Planning Commission Meeting   7/13/2021

And good evening.

I believe we're now ready to begin our deliberations.

So the commission will be in order and welcome to the July regular meeting of the planning commission.

I think we'll begin with the reports from the virtual dais.

All right.

Well, thanks.

Hello, everybody.

A couple of things I just wanted to mention were around grounds, the demolition of the dynamics building over at the IVM corridor is underway and a lot of the utility enabling seems to have started over there.

So that project, you know, to enable the Data Science Institute, as well as the

the conference center and hotel that we're building over there.

So that's finally getting underway after lots and lots of planning.

So that's exciting to see.

And as everybody probably saw this weekend, we did take down the George Rogers Clark statue over near the corner and the base and the statue are in storage.

I do have one update on the Fontaine Avenue streetscape project.

Council will be reviewing the project next Monday on 7-19.

They will be looking at the design and I believe after that authorization will be

sought from VDOT to begin right-of-way phase authorization and 90% drawings.

Yep.

So we just had one meeting between our last meeting and now that was a special session of PJPDC to apply for a housing preservation grant for the rural counties.

So that doesn't really affect us.

But just today, we received an announcement of a statewide PDC housing development grant.

And so that will be $40 million total, but $2 million flowing through the PDC to simulate affordable housing and regional initiatives to address it.

And next Tuesday, we will have a meeting of the MPO Technical Committee.

Hi everyone.

My name is Karim Habab.

I'm completing the remainder of a previous appointment to the Commission.

My term will end August 31 in 2022.

and I believe my predecessor sat on the neighborhood leaders meeting and the KTAC, Citizens Transportation Advisory Committee, but I don't believe they have had any meetings since my joining.

I joined the commission because I felt, I'm sure everyone else does on the commission, that I can serve the wonderful community that I live in.

I've worked at an architecture firm for the last six years and I've actually stood in front of this commission.

as an applicant previously.

So I know all the work it takes to get projects here.

And also I'm aware of the impact the commission has on the city.

And as I said, I think in the last work session, I'm joining at a pretty interesting, crucial time and there's a lot of work to be done.

I'm happy to be part of the process.

Well, welcome.

And we are, we are tickled to have you on board.

I don't believe Ms.

Dow is on board.

Are you here?

I don't see her.

Housing Advisory Committee met to discuss a new concept for the future land use map and voted that we consider that same concept tonight.

More soon.

Great update.

Good evening.

I attended the Board of Architectural Review meeting on June 15th.

It was a rather quick meeting.

We had five applications to consider and we issued five certificate gifts of appropriateness for those applications.

The Tree Commission has deferred its meeting from last week to right now.

So I'm not able to attend that meeting.

but I'll report on it next month.

All right, very good.

The only meeting that I was able to make since we last met was the Parks and Rec meeting.

That group has been very, very busy.

Just about everything is open now with one notable exception.

The Aquatics Center at Meade Park is not open and will not be opening.

The reason is we just can't get enough lifeguards to support all the parks we've got.

This is not unique to Charlottesville.

This seems to be a nationwide problem that we just can't get the lifeguards.

So it will not open this year.

But the day camp is open.

The day camp is fully staffed.

And it's open from 7.30 a.m.

to 5.30 in the evening.

Athletics are going very, very well, especially baseball and softball.

Sure, needed to unmute there.

We don't have a work session scheduled for later this month at this point, so I anticipate that we won't at this point in time.

We do want to clarify just a bit for the public that there is not a new land use map under consideration for the commission this evening.

A proposal with some ideas that the Commission will be looking at this evening from the Housing Advisory Committee.

But if anyone was concerned that they had missed a step in the process, that there hasn't been a misstep,

that the Commission is going to have the opportunity to hear from some members of the Housing Advisory Committee about some thoughts and ideas they have concerning the land use map and there'll be many opportunities to come for moving forward.

If you as a public member have some comments that you want to provide tonight concerning any of these things, do make sure during matters from the public to share that information with the commission.

And what a wonderful segue.

Why don't we move on to matters to be presented by the public that are not on the formal agenda.

So if you want to talk about the future of land use map, this would be the opportunity to do that.

If you want to talk about the critical slope waiver that's later on in the day, evening, this would be an opportunity to do that.

If you want to talk about the rezoning or the right of way issues that we will be dealing with

I'd ask you to wait until we get to those items and we'll open up for public discussion when we get to those items.

Thank you, Chair Mitchell, and indeed they are.

At this time, if you would like to address the Planning Commission on matters not on the formal agenda, please click your raise hand icon or if you're joining us by phone, press star nine.

We'll call on you on the order of hands raised and you'll have three minutes for comment.

Our first speaker is Bill Emery.

Bill, you're on with the commission.

I wanted to thank John for his diligence in trying to reach me at your work session.

I'd gone to dinner with my daughter and I failed to lower my hand.

So I deeply apologize for that.

What I wanted to, I know you guys are concerned about, uh,

seen all the articles in the New York Times and are concerned about canopy equity in the city of Charlottesville and just the lack of canopy in general.

Particularly, of course, Jody.

And Jody, thank you for your excellent service on the Tree Commission.

But I did want to point out that in our zoning code, section 34869 and R1 zoning districts

I'm not sure what, well actually in R2 as well, there is a requirement for tree canopy and you know

As you guys know, you have a standing invitation to take a walking tour of East Belmont-Carlton and the Willam Mills with me.

But you can pretty much identify rental properties by their total lack of tree canopy.

Trees, landlords, sadly, are not very enlightened people who

don't really care much about tree canopy or the comfort of their tenants.

And walking around the Willam Mills, you can pretty much identify every rental by the fact that it has zero trees.

Years ago, we talked about this idea of writing zoning tickets.

I know that the zoning department, Craig, they're understaffed.

more important things to do, sadly.

But certainly, I mean, I think the tree commission or neighbors would be, or Commissioner Stolzenberg with his incredible computer skills, and also with available maps from the city which show tree coverage by lot throughout the city, it'd be pretty easy to come up with a list, check them all, and then basically,

Ask people to plant trees.

It costs about $5 to plant a tree.

It's pretty easy.

Come by my house sometime and look at the trees.

You can't see the house.

There's so many trees.

Keeps down the utility bill.

So I just would encourage you to enforce the zoning code before you rewrite the zoning code.

Thanks, Bill.

Next, we have Philip Harway.

Philip, you're on with the commission.

You have three minutes.

Philip, welcome.

Yep, there we go.

Okay, thank you for allowing me to speak this afternoon.

I've sent you an email with my basic concerns, but I know you get a lot of emails, so probably haven't had a chance to read them.

I'm just going to make the following comments, though.

Our neighbors in Albemarle have just adopted their new housing policy this past Wednesday.

and the goals are to help tackle affordable housing in their community with other objectives including overall housing supply and providing for community engagement particularly on preserving existing communities.

My understanding is that one of the core parts of their plan though is that all rezonings and special use permits will require by definition

to be affordable and to have extended periods of affordability.

I would assume that that will be up in the zoning.

The plan at this point is being delayed because the commission found out that even some of the developers they've spoken to have concerns that the county will not be able to meet some of their major objectives as do many of the citizens of Albemarle, I believe.

From what I know, unless there have been significant changes, and we've been told that there haven't been any, but since the last meeting of the Planning Commission, this is a big contrast with what Charlottesville is presently considering, which is a general up-zoning without any guarantees and assurances of reaching the worthy goal of more affordable housing.

Our neighbors are taking a slower approach, and they're consulting, I believe, with a much broader range of affected parties.

The citizens in Albemarle also realize that even though the consensus of the board is to approve the plan now, things still need to be ironed out on the specifics before they do so.

To others I've spoken to, it appears as if the city, through its efforts presently,

are more focused on getting there quickly without adequate planning on how to get there successfully.

And I know this is tough work and I appreciate all the efforts you do, but I humbly request that the process be slowed down and that plans from our neighbors in Albemarle as well as other communities be seriously considered.

specifically not allowing for rezoning or special use permits to be considered without clear definitions of how much will be provided for housing affordability and with better metrics of what is affordable.

Thank you for your time.

And next we have Kimber Hawke.

Kimber, you're on with the Planning Commission.

Welcome, Kimber.

Hello, how are you?

As a little side note, I just want to let you know that a lot of people think that they're going to have to wait to the end of this meeting to comment on the flam.

So you might get people later.

So I just want to say that our family believes that this plan is faulty, inappropriate, and doesn't understand the topography or infrastructure of Charlottesville and needs to be slowed down.

There appears to be a lack of economic modeling or forecasting.

Where are the models for the relationship of zoning restrictions to price elasticity of demand?

What is the impact of the new developments that we have on surrounding rents and prices?

What's the latest estimate for construction costs because those are high?

Really, what's the impact on the neighborhoods?

We in Belmont have already experienced the negative impact

of outside businesses coming in that were judged appropriate for that area, but have impacted the neighbors in a serious way.

I know seven families who have moved.

There's a failure to consider the redevelopment opportunities of unused or underutilized retail space that could be developed around the businesses.

There's Fashion Square Mall that's up for sale, Kathy's Market, Foods of All Nations,

There's a space across from JPJ.

There's empty space on Cherry across from Salvation Army.

Wright's Auto Parts is up for sale.

It's over five acres, I believe.

There are large landmasses for real, real affordable housing either on either side of the Belmont Bridge.

There is a Collier's Landmass behind Guadalajara downtown.

With all that space, I think we could maybe achieve more than the supposed 4,000 units that we supposedly need.

and again, really making it affordable, not 80% AMI.

There's a failure to consider the university who has a lot of land and is pushing their burden of student housing on the city.

There's a failure to consider the regional context.

Charlottesville is only 1% of the area.

We need to bring in all of the surrounding counties to address affordable housing.

What we are seeing with this plan is compromised by an ideology

and an agenda that seems to be driven by a few Planning Commission members.

The March map was a result of community input and then two members of the Planning Commission directed RHI according to what they stated in their meetings that it needed to be more ambitious.

This push by those of such ideology appear to be falling victim to a hostility to R1 housing, density for density's sake and density as a form of punishment for certain neighborhoods.

Well, in the end, this is just an experiment and a leap of faith.

And from what I've witnessed over 20 years, there have been many, I can name five off the top of my head, many developments that have been pushed through on false promises of affordable housing that have never happened.

And it's a big leap of faith that you're asking us to take when you haven't provided that housing.

Thank you very much.

And thank you camera for the reminder.

If you would like to speak on the future land use map, now is the time to do it.

We will not be, it will not be a public hearing regarding this at the end of the meeting.

If you want to speak on this, it is now that you need to do it.

And next we have Brandon Collins.

Brandon, you're on with the commission.

Thank you for the commission.

My name is Brandon Collins.

I am an employee of FAR, the Public Housing Association of Residents.

FAR is a resident governed and duly recognized resident council and resident advisory board for public housing in Charlottesville.

and we hope you as always take our comments very seriously.

We work very closely with the Housing Authority on the redevelopment projects that are currently underway and projects that will be underway.

So I first and foremost want to say that FAR supports the amendment to the critical slopes waiver at South First Street

I think part of the issue is you know the pandemic has changed a lot of things in the world and supply chain issues are difficult so in order for us to

to move that project forward and get it done in the smartest way possible.

We need that amendment to the critical slopes waiver.

And I think it's the safest and smartest way to go.

It's not going to impact our environment.

And as previous at the end of the day, the water quality and the streams are all going to be in better shape than when we found them.

I also want to state FARD's support and enthusiasm for taking a look at what the HAC is proposing in terms of these different ideas of overlays for affordability

with the low intensity residential being by right and then the medium and higher intensity requiring affordable housing as kind of an overlay.

I think that combined with the many policies that are being brought forward by the consultants are going to address some of the concerns by the public who continue to

to be concerned that these changes won't increase affordability in our town.

I don't think they're 100% genuine in some of those concerns, but I do think that this completely, well, not completely, that this really addresses those concerns.

And so I asked those members of the public to really take a look at what the HAC is talking about and see if that changes your mind on how we can ensure

Maintain and hold accountable affordable housing in the city of Charlottesville with the future land use map.

Thank you.

And next we have Mark Cavett.

Mark, you're on with the Planning Commission.

You have three minutes.

Hi.

Let me first say that I ask that you all please keep an open mind on a lot of things that are going to be presented to you all tonight, as well as emails that you'll be receiving.

There's a group of us that have put together quite a bit of information that we feel that can achieve the goals of what this comprehensive plan desires to do, but don't feel it should be done with the comprehensive plan as is.

but we do have some very concrete ideas that we feel that could be done without tearing down neighborhoods, just doing some changes on them.

So I see Lyle, Rory, please take a look at where we present emails coming and do consider them.

Let me first say that I have many issues with the comprehensive plan as presented.

I have only three minutes but I need two hours.

First issue that I feel we need to address with the community is how dense do we want the city to become.

Do we want the infrastructure to support high density?

Where would new schools be built?

Our roads already have bottlenecks during peak times.

One thing the pandemic has shown us is the ability to use technology to do more work from home.

Indications are that we are going to see more work from home.

Has that change been addressed?

There's a movement nationwide for more people to live in urban areas, especially like Charlottesville.

Demand for housing is going to remain strong for some time.

We're not going to build our way out of demand.

When I compare rent to other similar and even some large cities as Detroit, we're easy to do.

All you gotta do is go to hot pads and look at things.

I notice that our current rents are in line with other cities when comparing new constructions and the urban core.

You do not see rent decrease until you get away from the urban core and look at older housing.

That brings me to the time presentation three years ago with state experts.

I'm sorry, there were three experts from out of state that spoke at this seminar on the field of affordability.

The bottom line from the program was that you're not going to achieve affordability housing with new construction.

New construction is inherently expensive.

that it would be better to renovate and repair older housing to achieve more affordable housing.

My nephew lives outside Chapel Hill.

He's currently investigating housing within the city.

He's finding that one bedroom apartments that have been built in the past three years are renting for just over $1,600.

We talk about affordable housing.

What we're really talking about is who can afford these apartments.

In the future, I and others will be making recommendations at future meetings.

What we really have here in our area is an income disparity.

That's it for tonight.

Next, we have Charles Near.

Charles, you're on with the Planning Commission.

And welcome, Charles.

Hey, so listen, I am talking about the proposed unit development at the bottom of the street of Chestnut Street and on Carlton Avenue.

Can I talk for the right time?

I see your hand.

What?

You're talking about the 1206 Carlton Avenue.

Yeah, that's correct.

Uh-huh.

Yeah, we'll have a public hearing on that next.

Later?

All right.

Well, I'll call on me again.

Thanks.

I'm sorry for having interinjected myself here.

And next, we have Karen Near.

You're on with the Planning Commission, Karen.

You have three minutes.

Hello.

So sorry.

No, you're good.

I'm also want to speak about the Carlton Avenue.

This is not the appropriate time.

Your opportunity will be at the next public hearing.

We're going to have that in about

15, 20 minutes.

So we'll give you a chance to come back and speak then.

And next we have Laura Baiazon.

I'm sorry if I mispronounce your name, Laura.

Welcome, Laura.

It looks like Laura vanished.

I think we've lost Laura.

Next we have Jake Gold.

Good evening members of the Planning Commission.

My name is Jake Gold.

I live on Goodman Street in Belmont.

I'll keep this brief really because I didn't want to talk earlier.

Ms.

Hawke said that Belmont residents don't like new development, don't support pushes for more denser housing in our neighborhood.

And I wanted to correct the record that could not be further from the truth.

And I'd encourage her to spend more time talking to our neighbors.

I've heard from any number of my neighbors here who believe the climate crisis is real and that some of the biggest strides we can take in reducing our emissions will come from building houses closest to places we work, like downtown for those of us in Belmont.

That's all.

And next we have James Groves.

James, you're on with the Planning Commission.

You have three minutes.

Good evening.

Three quick comments.

First, I had a chance to listen to the recording from your work session a couple weeks ago.

Personally, I found it a bit eye-opening when Ms.

Russell and Mr. Stolzenberg asked the consultants, Lee Einsweiler in particular, about some data about how upzoning has worked in Minneapolis and elsewhere.

And he said he doesn't have any studies at his fingertips to share with us.

So not saying that the upzoning is good or bad, I guess to me it's at least a little bit of a red flag to say, well, here's the consultant, here's the zoning expert,

Don't know quite what's going to happen.

So just an observation that resonated with me.

Second thing, I work at the university and I teach design, teach from an engineering perspective.

But in the design process, one of the key things that we do there is lay out requirements or goals of a design or planning process.

And when I work with my students, particularly from an engineering perspective, I really push them to be quantitative.

As you design a solution, what do you hope or expect to

deliver and make it numerical.

And when I think about the process that I'm observing and so far is, I mean, there's sometimes it's like, okay, you have a little bit about the number of demolitions.

You have an idea about how many deeply affordable units you want to deliver.

But I would encourage you as a group to go further and say by 2025, 2030, 2040,

you know what do we want the occupancy rate in residential in

rental units to be, how many middle income affordable housing units do you want, so on and so forth.

I mean, there's a whole set of metrics.

And in a sense, put yourself on a hook, not just to say, well, we tried to do something for affordability, we tried to do something for equity, but to really define quantitatively through a whole set of potential measures or goals.

What is it we're hoping to achieve with this plan?

My last comment is a shift to a number of people talk about getting UVA engaged or making sure you engage with them.

One of the things about UVA is they've set their goals, I think, 2030 to be carbon neutral, 2045 or 2050 to be fossil fuel free.

But they've excluded faculty, staff, transportation, and commuting from those numbers.

And when you think about the university in a sense, I think they're kind of, it's a tough nut to crack, but they're kind of shirking their duties.

And if you think about the fact that they're avoiding that, plus the students in the community who cause others to have to commute, I would put the university under, you know, light a little bit of a fire under them because they are helping to contribute to a lot of commuting, a lot of emissions.

a portion of our climate problem that you should be trying to solve through this planning action.

And it looks like Laura joined us again so I'm going to try to go back to her chair.

Hi there.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Perfect.

Thanks for allowing me to speak.

My name is Laura.

My husband, myself, and our 22-month-old twins live in a middle-income community called Amherst Commons.

It's at the end of Amherst Street off of Rose Hill Drive near Barracks Rugby.

My husband is a Filipino immigrant.

He grew up in Charlottesville and shared one duplex between three families, so he is no stranger to the need for affordable housing.

We are both nurses and veterans who were excited to move back to Charlottesville and bought our first house just this past year.

Just today we learned through Seville Weekly that our neighbor's lot clearly visible behind us is set to be zoned as a high intensity zone.

Essentially a five-story apartment complex could be built in our backyard if our lovely neighbor who is actually extremely proud of her land, her father back in the 1950s,

as Black man and was able to own way more land than you would expect or that at that time that many Black folks could even own.

And so anyway, if she ever decides to sell, we are just very stressed out and wondering if we need to sell our house

within the year before property value plummets due to this zoning.

If I were a buyer looking for a single family home, I would be really turned off if I saw the zoning abutting our single family backyard was high intensity.

In conclusion, my neighbors in Amherst and I will likely be very adversely impacted by this zoning.

My husband, like I said, is from Charlottesville.

is from a Charlottesville low-income family and was able to rise to the middle class through a lot of hard work, only to see our property value like this suffer possibly at this point through this misguided zoning in our particular area.

We really ask that you please consider the residential homes of Amherst Commons.

It's not just our home, but we have a 12-home neighborhood and association.

Please just consider doing the moderate intensity zoning behind our community as like a buffer between us and then a higher intensity zoning.

We invite you all to please, you know, come to visit our neighborhood, see what we're talking about, how this could really adversely impact our values.

We don't have a lot of wooded area or a lot of

a lot of like shield from the properties that that abut us to our rear.

Thank you, Laura.

And next we have Doug Cleveland.

Doug, you're on with the Planning Commission.

Welcome, Doug.

Thank you.

Am I here?

Hi, and thank you for giving us the time to share our thoughts with you.

I am a 15 or so year resident of Charlottesville, but I live here from a different part of the state.

And I'm calling in today for basically three questions that are all interrelated.

And they're basically, I'm putting them out there for you to consider and hope that

I'm not the only one who has these questions.

I know that I'm not in one way or another, and I'm sure that it would be really helpful to a lot of us if any, all of you, either tonight or as time goes forward, could help us address them.

And thank you again, Missy, for helping us get our work across the finish line a couple of weeks ago.

Our neighborhood, meaning our street,

conducted a survey in order to provide you with the results prior to the last meeting, not the work session, but the meeting before that.

And we were actually able to conduct a survey of R Street, which is in North downtown, and it is

a small street, 30 plus residents, households.

And so obviously a very discreet and narrow slice of the Charlottesville community, but still a part of it.

And whatever our distinctions are from any other part, one thing that is probably very representative is that for at least a large part of the community,

We found out, I found out I should say, but the survey showed without any question that we found out about this process long into the process and the particular issues that are being raised and the proposals that are being made.

I'm not asking for anything in particular.

We weren't asking for anything in particular.

We were voicing opposition, but we were very concerned.

Thank you.

I'm very concerned about finding out about what seemed like very dramatic proposals so far into the process.

I know the chair has expressed an interest in getting this process across the finish line quickly during the current city council tenure.

That would be great.

But I hope it doesn't come at the expense of our ability as residents, participants, hopefully, in this process for having the ability to be part of that.

I'm going to drop it back to one to two questions.

Rory in the work session mentioned, asked a question of the planners.

of the scale that was going to be possible if you were to join, say, four lots together.

I've tried to get a sense of the scale from both the proposed materials and from driving around.

And I see two buildings, the tractor supply adjacent building and the one behind the dairy building that seemed to be sort of at the max of what's being proposed.

And if that's true, I think if somebody could help us understand that mass, that volume.

And if it's not true, I hope somebody would be able to help us understand how it's not true.

And over time, what that would mean.

Sorry for going over my time.

Thank you very much.

Next, we have Jonathan Rice.

Jonathan, you're on with the Planning Commission.

Jonathan, welcome.

Thank you.

See, I have a very specific concern with the future land use map.

I live on Meriwether Street, which is nestled between Little High and East High Street.

And at the dead end of the street, the urban mixed use corridor zoning category has been applied to two lots that have always been residential there.

And this seems

This is troublesome for a number of reasons.

It seems totally inconsistent with the notion of having a gradual transition between high density and low density areas.

The urban mixed use corridor category allows buildings as high as eight stories.

Potentially most of the houses on Meriwether at this time are single story ranch houses.

So, I mean, this would be a pretty obvious clash.

The other thing is the traffic.

This is a really narrow street and we don't have sidewalks covering the street and everybody who lives here is obliged to walk in the street.

And that's only really safe and possible because of, you know, there's no cut through traffic and there's no big business at the dead end to,

to generate a lot of traffic.

We have a lot of senior citizens.

We have a lot of families with young children.

We have people with disabilities, et cetera.

And we're really concerned.

It's part of the little high neighborhood with improving the walkability of our neighborhood and the bikeability.

And we don't wanna feel like we have to get in our cars to be able to navigate short distances

And so I've sent several emails asking for clarification on what exactly is the thinking here with the zoning, but I haven't heard back.

I would appreciate some sort of clarification on that.

And by the way, I just want to add, we have no problem whatsoever with the urban mixed-use corridor.

being along East High, none whatsoever.

That's totally fine.

We think that's actually a good place to build higher buildings and denser buildings.

It's not a problem.

We are concerned with traffic.

We are concerned with having good boundaries and transitions.

And that's all I have to say.

Thank you.

I'm sorry, Chair, one second.

And next we have Benjamin Heller.

Benjamin, you're on with the Planning Commission.

You have three minutes.

Hi, thanks a lot.

I wanted to follow up on what James Brose had to say.

It's pretty shocking in the eyes while I've said that he had no studies at his fingertips about Chicago or Minneapolis, given that in a remark that has a paper from 2019 and Daniel Keilman from 2021 that both show that the effect was a rapid capitalization

of development value into land prices.

But this is just of a piece with the lack of analytical rigor that I've noticed in this plan and the backing of this plan.

There is no model of induced demand.

When San Francisco looked at this, they found that for every 100 new market rate condos, they needed 20 to 40 new affordable units just to break even.

Have you done this analysis for Charlottesville?

Do you know whether RHI could do this analysis?

Do you have a model of filtering?

You know, how luxury apartments work their way down into lower market segments.

As it turns out, the one academic work on filtering, it looks at multiple MSAs, shows that Charlottesville's one of the few MSAs where filtering works in reverse.

So where's your model for that?

Where's your model of the realistic marginal cost of new construction?

Because there won't be new construction below marginal cost.

Most national figures show that's not likely to be below $200 a square foot without land.

And the average

The sale price for Charlottesville is only about $300.

So how are you going to create supply under those circumstances?

And what's the evidence for upzoning as a tonic for housing affordability?

Event studies of new supply show minimal impact on the values of rents in adjacent properties.

Look at the studies of Eicher in 2018, Ihlenfeld in 2007, Quigley and Rosenthal in 2008, Glaser and Ward in 2009, Flynn and Wachter in 2019, all show very small single digit effects on home prices and rents for large differences in land use regulation intensity.

And when you look at the impact of income inequality, it's much greater.

So if you free developers to build luxury housing and you increase income inequality, you're going to vitiate any impact that you have

loosening land use restrictions.

So the bottom line is, like James Berg said, you can't do this with zero analytical rigor.

You're very likely to get us to a very different place than you aim to get us.

So what you have is no models.

We have a model of where restrictive covenants were 50 years ago, but no econometric models of what you're going to do and the effect that it's going to have.

And it's just kind of very disappointing, maybe even a little bit of a joke.

Thank you.

And next we have Willow Gale.

Willow, you're on with the Planning Commission.

You have three minutes.

And you'll need to unmute your mic, Willow.

I want to go on to Elizabeth.

Okay, Elizabeth Carpenter, you are all with the Planning Commission.

Hi, thank you so much.

I wanted to take a moment just to speak to the urgency of affordable housing as a public health issue.

I've heard lots of comments urging caution as we proceed and

I certainly want us to be smart about this, but this is a public health crisis.

I have done home visiting community health nursing with low income families.

And I can guarantee you that every classroom in our public schools has kids who are either actively homeless or on the verge of homelessness all the time.

We should not use Albemarle as our marker.

I think somebody suggested that earlier.

They've been very slow to the game.

I'm glad they're hopping on board, but they should not be our vision.

And I just really want to express how urgent this is as a public health issue for the members of our community.

This once again will be the only opportunity to speak regarding the future land use map.

Okay.

All right, Doug, please keep it brief if you would.

And Kimberly, I see you're up as well.

Keep it brief.

Thanks very much for the opportunity to attend.

I ran out of time last time.

A very quick extra note on the survey that we ran, because it's the flip side of us feeling a little blindsided.

That's my word, but just feeling like we were

finding out way late with the train already basically leaving the station if not already way down the tracks.

We got a very great response rate and a very quick turnaround about 24 hours from dropping surveys off at the houses, rental apartments and then collecting them.

We got about a 60% response rate and that doesn't even take account of the fact that a bunch of folks were away for a long weekend and that sort of thing.

So the point there being, if there is an opportunity to engage, a good chunk of us will engage with you or with the process more appropriately.

And we look forward to the opportunity.

Thanks again for that.

And next we have Kimber Hawke, who has also already spoken.

Hi, thank you.

I'm sorry.

I just have to respond to Jake Cole.

I completely did not say what he claims I say.

He twisted my words.

I did not say that we did not want more affordable housing in Belmont.

What I said is we want real affordable housing in appropriate areas.

I also cited the 80% AMI that I don't believe is real affordable housing.

And I also pointed to inappropriate businesses that moved into the area that negatively affected the neighbors.

And then I pointed to areas where we could build.

So saying that I'm stating for the whole of Belmont, which is completely false, I said, our family feels this way.

And saying that I'm against affordable housing is a complete false narrative.

And with that, I think we're going to end our public hearing.

We're going to end matters to be presented by the public that are not on formal agenda.

And we have a council quorum.

Councillor Hill is Councillor Noor.

Yes, Chair Mitchell, I believe that we are.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you for slowing me down.

I do.

I move that we approve the consent agenda.

I second.

We have a motion and a second.

All in favor?

Any opposition?

Any abstentions?

The consent agenda is approved.

Thank you, Ms.

Creasy, for slowing me down.

Now, I think we're ready to begin our joint meeting, our joint public hearing session.

And the first two items on the docket are, one, a rezoning application, and the other is a special use permit application.

So ZM21-00001, NSP21-00004.

The application is for a vacant lot located at 1206 Carlton Avenue,

The lot is currently zoned R2, residential two-family.

By right, one two-family dwelling is allowed on that lot.

The requested rezoning will be to R3, residential multifamily medium density.

And the following special use permit would then allow the applicant to build eight units.

on that lot and with a mixture of one in and two bedroom units.

They're also proposing to provide eight on-site parking spaces on that lot.

The other thing the applicant is asking for is a change in the setback.

They're asking to move the setback from 13 feet to eight feet.

So the way we're going to manage this is we're going to have the

The NDS team give us a quick overview.

We'll then have the applicant give us a quick presentation.

And then we'll have a public hearing.

After the public hearing, we will then have two votes, a vote on the rezoning application.

And if that passes, then we'll have a vote on the special use permit.

Yes, Chair, thank you.

City Council Planning Commission, tonight you'll be holding a public hearing for a rezoning and special use permit for the proposed development at 1206 Carlton Avenue.

Management Services Inc.

represented by Justin Schimpf of Schimpf Engineering has submitted two applications, ZM21-0001 and SP21-00004.

These requests are needed for the owner to develop an eight unit apartment building on the subject property.

The first step of the proposal is to rezone the subject property from R2 low-density two-family residential to R3 medium-density residential.

As part of the rezoning the request, the applicant is not proposing any proffers.

A rezoning of the subject property would change the by-right density from approximately four dwelling units per acre to 21 dwelling units per acre, although this is a little misleading

as dwelling units per acre is not used below R3.

It's not used in the R2 and the R1 districts.

You only use basic unit counts, one or two units.

As the lot sits currently, the max residential units that could be built would be a two-family dwelling.

At 21 dwelling units per acre on the subject property would accommodate five units by right.

As part of the SUP request, the applicant is requesting the density be increased from 21 DUA to 31 DUA.

The applicant is also requesting the side setback be modified from 13 feet to 8 feet.

The applicant has indicated the height of the building will be approximately 40 feet, but no greater than the R3 allotment of 45 feet.

The subject property has frontage on Carlton Avenue and the proposed development would utilize the rear alley

to access Bainbridge Street.

Public comment has been limited, but what comment staff has received is related to parking for proposed development.

Residents are concerned that the code required eight parking spaces will not be enough for this development and the overflow parking will impact the surrounding neighborhood, especially the homes on Chestnut Street.

As you review the application tonight, keep in mind that these are two separate applications and could be approved or denied by city council individually.

The rezoning offers no proffers and the proposed development plan is only tied to the SUP and not the rezoning request.

Let's go from left to right.

I'm okay.

I don't have any questions.

Thanks.

Ms.

Ms.

Stolzenberg.

No questions.

Ms.

Ms.

Dowell, are you here yet?

Okay.

Ms.

Thank you.

Ms.

Delindre.

Wow.

No questions.

It's incredible, isn't it?

Yeah.

All right.

Good evening.

Thank you.

Can everyone hear me OK?

Yes.

Good.

OK.

Justin Schimp, the engineer of the project.

Kelsey Schline is with the, as always, she really does a lot of the legwork on these, puts together a whole application, everything in front of you.

She's going to talk a little bit about some of our neighborhood communication.

We have a brief presentation.

Joe, could you share that so we can go through that?

Thank you.

Right now, this will be familiar to some members of the commission, as I think it was back in 2018, a very similar project we brought before you.

The location is on Carlton, right across from Chestnut Street.

It's in a mixture of residential and commercial.

We have some photos.

We'll show you his neighborhood context, if you're not familiar.

Next slide, please.

This is a site plan.

It is largely unchanged from the original, with the exception of we just mixed up the unit count.

We have four one-bedroom units proposed and four two-bedrooms.

The last proposal was six two-bedrooms.

So it's the same number of bedrooms as proposed previously.

We've added some more kitchens.

We feel like those sort of units are really, the market is way shorter than this building is set to be a very simple, economical apartment building.

for folks who are working in the area who want to be able to walk or bike, not to deal with commuting and all the things that come along with that.

One of the things that was discussed last time, I'll touch on briefly, was there was a question about the alley access, and we did clear that up.

We had an attorney do the title work for that who provided an update that we do have access to that.

We've met with the owner across from us who's welcome to our paving and fixing of the alley

Correct.

It's, you know, potholes and things of that nature.

So that's been established at this point that I think was up in the air a little bit last time.

We've also had some conversations with neighbors about parking.

If I could get Kelsey to jump in for a minute, she's communicated with some folks and can tell you a little bit about what we've been asked and what we've looked into.

Sure thing.

Good evening, commissioners.

My name is Kelsey Schwein.

I'm a

planner with Shimp Engineering.

Thanks for the opportunity to speak tonight.

We do know that parking is one of the main concerns from nearby residents about this development.

It was a concern back in 2018.

It remains a concern with this application before you tonight.

We are open and committed to exploring solutions.

We did communicate with the owner of 1208 Carlton.

who recently constructed a parking lot to see if there was an opportunity or any appetite for a shared parking agreement at some point in the future.

At this point, there's no interest from that owner, but I think there's a few more options that we could explore in the area for existing parking lots.

We are interested in finding

You know, a resolve to this concern.

However, we're not interested in resolving that concern by constructing additional parking.

We meet the parking requirement and where it will, you know, can hopefully have the opportunity to continue to work with nearby businesses to see if their complimentary shared parking agreement could take shape at some point in the future.

One of the things about these developments, and we certainly hear often in the planning commission hear it more than we do, because you're here for all the meetings, we're here just for some.

And so that would be the demographic here.

So why we certainly understand there's a, for folks who live in single family houses, the idea of not having a car too seems foreign for folks who are renting a one bedroom in this location.

I mean, it means saving hundreds of dollars per month and not having a car.

So this is really the, you know, a way to enhance affordability is to provide accessibility to folks.

And I think that's important here.

So this location really,

That speaks to that.

That's why we did not propose a build a duplex after 2018.

We just felt like that was not an appropriate use of this land and that things have changed.

There's been a lot of discussion in the last few years about that and then also the future land use map and the thoughts have evolved since this started back in 2018.

If we go to the next slide.

Just a reminder for folks who... Go back one slide, sorry.

A reminder for folks who didn't see us last time.

We have worked with a traffic engineer.

We have a one-way entrance off Carlton, because that is a narrow street, but the one-way entrance is a safe entrance, and then we exit out the alley.

So there's no traffic concerns.

The staff outlined many other factors, favorless technical details I won't get into.

We can discuss any questions if we need to.

Next slide, please.

These are not proper type

elements.

We did want to give people an idea of scale and massing.

And it would likely be a residential house type construction, essentially.

It's a wood stick frame building.

Thankfully, wood prices are headed in a direction where we can build this project, I think.

So the example you see, it's really kind of references a four story in some places.

Really, it's a three story with a rooftop terrace space.

The R3 requires kind of enclosed recreation space.

And that's how we meet that

So this is the current zoning map.

You'll be familiar if you've seen it.

There's this strange little R2 parcel in the middle of B2, an R3, and a PUD across the street.

And it was basically, and we'll have maps to show this, it was down zoned basically over time as some of the parcels were in the city.

And go to the next slide, please.

Just a little example of context, those not familiar.

The picture in the lower right corner is key to all these photos.

So you're starting at 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 down the street.

So you'll see a collection of six unit, eight unit.

I don't know how big, something like the number 7, the Carlson Road.

I'm not sure how many units are in that.

But the whole side of the street is

aside from the B2 property that has the 20 parking spaces is generally residential of this form.

So the zoning and special use permit we are seeking is not to really differ from what's built, but to match it.

Next slide, please.

These are variants.

We showed these last time, and for those who are not familiar, there's an interesting history of these.

1949, the property was zoned B1 Commercial, 58.

It was a mix of industrial R3 residential on the property.

Next slide, please.

We remained R3 in 1976.

We remained R3 in 1991.

And then there started to be this, I guess, use of zoning to limit density in the period of time that hopefully were passed.

But if you flip the page one more time, you will see, next slide, yep.

So into, I guess it was the latest up, 91, I think it changed.

Is that right, Kelsey?

2003, excuse me, this is not labeled, yeah.

So the existing zoning map, present 2003, it changed.

Back in that, we found some discussion back in the time of essentially blocks that were kind of highlighted as, oh, well, we're worried about this being developed and it should be down zoned.

It was basically spot down zoned and we are trying to get it back into the correct zoning district based on what's around it and think what's right for the neighborhood and really what's right for the people who would live there, most importantly.

Next slide, please.

In conclusion, I think this has been talked about a bit.

Now, I don't want to take too much time on any particular point.

I'm happy to answer questions.

But the reality is, if you look at the goals that are stated by the city in terms of providing housing to folks who take ultimate means of transportation and how to deal with climate change and the other issues we face, these sort of infill projects are an excellent way to achieve those goals.

In this particular location, we're not talking about

you know going into a neighborhood of one-story houses building a four-story apartment complex we're talking about building a like structure on a street near commercial near jobs and most critically I think with these eight units it's going to give you know eight families or households the opportunity to live somewhere to improve their lives and I think that we've never said enough and I try to say it every time that

why there'll be folks worried about parking and we realize that maybe an extra car ends up in the street now and then.

Somebody gets to walk to work.

Somebody gets to walk to school.

Somebody's life is improved by living in this.

And that really, when you talk about these housing projects, is super critical.

And that's why we're back here several years later with a similar project.

We feel strong that's what belongs here for those reasons.

So the

Rents for these type of units probably are one bedrooms, 1100, 1200, something like that.

I don't have any other questions.

Do you hurry?

Alright, so one of our standards of review, well, it might actually be for the rezoning, or for the SCP, but regardless, as compliance with the building code, I do have a question about that.

So I think it came up in our last meeting that once you hit the fourth story, some additional egress requirements apply.

I think I was mistaken about the elevator, but my understanding is that a second stair is required of that fourth story.

How are you complying with that here, where you show one stair?

Correct.

It's not habitable space.

So it's an amenity, essentially.

So we're not required.

No one's sleeping up there, right?

The two stairs come to the event there's a fire or something like that, and you need to get folks down a stair quickly.

Gotcha.

And what exactly is that?

I mean, I know a general amenity space is required in the R3 requirements.

I'm assuming it's to comply with that, but I mean, is it just like a rooftop patio?

Yeah, it's a rooftop patio.

We have a pergola over it.

This is conceptual at this point, but just trying to give folks a little bit of space to get out.

It's probably over what the exact R3 square footage is.

I can't remember what the number of exact amenity space is.

But if it's just a place to get up on the roof, you could pass in lawn chairs, do a pergola, have a little shade over you.

Gotcha.

OK.

Next question.

Often when we see this kind of rezoning plus SUP, we see kind of the general development plan

given by the developer as committing to it, right?

So if not, you have the ability to do whatever would be allowed under R3 without the SCP, right?

Well, I think so that if the, just zoned R3, I think Matt said we could build five units.

So with the, assume the zoning, especially as permit were approved,

I think we would not have to use a special use permit approval.

But we'd be at five units, and I think the setback becomes 13 feet.

So that becomes a fairly unworkable building.

I'm not saying it can't be built.

But you would get, because the R3 is the taller you'd get, the setbacks increase.

You might have a two-story building, but the economics of that start to not make sense, essentially.

The reason we didn't do that in part, we feel like this lot should have always been zoned R3 and let's say, you know, so having it just equal zoning with its neighbors just has some logic to it.

But there wasn't a whole lot you would do differently in this particular case.

Okay.

And then lastly, as I recall from the last application in 2018, I wasn't a commissioner back then.

I think it was right around time I was being appointed.

It was a six unit building with one unit profit as affordable.

Yeah, the affordability is forever complicated and convoluted these things.

So how be

You know, back in those times, we would submit proffered affordable housing, essentially.

We've come to learn that you can't really proffer it in that fashion.

I think that's the current legal opinion.

And most of the other projects that have come along, I think the one at Harris Street had a special use permit, which triggered the 3412 section.

So for these small projects, we,

We're not opposed to trying to get affordable housing in, but the methodology to which it is to achieve it and some restriction is incredibly complicated.

And in some ways you feel like we're just trying to get a building that is that largely affordable to many people.

Again, we wouldn't be opposed to necessarily an affordable requirement, but we really prefer the city pass a zoning text amendment.

I think it was said by one of the callers earlier, just be quantitative.

If you want every

This project that has a rezoning to have 20% affordable passes ETA.

And if we can make that number work, we'll do it.

If we can't, we won't apply.

And so it's very difficult to get the process and attach the affordability to these.

I think it can be done via like a separate resolution attached, and I'm happy that the city attorney wants to weigh in because we did go through that on the other project over in Belmont.

But this particular one,

By design, it's not meant to be luxury.

Part of the one bedroom is to get that product that was needed and more affordable.

But again, we're not posed the idea, but there's just no simple structure code.

If you just simply change that 3412 to have a simpler metric that apply to these, we'd be happy to comply.

It's complicated and convoluted and we've

Chair Mitchell, I know I'm out of time, but I just want to ask a clarifying question on that.

That's our latest understanding of the rules as they be.

I don't know that anyone's done it.

There is a mechanism by which there's sort of a attached resolution and operating agreement effectively, almost like a performance agreement more than a proffer.

I don't, so

The last time Mr. Shimp and I were trying to work through this, we were discussing a situation in which there were some affordable units that were actually required by the city code, but other affordable units had been proffered.

And we were trying to sort out what regulations and what

requirements would actually document both the legally required commitment and the commitment above and beyond the legally required amount.

And so if Mr. Shimp understood me to say that affordable units could not be proffered

That was not what I intended to communicate.

What we were trying to sort out is, for example, if the city's regulations require some sort of a covenant to ensure that the units required by the zoning ordinance will be provided throughout the affordability period,

The other units which may have been proffered didn't necessarily come with a commitment to be administered and to provide the same level of documentation as what the city's regulations might provide.

So what I was trying to say and quite frankly over the years we've found this out is

We've always accepted proffers of affordable housing.

We've done that for a long time.

What often does not happen, however, is the proffers don't address how are we going to make sure we actually get that.

And so a proffer that just says, I'm giving you units that will be affordable to people who have incomes at 80% or lower AMI, that

really is almost unenforceable.

It doesn't address separately what the rents will be.

It doesn't address affordability periods.

So we may have gotten our wires crossed, but I did not mean to say that affordable housing couldn't be proffered.

It's just that when that proffer comes in, I don't have a way to force for those proffered units to force someone

who provide additional documentation that wasn't proffered.

But I think Justin, I agree with Justin that what we're all waiting for so anxiously is a zoning ordinance that can have regulations that say, if we're gonna require, for example, a certain amount of affordable housing for every development of a specific size, we want to

Just be right up front about what that means and what the paperwork that's going to be required over the course of the affordability period will be.

So, so if I may, so understanding what you're saying is that we have standard operating procedures adopted by council pursuant to 34 death 12 G.

that apply to units required under 34-12.

But when their units are just proffered and they say, we'll give you these units, that's too vague to easily enforce.

I'm not sure.

Whether the last one that Mr. Shimp was involved in was actually a rezoning or whether it was a special use permit where he was agreeing to certain things in the conditions.

Profers are different, as you know.

Profers, we have to take them as they're offered.

We can't say because you're not giving us certain things that we want, we won't approve your rezoning.

But

It is not uncommon.

I will say we're running into this more and more, and that's all the more reason why, you know, I will just be elated when we finally get new ordinance provisions, but we're running into the circumstance where more and more you're having people come forward and tell you, you know, let's say one unit would be required by section 34-12 of the zoning ordinance, but I'm going to give you five.

So you all,

whether that's a rezoning or a special use permit.

We're not sort of nailing down during the application process how that will actually be administered into the future after it's approved.

And so what happens after city council votes on something, we're offering some paperwork saying, well, for at least the one unit that's required by 3412, we have a set of regulations that say there should be

a restrictive covenant recorded something you know documented that's enforceable by the city that will give us that commitment.

We are trying to encourage people to use that same documentation for let's say five units are offered but only one is required by the zoning ordinance.

We're trying to encourage people to enter into some sort of recorded commitment that administers them all the same

Hi, thanks Justin for your project.

Lisa, I did have a quick question while we have you and not to make this all about the proffers.

Would the new city ordinance be able to retroactively enforce promised proffers?

If proffers have previously been approved, once at the time city council approves them, they become

Thank you.

I think given the density of the surrounding and uses of the surrounding properties, I don't see big issues with this.

I don't have a lot of questions.

As you know, the public is concerned about the storage of private vehicles, especially about stormwater effects and the inducement of additional traffic.

Always a major concern with the storage of vehicles.

Sure.

Well, I think one thing to clarify in stormwater, this is one of the reasons we have to go with, you know, these buildings are difficult to build is if I build a duplex, right, and I can store four cars or six cars on the site, I don't have to have a site plan.

I don't have to have any stormwater management for said project.

So whatever, you know, added impervious area I think we sort of create as a result of this, you know, eight units in storage of eight private vehicles,

is mitigated versus the sort of no rezoning approval by the city's own, the state's stormwater management requirements.

So we net, while we do add impervious area with this proposal, we also add treatment of all of it, which would not be applicable in our R2 properties.

I think that's important to consider here.

Then as far as the traffic, I mean,

I think traffic is near something effective.

It's a negligible amount and we're not concerned about it.

If he's on, he can restate that.

But I think that's how we feel about it too.

I mean, the purpose of this building, this location is you don't have to have a vehicle to store somewhere.

And if you do, you don't have to take it everywhere.

There's a tremendous amount of traffic commuting in and out of the city every day.

And for every one of these projects you build, there's one less car coming down Fifth Street.

into UVA or downtown in the morning.

And that's the congestion around here.

People coming in, I worked downtown for a number of years now, and there's never any traffic down around my office.

Now, getting in the city at certain times of day, the traffic, and that's just a function of the pattern of commercial and residential development that's established in the areas.

I think the city traffic is near spoke the, you know,

pretty clear statement on it and we concur that it's really negligible traffic and we should focus on the positive elements of this location as far as alternative ways of transportation rather than worrying about the extra few trips on the road.

Mr. Kim, remind me what happened to the application from a couple of years ago.

I'm old.

I don't remember things from two years ago.

It was denied by city council.

I think that there was a variety of opinions there would be about why that was.

I think the planning commission, the feeling was the time.

There was two comments that stick out.

One was that the

Allie Access was not sure.

So I was like, do we have the right to go down that?

Because that would change the traffic patterns.

And then at that time, there was, I think, a future land use map that the planning commission was working on that showed this is lower density.

So I think my recollection was those sort of things.

Well, we're pushing towards lower density.

And that's where we went with it.

That's where the city went with it.

Since then, I think some of the topics of discussion have changed.

The lines have changed somewhat and I think it's current, not adopted, but the sort of working map and future land use map has this sort of a higher density zone.

We feel like that part of our reason brings back is there's definitely a new rethink on some of that from what was years ago.

I think simply the city council made a statement of here's the zoning, we're going to stick to it.

Thank you.

No more questions, Mr. Chair.

All right, Mr. Rice, or is Lloyd, are you, okay, he's cool.

Thank you, Chair Mitchell.

At this time, if you'd like to address the commission on matters regarding 1206 Carlton Avenue, please click your raise hand icon.

Or if you're joining us by phone, press star nine.

We'll call on you in the order of hands raised.

We'll have three minutes for comment.

The first speaker is Peter Krebs.

Good evening Planning Commission Council, Justin Kelsey, everybody.

Great to see you all.

I'm Peter Krebs.

I work for the Piedmont Environmental Council.

I also live on Tufton Avenue about two or three and a half blocks from the location.

I pass the location daily on my bike or running, walking in my car from time to time.

So I'm pretty familiar with the site.

And without getting into the details, I would say that, in general, R3 zoning is going to be reasonable and consistent for this location.

The surrounding parcels are generally multifamily.

So the spirit of what's trying to happen here actually is appropriate.

More than that, it's also appropriate to have multifamily housing so close to shopping.

Kathy's market was spoken about earlier.

Some cool things could happen there in the future, close to jobs.

A school right there, that school has a playground, so there's a lot that makes sense.

Also, Justin said right at the end, it's also consistent with

the direction the future land use map is taken as well.

So broadly speaking, this is the type of place where we want multifamily workforce housing.

So there's that.

And just a couple of small points that can just sit there, not actionable or even be questions.

So the site really depends on mockability and I'm one of those people right there in the neighborhood walk, bike, multiple times a day.

So with Belmont the sidewalks are difficult.

That particular sidewalk has utility poles in it.

Now I'm not seeing utility poles in the sidewalk in the site plan.

Just important is this gets executed for that sidewalk to remain free of utility poles.

Also that corridor is walkable because it has a pretty good tree canopy.

Now I saw trees in the rendering and so that's good.

I would go a bit further and say for this project to work, the street needs to remain walkable and for future projects like that the same.

Let's be sure to have those trees actually get built.

or get planted, have them be appropriate, performing the functions of shade trees.

I know I just talked about utility poles.

It's complicated.

He's choosing to play in Belmont.

That's what happens in Belmont.

And I think it can all work out.

So thanks, everybody.

Next, we have Mark Cavett.

Okay, got unmuted.

It bothers me quite a bit when I see developers, applicants that have been turned down by the city council and planning commission come back before the commissions and ask for it to be considered again, is there a legal right to do so?

But it bothers me that they come back and basically present the same proposal

I'm hoping that maybe the people that are on the board or city council will be more sympathetic to their desire, their application.

That's the first thing I want to mention.

I actually pulled up on my phone.

Some notes from the meeting, from the application previously on this and I'll go over that in a moment.

But I also have to question whether the land is worth as much as they paid for it or if it's on option to buy based on getting the zoning.

Maybe it needs to be a lower value on that and less units.

I don't have a problem with units being built there.

I just think it's too many to have eight units there.

That's my biggest concern.

I think it needs to be a little bit less dense there.

Parking can be a concern.

If you've driven down Carlton Road, you know that if you've got people that park on the street, that two-way traffic really can't fit through there.

Somebody literally pulls over.

You also need to consider the future Riverbend project that will probably go in someday that's going to anticipate having 900 vehicles travel on that road.

One of the things that came up previously was that there's no space really there to turn around a car.

It's gonna be very difficult for a car in that parking lot to turn around and get out of there.

Before it was talked about how the joining property owner would probably give some land, but these are all probabilities and it doesn't look like that owner has changed his mind on anything.

And so I suspect that you're gonna find out a lot of cars getting banged up in that parking lot.

There's just a lot of assumptions that I'm hearing on this tonight.

Bottom line for me is I'd like to see development.

I'm not against development.

I just want to see appropriate development.

And I don't think this with eight units is really appropriate.

I think we're asking for some issues that will crop up on this in the future.

And let me check my notes here.

See anything else?

No, I'm going to kind of leave it at that for the moment.

And next, we have Fred and Vivian Schmidt.

You're on with the Planning Commission.

You have three minutes.

So, yes, we live on Chestnut Street.

And first, I would like to say that there is quite a bit of traffic down to Carlton Avenue.

as well as Carlton Road.

We see semis going down that or big delivery trucks going down Carlton Avenue as well as construction trucks on the way down to the

That sand and gravel place down there are the name of which I cannot remember.

But at any rate, the Chestnut Street, that little area has narrow streets with no sidewalks.

There's not a lot of off-street parking to begin with.

So as residents, we park on the street and we are all concerned about the addition of

I think it's very much an assumption that there would be only one car per unit.

We have seen in other, you know, developments and other complexes like this that two cars per unit is more realistic.

So that is an assumption that we have eight spots and eight apartments.

It is a traffic issue for us.

It's a parking issue for us.

Our neighborhood has a wide age span from very young children to elderly people, all of whom need to be able to park in front of their houses.

And I think that's all I have to say.

I just would like for you really to consider all those things, the impact on our neighborhood when you consider

this development, this building.

Again, I'm not opposed to development, but I think this is too much without enough parking provided for the residents of the complex.

Did you want to say anything?

Next we have Charles Near.

Charles, you're on with the Planning Commission.

You have three minutes.

Thank you.

I agree with everything that Vivian just shared regarding the proposed development.

The parking issues are dramatic and will wildly, wildly disaffect the residents of surrounding neighborhoods, plus additionally the traffic.

People would come in right by the seven parking places, and then they're all full.

Then they start roaming around trying to find a place to park somewhere.

And there's no easy answer to that.

As a result, I recommend, like Vivian suggested, that there are going to be more than one car per unit.

My son lives in a high density development in Northern Virginia, and that development works because they have two parking spaces for each unit, and they also have overflow

parking spaces for guests and visitors.

I believe that's needed for this proposal.

As a result, I would like to give credit where credit is due.

I think the building is nice and they've done a good job as well conceit.

However, the overall plan is wildly deficient.

I believe that there are some answers that could resolve the proposals.

I'll give you four.

The first is that the owner or developer find an additional 12 parking spaces that are either designated or shared parking.

That would alleviate the parking problem.

The second thing is that the owner or developer

could put the whole development on stilts and have under building parking for the tenants of the development, in addition to the eight that are currently there.

The third solution is to reduce the size of the development from eight units to a triplex.

And then they could add additionally one or two more parking spaces and that would be sufficient.

And the fourth solution is they could have reduced the development to a quadruplex having either two over two or four in a row and add three or four more parking space.

All that would be an acceptable solution for the development and I think would not be disruptive to the surrounding neighborhoods.

Okay, that's all I've got.

We'll get to Karen and then if you were going to go to Amy next.

Oh, wait a minute.

Sorry, one second.

Something happened.

Yes, Amy Marshall, you are on with Planning Commission.

Thank you.

I am coming to you as a resident not to ask you to deny this reasoning, but to ask you to be good stewards of our community.

This is not a situation where we're wanting to be NIMBY, not wanting more density.

The issue here is that

NDS does not review things based on the impact of the infrastructure of the surrounding areas.

They only review projects in a bubble.

So no other land is considered when making decisions.

So you should review this in the same way, which means that you have a self-sustained project and you need to plan for parking on site instead of thinking to push it off on local streets.

This is already an overtaxed road.

If you live here on Chestnut or in the surrounding area,

You know that this is a bus route.

This is an emergency management route for fire and police.

Sometimes it's a single lane road, like some people have said, because people don't park where they should.

And if you're not going to make sure that no parking is enforced where it's not, you have to plan for the impacts of more cars.

This is also an area where children cross the street from this neighborhood to go to school, whether they're going to the bus or they're walking to Clark.

The developer said he didn't care about traffic, but he doesn't live here with little kids.

There's no crosswalk and there is no continuous sidewalk on the north side of Carlton.

So because this is a rezoning, you can have proffers that mitigate the impact of the transportation issues this increased development will create.

So, infrastructure mitigation could be having the developer continue the sidewalk on the north side of Carlton so that people aren't dodging around the cars, which it's very dangerous.

I mean, we don't let our kids go there.

You can also have a crosswalk put in.

If you're going to improve in the name of density,

If you care about equity, think about the people already in this existing neighborhood who are already struggling with a dangerous road.

And also, we do need cars because we live in a food desert.

You cannot walk or take a bus and feed a family at a grocery store.

So, you know, this idea of just, oh, we'll just all ride bikes, no problem.

Well, you haven't been a single mom with two kids like I have.

and you're not going to be able to afford a $1500 rent for a two room apartment.

So equity has to also include the people in our very diverse, very economically as well as age diverse neighborhood.

We are not in a fluent neighborhood here.

So please consider what this does to our children who already live here as well as the older people.

Plenty of people who already don't have cars because they can't afford them have to take the bus, have to cross that dangerous street.

And next we have Karen Near.

Karen, you're on with the Planning Commission.

I'm the one that blasted you the last time, so I don't want to blast you again.

I'm so sorry that y'all can't hear after my last chat.

You've already heard from my husband.

We've lived in the neighborhood off of Carlton for about 40 years.

I'm most concerned about the traffic problem on Carlton.

The other two people have already mentioned it.

There is terrible congestion already on that road.

I go on that road every day and I play chicken about 50% of the time because the traffic is so bad, the road is so narrow.

Adding eight units with a minimum of 15 more cars in that area just troubles me.

And the engineer,

who gave the presentation said that maybe a third of the residents would probably walk to work and bike to work and walk to school.

And I love that picture.

It feels like a Norman Rockwell picture to me, but I don't think it's realistic at all.

There's not a whole lot of industry.

Down here I'm thinking most people are going to have to, they can't hoof it to Food Lion and walk back with their groceries and if they live, if they work at Walmart or Ninjic I think they're going to have to have a car.

So to think that we've got eight units with eight spaces and eight cars and no visitors.

I think it's totally unrealistic.

I think we're going to have at least 16 cars with visitors, no place to park.

I mean, I think it's going to be a disaster.

I ask that you reject the proposal, Theresa.

The previous woman, I don't know, her name was Amy, I think.

I would love it if the Planning Commission could just come and spend five minutes on Carlton Avenue, just five minutes, and see how congested it is.

I cannot imagine adding eight units.

I feel like that area can be developed in a way that's much more reasonable.

And the fact that this was rejected in 2018, it was for good reason because it's

It'll just be too much.

If eight units, if six units was too much, I don't know why now all of a sudden we think eight units is going to be better and the parking hasn't changed.

Thank you all for listening.

I appreciate y'all so much to take the time to hear our concerns.

And I ask that you would reject the brief zoning.

And next we have Jamir Smith.

You're all with Planning Commission.

Hi.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Cool.

Okay.

Got the Lyle's number.

All right.

So I think I err on the side of the opposite of everyone and saying that I think that honestly, since the parking can't be reduced anymore, it seems, I guess that's more of like a ZTA kind of thing, especially with it being on a transit line.

I think that it's actually like a very perfect fit for the community.

I think that since it's already multiple multifamily houses like units like right there in the area, it's kind of within a five minute walk of the shops that are on Carlton Road.

It's right there by downtown Belmont, Belmont Center, whatever you want to call it.

and then by proxy within like a 15-minute to 20-minute walk to downtown, I feel like it's kind of that perfect little like soft building to put in such a small area.

And I think it's actually a great model for what could be used in other parts of this city as just like a nice small like multifamily unit that could be put in like other R1 or R2 areas for the future use of our land, dutch nudge wink wink.

I think that's all.

I think really what we should be kind of emphasizing more is kind of just like how is it are we going to be able to

like increase infrastructure, say for like our transit.

So then people aren't necessarily so dependent on their cars or seeing that people apparently play chicken with crossing the street.

Are we able to get like some kind of guided like flashing light crosswalk or anything of the sort?

Also, I think it's maybe it's because I work in transit.

The assumption that people can't take the bus to go get their groceries is kind of wild because I take people who get their groceries via the bus all the time.

So

Yeah, I mean, build it up, really.

I'll yield the rest of my time.

And next, we have Kimber Hawke.

Kimber, you're on with the Planning Commission.

You have three minutes.

The unmute button doesn't pop up for about 10 seconds.

OK.

So hey, transit issue, that's great.

Where I used to live, the universities paid for all the transit, so citizens rode for free.

There's an idea.

I guess I'm just a little bit, I'm not gonna restate all the really well-stated safety issues of this.

I'm astounded as we, I just talked about real affordable housing before that the affordable unit, the one affordable unit that was there before has now been removed.

I find that,

Mind blowing in a bad way, I'm almost without words.

In any case, it was rejected before with that unit.

And we're all concerned about affordable housing.

And so it seems like a no brainer to me.

There's also the setback has been reduced.

So previously in the former application, there was concerns about the massing of the building.

And now the setback has been reduced even more.

I, you know, I just don't know.

One of the things we all have to remember, and this is in context with developers and, or just in general, with the FLUM as well, Corin Capshaw has proposed that River Bend, Bellman Apartments, behind Douglas, whatever the heck it's called now, in the paperwork, it was 900 plus car trips per day from that little area by Moss coming out of there.

Already that's,

Outrageous because of the safety issues that we've already seen.

So just to think, oh, well, it's only eight units and okay, maybe it's 15 more cars.

You've got to think about those 900 new car trips that are coming down the pike.

And, you know, it's a dangerous street.

It's a safety issue.

I guess I'm also a little concerned about the R3 designation, because when we were trying to get that for Hinton Church, we were told it wasn't possible.

That's a little strange.

What else?

And the whole discussion about that affordable units thing, I don't know about y'all, but I've got almost a doctorate.

I couldn't follow it.

So this is part of the issue and the problem with these discussions.

The average person just cannot follow what's going on.

You can't follow.

You guys don't even know exactly what's going on from the discussion.

I'm sorry.

There's a lot of confusion.

And I just, I think you should reject this.

Now, again, this is a perfect place to do a redevelopment.

Although I do wonder what happened to the previous residents as with the other Belmont Apartments project, but whatever.

It needs to be redone, but it needs to be appropriate for that area.

So do it, but do it right.

And this is not the right plan.

And next, we have Jake Gold.

Jake, you're on with the Planning Commission.

Good evening, Planning Commissioners.

My name is Jake Gold.

Again, I live in Belmont, not far from this.

Here, I walk past and bike past pretty often.

I have to say I'm a little dismayed by the number of my neighbors who want more car storage here.

This is a really solid location for car-free living.

It's a good distance from downtown.

I personally work downtown.

I walk from just around here.

There are good restaurants nearby.

There's retail nearby.

There's a bus that goes to PVCC.

It's exactly the type of development we should be encouraging if we want to cut the number of cars driving in Charlottesville.

which is absolutely necessary if we want Charlottesville to take climate change seriously.

Any other proposal, any of the proposals to add more parking to encourage more cars to be brought to this location are ignoring the very serious reality that we need to cut back our greenhouse gas emissions if we want to preserve futures for the children studying at Clark.

That's being a good steward of our community, not adding more parking.

I hear what others have said about pedestrian safety and food deserts and a lot of the equity concerns super valid.

There are a lot of ways to plug into that work addressing those really serious issues that don't stop more people from living close to where they work and where they play and where they study.

I'll yield the balance of my time.

And if anybody else would like to address Planning Commission on 1206 Carlton Avenue, please click the raise hand icon.

And with that, we will close out the public hearing for these applications.

And we will begin deliberations from the dais.

And I'll just go from left to right.

Not too much to convey here.

I guess I learned I'm not the only one who walks down that road quite a bit.

It's a great little place there, and largely as it has been for a while, it seems like.

I'll just say, yeah, I think it's a very walkable place.

There are not as many services as there used to be, as was pointed out in terms of grocery stores and such, but still remains walkable, and it's great to be by the bus line there.

Good luck with this one.

It's finding that balance, right?

So I heard something interesting that I think is is kind of worth chewing on a little bit.

And that was that we heard from the developer that building

building at a more missing middle type is just not really economically feasible.

And that's what's pushing this proposed development out of that scale of soft density and into something that's really more middle or high, depending on a lot of analysis between staff and myself about how we quantify density per dwelling unit.

but I think that's a really important thing that we should be thinking about is when we're thinking about appropriate scale for the neighborhood and wanting affordability but the developers are saying we can't build it at the, we have to have a certain level of density to hit that profit margin and that should make us pretty concerned moving forward

and how do we start to really achieve that by building denser.

I guess I am a little bit, you know, I feel like this does tip that scale of density, but

And the other thing I would want to understand better is in talking about the proffers.

I know there's also proffers.

Are we just talking about the rezoning right now?

The idea, there was something in the staff report alluding to the things that aren't being proffered as part of that special use permit, I think.

I guess I'm just generally asking, and I should have brought it up during questions, do we think any of those other uses should be proffered out if we were to approve the SUP?

Let me just stop you for a second just to get a reading from Ms.

Robertson.

Ms.

Rappatore, Ms.

If you're considering a special use permit,

You are allowed to craft a condition or impose a condition if you think that condition is necessary to make the development fit better in the neighborhood or to mitigate some impact that it may have.

But on a rezoning, you are not allowed to impose any conditions.

So in a rezoning, an applicant sometimes

And we have to do the rezoning to get to the special use permit in this case.

So we can't do it.

We can't negotiate proffer on a rezoning, which would then take us to the special use permit.

It is very difficult.

So, Ms.

I did hear some conditions that related to tree canopy that are indicated I think on the site plan.

That might be something we consider.

Mr. Bob?

No, no.

Ms.

Solla-Yates.

Me, right?

Yes, sir.

Yeah.

All right, cool.

I don't know if my seat got moved around, but I haven't seen it in a couple of years.

I distinctly remember this application coming up last time.

I think it was the council meeting where I was appointed commissioner when it was first considered.

I recall a city councilor saying, as their reason for rejecting it, that it was out of scale with the surroundings.

It was going to be, again, a six-plex

There is a six flex next door.

On the other side, there is a B1 zone at the time of single family house.

Now we see what B1 zoning will get you, and it's a salon.

I think this proposal and that proposal are absolutely missing middle housing.

In fact, squarely in the middle of missing middle housing, you could have dead or missing middle than this, for sure.

And I think it's a very appropriate location for it.

in a great location to live without a car and maybe to live a car light lifestyle where you can have a car but not use it most of the time.

I think the traffic concerns are generally legitimate and people have reason to fear cars and traffic.

So I like the fact that there won't be an exit onto Carlton Avenue, only an entrance.

I think the idea of a crosswalk is a good idea though

It seems like something for site plan approval, and I'm not sure crossroads are allowed to go to a place where there isn't a sidewalk.

But overall, I think it's a good proposal.

I would have liked to see a proper like we did last time.

But those market rents that we've heard are planned are well within affordable housing are actually lower than an 80% AMI proper would be.

It's about 64% AMI for that one bedroom, 75 and a half for AMI for a two bedroom, assuming $100 utility allowance.

It would be nice to have at least some of those be guaranteed.

Obviously, those are market rents.

If the market continues to rise, they could go up.

But I don't have any particular reason to believe that the current market rent is significantly different from what was stated earlier.

And so this is

Again, not only just missing middle, but well within what we need for workforce housing, and even below what are typically considered workforce housing, you know, income levels of 80 to 120% AMI.

So this is 100% the type of housing we need.

You know, it's a relatively large lot for Belmont, it's a quarter acre.

And so I think eight units is entirely appropriate.

I want to say I appreciate all the comments by the public and staff and Justin's presentation.

I guess for the rezoning part of it, I think it fits the plan.

kind of like what Rory was saying, supply some workforce housing, which is much needed.

But looking at it as a rezoning, we can't look at it with the plan involved because they can theoretically build anything that fits in R3 zoning after the fact.

But I still do think that R3 fits that.

That rezoning would fit that parcel.

SUP-wise,

I think the plan as submitted would be a good addition with all the conditions highlighted by staff.

I think having the trees in the front might help reduce the scale of the building a little bit, walking down Carlton Avenue.

Again, that's a point that Ms.

Russell made as well.

So that may be a condition that you guys want to add to the, to the SUP vote if we get to that.

I suspect what I say tonight will be the same as what I said two years ago.

Yes, we have problems in Belmont.

We have problems citywide.

If we want to solve problems, we should spend money on it.

We're not going to extract all the solutions to our problems from developers of small lots.

We have to spend money.

This landowner didn't make traffic bad in Belmont.

This landowner did not make, you know, parking problems in Belmont.

If we have systemic problems, we need systemic solutions.

I have no problem with the rezoning, considering the existing zoning around this lot.

I think that's entirely appropriate for going to R3 and I agree in terms of the getting more units in a missing middle type of building and that I agree with Lyle too that if there's parking and traffic issues that are

area-wide, we need to have the city step in and provide the appropriate resources and solutions.

Well, I have a question because I thought we saw a visual with, it was maybe in Mr. Shimp's packet.

That'll be a question for you, Jed.

Yes, otherwise we would have a conceptual landscaping on the site plan.

The ordinance requires, I think was put up actually by Roy there about the one large, one medium.

I think it might even require two large trees, but we defined it.

I mean, we certainly want to have a shady yard area.

Part of that, we have conceivably some like outdoor amenity space that could be in that front yard.

And so having tree canopy is important to that.

In the comments I heard about the

Walkability relating to the shade are well taken too.

That is one of those things you experience walking through neighborhoods and you appreciate, you don't necessarily realize it until you walk in a neighborhood without that.

So yeah, if there's a desire for an additional tree to be planted, I think there's a plant one, probably two by the ordinance.

But if that's something that gets into a condition, we certainly have no objection.

Can we get clarification from staff on that?

It looks like there's 60 feet of frontage, and the ordinance says one large tree for every 40 feet of frontage.

So does that mean one large tree, 40 feet, another large tree?

Or does that mean it's 40 feet of frontage, but less than 80, so one large tree, and then also a medium requirement there?

How does that work?

It requires two trees, basically.

Yeah, I'd have to double check on the code, but at bare minimum, it would be at least one large tree and a medium.

I would propose that we make that part of

The special use permit that would require two, at least two large canopy trees along the street.

All right.

Are we ready to crack the motion or is there any more discussion?

And we got two motions to do.

One would be for the rezoning.

The other would be for the SGP.

I'd like to make one motion.

We've got a motion on the floor.

We have a motion and a second.

Is there any further discussion?

All in favor, raise your hand.

Katha Nissi.

Any opposition?

Any abstentions?

So your name is busy.

It's busy.

So the rezoning, we will recommend approval of the rezoning application.

I have a question for Scott.

There's a lot of concern about walkability and sidewalk safety and crossing safety in the area.

Ms.

Creasy or Matt or Ms.

You're asking for a requirement for a sidewalk?

Something above and beyond.

For example, off-site crossing, something like that.

Well, we wouldn't be able to provide any analysis on the details of what that could be at this point in time.

And one of the points that was made earlier had to do with as you you have for a crosswalk, you've got to have a receiving and receiving app or areas on both sides.

And each of those areas need to be compliant.

So that appears like it may be a mid-block area, so it may not be the most appropriate.

Just to piggyback on something Mr. Leinger said earlier that

Some of the stuff we gotta do, the city's gotta do.

We can't look to the developers to solve every problem.

We've gotta do some of this work.

You can do that.

I believe I have some language, a motion.

That would be wonderful.

I move to recommend approval of this application for a special use permit in the R2 application under review to rezone.

Where am I?

No.

There we go.

I am there.

From R2 to R3 zone at 1206 Carlton Avenue to permit residential development with additional density.

I knew we would get there.

And adjustment to the southeast side yard requirement with the following conditions.

All right, we've got a motion and we've got a second.

I have maybe a question.

I see that kind of right at the eastern border of that streetscape, there is an existing large tree.

It looks large to me.

I don't know if it's technically a large tree by the ordinance.

Is it possible or reasonable to make that condition that we keep that large tree and in addition to requiring another one?

so that we don't have to wait for the new ones to mature.

This has a question for Justin.

I don't have any kind of map in front of me to show me what tree that is.

I'll say this.

We have a lot of trouble keeping trees because when we make, for example,

Even if there's already a sewer lateral to this property, we have to do a new sewer lateral, a new water connection.

Inevitably, an old tree, its roots get out into the zone where, because of the required utility work, we hit it, and it probably dies.

I like old elm trees.

If you keep it, that's preferable, but without studying it, I'd be a little worried about a condition because I may go along and come to a site plan and the city and utilities say, oh, sorry.

You can't build these things here because that tree is going to have to go.

There could be a conflict.

A lot like this with the old utilities, I see myself replacing something and trees across the frontage being impacted.

I can surely avoid that, if at all possible.

If it's a nice tree and we can keep it, we will.

But often I'm afraid it's just safer to plant two new trees and let them grow up with the utilities over time.

I'm pretty comfortable with Lyle's recommendation in the hopes of keeping this tree as well.

I'm fine with it.

I think we've got a motion and a second.

Ms.

Creasy, you may have to pull the board.

Sure.

All right.

Ms.

Russell.

Aye.

Aye.

All right, we will recommend approval of both the rezoning and the SEP application.

Congratulations to the applicant.

What would the commission like to do?

Would the commission like five minutes and you want to power through to the next one and then we'll take five minutes.

I'm getting the muscles here, so I think that means power through.

Right, let me find my notes on the next application.

Alright, the next application is CP 21-00001.

It is the 13th Street Northeast right-of-way.

The owner of the lot located at 1140 East I Street has submitted an application to close or vacate a portion of the undeveloped right-of-way at 13th Street Northeast.

I believe this right-of-way adjoins again a corner of the applicant slot.

The thing that we need to keep in mind as we're thinking through this, the question that we have to answer is, the question we have to answer is, is the proposed closing in compliance with the current comp plan?

That's the question we have to ask.

That's where we have to focus.

So Ms.

Great, thanks, Missy.

If I could ask Joe or Brian to pull up the map

for 13th Street.

Sure.

Thank you.

This subject street was created in 1940 with a subdivision plan to establish the Little High neighborhood.

The 1940 subdivision plan created a new Louis Street running north from east end of Little High

all the way to Freebridge Road, which is now East High Street.

The city paved a portion of the platted street now known as 13th Street Northeast, which aligns with most of Lewis Street shown in that plat.

The city also paved some other streets that were depicted in that same subdivision plat, like Little High Street, Merriweather Street, and unnamed alley just above the Merriweather Street.

By its actions in paving the streets platted within the lower high subdivision plan, the city effectively accepted all the streets depicted in the plan, including the entire strip of land labeled Lewis Street.

Therefore, even though the subject

Street remains undeveloped.

The undeveloped portion is now a public right of way owned by the city.

Therefore, for the purposes of City Council's 2019 updated street closure policy, the subject street falls within the category A, which is proposed vacation of public right of ways previously dedicated to and accepted by the city.

Property owners that border this portion of undeveloped section of 13th Street Northeast have expressed their desire to avoid a cut through street for the Little High neighborhood and add congestion between the properties and at the intersection of East High Street.

They have indicated that a vacation of right of way would allow them to address existing drainage issues

reduce the limiting setback requirements on those East High properties, reducing potential grades issues and dealing with the steep grades and eliminate potential financial burden for a new street construction.

Property owners further agree with the city's understanding in that a utility easement will be required to accommodate the existing sanitary water and gas utilities.

However, this will not provide a multimodal approach through the area.

Also in 2019, Steven Buck, a resident of Little High neighborhood, contacted city council to request clarification on the street

of the status of the gravel path at the north end of 13th Street.

According to Mr. Bock, the public has been using this gravel path for a long time in access to East High.

Mr. Bock desired that the city council to approve a path to serve as a long-term pedestrian and bike connection from 13th Street to East High Street.

Upon investigation,

of Mr. Bach's request, it was determined that the existing gravel path actually veers outside of the platted right-of-way of 13th Street Northeast over the yard of a private residence and a busy parking lot.

Staff at that time also of the opinion that establishing a bike and pedestrian connection within the platted right-of-way would be difficult and expensive.

The area of the platted right-of-way goes through a large forested lot.

into a driveway between the parcels containing L.A.

Michicana and the office building next door.

The city would need to clear and develop the right-of-way area through the forested lot.

To establish a bike and pedestrian connection over the gravel path, it is, or was actually being used, the city would need to acquire land over the owners of 426 13th Street Northeast and 1202

East High Street and reconstruct the area to manage conflicts between cars, pedestrians in the existing parking lot.

Now, as far as the question of comprehensive plan alignment, we've stated several items that we believe are applicable in this case.

I'll identify a few.

Enhance pedestrian connections between residents, commercial centers, public facilities, amenities, and green spaces.

Provide convenient and safe pedestrian connections within quarter mile of all commercial and employment centers, transit routes, schools, and parks.

provide convenient and safe bicycle and pedestrian connections between new and existing residential developments, employment areas, and other activity centers to promote the option of walking and biking.

Encourage new street connections, alternate traffic patterns where applicable, to distribute traffic volumes across the network and reduce trip

links for pedestrian, cyclists, and vehicles.

Provide public parking to maintain the vitality of the city while using pricing strategies, including engineering and coordinated locations for parking to encourage use of transit, walking, and bicycling.

With that in mind, the staff's discussion and recommendations are as follows.

This section of 13th Street right of way provides rear access to one lot at 1142 East High Street.

The lot is zoned High Street corridor and is not permitted to have accessory dwelling units, ADUs, per the section of 34-796.

Therefore, the closing of the section of 13th Street Northeast will not impact rear access to existing or future ADUs under the current zoning.

City traffic engineering does not believe that this right-of-way should be closed.

Although undeveloped up to this point, closing it potentially removes the chance of developing parcel 54-50.002, which is currently owned by the same owner to the adjacent lot 517 13th Street Northeast, unless those two lots are combined.

While there is currently no physical street parking, parking could be on the street if ever developed.

This right of way connects two existing dedicated streets and could allow a through type connection or two directions.

Also could provide an alternative route for existing routes with vehicles traffic greater than 1,000 ADT.

In addition, by closing,

This 13th Street section, we would officially create two separate dead-end streets that would not meet the current city criteria for turnaround.

Possible solution in the short midterm would be to pave this as a 12-foot-wide bike and pedestrian trail with a removable bollard at either end.

This would restrict access to cut through traffic that the applicant

has referenced, while still leaving the route available to emergency use if needed or more formally recognized it as a good pedestrian route to High Street.

Parks and Rec would like to preserve a bike and pedestrian easement if this does close or retain the right of way.

Public Utilities has existing water, sewer, gas lines in the right-of-way.

If closed, Public Utilities requires that the entire area be retained as a Public Utility easement.

Staff notes that the determination of this conformance with the comprehensive plan and closure request

Any questions for staff?

All right, can you hear me?

Who's speaking?

I'm not ready for you yet, Rory.

Not quite ready for you yet.

I understand there has been an email today with some other ideas.

There were some other options that came in late today.

I think that it should be considered as a possibility.

It was just not in time for the report itself to be considered.

I don't think it would be appropriate for us to consider the new information unless we had input from staff.

Oh, Mr. Rice, is there any way you can take down the map?

I can't see my colleagues, and I want to see who wants to get in the air.

Okay, got it.

Thanks.

Are there any other questions?

I have a quick question to staff about, I know there was the old report that said there would be unfeasible to build a pathway.

Is it now, would it be feasible to build a pedestrian bike path that connects that area?

And second question also concerns the drainage and I don't know if you had a chance to look at those issues that the residents are currently

expressing concern about.

Yeah, um, as far as building the pathway, our Parks and Rec feel that that could be achievable.

It would require a great deal of work, however, to accomplish that.

But there's no estimate at this point to know to what extent

that may require effort there.

And as far as the drainage there, I'm not aware of specific complaints of drainage in that area that have reached the city.

I think we're ready for the applicant, but I don't see the applicant anymore.

I'm Chairman Mitchell on the Planning Commission and Council.

I'm Roy Van Dorn.

I'm a city resident.

I'm a business owner and the owner of 1140 East High Street.

I am the applicant, but I also speak for all the other property owners who touch this right of way section.

and that we've talked about.

Joe, could you pull up page number 94 so I can speak about that?

This is a plan view of the area without vegetation and I think it's a little helpful to see this particular view.

This section of 13th Street

is called what's known internally as a paper street since 1940.

And as a paper street, it acts for us as property owners like a real street.

So we have an unusual requirement in the High Street corridor that those buildings on facing High Street have a 15-foot setback

But those properties which face a connector road, which 13th Street would be a connector road, we have a 20-foot setback.

And if you look at where that number 21 is right in the middle of the page, you'll see that that spot, if you take 20 feet away from the property line, basically removes all that property from utility.

So

The 20-foot setback is really a crusher for us in two ways.

Number one, I mentioned drainage.

If any of you've been to La Michicana, the Mexican restaurant, and parked in the back,

As you park in the back, there is water that flows downhill from lots 52, 53, 54, all the way up to locust.

And it comes down during storms.

We haven't had storms really for about six months, so it's dry now.

But that area where the 21 is is basically a big hole that receives the water.

To effectively address this problem, we need to put a underground conduit from a section right behind lot 55, about 10 feet into the right of way, to a location by lot 59, right in the corner of 59 and 13th Street.

There is a 30 inch

storm drain there for storm water and put that underground.

And that removes all this storm water that we get washing through here.

It's interesting to note that on 13th Street Northeast, right behind La Mejicana, that is a city paved street.

It isn't code compliant, but it's

It's just paved asphalt that's basically one contiguous asphalt right now.

And when it rains, water just flows over the top of 13th Street and then down into where that number 21 is and then eventually into the storm drain.

We needed to use a portion of this right of way to address this water issue.

Secondly, so that's one problem with the setback.

The other problem that we have is that we would like this section of High Street in the comprehensive plan with the small area plan for High Street, we really want to get more parking off High Street.

Across the street is the Digestive Center and they are extremely busy.

If anybody's had a colonoscopy, they know that parking lot is just jammed and there is simply no on-street parking for commercial use.

As this area matures and as we get more density,

Having off-street parking is exactly what the small area plan calls for.

And we can manage that with our customers because all of this area is now commercial.

There's no residential on High Street in this section.

So we want to build more off-street parking so that we can relieve High Street from parking.

I apologize, we don't do this application very much, and quite frankly, the city doesn't get many applications for right-of-the-way abandonment, so this is a little bit different.

So when we got the staff report, which I think Tony did a great job, we pondered on what the staff report said.

We met, we had some vacations, so we had a little delay and I apologize that we didn't really get this to the commission until Monday.

But we have a couple of thoughts for your consideration.

One is pedestrian and bike access.

We think it's appropriate and in the best interest of the city that that section of land have a bike path and a pedestrian path so that people can walk from the Little High neighborhood down 13th Street, then on this path, and then up towards La Michicana.

That gives them access to High Street, to buses in a different way.

So that's one issue and as Tony has said that the city has asked but then rejected the idea of putting themselves a path in because of cost.

It does cost a lot of money.

Another issue that is just the way it works is that the city has been negligent in maintaining that utility easement.

I will show you some pictures of this area, and it is frankly a jungle.

They have not maintained the ability, if there is a water leak, a gas leak, or a sewer leak in that area, there is no physical way for them to get in there.

And the trees are simply 70 years old and have just totally outgrown that area.

So if there were a water leak or a sewer leak, I don't even know how people get in there.

So those are some of the problems that we have there.

Let me talk about another issue that I think is important, and that is, and I think the traffic engineer is correct in saying this is a connector road.

But interestingly enough, in earlier public testimony, a Mr. Rice was concerned about the little high neighborhood, about the streets being very narrow, and the concern about cut-through traffic.

If this road were to be connected someday, it hasn't been for 70 years, but if it were to be connected, this would be a perfect cut through for people going from High Street to Meade and cut out the congestion up on the corner and that tight pinch point turn up at Meade and Hyde.

And you would see nothing but traffic going through these narrow streets

which have no sidewalks.

And when a lot 51 and 52, 51 and 50, there was a proposal a few years ago to develop that into some high density housing.

We had a public hearing about this with a little high neighborhood.

And unanimously, they all pleaded with us to not connect that road because all it would do is create

a major cut through for the neighborhood and they were happy with the situation that it is now.

Not perfect but they're happy with that situation.

So if that site were connected the big problem for the city and us really every everybody in the neighborhood is the intersection of 13th street and highest street.

If any of you have been to La Michicana, you know that that's nothing more than a big parking lot.

There's no curb and gutter.

There's no sidewalk.

It is not an approved anywhere close to a city street at all.

It's nothing more than asphalt.

When lot 51 and 50 were looking to develop,

They, the city said, you know, this is a realm of possibility, but what we needed to have was that 13th, the city said we needed to develop 13th street to city standards all the way to the intersection of 50 and 49 with city approved streets.

At that point, two and a half years ago, it was $700,000 to do that section.

If it were connected all the way to say lot 47 in that area, 64 over the right side, it's well over a million dollars.

And confirmed with S.L.

Williamson, that is a very close number, if not higher, because of construction costs going up.

Whenever a street is built, typically today, unlike in 1940, where the city paved these streets,

You have, now you have public, private people say I want to develop lot 50 or 49 and I want to put in that and you say that's fine, put in a street.

Well, there is no lots left to develop and there's no interest by anybody in the private sector to improve that road.

So who is gonna do that work?

Is the city interested in putting a million dollars into making a connector to a neighborhood who really does not want it and it really doesn't make any sense?

So the last point I would say is that the goal of a high street corridor is the continuation of scale and existing character with an emphasis on infill development or similar uses.

We meet this requirement and embrace it.

We want to increase parking, we want to increase infill in a commercial area and in a location that is not going to interfere in any way aesthetically or in any way with the residential neighborhood and is lower than High Street so it really would have nothing to be seen.

Finally, I made a proposal and it's on the table

that we as property owners around this section would put in a 12-foot wide gravel connector so that bikes and pedestrians could walk in that area.

We would enter into an agreement with the city to maintain that gravel road.

And it would be exactly over the utilities.

That would give the city the ability to access the utilities if there's a failure,

We would put bollards in so it wouldn't become a vehicle cut-through and we would ask that the rear setback be reduced from that area down to zero or 10 foot away from any utilities because that would give us the ability to develop the land and use it to its best use without having an interference with the public.

And that's basically our proposal.

Joe, if you've got a couple of slides there of pictures, that would be helpful.

This is on the north end of 13th Street.

You can see

where the pavement ends right now.

And this is the path that many of the people that had used the path to exit.

But if you look straight ahead, you'll see that that's Davis appliance where those trucks are.

People were cutting across this gentleman's lawn and just going over to those trucks and getting access to High Street.

Since that has been a problem, they put in a chain link fence and prevented that access.

Go to the next slide if you could, Joe.

This is a picture of 13th Street from Lamy Chicana on the left and an office building on the right.

This is 13th Street and this is a public highway.

There is plenty of room at the end of this layout to turn around and people turn around here all the time.

Next slide.

This is 13th Street and the area that we're talking about cleaning up, not removing trees.

These trees are being destroyed by kudzu.

70 years of neglect have had a toll on this and these trees could be saved if we start working on it now.

We would propose putting a path through here and cleaning up the kudzu, putting in a gravel road, and maintaining it.

We would use that gravel road for our own internal exit out the rear, but we would prevent through traffic from going through here.

And I think there's one more slide, Joe.

This is the other side of that path and that's what we would connect to at the very end.

There may be some realignment and we've got to work with that a little bit but that would give the residents of the Little High Street the ability to walk or bicycle down this path and connect

to an area that doesn't have a chain link fence, that they can get to High Street, get to buses, get to shopping.

We anticipate more restaurants coming in, more shopping coming in on High Street, and really connect the little High Street to the High Street corridor.

And we think it makes a lot of sense, and we're willing to make it happen.

All right, thank you very much.

Joe, would you mind?

Thank you.

A question for Ms.

Robertson, Ms.

Creasy.

This isn't an action that can be conditioned.

We have to have faith.