Housing Advisory Committee   4/14/2021

I'm going to call this meeting to order.

We will be joined by S. Lisa momentarily and I think that puts us at a quorum for voting purposes.

This is the April regular monthly meeting of the Housing Advisory Committee of the City of Charlottesville.

Welcome to all of you.

We should have been distributed both an agenda some supporting materials and the minutes.

So you should be in possession of those things.

If you can.

That was provided by a link via the Housing Advisory Committee general email.

So if you could.

turn your attention to the minutes if you have them and review them.

We have gotten a couple of comments of some

less than perfect congruence on the hack distribution email list.

So we may have to do a little work there to make sure that members are actually getting email, et cetera.

And we'll get some sort of housekeeping going to get that cleaned up.

But it looks like a couple of folks have made notes about that, but I'll get with Brenda and Aaron to try to clean that up.

Of course it's, I can't say well all of you who are here obviously got the notice.

And we should be ready to get underway if somebody could start reviewing the minutes.

The bulk of this meeting today will be taken up by a review of the draft land use map.

Second.

There's a motion and a second.

Is there any discussion?

All in favor?

Aye.

Anybody opposed?

Fine.

Moving on.

Good to hear.

OK. Let's see.

So first, before we get into the land use subcommittee discussion of the Charlottesville plan, it's going to draft land use.

Well, good afternoon, everybody.

The big news is that the budget, both operating budget and capital budget for 2022 was approved by the city council.

So

everybody's here and we'll be looking forward to the next year so that's the good news you know and then of course there is a recovery act for which the city will be getting some funding but at this time we don't know how much is going to be but definitely the city will be getting some funding from

The budget approval is a big item, you know, at least it provides a measure of order and reduce pressure on staff that we have a budget for 2022.

The other item we need to provide updates.

Of course you have it on your agenda.

It's the comprehensive plan updates right now.

The consultant is working on putting the draft together, which is currently under internal review and also a committee review, which you guys have the land use piece.

In the next few weeks, it becomes a public document for public review and feedback.

And hopefully,

HAC we provide as always a good feedback back to the consultant so that in the end we have quality documents.

It may not meet everybody's expectation, but at least for majority of folks is definitely with the feedback going to address some of the concerns that folks have.

We'll be looking up to IHAC in terms of your review process to provide a constructive feedback to the consultants.

So that's some of the, the update on the city.

And also you guys may have read that we have a new deputy city manager for, for Russia equity,

diversity and inclusion that will be joining the city, I believe on May 3rd of this year.

So we're looking forward to having joined the city's team.

So that's the update I have, unless Brenda has something to add.

Brenda, are you there?

Yes, I don't have anything additional to add.

OK, all right.

Thank you, sir.

All right, if that takes care of that, and we've taken care of the basic housekeeping, and I believe that we've managed to post the minutes in the link and the sporting docs in the chat.

I just wanted to see if I could

Ask Alex a question real quick if you don't mind.

Thanks for that update, Alex.

Recovery act, recovery act.

Yeah, you know,

It's good to ask that question.

That was my question this morning to the city manager.

It's a question in terms of restrictions.

I understand for this particular recovery act is less restrictive than the previous stimulus bill.

I think we have up until 2024.

you know, to expend the money.

So that's good.

It has a lot of flexibility, but we're expecting perhaps a clear details, you know, by May 15th, you know, but in terms of what and what are not, you know, according to the city manager is less restrictive, you know, and we have a much,

So we'll keep you guys posted.

Sure.

Chris Meyer, I just have a question for Brenda on progress towards hiring a John Sales replacement housing coordinator.

If there's been any progress on that, that she can share.

I think it's been a while since the position's been

If not, um,

I was going to move the baton over to Lyle and for a discussion of the land use map.

And hopefully we've got now in the comments, we have published the link that will pull up the agenda, the minutes, the slides on the use map and the use map.

And there we are.

So,

I will hand this over.

Now, in general proceeding, we're going to try to keep this as sort of conversational as possible.

I'm going to try to keep my eye on raising of hands, etc., while Lyle

drives the bus here.

But just if you do have a comment as we're going through, please do raise your hand and I'll circle to you as quickly as I can.

If I don't see you, please, please just shoot a direct message to me.

And with that, beautiful.

I'm setting up a map to share so we can look at it.

There's some descriptions in there of what the various land use categories are, how they work sort of broad scale.

This was already looked at by the Planning Commission recently, and I know the consultants are actively working on

Updating this based on feedback from Planning Commission and others.

I'll be happy to promote the consultants.

Are they here?

If they are, please do.

Yes, they are.

I see them now.

Great, thank you.

Jennifer, yes.

Sorry, Jennifer.

You were trying to get my attention.

Great.

Hello, good afternoon.

Welcome.

Hi, Phil.

I tried.

It's all right.

No worries.

Hey, everyone.

Nice to see you all.

Yeah, we're happy to walk through this, probably at a pretty high level.

I think you all are pretty familiar with looking at this type of map.

So sometimes when we're talking with folks who aren't so used to it, we walk through it at maybe a slower pace.

But we can try to go through it fairly a little quicker.

And then you can all stop us if you have some questions.

Does that sound good?

And then there could be time for discussion.

Great.

I just want to make sure everyone has met Ron Sessoms.

Ron is with RHI.

He's been with RHI for a while and then left us for a bit and came back and he's an urban designer and planner and has worked in Charlottesville a bit previously as well with us.

We're really glad to have him here and he will be walking through things.

You do.

You should have the green button.

I can share.

Well, we could.

It looks like Lau has the app pulled up.

I think that that would work.

So I can jump into things.

So what you can see here is the future land use categories that we've developed.

I don't actually see it.

You see that?

There you go.

Thanks.

I don't see the screen now.

This is the draft map that we developed for the Planning Commission meeting that we held in late March.

and on the left you can see we have a series of future land use categories.

We have nine kind of core land use categories that range from downtown core to low intensity residential and I'll just quickly breeze through those.

The downtown core is the city's central business district and it is currently the highest intensity,

highest intensity developed area within the city today and we do see that being the case in the future.

It is employment civic and commercial hub of the community that will continue as far as future development.

We do want to highlight the potential to have more residents that live closer to the city's amenities and those employment opportunities so that's something that we highlight here is that

We want to encourage more residential mixed use development in downtown where possible and with building heights that range up to 10 stories and I will caveat all of these building heights that we mentioned in all of these categories include ranges and up to so not all buildings we're saying in the downtown core should be 10 stories but where it allows we could have reached some of those taller heights such that we can

increased density within that district.

Second to that, we have the urban mixed use nodes.

Those are areas that include the dark purple on the map, which is located along the US 29 corridor, the strategic investment area just south of the city.

Again, we think that these areas can support downtown and continue to support the city's employment, commercial and housing needs at these locations.

include denser developments such as apartments and office buildings with ground floor active uses such as retail and buildings in these districts can range with up to 10 stories as well.

We think that these areas have a great deal of potential to include some substantial density.

And then we have urban mixed-use corridors.

These are areas that you see in kind of the medium shade of purple that, or pink rather, that extend from the central business district out towards those mixed-use nodes.

Again, these are areas that we think could have a higher concentration of employment, commercial, residential uses.

And in these areas we're

recommend them building heights to be on average five stories with eight stories taller buildings at intersections to give some diversity of the building typologies and urban form.

Next we have industrial mixed use.

This will be along the Harris Street corridor where we already have industrial

activities, and also along the River Road area.

We're envisioning that these areas can continue to include light industrial, light manufacturing uses, maker space type activities, and also include other mix of uses such as residential and commercial development.

Buildings in these districts can allow up to six stories as a maximum at this point.

From there, we have neighborhood

Mixed-use nodes.

These are concentrated areas that can become walkable, pedestrian-friendly neighborhood centers.

Again, these would include a mix of uses from residential, commercial, and office-type development.

Differing from the urban mixed-use corridors and nodes, we're imagining the neighborhood mixed-use nodes to be smaller-scale buildings, more

Neighborhood scale and appropriate with building heights ranging up to four stories in this area of the mixed-use nodes.

You can see some of those darker purple areas along the East Market Street corridor, Carlton Road area down south of Monticello Road,

and et cetera.

And you can see those areas on the map.

And then we also have mixed use corridors, very similar to how we have included urban mixed use corridors.

But again, in the neighborhood mixed use corridors, these are smaller scale neighborhood scaled buildings.

Oftentimes, these areas along these corridors have

Lots that are much smaller.

They're shallower.

So buildings in these areas could range up to four stories, we're thinking.

And then three stories at constrained sites.

Again, the sites along these corridors are generally narrow.

We want to make sure that we're

including buildings that are to a residential scale.

And I would like to mention, as well, at the last Planning Commission meeting, we heard a lot about the building heights, and that's something that we're going back to take a look at.

We've heard, particularly for the mixed-use knows, mixed-use corridors for the neighborhoods that perhaps up to five stories should be something that we

should be looking at.

So we are taking a look at that.

But at the time, these were the categories and heights that we were recommending.

High-intensity residential uses.

These will be your apartment buildings, apartment complexes.

At that time, we were arranging the building heights up to four stories.

Again, at our planning commission meeting, we heard that perhaps that should be up to five stories, and that's something that we're taking a closer look at.

These residential

These high-intensity residential areas could also include ground floor activating uses, but the primary uses on these sites will be residential.

And then medium-intensity residential, this will include your real homes, townhomes, small multi-use buildings that are more of your house scale.

We envision these areas to have a higher density, but

fit into the character of a lot of these existing neighborhoods.

And at the time we were ranging the heights up to two and a half stories.

Again, in the planning commission meeting, we heard that perhaps we should be looking at more three and a half, maybe even five stories in some of these areas.

So again, that's something that we'd like to hear your feedback today on all of these building heights, but that's what we've heard to date.

And then we have low intensity residential areas.

You can see the majority of all of the single family, the existing single family neighborhoods within the city fall within this category.

And we do want to increase density within these areas.

So we're recommending two unit and three unit residential development in these areas, which could include ADUs,

where appropriate and again buildings ranging up to two and a half stories at that time.

We heard perhaps maybe three and a half or beyond maybe a more appropriate height but that's something that we're continuing to look at and receive feedback on.

So that's kind of a breeze through of the land use categories.

I know many of you may have questions that

You may have related to each one of those categories or particular areas of the map.

I might note one quick thing before we jump into questions, if that's OK.

So as Ron noted, we're taking into account the feedback we got from Planning Commission.

We're making changes to this map.

A few things I just wanted to note.

In addition to heights, which we are sort of considering, some of the comments we got at Planning Commission were along US 29, we've got the urban mixed use node.

And so we're thinking how we can be a bit more, pull out some existing residential areas within that, especially along Mickey Drive, for example.

So not including that within that nodal area, but pulling that out as a residential area.

You can see on here within the Harris Street industrial area, it extends a bit further up, further north than we meant for it to originally.

So we are pulling that down and we're creating sort of a buffer zone there with a mixed use area.

and then the other thing I think is really important to note on this and Ron I'm sorry if you said any of this and I'm just saying we've got on here the the proffered open spaces these sort of public private sort of feeling open spaces and we are we've removed those from the map now because in some cases they were not not always open spaces sometimes they had in many cases larger apartment buildings on them that just were not reflected necessarily in the data so it's cleaner to just pull them off so you might see some cases where

You know, it should be high intensity residential, for example.

So it appears that we're all clear on the land use categories.

Dan, if you're trying to talk, it looks like we can't hear you.

Sorry.

Chair, I have a comment.

I'm sorry, I can't see everybody's...

Okay.

Excuse everybody.

Excuse me, everybody, if I'm out of order.

And thank you, Jennifer and Ron, for this excellent presentation.

Can we, sorry, leave that screen share up?

Or, but I just, but yeah, I would reiterate and appreciate the Planning Commission's observations on increasing building height.

I do think it would agree with those observations and the various different land use categories that

Building further up is probably necessary to help us, again, at least my understanding of ensuring that we have supply of housing.

We need better use of the land we have, which is constricted.

I was also thinking about the observation, I kind of, I wonder why in some neighborhoods, like the one I live in, in Fry Springs, you know, why the medium intensity residential wasn't further following the main arteries, like on JPA extended and Harris Street.

I also noticed going up from northern downtown and Park Street area, that artery there is not also a medium intensity residential.

And I guess would hope to see

Again, it seems like some arteries were tagged as that and some weren't, and I'd like to see better consistency around that.

And then, yeah, I'll stop there for the moment.

Thank you, sir.

So perhaps a general comment you could speak to, to kick off the sort of focus of this group, which of course is the affordable housing piece of this, is that what in these decision-making processes in high-end density, medium-density residential, but really across most of these categories, what is the calculus for how this has an impact on affordability of housing, the density, how it gets used and how we can leverage it

and to what extent your process has taken that into account at this point.

And then how we can look at that as opposed to what we're doing now, as opposed to what this will do.

Sure, a tight tune.

So the land use and I'll start and then Ron and like Lee Einsweiler is also on from Code Studio.

I'd invite either of you to join in, but you know, we've,

We coordinated closely, as you all know, with HR&A throughout the development of the Affordable Housing Plan.

And so the land use strategies here are based on their main land use recommendations around soft density, which here we've sort of split some of those soft density pieces between low intensity residential and medium intensity residential.

And the other

The piece that they talked about with land use is the multifamily by rights allowing that in additional areas.

And so that falls within the medium intensity residential piece as well as the high intensity residential piece and through those mixed use zones as well.

So our goal was to provide space for both of those recommendations to play out.

And so the

One of the recommendations they had related to soft density, for example, was to look at showing that across the whole city, basically allowing an increase of units, some of those soft density pieces.

And so we've reflected that here with our low intensity residential is really redefining what low intensity residential would mean for the city.

So we feel like that aligns with what was in the affordable housing plan.

We also are here looking with providing some, allowing for smaller types of housing in all these different areas, hoping to not only allow for additional rental opportunities, but also additional homeownership opportunities.

And all of these are tied not only to the land use map, but also heavily tied to the other recommendations in the affordable housing plan, the financial pieces,

the subsidy pieces, the policy pieces.

And so we've tried to identify ways that all of those can play out through this map, if that makes sense.

Excellent.

All right, let me pull this stuff back up.

I'm sorry, I'm having all sorts of problems.

So, first of all, thank you all for joining us.

And thanks for your explanation.

Okay.

I had five primary comments.

Some of them are small.

kind of place based in detail, some of them are a little bit broader.

The first is, I think the changing of definitions from R1 to low intensity and medium intensity residential is a really good step in the right direction.

I think everyone supports soft density, so we really appreciate that.

I do think that how this map lies does still continue to crystallize patterns of

of government imposed segregation and exclusion.

The lowest intensity areas are still the most of the neighborhoods that were restricted with racial and religious deed restrictions.

And so my perspective is that we should push the envelope a little bit on that.

The two and a half stories, I don't think that gets you anything at all.

You can't build a two or two, for example.

So if you want to create a up-down duplex, as is really popular with a lot of builders, you need at least three stories, if one of your stories is subgrade, and probably four stories, to create a two over two.

And so I would encourage anywhere where it's two and a half stories to increase to a minimum of four.

A small comment up on one of the things that we looked at when we updated the comp plan in 2013 was intersections, critical intersections with the county, where there are places that could be jointly planned, if only the land use were a little bit more intense.

And so for example, up the little sliver up on Rio Road, the city side of Gasoline Alley,

There's a ton of really good neighborhood scale and also potentially regional development potential there.

But you probably wanna mirror what's happening, what could happen on the county side with what happens on the city side.

It may ruffle some feathers because there are some existing church, some existing residential units.

But in terms of good planning, I think you wanna show that as a higher intensity

higher intensity of use on the city side to mirror the county.

And then I haven't scrubbed this, but I would suggest any other place where there's that intersection of potentially an opportunity to create a node where the city and county meet.

You should look to do that.

The biggest comment I will make is that I still think this is really Euclidean in nature.

It's still very much use-based.

And so if you look,

at the map, this is very different than the dialogue I heard in the prolonged public comment period leading up to the first aborted effort to update the land use map, is that there are used deserts all through the city of Charlottesville, and it's not good in terms of walkability, livability, and so even though

The intensity of what's allowable and what has previously been mostly R1 and R2 has gone up in terms of residential use.

It doesn't allow other uses.

And I know Kurt Kiesecker, when he was on the planning commission, was working on a proximity map, essentially, and looking at complete places the way we look at complete streets and said, look, if you're not within a, you know, so

If you don't have enough rooftops and commercial activity within a certain amount of proximity, you're going to continue to drive car culture.

And I do think that even though we've increased intensity here, we've calcified car culture here.

And so I would strongly encourage the Planning Commission and the consultants to go back and look and see where there are single-use deserts and see where there aren't nodes in the middle of them or

aligns essentially places along major or bigger roads that may be residential in use now, but probably ought not be.

And so I would strongly encourage that.

And finally, this is probably more of a zoning code than a land use map issue.

But just creating mineral density is not going to

It may soften some of the pressure on affordability, but in a place as landlocked as Charlottesville, where real estate pressures are so strong, unless the zoning code is proactive about advantaging affordable housing, you're just going to get more unaffordable housing where unaffordable housing exists now.

So I would strongly encourage as this moves from land use map to

zoning code that the zoning code be very, very specific about allowing additional density, additional allowances, such as setback, et ceteras, lot sizes in exchange for deed restricted affordability, not just to increase density.

So again, to summarize,

I think this is still very Euclidean.

I would really, really push the envelope in terms of creating multiple uses in more of the city because this will crystallize car culture.

It also crystallizes existing patterns of racial exclusion and segregation.

So I would encourage to look at doing something a little bit different

and some of the areas that are low intensity and medium intensity residential, particularly in areas of town that have had historic racial deed restrictions.

And then look at some of the nodes that could be created where the city and the county connect.

And thanks, Dan.

We'll talk, we'll chat about some of that.

I want to note a couple of things in response.

Ryle Road, we are showing it as neighborhood mixed use corridor.

So I just wanted to make sure I understood.

Would you suggest we we bump that up?

It's hard to see because it's under the line, but it's a light purple right along Ryle.

So would you suggest we bump that up?

I was misreading the map.

Okay, cool.

Yeah, that was something we considered as well.

We definitely sort of looked at the county land use and how we can make it align with the city land use given that

It really takes a special person to know exactly when you cross the line between the two, I think.

Thanks.

I withdraw that comment.

Sure.

The other thing I just want to note, a point taken about wanting to make sure we're addressing, I think you called them use deserts throughout the city.

And so we have noted here that even in these residential areas, ground floor active uses would be

allowed.

It says in select locations, I think we're figuring out if what that would mean.

But we wanted to both allow opportunities to identify nodes, but also leave an opportunity for more organic node development.

And that came out of discussions with the steering committee, you know, wanting to allow communities to

sort of create themselves where they wanted to create those nodes.

Appreciate it.

I think one of the things that the Planning Commission after I was on it, came up with was, was gradation in colors rather than, than dark colors.

I mean, if you see a future look at the Greenbrier neighborhood, for example, or the JPA neighborhood,

If this is what is published as the future land use map, people are going to have a certain assumption, and probably rightfully so, that low intensity residential is going to stay there.

But maybe there's some way to indicate that there's future conversation about creating nodes within this area.

I don't know how you do it without the map being

live with blinking lights or something.

But they were trying to get at it with shaded or notes or comments or something like that.

Thanks.

All right, Chris.

Fair to take the floor again, but getting to one of Dan's points that made me think of things of where there's potential county connections is where Stribling meets the county line that runs parallel to Fontaine.

And that would be, I think of, there's potential development around there and connectivity issues that, and there's at least currently potentially a large development going in.

that would increase a lot of density around there.

Exactly.

It basically runs parallel to the west side of the railroad.

Right, okay.

We'll take a look at that.

One thing I note is, you'll see in that presentation, if you looked at that, where we walk through a slide with a little bit more description of each of these areas, we had photos, precedent images, and we appreciate the Planning Commission's comments that we need to adjust what we're showing, we need to

I think strike a balance between recognizing that Charlottesville is a really historic context.

We want to show examples that are from Charlottesville or the area when we can.

I think where we can show examples of how new development or redevelopment can blend well with the Charlottesville context, we want to make sure we're showing the best examples of that.

This is sort of just an ask of you all if there are particular places that within the city or in the county, you know, neighboring areas that you think really align with the type of development you would like to see within these different land use categories.

I'd welcome any thoughts from you all, not necessarily on the call, but any thoughts that you have about places we should be looking at for those precedents.

Dan, you're muted.

Can you hear me now?

Yeah.

So we pulled out precedent images last go round and precedent places.

Altamont Circle was one because of the mixture of large scale residential development and low scale historic development that works very, very well.

needed to make that work would also be an update to the further update to the standard design manual, because it's the skinny streets that makes that work and the smaller setbacks.

But that was one that that was a street that seemed to have gotten unanimous consensus that that was what we would like to replicate.

around town.

And in terms of mixtures of uses, we don't have a whole lot of that other than downtown Belmont and surrounding areas.

I'll toss in one more.

I just wonder, Ridge Street neighborhood doesn't really have

a node for anything and getting to Dan's kind of point about mixed use.

There is a housing authority property there and then it's being redeveloped and what can they walk to basically kind of would be my question.

And so, you know, is there considerations of, you know, some kind of needed mixed use a little bit closer that could service that neighborhood except the moment and getting to Dan's point.

Thanks, we'll consider that.

Jennifer, has any thought been given to infrastructure needs to, particularly in these areas that are being upzoned and

Yeah, we haven't had detailed discussions with utilities folks and whatnot.

They have been involved in and we've talked with them early on in this process.

One thing we've done in the text of the plan, in the chapters that you'll be seeing when they come up for review is to note specifically that as development is considered, there needs to be an examination of existing capacity, not only with utilities and infrastructure, but that includes schools and whatnot.

So we have not had detailed discussions with them

All right, any further comments on this piece of it?

Lisa?

Yes, Lisa?

Yeah, I did.

I just have a question in terms of Charlottesville's history and ensuring that we are always considering equity and not repeating our history.

Are you all familiar with technology, a mapping technology that it's called mapping inequality where it shows you in real time the overlays of your city or whatever area you're working with of the previous historicals, wrongs or redlining, it deals with redlining.

Are you all familiar with that interactive,

I think I am familiar with that.

I would say we haven't

because Charlottesville did not have the, and someone please correct me if I'm wrong on this, but because of my understanding, Charlottesville did not have a Hulk map, a red lining map because of its size, but there are racial covenants that we're well aware of.

I'm pretty sure I saw a map and it may be, I'm referring to a book that I read that,

highlighted a map.

It may have been a map that someone created, but I look back on it.

It's dealt specifically with the redevelopment of Vinegar Hill.

And it talked about the redlining in Charlottesville, how the culture left Charlottesville through that process.

But any technology, in addition to just looking at a flat map and making assumptions, unless you have that racial

overlay throughout all of this because that's a thing that keeps coming up and to pay homage to that in a proper way.

That should actually be on this map so that we don't continue to perpetuate those wrongs.

So where is that highlighted on this map?

The red lining.

I think that follows on to Dan's comments and some of what Sunshine, I'm not sure how much of Sunshine's comment Lyle was able to push out there, but that this map does on the lower density is essentially, I don't want to say endorsing, but that's not right, but further

sort of baking into that cake that's been there on this.

If it's not literal redlining and that HUD didn't have a map, at least the philosophical redlining and that these lower density areas tend to be pushed that way.

I wasn't quite finished.

What I wanted to say is, can that be an overlay on the map that we're currently looking at?

I just want to make sure I understand what we're talking about because I think there are certainly, we've looked at the demographics in the city, changes over time.

That's certainly been a piece of what we've looked at.

We, you know, you mentioned Vinegar Hill, we've incorporated recommendations from the Starr Hill plan, vision plan that speak to some of the historic

that situation.

But you're right, we don't have, there's no overlay on here that shows, you know, areas that were previously exclusionary, for example, which we know the areas that are outlined through the research project, the racial covenants work that JSAHC is doing.

You understand what I'm saying?

If you don't have that visual there,

Sure, can you elaborate on what visual, I just wanna make sure I understand what visual you're thinking of.

The best example would be,

Yes.

Okay.

Where it shows red, previous red linings that you, if you are a city and you should, you're focused on that and you should take that into consideration when you're doing zoning.

So my question is to always have a lens of equity and inclusion.

Is it possible to have that?

And it may be answered, maybe no, but I'm asking it.

Is it possible to have that as an overlay of the map that we're currently working with?

So we have a visual, this is a visual map.

So

The answer is no for that mapping inequality site that you're talking about because they don't have a hulk map, which is what they demonstrate on there.

But the local research project they've got with the racial covenants, we've got that map that was included, as you may recall, in the steering committee meeting.

That's not completed yet.

So the reason we're not showing that as an overlay is because the entire city, as it is now, has not yet been studied.

There are neighborhoods that used to be in the county and now they're in the city.

Is it possible to do partial of it?

We include it not as an overlay, but we have it in the presentation that we've used and that we'll keep on using.

For the record, I'm very supportive of that.

I think that would make this unique among comprehensive plans.

And it may not be specifically an overlay unless there was a transparency, but a separate map that sort of shows that the correlation between existing patterns of zoning and racial exclusion in whatever form

I think would really hit the mark in terms of what we heard from folks as we were going through the process originally about being proactive about undoing purposeful acts of racial exclusion.

To that end, I was hoping I could, so I endorsed Lisa's idea.

To that end, I was hoping Sunshine had asked me to sort of read into the record his comments and I don't know if they actually made it.

Are they up for people to see or should I go ahead and read them?

I think that Sunshine's comments overwhelmed Zoom's messaging capability, which doesn't speak to their profundity, just to the volume and format that they were in.

I think it's worth it because Sunshine is part of two of the subcommittees that are intimately involved in this kind of work for the HAC and for the city.

So Sunshine Mathon, who is the ED of the Piedmont Housing Alliance writes, the current iteration of the map overprivileges existing patterns of development, thereby maintaining historically established segregationist patterns of wealth and access.

The sequence of work, affordable housing plan and comp plan and rezoning is a once in a generation opportunity to confront the map of our history and chart a future Charlottesville that reflects our aspirations in this moment in time.

The mapping process must reflect a courageous effort to redress past harm and maintaining exclusionary zoning by deferring to existing low density neighborhoods, particularly for neighborhoods who have benefited financially from this exclusionary framework simply reflects the status quo.

Please reorganize the proposed residential land uses to remove exclusionary protections for historically privileged neighborhoods while also protecting historically lower income neighborhoods from gentrification, whether by

Remapping of the proposed resident land use categories or recalibrating the density levels in the proposed residential land use categories or compressing the residential land use categories from three to two or some combination of the above.

Lastly, strongly consider an affordable housing overlay category that overlays all future zoning types throughout the city such that affordable housing solutions are privileged by

One, removing the need for rezoning for affordable housing developments and two, providing sensible by-right increases to density, FAR, height, et cetera, first for affordable housing projects.

Would it be possible for someone to send those to us?

I tried to take notes.

So I think that dovetails nicely with our prior conversation of the affordable housing plan and the use of and it's the relationship between the needed code audit and rezone and how to sort of

pull in this buy right notion of the affordable housing overlay.

I think Sunshine even in his absence has sort of summarized that very well.

Thanks, Dan.

Thanks, Sunshine.

Anything

Any further members of the public?

I'm trying to scan.

Yes.

Responding to S. Lisa's comment, which I also agree with and think makes sense.

So we didn't do HOLC maps, but we did our sort of homebrew exclusion through time, which produced a lot of maps.

There's a 1929 segregation map.

Oh, boy.

There's the housing

a plan that produced the Vinegar Hill project.

That's Harlan Bartholomew, also our first comprehensive plan.

That was the beginning.

As well as just the history of single family zoning, which has been consistent through time going back to 1929.

Yeah, I think we've got some of those.

Definitely needs the visual to be a part of this conversation, a constant part of this conversation.

Otherwise, you're asking individuals to just imagine what we're trying to present.

And this is a beautiful visual.

So let's also show the previous historical redlining.

Yeah, and I just want to reiterate, this is not something we've

This is something we've thought about a lot, and it's a part of the whole presentation we've been giving with this, but I understand what you're saying, wanting to have it closer to the map.

So further questions and comments along this line?

Other thoughts for next steps for evaluating this?

The plan is to have a version that we can circulate for public review in a variety of ways, both virtual and in person, some pop events and whatnot by the end of this month going into mid-May.

So we hope by the end of next week to have a more detailed timeline that we've sent out to our email list and whatnot to all the different stakeholders that are involved.

So I assume from that that any comments, further comments on this event of substantive comments, you want them basically right now?

Okay.

Actually, I am going to jump in.

And this is really a question I'm not sure for whom might be for Dan and or Sunshine.

The concern over gentrification in the existing affordable areas, I think, is a legitimate one.

And even if we eliminate these boundaries in the existing wealthier areas to affordable housing, I think the fear is that existing affordable housing areas will be targeted because the cost of redevelopment is less expensive.

And so I'm wondering whether any thoughts been given to how we protect those areas that are currently affordable and how you avoid just through the natural economics of redeveloping higher income areas now, which are already more expensive, how do we foster more affordable housing in those areas?

Brandon, I wasn't on the CLIC call.

I know that was a topic of conversation at CLIC.

Can you elaborate on that?

You know, I think what they're doing is adding some kind of narrative to look at different pieces of the city

and saying, you know, these different areas, while they're marked the same kind of density or intensity that, you know, there needs to be particular policy and zoning attention to these different neighborhoods.

I was interested in, could you show that on the map?

And it sounded like that was a no-go, but this is a hard,

Hard question to grapple with and I'm not 100% confident that we fully have a handle on that.

You know, what's going to protect neighborhoods from gentrification while still being able to offer, you know, some ways to improve affordability, maybe have some more, but then also in, you know, say Greenbrier and

Dairy Road, how do we encourage the creation of affordable housing?

Because simply allowing more density doesn't necessarily mean you're improving affordability.

So there's policy that's got to be attached to all that.

And I feel like that's a big sort of missing piece if you're just looking at a map.

You know, that's about all we can really do right this second because these are really difficult questions without really fully developed policies that go along.

But I would be interested in seeing some kind of indication for these different areas of like, you know, such and such area really, while the intensity is gonna be about the same, we need to sort of designate that as a,

Protect against gentrification zone and designate these other neighborhoods as this is where we want to see more affordable housing.

There's a lot of contradictions involved in all of this and finding the policies that are going to work is going to be really challenging, I think.

Yeah, I agree.

I think this is really complex.

I don't know of any magic policy bullet for this.

I mean, if you think about it, if you take Frank's question and you extend it to absurdity and let's say you up zone the rest of Charlottesville and you keep 10th and Page low intensity residential

Then you're going to get investment for people want single family homes, you're going to drive that investment into 10th and Page.

And you're going to increase those property values in a way that could be deleterious to the families who live there.

I think it's a lot more of other kinds of policy tools.

I don't know that I'd want to see like a historical preservation overlay over

the low income neighborhoods because now you're eliminating the possibility for wealth creation among folks who live there.

It's something where, and I know Lee might have some thoughts on this too if he's still on, but we, you know, there are several places in the US that are looking at this exact same thing right now, or they have recently looking at

are single family areas and what we want to do with them.

And so, you know, I think it was Lyle shared a good example from Portland, where they've they've done, they did analysis of sort of what, what are the areas that are most at risk?

And how, you know, can they protect protect those areas?

I think they may be looking at a demolition delay ordinance or might have one in place.

So we are looking at, and that's something we've heard, I mean, this is something that we continue to hear a desire for and which as Brandon noted is not, it needs to be tied to policies.

It's not something, we can't show everything on the map or else the map is illegible, but so

It's almost as if it's in the context of there are these areas that we seek to protect.

And when we start using that language and

sort of and think about policy decisions there it's almost as if you're pushing those areas already into a defensive crouch and in that way it's kind of even if just conceptually it seems to be exclusionary and the opportunity to leave areas behind from development in general and I and

while we're sort of up against trying to come up with tools that allow for diffusion of affordable housing to other areas.

Yeah, again, I think that there are so many moving parts on this that are policy driven, although it'd be lovely to figure out a way to visualize it.

Well, one element, one thing to note, and this is maybe semi-related to what we've been talking about, is we've got these different categories of, for example, low, there's one, there's a low intensity residential category, which allows for single family up to three, three unit, you know, sort of a range of heights.

In the zoning, there will be several categories that likely address this land use category.

It could be broken down, there could be places where

it would not be appropriate to have based on lot size or whatnot, might need some restrictions on numbers of units or size or whatnot.

So some of these will be broken down more granularly in the zoning.

And I think that can allow for potentially a bit more discussion of are there ways that we can break these out so that if they're at risk neighborhoods that we can

build some protections for them through that.

But I mean, this conversation that we've gone through today is exactly what we've been grappling with this whole time of wanting to protect neighborhoods, historic African-American neighborhoods, others that are potentially at risk of gentrification while still allowing opportunities for wealth building and not completely killing all chance of development.

and I'm not saying it's a dichotomy.

This is Joyce.

I just, yeah, I get concerned about the unintended consequences.

We do talk a lot about wealth building.

You know, when you start putting restrictions on things, right, doesn't it, to a certain extent, sometimes reduce the ability for wealth building if you're the existing landowners?

I mean, upzoning would give, make their land more, worth more potentially.

Right.

I mean, in different policy contexts.

So I, yeah, it sounds like a very delicate dance, and I'm not gonna say I got the answers, but I, and I mean, there's many communities make the decision at the moment, but I would be hesitating and potentially trying to

Look at equity, are we reducing their ability for wealth creation as an unintended consequence of maybe putting something on here?

I think that's what I've been said, but I just want to reiterate, I think that's a consideration that needs to be taken.

There are a lot of communities out there studying this and who have found solutions.

And I think we need to delve deep into the research to find out how it is working in other communities.

And it may be something that is out of the box in terms of a policy.

And always we also can consider subsidies for when we're talking about different people being able to qualify for different things.

So let's think outside the box and let's dive deep into communities.

Well, I want to note to that end, and I appreciate you, I remember during the affordable housing plan process, you pushed us to think outside the box as well.

And so those policies that are in the affordable housing plan are living now in the comprehensive plan.

And they are tied to these areas.

And that includes things like, you know, tax relief.

So people, you know, can

You know, it's not as much of a threat if their property value does rise, includes things like homeownership assistance, both in terms of access to information and to funds, and includes, you know, rent assistance for tenants.

So, you know, I think there are there's a lot already in that plan that's set to to be implemented along with the comprehensive plan.

And that needs to be tied to to all of this and maybe it does need

to be noted below the legend or something.

These policies from the housing chapter, which now is where the affordable housing plan will live, are tied to a lot of these areas.

We've got a new section on implementation that sort of talks about how do we actually get what we want out of this plan.

And I think that that may be a really helpful area to get at this nugget.

And maybe it's a small area plan.

Maybe it's additional studies, additional engagement.

I don't know.

We do.

He said we have a section on implementation.

We wanted to have discussions about the map itself and the strategies prior to fully developing that, but that's as we got feedback on the chapter text, the goals and the strategies within the chapters from staff, we requested

information that will feed into the implementation plan, timelines for development of, for achieving these different strategies and whatnot.

And that's for all chapters, not just for housing.

And so those will be used to build out the implementation chapter.

My main concern overall, and I know we're not there yet in analysis, is sufficiency.

Does this deliver the goals and objectives of the affordable housing strategy?

Any further comments on the current discussion here from any of the panelists or members of the public?

I don't presently see any.

So to the consultants with us and to the HAC in general, would it be useful for us to synthesize and funnel comments

to the group in the next few days here.

Any further thoughts we might have?

I would love that.

Paul Todd Delisle to synthesize and send on and forward on.

Sorry, I don't know, was that a question for me?

That's a question for the hack in general.

I'm asking the hack in general.

If that makes sense for us to do so that we can sort of synthesize our commentary here and put that forward.

and get it into the hopper to the extent that there are comments, further comments we need to make.

I'm okay with it.

Right.

Any further thoughts here?

Anything else we need to discuss?

Oh, we'll be staring at this map for several more hours today.

But I would just note if you have any comments you'll have, it'd be good to have them as soon as soon as possible.

We are trying to wrap up this week so we can then review with staff the revised, revised map.

So appreciate all your comments on on today.

I want to thank Jenny and Ronald for attending today and for throughout the process.

I feel like you all have been really super responsive and engaged and gone above and beyond probably what you're being paid for in terms of outreach.

OK, thank you very much.

Is there any further business, other business before this committee that we have to deal with at this point?

Is there any further public comment at this point?

I just have a question on whether UVA has expressed any interest or we reached out to UVA.

I'm going to ask this at every meeting just because I'm interested in UVA actually engaging us or participating in this or in another space, I guess.

Is there any word from them or any recent outreach to them?

I raised that point.

I have not gotten a response, but this is a good prompt to raise it again.

I mean, they are focusing on,

their affordable housing promise that they made last year that got sidetracked like a lot of things by the pandemic.

They are re-engaging in that effort.

And I will make it a point to say that part of that re-engagement should be to have somebody participating on the hack.

Well, and Rich, I'm not expecting it to be your responsibility.

You know, you're going to be there to talk to me like that.

Yeah, I mean, I am on the President's Council for University Community Partnerships.

And this is obviously a hot topic, both at UVA and with us.

And so I will, while it's not my role, it's something that I think I can do.

Great.

Thank you very much, sir.

Appreciate it.

So all right.

Anything further?

Any other further questions?

Uh, I look forward to the next iteration of this map and commenting on it.

And, uh, we will, uh, look to see what the city requires us for our next meeting.

There are no other, uh, no other business we need to handle today.

We have a second.

Is there any discussion?

Aye.

Any opposed to that?

Okay, we're done.

Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.

Thank you, Consulting Group.

Thank you, members of the public.