interested.

That's going to push the building further in automatically to give room for those to plant trees there.

So it doesn't it's not every long elevation has to have trees.

Thank you.

And I think Dade has spoken to that already.

At least for me, they're not presently sufficient.

Is there consensus on that?

Condition where the building facade is all the way up and the fence runs into the building.

We need to meet the entrance quarter guidelines for trees and parking and screening altogether, so a lot more specific.

And the fence.

Yeah.

Yeah, because that's very helpful how you just described it.

Kind of a moot point anyway.

So, yeah.

I think to your earlier point, Keith, I think the site sections and maybe even looking at the three or four zones of it may help.

I think I'm going to have to go back and listen to the recording to type in the answer to that one.

So whatever suggestion you have for the amount of mural limitation is fine with us.

I think there's already one mural on the corridor that's sufficient, but that's my personal view.

I don't know if you've had a chance.

entrance corridor.

You're not getting that.

And to Keith's earlier point, I think if the fences were softened by shrub or hedge plantings or replaced by them, I think that could be preferable.

Is there consensus on that?

Yeah, I agree.

Should fence designs be consistent across individual blocks?

The blocks are 300 feet long?

And then after that, I think a couple at about 350, then there's a half at the very end.

It's a little difficult to separate as well from the building development because on the one hand you could imagine this developing as lots of pieces and facades and there's sort of a nice variability of approach to material and color and on the other hand it might be a very long 300 foot industrial facade and you know just a greater yeah I don't know it's it's difficult to opine I can admit it sort of I mean it kind of depends on how the development behind the fence evolves in terms of yeah

I wouldn't want to establish a requirement that wouldn't necessarily exist somewhere else along the entrance corridor.

Is it consensus that the answer is no to number two?

That's just my personal opinion.

I think that goes along those lines of there could be variation in the fence along a block and I think that's okay.

Is there a point at which there's too much variation?

But that could happen, I guess.

You know, that

where there's some articulation.

I'll leave that to you guys, but 80 feet.

Yeah well actually I mean I guess that brings up a question for me is in terms of articulation of the fence and the length I mean we wouldn't are there any requirements or guidelines included right now that would suggest any requirement to break down the scale or modulate?

If the fencing is changing or new fencing is being added, that can come in and be reviewed by staff as long as these criteria are being met.

And if you guys are happy with it and there's a process in place to judge it, that seems fine.

Yeah, I mean that seems reasonable to me, especially if there are pre-existing criteria for a county-wide certificate of appropriateness.

Yes.

No need to reinvent the wheel.

You should just look durable.

And do the fences need a transparency percentage?

Are there provisions for that in the existing fence criteria?

No.

Maybe we just

So I don't know that we would necessarily or just my feeling is that we wouldn't need to make a specific rule about that and just leave it to.

Six inches is not enough.

Okay.

Yeah.

Any further discussion on facade articulation?

One tenth of the facade height, one twentieth?

Like two feet.

One of the comments in the report was that combining some of the methods of articulation would be appropriate, so maybe we can talk about that more and work that into it.

But the one owner building that exceeds the length is the one that needs to be.

And the question about content.

So I would say, so I don't support at all murals in the ECs.

This is one of those where you would use I can neither confirm nor deny because they're not in our guidelines so I don't want to I agree with Dade I don't know that but I don't know that I want to say no that's right yeah I'd hate to say that they're not allowed but I agree I think it's sure yeah like blankness is like

It's just you can't have a blank facade and say, well, we're going to paint a mural on it.

Thank you all for finding a much more judicious way.

Is there any issue with any of those?

Was that just where it's facing the entrance corridor, or was that like throughout the development?

And for that time, we would like them to meet these transparency and facade articulation requirements, which seems right.

But I mean, that's, you know.

Easier to measure.

So when we looked at it, I don't think we really had a, we thought 30 and 20% wasn't a bad percentage.

Should be easily achievable.

I can't remember where we got our numbers.

Maybe not this one.

OK, not that one.

OK. We're not as advanced.

But I thought it was 29.

Is a 30 percent on the ground floor and 25 percent on upper stories.

OK, so we.

Yes.

So we were a little less than that upper story, but we matched the ground story, I guess, is what we thought.

Any issues with those items?

Those are basically just the types of signs that are prohibited on entrance corridors in general?

Basically, this list I put together just based on the images that were in the applicant's document, just trying to clarify what it looked like they were going for.

It's just not it kind of confuses the orientation of the building in a way that so we thought signage could be a little pulled back.

Maximum length of time should be considered temporary.

and so another building permit is required for it at that time, just offering that as a precedent.

And that definition was?

I think either the state of Virginia or the University of Virginia or both have definitions for them and then it's tied into building permitting so that they have to be removed after a certain amount of time.

Is there any comment on the permanent outdoor dining areas?

Well, do they have structural elements that would be part of that?

I imagine it's a little bit like the Ix Park example, just the momentum that they got moving through with a lot of things outside.

Speaking for myself, I don't think a special requirement beyond what you would need to do just normally for a site plan is good for that.

I agree.

Is there anything in the work plan for the county or anything to think about regulating

So just trying to look ahead and see what potential issues there might be.

But I don't know, as a blanket, sort of here's a whole category of something that we don't look at, even if it's visible, it seems strange.

I think staff can talk with the applicant on what the next step might be, maybe some revisions and maybe another work session might sound like.

Thank you.

Thank you.

In our attempt to get a motion for all of our items these days, I think the motion would be just to, let's see, where are we?

Schedule a follow-up work session.

To forward the comments and recommendations to the applicant as discussed by the ARB in today's work session.

I'd be happy to move.

I'll second.

All right, if we could call a vote.

Okay, Mr. Henningsen?

Aye.

Mr. Hancock?

Aye.

Mr. Van Der Werf?

Aye.

Thank you.

We could call a vote on that.

Mr. Henningsen.

Aye.

Mr. Hancock.

Aye.

Mr. Stoner.

Aye.

Mr. Van Der Werf.

Aye.

Thank you.

Plan to attend.

All right.

Frank?

Yeah.

Thank you all.