Architectural Review Board Meeting   10/21/2024

All right.

102 by my watch.

So I'm calling the October 21st, 2024 meeting of the Albemarle County Architectural Review Board to order.

Yes.

I'm sorry, Henningsen.

Oh, well, I thought I heard Van Der Werf again.

But yeah.

Did I hear twice?

Sorry about that.

Henningsen, I'm glad to have you back.

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 as 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 and 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.

All right, great.

All right, great.

We do not have any consent agenda items today.

Yes, good afternoon.

The application being reviewed today is an advisory review for a special use permit.

Proposals establish outdoor storage display and sales associated with the development of an equipment rental facility.

A special permit for outdoor storage is particular to the entrance corridor.

Machinery and equipment sales service and rental is a by-right use in the zoning district, but outdoor storage in the entrance corridor is a special use.

There'll be three parts to your action today.

One is to provide a recommendation special use permit.

The other is related to changes to the concept plan.

And third is comments on the site plan.

The site is located at 721 Rio Road West, north side libraries to the west, and several commercial properties to the north and east.

The concept plan shows portions of the existing warehouse being demolished, areas for outdoor storage to the southeast and southwest of the remaining structure, security fencing enclosing the storage area, interior planting islands along the front of the building and storage area, and additional parking spaces.

Entrance quarter guidelines stipulate that storage areas should be situated in a location that eliminates visibility if and if after appropriate siting the area still has a negative visual impact on the entrance quarter, screening should be provided.

In an attempt to screen these areas from the entrance quarter, the concept plan shows fencing, evergreen trees, and existing vegetation to remain.

However, the fencing shown is not screening fencing.

The evergreen trees will take time to mature, and existing vegetation near the western parcel boundary has been removed, which is expected to allow clear visibility of the equipment and storage areas from various points along Ryle Road.

Staff recommends the concept plan B rise to eliminate the 11 space parking row south of the east of the building and replace it with a row of evergreens and to show evergreen screening the L-shaped planting island near the western parcel boundary.

Along the frontage there's currently a small planting strip with no frontage landscaping and the concept plan does not propose to add any.

39 parking spaces are shown but only seven required by ordinance.

Staff recommends eliminating the parking and paving an adjacent route or road, increasing the planting area's depth, and showing landscaping that better satisfies the entrance quarter frontage landscaping requirements.

Along the eastern parcel boundary, the concept plan shows existing vegetation.

However, this vegetation is off-site and sparse in some locations.

From Route 29, filter views of the storage area expected through the site entrances and breaks in the intervening development.

Staff recommends rising the concept plan to show evergreen screening along the eastern parcel boundary.

Staff also recommends a few conditions for outdoor storage, for the outdoor storage area, lighting and landscaping plans.

Equipment, staff recommends several revisions to the concept plan prior to planning commission review.

With the revisions prior to the PC review and the conditions shown in the staff report, staff recommends no objection to the SP requests.

We also have recommendations listed in the staff report that were provided for the site plan submittal.

All right.

Thanks a lot, Chris.

I guess I'll start with Dave.

Thank you for your report, Chris.

Taro?

Chris, just to clarify, so you had mentioned in the diagram the 11

Correct.

In front or as it is just in kitchen conditions are in front of the building that's being removed.

They're proposing adding parking spaces.

So we're requesting those parking spaces not be added in a planting area being provided along the

That's the front between the Rile Road and the storage areas, an additional row of evergreen shrubs.

And then I guess the question it raised, because I think when I was reviewing, I had some confusion around the parking area that was indicated.

Had you considered parking along the area that's currently designated for evergreen shrubs to screen equipment?

Just seeing as there's

separate from Evergreens, that was staffed for recommendation of providing another row, so a double staggered row of Evergreens in that area, and then frontage, removing parking spaces along the frontage, and the parking paving along the frontage to provide frontage landscaping, so it was kind of a two-fold recommendation.

Sounds good.

Thanks, Chris.

Could you pull the site plan up again?

One second.

I want to clarify how many parking spaces we're talking about eliminating.

And if we're eliminating the parking spaces adjacent to the fence and the screening,

This is the Levin Space parking road.

In your view, if there was a privacy fence where the evergreens are now, would that

I think it would be, it could be a possibility.

Not all the equipment heights were provided.

They're just kind of maximum height.

So there would still be the potential for visibility even above a screening fence.

Providing a screening fence, I think would possibly eliminate the need to remove those particular parking spaces.

The original building to the right stays.

And then as you go west, just curious as to what the landscaping in front of the library looks like.

Certainly deeper, but pretty low.

Okay.

Appreciate it.

Thanks, Chris.

Understand this is a recommendation we're forwarding to the Planning Commission regarding the special use

Just thinking about next steps.

Will we see this again?

Will we see anything for the architecture?

So I guess depending on the recommendations, it could potentially, or for the SP review, it could come back to the board if it's not all, because staff's recommendation was if all the revisions to the concept plan were done, we recommend approval.

So it's kind of a gray area if only some are done.

and you can look at the conditions and actions.

And if you're okay with not, or not seeing those again, if only three out of six rub revisions that are done, it might be a possibility.

Okay, that don't make sense.

Yeah, I guess that's what I'm thinking about is like, when these buildings are removed, what we're left with, and how that's visible from the corridor.

But since it's like a retrofit and not a new building, is that in our purview to review that?

Like, you're just looking at the, I guess, east and west, well, the visibility of this building from the corridor.

I guess you're referring to, although there aren't, I guess the most technical sense, architectural changes proposed, but there are technical changes in the sense that the building being removed will allow visibility of elevation that wasn't previously visible.

Okay.

Well, didn't we look at a building up 29 North that something similar happened?

They removed a portion of the building and we were left with, yeah, and so I would, like we don't know when they removed that, we don't know what's there unless you do.

Can I chime in here?

Connor, you can't talk right now until it's your turn to give your presentation.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, I mean, it's more of a, like, does that fall under our, or under ARB guidelines?

It's more of a procedural question versus

Yeah, I think that the demolition requires, I believe it would require a demolition permit.

Thank you.

All right, I don't have any questions, so weren't already asked.

OK, I'm going to start your time now.

You'll have 15 minutes.

And when you have a minute left, I'll interrupt you and let you know.

Thank you.

I've got a quick slide show that will just go over mostly some of the images that you all have seen and hopefully

Clear up kind of the order of operations in which we're looking to do things.

So this we should come before you in the future with a site plan review with some proposed modifications to the exterior of the building with the demolition.

as well as potential sign permits.

So this is likely the first time of a few times you may see us in front of you.

And again, here's just for the special use permit for the outdoor storage.

So just some quick background.

Carter Machinery Company, this location will be a Carter rental facility.

If you Google

Google it, you'll see Carter Rental, The Cat Rental Store, Charlottesville.

We're currently operating, we received our zoning clearance about a month ago.

All equipment that we are currently renting out is being stored inside the large warehouse.

So we're seeking the special use permit to be able to move that storage outside because the warehouse will be repurposed later on once that equipment's moved.

Carter has about 50 locations across Virginia D.C. and Maryland.

This is just a quick picture references of some of the equipment that's rented from the facility.

If you go to the website, these are different types of equipment that you'll see that you can rent.

Importantly, we cannot rent

Heavy equipment as defined in the zoning ordinance from this location.

So none of the equipment rented meets the Virginia DMV standards for overweight or over-dimensional vehicle configurations.

That is equipment that is rented at different carter facilities, but this location will not feature any heavy equipment or any heavy vehicle rentals.

Site location, we've seen the overview.

Existing site conditions,

I just want to point out the very narrow existing landscape buffer right here.

You've seen the concept plan just to talk a little bit about some of the staff recommendations.

This area, can you see my mouse?

This area right here is really what we're talking about in terms of visually seeing the

equipment that will be rented.

The proposed buildings to be demolished here, here, the concrete slab will remain and this upper portion will have some amount of equipment storage as well as the back portion.

Only seven parking spots are required for the ordinance, but that's partially because of the very small

650 square feet of customer service area.

And so while most of this facility will be used by Carter, only a small portion will be open for the rental office.

So staff, both of staff comments would suggest expanding this row of evergreens here to eliminate these 11 portions of parking, as well as extending the landscape from here out would reduce parking by between 20 and 25 spaces.

There is, there are a few spaces outlined here.

Unsure if we're going to keep those because most of the equipment will come through here.

And so we just have a little bit of a concern about the significant reduction in parking, again 20 to 25 spaces if we were to move this section and this section leaving really only front, a few spaces in front.

There's possibly room to extend this planting buffer to include a double row.

We're also open to different types of fence screening in front of these parking spaces.

We'd also like additional input from you all about what you would maybe like to be seeing done here.

Again, the planting, existing planting meeting is very, very small.

As you saw at the libraries, theirs has been pushed back a good amount but their building also is significantly farther back so we would lose a good amount of space in here and it's questionable if we would be able to keep parking spaces here just from dimension requirements.

Just to highlight again which buildings will be removed

This building will remain.

These will be removed.

This back one removed.

And these are some site sections.

The properties starts at about 515 feet elevation near the road and it drops about 10 or 11 feet towards the back of the property.

So there is a fair amount of screening just by the elevation change.

The largest piece or the tallest piece of equipment when it is stored folded would be 12 feet and those larger pieces of equipment would be stored in the back.

So even without screening in the front portion evergreens or fencing, the majority of the equipment in the back will be...

Sorry, is that a question?

will be screened there.

And the bottom section here, this is the proposed security fencing that we have for behind the evergreen plantings.

The rest of the property where it's not visual from the street will be chain link fencing.

And then this is just the concept plan again to close here and open any questions for us.

Thanks for your presentation.

Thanks.

Dade.

Thank you for your presentation.

In terms of the double row of evergreens recommended by staff, if in lieu of removing the parking, if that were provided behind

The row in the current plan, I guess, reducing the storage area slightly.

Yes.

Yeah.

Hearing your concerns about the amount of parking reduction,

So if I could jump in, this is Aaron Breed with Balzer & Associates.

Right now where we have between the security fencing and the row of 11 parking spaces, there's a 10-foot green space area.

We looked at that.

Sure.

Just one question.

Did you look at the possibility of adding street trees where some of the parking spaces are along Rio?

And I suppose that's a question for conversation in terms of what number of, really what the extension of the landscape buffer here would be acceptable in that if we were to do cutout tree plantings like this at the entrance and then still leaving this narrow buffer, just also recognizing the power lines up here so any tree planting would be

Redbud size or similar.

And this is Aaron Breed again.

In the landscape islands that are

Closer to the front of the building, those where we're proposing some street trees there.

Are there other utilities running along Rile Road that prohibit you from putting any plantings in or is it just a function of or a

There are some underground utilities running along that frontage.

I believe there's a gas line that goes to the, I think it's a, and I apologize, I think it's a four inch line, but I'm not 100% sure there.

And then last question, did you look at,

Like formalizing the Western side, right now it's just a kind of a full expansive asphalt, almost from building to building, from your building to the library.

I guess, is there no requirement to define, you know, drive aisle or any parking?

Eric, could you talk a little bit about that?

We talked about it.

It is a bit strange in that the library and this properties seem to run together there.

And it is a parcel means parcel private drive through that section.

And we did talk about just the amount of room needed between the building and the back gate to be able to drive in and out the rental equipment.

Correct.

Like Connor was saying, that is there's a 30-foot shared access easement between the two properties to allow

both parcels have access to the entrance at the intersection there.

Okay, thank you.

And I think as we move forward into finishing this concept plan, there's

A good amount of flexibility to respond to staff comments here.

Yes, there are existing easements along that frontage.

Oh, I have a question for the applicant.

Sorry.

It's OK.

Are the equipment areas in the concept plan, there's like a cluster of what looks like smaller equipment and then larger equipment in the rear.

All right, so 12 feet high is the tallest piece of equipment we would have and we would keep anything.

The proposed fence height, again, it is right now, at least the design, there is not offering full screening, but the equipment would stay around six to eight feet at the proposed fence height here with taller equipment in the back.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

All right, thanks.

I asked my question out of turn.

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

All right, well, thanks.

In that case, the ARB will now go into discussion.

Great.

I wanted to thank the applicant for making the presentation.

I think there are certainly some benefits to having a use on the site that retains what I think is probably the nicest building on site and makes use of the site.

I think

It sounds encouraging that there's some room to address staff's comments as far as providing evergreen screening along the portion where we'll have greater extent of visibility.

So I'm looking forward to seeing that.

As far as tree planting in the parking area, that's directly on Ryer Road.

I think it would be important to understand if any easements or utilities prevent the placement of any trees in that area, but in general I think that I'm in agreement with some of my colleagues that planting is in some of those parking spaces to the extent that, you know,

you are willing to propose them would help meet the intent of the entrance corridor guidelines and I guess the only other comment I had is that speaking to Frank's comments around some of the boundaries of the site that there are portions on the

I guess the page south of the concept plan as well where it's a little unclear as to what's going to be happening, whether the landscape of the buffer along Ryer Road is going to be formalized or whether there's existing asphalt that's just going to remain or if a curb would be extended onto the site side of the parking area.

So I think

Providing some clarity as to what exactly is going to be happening there would be helpful for us to see as well.

Yeah, thank you.

Thanks.

Sure.

I agree with Tara.

I think and agree or thank the applicant for a willingness to work with us.

I think it would be nice to have some of those parking spaces given over to tree plantings or even just kind of an enhanced landscape character.

The library site, although it didn't really look it in the image that we looked at, is pretty heavily landscaped and pretty thoughtfully landscaped.

And at times, you know, most of the time looks really nice.

It has a lot of seasonality.

So just thinking about this site in context, you know, I think there needs to be maybe a little bit of higher level

given kind of the visibility of some of these things.

I would be interested in seeing on the east side maybe either per staff's comments the double row or looking at a fence that would actually screen the equipment.

and I think Dade made a good point that we don't have to necessarily eat into the parking area, that that could come kind of in board into the storage area if there's room.

But yeah, I appreciate the retrofit of the project.

I think, you know, anytime you're giving new life to an existing building and cleaning up with the demolition of some of those other buildings, I think will look nice.

And I do think if we see this again at a site plan level or demo permit level, I think it would be interesting just to see on that west side, you know, have that dimensioned out where you showed the 30 foot access easement and then what remains between that and the west facade of the building, you know, something to address kind of the asphalt.

Wasteland or Expanse and I driving in and out of there it's a little confusing too and especially when you add now if you have you know heavy equipment being delivered or sent out I think there can be some issues there.

Thanks.

Thank you and I agree as well with Frank and Taro and appreciate the applicant's proposal in retaining the existing portions of the existing use and especially their indicated willingness to be flexible in developing the landscape plan.

I think, as Frank pointed out,

I think would be interested in seeing some additional planting immediately adjacent to the corridor if understory ornamental trees, redbuds, etc.

are

possible under the power lines, I think that would be very positive and then additional ground level plantings to tie in potentially to the adjacent library landscape.

I think it would further be ideal if the space is near the building and perhaps an additional space or two if some of the parking is exchanged could be used for a larger canopy tree just to further enhance the landscape of the corridor.

I think like Frank would be open either to a double row of evergreens or a single row with an effective screening fence and I appreciate Frank's insight about an observation about the extent of asphalt the contiguous nature of that between the two properties and I think like him would be interested in some exploration of whether there was a way to

further define the access on this property and perhaps break up that expanse with landscape.

And I think in that context of the applicant's flexibility of increasing maybe the landscape, decreasing the parking could certainly be, I think that could be a fair exchange to support additional parking on site beyond what's required by the code.

Thanks.

I'm generally in agreement with my cohorts here.

If I understand correctly, really the scope of our review today is focused on the special use permit for outdoor storage, which puts kind of the focus on the fence and the landscaping.

I agree either double row or an opaque fence would make sense.

I think based on what I see at the library, I'm guessing that we're pretty limited in terms of what we can do next to the corridor with regard to any sort of meaningful trees out there.

I'll be interested to see this come back in site plan form, maybe with the proposed modifications to the building.

The building to me is maybe a bigger issue than the storage, quite honestly, because it's not exactly an architectural wonder.

If there was a way to pull some of that parking away from the building and get some landscaping up against the building, that would be nice.

Or again, to take some of the parking spaces that are immediately adjacent to the building to create some landscape beds

So yeah, I'm also in agreement with everybody.

I think generally I support the overall idea and kind of agree that some way, shape, or form of more landscaping would be appropriate.

So I'm interested to see what it looks like when it comes back.

So the recommendation is, so there's a recommendation for the special use permit.

And that is, as staff is recommending it, that's dependent on revisions to the concept plan.

So this first group of comments are recommended changes to the concept plan.

And to add, it wasn't brought up much in discussion.

I guess maybe just at the risk of going out of order a little bit, looking at the recommendations on the special use permit, I didn't have take any issue with any of those.

They seem like fairly reasonable kind of boilerplate recommendations.

So does anyone have any comment on that?

And then we can go into the

All right.

So I think we're good on the special use permit recommendations.

Wanted to continue going in reverse order.

I guess maybe at number five, we could change the word eliminate to significantly reduce

So I think that's consistent with what we discussed.

I don't know if we would add like a number seven that would be consider or explore reductions in pavement and further definition of

Let's see.

I don't know whether for number three folks would stick with Eliminator, we would change that as well to significantly reduce.

For number three, why don't we say something like, sorry.

But why don't we do something like revise the concept plan to provide additional evergreens or opaque landscaping fence or something like that.

I guess to clarify, that 11 space parking route, is that immediately in front of the evergreens that are currently proposed?

Right.

And then, Chris, you were noting that you had a recommendation to provide evergreens at the... Yeah, recommendation number two is the evergreens, the L-shaped planting island, which is on the western parcel boundary, and then evergreens along the eastern parcel boundary.

It sounds like in your discussion that might be either an or opaque fence instead of a security fence along that eastern parcel boundary.

or I guess either parcel boundary you know pick fence would kind of get to that point of screening the screening fence versus a security safe or safety fence so maybe it's just so is that visible from the corridor?

Along the eastern parcel boundary it's visible through the all site landscaping because it's not as dense as kind of illustrated in the concept plan through entrances

Right.

Yeah.

And then the visibility in between the from the entrance along Rile Road, looking into the rear of the site.

So I think item two should have eastern revised to western and then we should add an item that defines the southern boundary needing either evergreens or screen fencing.

Sorry, the eastern boundary.

Oh, eastern, yeah.

So for item two, change eastern to western.

No, it's both.

Oh, okay.

Okay, sorry, I've got it.

Thank you.

Now I understand how it's written.

One is for the western boundary and two is for the eastern.

Two is a continuation of

provide evergreens in that L-shaped planting island along the western boundary and evergreens along the eastern boundary.

Okay, thank you.

Well, I would say that significantly reduced is kind of a broad concept, then you might be interested to see it.

Yeah.

I guess I'm going to suggest we offer eight under the consider or explore

Explore providing increased planting in front of the building to remain, including planting strip or substitution of parking spaces for trees or trees for parking spaces, substituting a tree for a parking space.

Yeah.

Should we go to the third section, the site plan?

Could I ask from a process perspective that we're writing?

I was wondering about the changes to the building itself.

Is that going to get picked up in site planner or are we going to?

All right.

Any other tweaks or anything?

Move to recommend no objection to the request for a special use permit with the recommended revisions to the concept plan and conditions of approval as amended.

Item three, strike the text and replace with revise the concept plan to provide additional evergreens or opaque fence at the 11 space parking row.

Item five,

strike eliminate and replace with significantly reduce at item seven explore reductions in pavement and further definition of the drive aisles and increased landscaping at the western property boundary shared with the library at item eight explore increased planting in front of the building to remain including a planting strip or substitution of trees for parking spaces no changes to recommendations um relative to the special use permit and

for the recommendations for the site plan with the addition of item 11 show all proposed changes to the building to remain.

I'll second that.

Aye.

All right, thanks a lot.

Can I interrupt for just a second?

Okay, seeing the site plan.

Yeah, I think I'm okay.

So the concept plan would be revised to address that first set of comments.

It could come back to you so that you can confirm that that's what you wanted.

If you don't think that's necessary, it would go onto the Planning Commission and then onto the board, and whatever concept plan gets approved there, that will sort of set the...

Right and so it's necessary I think for us to get the updated concept so that then the planning commission doesn't approve a concept plan that then sets the basis so that we really don't have the room to ask for the different at that point we'd be requesting a site plan that was different than the concept plan that the planning commission had approved.

So I think it's cleaner if if we

The special use permit is for the outdoor storage.

Because I know on some other applications we've received, when there's a plan approved by the Planning Commission, it has tied our hands in terms of being able to ask for updates in site planning, I think, or restricted it.

The site plan will not go to the Planning Commission or the Board of Supervisors.

The concept plan is associated with the Special Use Permit application.

that will be taken through its process.

I mean, I think the question, you would, staff would review, they would resubmit to you to address these comments prior to it going to the planning commission.

I guess it, you know, I think there's, we want to be sensitive.

We don't want to hold up the process.

Yeah, I feel like we're, if the scope is really just about outdoor storage as it relates to the special use permit, a lot of what we're talking about is not related to outdoor storage, it's related to other issues.

And I guess the special use permit is a way to get some of these other things done

But I would ask if they weren't doing outdoor storage, somebody could move in there tomorrow as a buy rate and we couldn't do a thing.

Yeah, because it seems like the special use permit is just the issue of like, can you have outdoor storage on this site?

This particular special use permit is particular to sites in the entrance corridors.

It's all about the visual impact on the entrance corridors.

and so the comments that staff recommended in those first two groups, we do feel those are directly related to the proposed use and there are items intended to offset the negative visual impacts on the entrance corridor street.

Now, I was just also seeking clarification on if this were to come back to you all to review one more time, which we're okay with.

But again, the question of would that push back the subsequent planning commission that we are scheduled for in November?

That was just my concern.

We're totally okay with revising to these comments, but we're just curious

For these revisions, we could probably get something within the next week or two.

They're not really substantial.

Since staff comments, we've kind of already spoken about them.

So it would just be updating the visuals and figuring out ultimately how much parking.

So that brings us to the next ARB meeting date.

Okay, no, yeah, we would need,

To just be able to post it, we still wouldn't have time to prepare a staff report or review it.

I think that would be all right.

Yes, it does.

Thank you for that flexibility.

All right.

We'll see you November 4th.

Gonna miss approval of the minutes, though.

All right.

Speaking of which,

Second.

All right, great.

Mr. Matsuno.

Aye.

Aye.

Thanks a lot.

Do any board members or staff have any other items?

Looks like a no.

The next ARB meeting is scheduled for November 4th.

Are there any board members who will not be able to attend that?

All right, so looks like you will have a quorum.

In that case, the meeting is adjourned until the next meeting on Monday, November 4th, 2024, and it is 2.04 by my watch.