Planning Commission Work Session   8/24/2021

Right.

So with the permission of the commission, here's how I like to do this.

We've got two items on the work session agenda.

The first is Park Street Church.

What I'd like us to do is get an introduction from NDS, then hear from the applicant,

and then get public feedback.

And once we've got public feedback, then we'll engage the applicant and staff.

We'll begin with the left to right questions and then we'll finish with left to right input and guidance for the applicant.

And then we'll repeat that for the MACA site.

Is everyone comfortable with that?

If you are just not,

I know Ms.

The first, before we jump into the items for specifically, Mr. Hrabob will have a statement that he'll need to read.

So set my expectations.

He will not be able to participate this evening.

Okay.

Got it.

Sure.

I can read the official statement and then I can talk about it, I guess.

So I have a statement to make regarding my participation in the Planning Commission's consideration of the MACA site PUD and Park Street Christian Church PUD application.

I'm employed by BRW Architects and as a result of the annual salary that I receive from BRW Architects, I'm required to disqualify myself from participating in the transactions.

If anyone would like to review the more detailed written disclosure statement that I have filed with the Secretary of the Finding Commission Council, that statement is available upon request.

So essentially, I'm involved in the office with these projects on the periphery of them.

OK, thank you very much.

Okay, I think we're ready to move into the introduction.

Ms.

Sure.

This is the first opportunity you all have had, most of you, to meet Dannon, but his first opportunity to present to the commission.

So I want to introduce Dannon O'Connell, who just joined our team a couple of months ago.

He's had experience working in Pecosin prior to working with us at the city.

And he's a regional native of the area here.

So we're excited that he had the opportunity to come back and be part of our team.

Welcome, Dannon.

We're thrilled to have you on board.

Thank you very much.

It's good to meet all of you.

Hopefully someday I'll get to see you all in person.

So tonight, the first application you'll be considering for your work session is from the Piedmont Housing Alliance in partnership with BRW Architects, Timmins Group, and Park Street Christian Church.

They are requesting a rezoning for property located at 1200 Park Street, which is parcel ID 47-212.

It's about 7.43 acres and is currently zoned for R1 residential.

They are proposing to rezone this property to PUD plan unit development to accommodate a plan for two new buildings containing 50 apartments for age restricted senior housing.

And this is behind the existing use, which is currently developed with a church, Park Street Christian Church, and some childcare use, which I believe is permitted via an SUP.

I think I will start out.

My name is Bruce Wardell.

I'm a principal with BRW Architects.

And I think I will probably handle this more like an MC in which we're going to introduce other members of the team as their area of focus arises.

But tonight we have with us here

representatives from Piedmont Housing Alliance, Sunshine Mathon, Andy Miller, Mandy Burbage.

We have members of the representatives from the Timmons Group, our civil engineers, Jonathan Showalter.

And let's see, I think we have Scott Dunn.

Yeah, that's right.

I was looking for his name.

Yeah.

We provided you with a packet of information I think we submitted on August 3rd and the material that we have that we're presenting to you tonight has some slight differences from that that are actually responses to a series of community meetings.

No, Miss Parks from our communications office will be addressing that for us.

Okay.

And then it'll be the Park Street Church slideshow.

Okay.

Can you guys see that okay?

Thank you.

Let's go to the to the next slide.

This project is a collaboration between the Piedmont Housing Alliance, who is the nonprofit developer, our architectural firm, Timmons Group, and the central partner of this project is actually the congregation of Park Street Christian Church, who a couple of years ago, really began to focus on their commitment to

contributing to the need for affordable housing in our community and began to understand the resource that they have with the land that they own surrounding their property.

And that was actually the genesis of this project, was their desire to contribute in some significant way to specifically senior affordable housing.

Let's go on to the next slide.

We have had a

Over the last couple of months, we've had a number of meetings.

The first meeting we had was really an informal invitation to the community surrounding Park Street Christian to introduce them to the project, which will provide 50 affordable housing units on the property that Park Street Christian owns.

Following that meeting, we followed that up with the

with the required entitlement community meeting at Charlottesville High School in the library on August 10th.

And here we find ourselves at the Planning Commission work session.

What you will see tonight has some feedback and some response to the information and the questions and the issues that were brought up during both community meetings.

and what is driving the schedule for this is a target that you'll see down in this schedule from March of 2022, which is a deadline for the low income housing tax credit application that happens once a year.

It's a competitive application.

And so we have to kind of reverse engineer our schedule

to be able to meet that deadline and that deadline will require a rezoning prior to our submitting the application.

Let's go on to the next.

This is an overview of the site.

You can see it goes along Park Street.

As Park Street goes down and

parallels the parkway, but actually is the old major access into downtown.

And it is on the edge of the Laughlin Hills neighborhood, right on the boundary of that and Park Street.

Let's go on to the next slide.

This is a diagram of the overall site where you can see the main church sanctuary.

There is also an operating preschool.

that is adjacent to the sanctuary with parking just along Cutler Lane.

And then there's a heavily wooded section of the site that goes both west down to Park Street and then north, heavily wooded and primarily critical slopes to the north.

that have walking trails that actually connect to the Rivanna Trail.

And that's a walking trail that is already used and connects to the trail down that topography.

You can also see the Park Street down there.

Some of the characteristics of the site are that there is a parking lot right off of Cutler Lane that has been there since the buildings were built in the 1960s.

And then the rear yards of the church and the preschool are actually outdoor playing, are outdoor education areas and play areas that you can see in the photograph number two.

And then down below that is this heavily, heavily wooded slope that goes down to Park Street as Park Street goes around to the north around that turn that

that leads down as it heads north into and becomes Riah Road.

Cutler Lane is there on the lower right hand side and you can see the beginning of the neighborhood and the texture of the neighborhood that is along Cutler Lane and then continues to the east and north of this site.

Let's go on to the next.

This is really the zoning map.

The site is currently zoned R1.

It is adjacent to an R2 site to the west and then a good amount of open park space that surrounds that area.

In the current proposed land use map, you can see that the density of this area has been upgraded

on the proposed land use map.

And it's that kind of strategic upgrading of the density of the site that we've looked at as we've thought about developing the affordable housing, the 50 affordable housing units on this site.

Let's go on to the next.

This is some photographic images of the road as it passes Cutler Lane and one of the things that we are requesting in a site waiver is for the sidewalk along this road and what you can see, you can see the topography that comes down to the very edge of the pavement

in this area.

And that's part of the critical slopes that go up towards the main more level part of the property that is where we are proposing to do our development.

But you can see why the physical conditions that begin to affect the ability to

in any kind of reasonable way to begin to introduce a sidewalk on this side of the road.

There is a sidewalk on the opposite on the west side of Park Street along this area as well.

Let's go on to the next.

This is a depiction of our proposal.

It is two buildings that will compose

50 housing units.

The tan area are the critical slopes.

The solid green lines are proposed connections to the Rivanna Trail.

And you can see that for those 50 units, we are providing 54 parking spaces.

We place the buildings on the opposite side of the site from the neighborhood.

There is a significant slope, although it's not a critical slope, down this side of the property.

And we'll show you on a later slide that these buildings will be both screened from Park Street and to a large extent screened from the neighborhood.

Let's go on to the next slide.

So you can see that in building one, there are 27 proposed units, and in building two, there are 23 proposed units.

And one of the other concepts that is fundamental to the church's interest in providing affordable housing is also to provide an intergenerational community.

with the preschool, with the church and the fellowship of the church and the facilities.

They imagine developing a series of relationships with the folks that live in these units where both the children from the preschool and the residents of the units, should they choose to, can begin to build relationships with each other and really make this an intergenerational community that is

fostered and shepherded by the congregation of the church.

Let's go on to the next one.

This is a basic conceptual section.

The buildings are three-story buildings, but you can see that they are set downhill from the existing building.

Cutler Lane is on the right, Park Street is on the left, and the proposed parking is slid in between the church facilities and the

proposed building locations.

Let's go on to the next.

This is just the conceptual idea of the two buildings.

Piedmont Housing Alliance puts solar panels on all of their buildings.

The buildings are built to passive house standards.

And so these two buildings will certainly be built to a quality that is well above what you would normally expect for normal affordable housing.

You can see here how the parking is tucked between the church facilities and the new housing.

And then you can also see how the existing tree coverage

between the buildings and Park Street will continue to provide the screening from Park Street along this site.

Let's go on next.

This is a very quick conceptual sketch of the new buildings from the entrance to the parking area.

You can see the slope up the hill to the preschool on the right.

You can see the two buildings

related to each other on the left.

And you can see how the site continues to slope down to the left where we can get some lower level units on the on one level below.

All of these units are affordable, all of them will be accessible with elevators in each of the buildings.

Let's go on.

You know, the precedent that we actually thought about on this project, and this is really Kurt's observation, is the development that's happened at McGuffey Hill, where you have a fairly intense development of apartment buildings on the side of a hill, kind of overlooking the intersection of High Street and

The McIntyre and you can see how the tree coverage actually provides a pretty significant visual buffer between the housing on the side of the side of the slope and the public sphere.

Let's go on to the next one.

These are just some some visual images of this of the site.

This is the view of the building from Cutler Lane.

And then there is actually a model of the of the volume of the proposed buildings beyond that you can see that gray volume, where the actual roof of the of the of the proposed building is below the roof of the both the preschool and the church.

Let's go on.

This is a view from Cutler Lane looking up towards the church right at where we were proposing to bring the drive in.

And again, this is the volume that you would see from the Cutler Lane and the neighborhood side of the property.

Let's go on.

Again, the sidewalk walking up Cutler Lane on the on the west side of Cutler Lane.

You can see the two church buildings and you can see the proposed structures to the left.

Let's go on to the next.

And then from Park Street, this is the one on the left is actually the summer view of the buildings, though the one on the right is where those buildings actually are up the hill from Park Street behind the vegetation.

Let's go on to the next.

Let's see, do we want to talk about the traffic study now?

Yep.

I'm available if you can hear me.

Perfect.

Yeah, just a quick overview.

At the request of the city, a traffic impact study was required as part of this PUD process.

Just as a heads up, the traffic study itself, look at this site and the MACA site as one project.

So both developments are included as one traffic study.

Specific to this site, we look primarily at Cutler Lane and North Avenue intersections.

The North Avenue intersection is signalized.

The Cutler Lane is not.

Based on the analysis we've done, the Park Street through-movements operate at a level of service A during both the AM and PM peaks.

At the signalized intersection of North Avenue, with the development in place, we see a level of service A in the morning and a level of service B in the afternoon on North Avenue.

And at Cutler Lane, we see a level of service C in the morning and a level of service D in the afternoon.

So

Based on the traffic volumes we were looking at, the proposed apartments only generate about 350 trips per day and 25 trips in the morning and 35 trips in the afternoon.

This amount of traffic doesn't warrant any geometric improvements at either location.

Yeah, so I believe if we go to the next slide here, it'll have a little more information.

So basically, versus mentioning, we had two community meetings so far, the initial one that wasn't required, but here's some initial thoughts, and then also the one at CHS.

And some themes we heard in those meetings were concerns about increased traffic in the neighborhood, and whenever there's development, there's always concerns about how is it going to impact the traffic.

So one of their concerns here currently is Wilder Drive,

fairly narrow and just having people leaving this development using Wilder Drive or increasing traffic on Wilder Drive.

So we looked at decreasing traffic or keeping it from increasing here any way we can.

So one option we're looking at is a right turnout only from the site on the Cutler Lane.

So that would mean any traffic accident, you need to do a right turnout and go down Cutler to Park Street.

Another

Item that the neighbors mentioned was an existing issue was the site distance looking right on the Park Street.

That's looking north on the Park Street.

and we've been looking at that doing some initial site-distance profiles and it appears that we can fix that since this is a church's property through clear and brush and really improve the site distance at intersection.

So what you're seeing here are, in fact, the top issues that were expressed by the community in the first two community meetings.

And I think, so you can see that the traffic and interaction at Park Street and Cutler Lane was a concern.

The cut-through traffic at Wilder, which Jonathan just talked about,

And then there were issues about the loss of trees and the scale of the project.

And I think if we go to the next slide.

Um, yeah, maybe I think this is where, Kurt, if you want to jump in here and maybe set up the conversation that we are, we're hoping to have with the commissioners tonight.

Actually, I'm going to turn it back over to Chair Mitchell.

But I think before we were done with our presentation, we were asked to kind of call out specifically any differences between the package you received from August 3 and what was kind of uploaded to you recently.

And I'm happy to report that generally the content is the same.

There were no changes in the update that we just sent over.

So what we're looking at tonight, the

The changes, I'll read them out really quickly so we can just have them on the record, but we shifted the parking areas to avoid some critical slopes and to be able to add a dumpster at the end.

We changed the driveway pattern to avoid the couple trees that Bruce had mentioned that the neighbors were concerned about losing kind of big specimen trees in the big amenity green space on Cutler.

We added a few more trees in our parking area.

We're trying to make that more like a landscape parking area instead of a typical parking zone.

In this package tonight, we've included hand sketched perspectives and we did not include the matrix and comp plan comments, but they're the same.

We haven't changed any of that content.

And then the last thing that we did was that there, I think the August 3rd presentation had a dashed line running beside the parking lot that kind of inferred some kind of easement that would allow

the trail to move through in front of the buildings, but I think in talking to Rivanna Trail Foundation, they prefer that that run around behind the buildings kind of between our buildings and Park Street.

So we've started to talk more about those formal connections to the Rivanna Trail running through the woods proper and not by the parking lot.

So those are the changes and

If you're tossing the ball back to me, just a couple of comments, just so these guys can begin thinking about it.

Brennan, looking to hear your comments when we get to you, because I'm certain a commissioner will ask about it, about the traffic impact.

And Mr. Leandro, looking to hear from you when we get to you.

about the impact of the loss of trees.

But I think the next step in the process, Ms.

Creasy, is to open up to public comment.

That is correct.

And we're not going to have our regular timer on the screen this evening, but I've got a timer that has an audible prompt.

So Miss Parks, what we ask you to do is like

who would like to speak.

Whoever would like to speak, you got three minutes to speak and then we need to see to the next person.

Ms.

No problem.

If you guys would like to make public comment at this time, go ahead and hit the raise hand icon.

Or if you are calling in by phone, you can do star nine and I will bring you in.

Welcome, Vicki.

Thank you.

My name is Vicki Bravo.

I'm with congregation Beth Israel, and I'm part of IMPACT, our interfaith group of 27 congregations committed to solving community problems.

I'm here tonight to voice my and IMPACT support for the Park Street Christian Church proposal.

No matter where we're from or where we live,

having a safe, stable place to come home to is the foundation for our wellbeing and for our mental health.

We in every city and county in America are in a housing crisis.

Over 4,000 families in our community pay more than half their income towards housing.

And over a thousands of those are senior households.

This means that we have senior citizens who are homeless or at risk of homelessness.

We have seniors who cut back on their medication because they can't afford to buy enough to take it properly.

We have seniors who are isolated because they can't afford to live near their churches, community centers, and other sources of companionship.

Many of these seniors who struggle with housing have lived in this community most of their lives.

Shouldn't senior members of our community have safety and security in their golden years?

Shouldn't they be able to pay their rent and have enough money left for food, medicine, and other necessities?

Like air to breathe and food to eat, safe shelter is a basic human need that everyone deserves.

We have an opportunity here.

Together, we can create a place where seniors can live well

Stay involved and continue contributing to our community.

It will improve their lives and improve our community.

Thank you so much, Vicki.

Ms.

Oh, I was muted.

At this time, I don't see anyone else raising their hand.

Oh, someone popped up.

And Philip just muted.

Yeah, you're back.

Okay.

I'm an adjacent property owner.

I've lived in the area for seven years.

What nobody has said a word about is the community you're putting this thing into.

This is a stable, fully integrated, middle-class community, and it's the sort of community where people are investing in their homes.

It's the sort of community that zoning is meant to protect.

It's the sort of community that most cities would be proud to have.

Just to give you a single example, we're in the middle of a major remodeling project.

We saved seven years to be able to afford this project.

This project was revealed to the neighborhood four weeks ago.

Now, to give you a contrast, look at the Southwind project.

According to Habitat for Humanity, they spent 3,000 hours talking to the neighbors on that project, 3,000 hours.

Park Street Christian hasn't even spent three, okay?

Now, this is bad timing.

This area is changing.

Park Street has 320 residences that are going to go in at Rio and John Warner Parkway.

Downtown, we have a quarter of a million square feet of office space that's opening up.

And there's only three quarters into that.

John Warner, Park Street, and Locusts.

What's going to be the impact?

What's the zoning actually going to look like?

We've got lots of proposals.

Those proposals are really controversial.

What's it going to look like?

We're not just looking at 50 units here.

We've got the MACA project.

We're looking at 130 units into what is an owner-occupied neighborhood.

That's a radical change, and we don't need to do it now.

Okay, these low income housing credits are going to be around.

If they're not used for this, they're going to be used for someplace in Hampton Roads or whatever.

There's no hurry on doing this.

This project, this church has been sitting there for 60 years as a good neighbor.

They've been 60 years with those trees growing here.

Why do we have to do this with four weeks notice?

Again,

The purpose of zoning is to protect property owners, allow them to make their investments, avoid situations like Baltimore and Detroit where you get a hollowing out.

Talk to the neighbors.

If Habitat can spend 3,000 hours talking to the neighbors, Park Street Christian can spend 300.

They haven't done it.

They've kept this thing secret.

Why?

Philip, thank you very much.

Appreciate it.

Ms.

Parks?

If anyone else would like to make public comment, now's your time to, again, hit that raise hand icon.

If not, we'll continue moving on with our meeting.

A couple more hands just got raised.

Welcome, Cecilia.

Looks like we clicked on Constance.

Constance, can you hear us?

Yes.

Yes.

Welcome, Constance.

Welcome.

Hi.

I didn't write this question down.

It's just sort of random.

I was involved in the MACA proposal a couple of years ago, and this one at Park Street Church sort of sounds like that.

And my concern is about the neighborhood, as the gentleman just talked about.

You need to talk to the neighbors and work with them.

Don't surprise them, like that project did to us a few years ago.

And also, the affordability aspect.

I am definitely for affordable housing.

but the numbers I'm seeing look sort of like the project aforementioned for MACA, I mean, a few years ago where they kept telling us a retired school teacher could live there.

Well, my sister is a retired school teacher.

She couldn't afford it to live there with those numbers which look about the same.

So who is the target really for this affordable housing?

Thank you very much.

Ms.

Welcome, Ms.

Mills.

Yeah, we can.

Hi.

I also live in the Wildwood neighborhood.

Ironically, this is called Wildwood.

And I just want to point out this is actually a heavily wooded section of town that is left, and my concern

is for the trees.

Now I'm old enough that I didn't read the Lorax but many people I know did and I just want to harken back to speak for the trees because they can't, this is an unspoiled wilderness that we treasure

And it actually is an affordable neighborhood.

My neighbor, who is a senior, and several of the people on Wilder Drive are seniors, bought her house for about $70,000.

And the market has increased that.

And I sometimes feel like the homeowners are being... Can you hear me?

Oh, sorry.

Sorry.

Oh, no.

I'm sorry.

I was trying to make sure I didn't run over.

OK.

Yeah.

My 86-year-old neighbor didn't believe the traffic numbers, so she sat at the corner of Cutler and North on Monday from 445 to 530 and counted 750 cars.

So I think that's a better way to judge what level of service C and D are, because that really doesn't mean anything to people.

That included cars turning to or from north in Cutler as well as Park.

And since the preschool traffic had already gone at that point, that wasn't part of her count.

So I just wanted to emphasize that this plan feels a little pushy in a time of crisis.

We are also having a climate crisis.

So if you put

the parking lot in and those that housing I would just like it to be smaller and I know this developer says it can't be smaller but it could be smaller and not cause runoff down to the stream because Meadow Creek stream is at the bottom of this and the trees are what are keeping the runoff from

wrecking the rest of that critical slope so I do have concern about that and the trees have been marked this week so I don't know what that is but there are a lot of white ribbons around those trees which seem sort of questionable like what

Were they to be protected or were they to be cut down?

Lastly, this is not really like McGuffey and McIntyre in that the topography is not in the middle of the city.

This is a neighborhood with no commercial services around it.

McGuffey is tucked up next to downtown.

The massing and scale is not in keeping with what currently exists there.

It could just be a landslide into further high-end development.

Very good.

With that, I will close the public comment section and turn over the commissions.

So why don't we do questions for the applicant and staff.

left to right, and then go left to right again to provide input.

So why don't we begin with Ms.

Yeah, I would be interested in knowing more about the resident's concern about the four weeks notice.

Yeah, I think if we go to the slide that has the community, the schedule that we had on it, the church... Which slide?

No, there's a schedule slide.

There's a slide that has the schedules.

I think it may have been even close to the first one.

On July 27, we had an initial community meeting with Park Street Christian Church.

The conversations had been very informal with the church for quite a while as they were beginning to understand what was involved.

The congregation is not familiar with how

the project development happens.

And so there were some conversations that they were having internally about how to go about this.

And the plans really began to crystallize in May and June of this year.

And as soon as we began to have more crystallized plans where we could

We could communicate what could happen on the site.

The church called a neighborhood meeting that wasn't required.

It was really just an informational meeting.

The first required meeting was on August 10th.

Let me just make a brief point on this, just so the public understands.

We probably are five to six months away from, five months away from, four or five months away from making a recommendation, so

And public has four or five months to advise us.

And then council probably will not vote on this until February.

I will also make a clarification in that the 3000 hours that habitat spent with the neighbors was not the 3000 hours that they spent with the neighborhoods around Southwood, it was 3000 hours that they spent with the residents of Southwood

developing and designing their own neighborhood.

So the precedent of spending that amount of time with the surrounding neighborhood is it's not a one for one comparison.

And a recommendation and decision is that, again, we're talking first of the year for recommendation, probably February for a decision.

If it would be helpful, I'll just add two cents, just a bookend, either end of the conversation.

As Bruce mentioned, the timeline is driven by a March low-income housing tax credit application process and having to work backwards from that timing.

Although that's the far end bookend, on the front end bookend, we started having conversations with Bruce and his team and Park Street Christian Church, maybe

four or five months ago, but as anyone who is involved in development knows, it takes a great deal of time to work through what the possibilities are on the site.

And it also, we did not actually finalize a partnership until recently in the last couple of months.

So it's actually been a very compressed process from our side as well.

Thanks.

Sure.

Let's see.

I've got, I guess, two themes of questions.

So I guess first, we'll start with easy stuff.

Parking.

You guys know I love it.

54 parking spaces for 50 units.

That is, I think, the amount required by code.

But you say in your application narrative,

documents here that you were going to provide parking to meet the amount that you've seen in actual use at other PHA properties.

So are you saying that you're exceeding that amount?

So our informal assessment of the parking needs at other similar senior communities amongst the properties that we own or operate is around three quarters of a parking spot per apartment.

However, because we're in a neighborhood where there is some on-street parking, but not a ton,

We have to also allow for visitors, jaunts, and other types of parking.

And we don't have a whole lot of overflow capacity without impacting the neighborhood significantly.

So we went through a process of evaluating the right number of parking spots.

And as you know, Rory and the rest of the commission, there's no magic magic rule.

There's no way to predict it.

Absolutely.

But we felt like this is the right balance point between

So this actually reminded me when I saw it in the application that you guys for Friendship Court submitted some parking, some actual parking data just a few years ago in 2018 to city council to ask for an addition to the parking modified zone.

As I recall, or as I read, in that study, the peak usage was a little under 0.75 spaces per unit, and the on-tree parking was not being utilized by residents, and that 0.75 included visitors because the actual number of cars you had registered on site was significantly lower than that.

Is it the case that senior housing requires more parking than generally available housing?

So I think there are some differences between Friendship Court and I mean, Friendship Court, as you know, is family housing, not senior focused, although there are some seniors on site, of course.

I think Friendship Court is unique

amongst are the properties that we operate in part because of its core location in the heart of the city and the fact that you don't and the proximity to the central bus zone.

I think that even though people may not necessarily have 100% choice about where they live based on their income, I do think there's a little bit of a self-selection process that happens there at Friendship Court that's a little bit different than our senior communities.

So I would agree with you in principle that I would expect if you look at other family properties we have, we don't necessarily have the same parking counts as we do at Friendship Court, at least in an informal count level.

So I think Friendship Court is a little bit of a mis-comparison.

If you compare our other family properties to our senior properties, I think you'll see that the senior properties are a lower count as a comparison.

OK, that kind of segues nicely into my second question here.

In looking at the unit mix, it's, what is it, about half, two bedroom, a few three bedrooms, and then a little under half one bedroom.

Is that right?

Or what made you guys come to that unit mix?

I would expect for senior housing, it would primarily be people without kids in the house

and that it would tend to be skewed towards one bedroom.

No, it's an unfortunate proclivity of the low-income tax credit program.

So the program, the LIHTC, that's the acronym for Low Income Housing Tax Credit, the way that the state of Virginia structures it is they do not differentiate between a senior community and a family community in their guidelines.

And as you probably know, it's a very competitive process to get funding.

So you have to check every possible box you can to be in terms of getting points to be competitive.

They have an artificial cap at the percentage of one bedroom apartments in any given property to be able to check a certain number of points.

And that frankly, if we had our druthers, we probably would have had a higher preponderance of one bedrooms compared to two.

But if we wanna get this project funded, we have to check the boxes where we can.

And there are some ways we have control over that.

Yeah, so like what is exactly the requirement for the age then?

Is it just that there has to be a member of the household that's above that threshold?

It means that the primary leaseholder has to meet that senior threshold.

They could, for example, have grandchildren with them.

They could instead be living with a partner who's younger than senior age.

They could have

Okay.

And I guess my last question here is, do you feel that this proposal that you've come forward with is the boldest, most community serving proposal that you can make

either financially viable or practically viable?

That is a very interesting question, Rory.

Every time you look at a project like this, you have to balance

and a wide variety of priorities and feasibilities.

Obviously, one of the site challenges here around critical slope, available land, the existing tree cover, wanting to be responsible and responsive to that,

the potential for you know how much surface parking we're going to be building, the fundability like how much funding do we like how many units do we need to have to be able to pass the critical funding threshold but at the same time keep height in place that's neighborhood sensitive but at the same time you know make sure that we have elevator accessible buildings

There are a million factors that kind of come to bear in terms of that decision making process.

Is this the only solution could have come forward with?

Probably not.

If you looked at pure raw numbers of how many units could go on this site, that would probably would be more than what we're showing.

But as a

developer that wants to be context sensitive and sensitive to what the church itself wants to see, because that was part of the negotiation process, is the impact on their land as it currently exists, what the neighborhood wants to see, what we think is achievable from a funding perspective, because honestly, right now, the larger number of units we propose

the bigger the funding gap is.

And as you know, construction costs are continuing to skyrocket in unprecedented ways.

And so we're trying to balance all of those pieces together.

So just so the public understands, can you clarify the significance of LIHTC funding?

Thanks for that question, Lyle.

The project will not happen without low-income housing tax credits.

95% of the affordable housing across the nation gets built on an annual basis, utilizes the LIHTC program.

It is the largest public-private enterprise nationwide.

and its singular purpose is to build affordable rental housing.

You cannot build affordable rental housing without LIHTC funding, hands down, no question.

Not unless you get free land and free construction, which doesn't exist.

So it probably covers in the ballpark of 50 to 55% of the construction costs.

And you then build on the top of that probably anywhere from five to 10 additional layers of funding in order to make a project meet the affordability, depth of affordability that we want to achieve and make the project viable over the long term.

Thank you, that's helpful to understand.

I understand a little bit better about the parking story.

There is an existing very large service lot there with relatively little tree cover, as I recall.

I'll take a run at that one.

And that is using that parking for any kind of resourcing for parking for the housing units would create a kind of unusable connection between the two because of the topography and the distance and the remoteness.

That parking lot was built back when the church was built.

And before

I think before many of the zoning and planning standards were established.

And so that part of the property is not intended to be part of the scope of this project.

As the church decides how they may want to improve their property over time, I'm certain that the kind of landscape and sustainability of anything that they would do would be that would be part of their consideration.

And finally, I understand the motor vehicle story of this site.

Increasingly, people are talking to me about, of all things, bicycles, e-bikes, especially seniors.

Senior communities increasingly are bicycle communities.

So I will say that

There are many, many details, bike parking being one of them, that have not been fleshed out, which is not, since this isn't the site planning phase, this is the zoning phase.

But I agree with you, with every project we look at moving forward, sufficient bike parking is a critical part of necessary transportation infrastructure.

You don't have to, but I think that you can use bike parking as a credit against motor vehicle parking if you wish.

That's what I have, thank you.

I have no question now.

Ah, thank you.

But I do have a huge apology.

to the commissioners and to all the attendees for all the distractions I've created.

This is the first time I've Zoomed with an iPhone, and as you can tell, I've had a lot of trouble.

You're doing well.

You're fine.

We didn't notice the distractions.

So the first question I've got is for either Ms.

Robertson or Ms.

Creasey.

If we actually do eventually a vote to approve, recommend approval of the PUD, are we able to restrict the demographics into perpetuity?

So the demographics would be for senior housing.

Are we able to do that?

Ms.

Robertson, Ms.

If they can, oh.

Go ahead, Lisa.

All right.

I'm trying to hit the right button so I can speak with you all.

So when a proposed PUD is submitted, that is a rezoning application.

And so the applicant is describing for you the specific project that they are proposing to build.

And that project

will have the characteristics described in the PUD development plan, including the narrative that comes with that and any proffers that are submitted.

You do have the ability to recommend approval of the specific project that's been described to you.

But you don't yourself, this is not like a special use permit where you have the ability to come up with

Okay, I'm sorry, forgive me.

I was distracted by answering a question that came across.

So if we approve this, they could... Not unless the applicant's PUD development plan says,

So applicant, you've been given guidance from council, and I suggest that you take guidance from council into consideration when you submit your application.

Sure.

So I had met with the applicant and with Timmons to kind of go over what we would expect from traffic impact analysis.

We agreed that doing both these projects in one study did make sense.

They did send over kind of their preliminary traffic study.

I don't have a final version of it yet.

As far as the numbers go, they had contacted me, you know, again,

With COVID, a lot of traffic studies, a lot of concerns from the neighbors and stuff about what volumes are now versus what they were pre-COVID, what they're gonna look like post-COVID.

So we did kind of do an adjustment.

So the numbers that are in the study, I am comfortable with what the existing numbers were and kind of inflated them to kind of pre-COVID numbers and then inflated that

to, you know, regular traffic growth.

So as far as the raw numbers go, I'm happy with the traffic report.

I know that the applicant with the church site in particular, in their presentation, they had noted kind of cutting back some of the foliage and that kind of stuff at the corner with Cutler.

I know that I did have conversations with them about maybe even possibly

cutting into the critical slopes there to get better sight distance.

That's a man-made critical slope currently on that hill.

So, you know, if that's something I believe that we have it in our code that, you know, if critical slope disturbance is to support, you know, roadway type of things that it's a waiver there for that.

So that's something that I would be in favor of if we can get as much sight distance in there.

I believe they did note in their

There is a study that is below the recommended site distance for

for intersection as it is currently today.

So it's really nothing to do with this project.

But if we can improve that, that would definitely be better.

One thing that Amanda Ponce, our bicycle and pedestrian, had noted was in our bicycle and pedestrian master plan that that sidewalk that they're asking to waive is one of the priorities of the neighborhood in that of getting down to the intersection of the Rivanna Trail.

They also, I believe they note in the traffic study about using the bus stop, which the only bus stop that runs currently is north to south.

So the bus stop is on the west side, the opposite side of Park Street from this development.

And currently, there's no way to get across that.

So I would probably recommend that you

As part of this development, we look at some sort of crossing at Cutler or somewhere around there to get, again, if this is going to be an elderly development, it's kind of unrealistic to expect them to go walk all the way up

You know, to get to the signal at North Street, which there's no sidewalk on that stretch between Cutler and North either.

So there's really no way to get to that signal and get across to the other side.

So those, those were my concerns with this one.

We'll get to that in a moment.

Yeah.

So related to that, are they critical subs?

And part of the reason they wanted to avoid doing the sidewalks is because of the critical slope issues.

If I remember correctly, there is a creek or a branch, I think it's called, what's it called?

I pronounced that right?

Shane's branch.

It's like to the north of Park Street.

So the question is for India's staff, Ms.

Creasy,

Mr. Acapulna, anyone, Mr. O'Connor, am I worried about, is this thing far enough away from the creek not to impact the creek?

Well, so the other issue here that they had noted not wanting to install that sidewalk is they don't want to cut into that bank.

The existing pavement width there is around 35 feet.

So with our current standards and design manual, you only need 11 feet for each lane.

So there should be enough room there.

And a climbing lane is another thing in the bicycle.

Pedestrian master plan, I forgot to add that, you know, climbing lane coming from Melbourne up the hill to the, you know, heading south.

Okay.

But in general, they're asking for a look, they're trending towards asking for a waiver for other reasons as well.

So I'll ask Mr. O'Connell, Ms.

Well, we know you're going to be worried about the creek.

And that's always a good thing to keep in mind.

We're still in the early phases of evaluation.

So

Thank you.

My objective was just to flag the applicant.

That would be something I'll be watching very carefully, protect my creeks.

Demographics, traffic.

Oh, Joey, you didn't talk about the trees.

Are you cool with the trees?

Yeah, so for the bit of the presentation, because of my troubles, I didn't see all the presentation.

But for the part that I saw and the preliminary review that we have of the drawings, yes, I'm pleased with how the proposal, the concept plan,

minimizes significant damage to most of the trees.

We preserve the trees on the hillside, the critical slope.

It still remains a very wooded site.

Okay.

All right, let's go left to right and just give any other advice we'd like to give.

So Ms.

No, I mean, you certainly got me thinking about the importance of transit and an ability to access that.

And I'm not sure I entirely appreciate where someone can and can't get to, but certainly be thinking about that.

I'd like to applaud the church and everyone involved in the project.

This seems like a great proposal.

It's exactly the sort of need we have in the community.

And it's great to see you guys coming together and using your land to make this happen.

I would just say I'd agree that I'd like to see a crosswalk there.

If you're going to ask for a waiver, you can build the sidewalk without impacting the bank, that would be great too.

But crosswalk and that might require a flashing beacon given the curve.

just to make it safe across the street.

And I'd also urge you to look to see if you can be a little bit bolder with this plan to add more units, potentially without increasing the footprint or the impervious surface of the proposal, whether that be by adding a floor, because right now your height is beneath that of even the fairly low slung church, let alone the Montessori school next door.

and the visual impact is roughly nothing.

And to me, I don't think that affordable senior housing is something that we need to be ashamed of and hide in the woods.

I think it's okay if people can see it.

And so to the extent that we can house more seniors in need, I would encourage you guys to do so any way you can.

But again, thank you for the proposal.

Mr. Solzenberg has stolen the words out of my brain.

That's extremely well put.

This is, I think, a project, at least in concept, that I think the community could have some civic pride in.

I'm seeing passive house, I'm seeing solar panels, I'm seeing affordable housing for seniors.

This is

I don't know how to put this.

Many people have a very negative view of affordable housing, this idea of government, maybe it's Soviet, but it's negative for the community.

Maybe it's crime, maybe it's litter.

This, at least in concept, strikes me as a different story, and I think a more positive one, one that is more relevant to the future of the city of Charlottesville.

So I applaud what I see, but I agree.

I think this is a great conceptual start to the project.

I think that it is very skillful in its design of minimizing the impact of multi-unit larger buildings within a

residential district.

It very nicely preserves the critical slopes, the trees, it works well with the church becoming an ancillary use behind the church, keeping the the frontage from the road, the appearance the same.

I think this is a fantastic start to the project.

It's a process.

Yeah, so I like what you guys are attempting to do.

Frankly, I relish the chance to see this happen.

I would only ask that you do something in whatever you present to guarantee that

Chair Mitchell, the applicant had a number of questions that were part of their application.

I believe it was on slide number 21.

I'll say two things.

I'll let Kurt do that.

But I'll also let you decide if Sunshine has a very good, concise summary of PHA's strategy towards low-term affordable housing.

Okay, we've got 45 minutes to get through that and through MACA.

So let's first go through the list.

There are a couple of technical questions that we didn't attempt to answer, especially on the MACA side.

But whoever on your side wants to take the lead and ask any questions that weren't addressed, please do.

Well, I'll just quickly, the first one was just to make sure we were on the same page that the PUD was the correct approach to this site, because there are other rezoning options that would help us achieve this density, but I think it was hinted earlier, the PUD allows us to be transparent and kind of provide the

The expectations for the community and make some promises in a more direct way.

And so that's why we chose the PUD is because we wanted to make those promises.

So, you know, we don't have a mix of housing types, but we have clustered our housing here.

former commissioner, Jenny, by saying that yes, as opposed to R3, this makes sense.

That's great.

He's nodding yes.

Okay.

You could proper those rather than submitting them as a PUD site plan, right?

In order to give the same promises in R3.

We felt like the proffer process is a little less transparent to the neighborhood and those that are trying to understand what we're trying to do so yeah I think we we just as a team decided that the PUD was more revealing and more easy to kind of digest and you didn't have to make as many proffers although we will have some proffers to guarantee some of those things that we want to have included but it

Just to keep us moving, because again, I think MAC is going to be a little more complex than this.

I did want to make it clear they asked one question concerning what the church would have to do if they had development ideas that they wanted to do later.

If this is rezoned to a PUD that any change to the site would have to go through a PUD process, so they would have to

come forward through this process again for any changes that they may have to their site.

Thank you very much.

And so I think there's a question that we will end up asking maybe if we can have a dialogue after this meeting with staff about the church's plans will probably not come together fast enough to be included in the final PUD package, but we generally know what their parameters are programmatically.

We wanted to try to define a future church area, if we could, without getting too specific about

The exact footprint and we can most likely make some promises about how tall or how much expansion the church would do within some limits.

But we don't know if we'll have a design.

Well, we won't have a design and we're working with the church as well as a separate issue.

So we may just need to get some guidance from you guys on how we can

include that possibility without being so specific that it's limiting to the church and the main thing is they're not expected they don't plan to expand their sanctuary there which kind of drives the parking load so they're they're generally just going to expand their preschool and provide a fellowship hall proper because right now they move their chairs out of the way to have a fellowship hall and then they move their chairs back to have worship service they just want to have a separate room for

Yeah, we mentioned it in the community meetings and we howl out of the area where the church is going to expand, likely expand a few years from now.

Their plans are far away, also dependent on their own funding

But if that ends up being a footprint we need to put down and kind of dash in a box, we'll try to do that as best we can.

Yeah, tonight we actually shadowed it in.

That's right.

Okay, thanks.

But I think we can ask the rest of our questions at a different time.

You know, these other ones that are related to the formality of how to register the

Oh yeah, I did have a note, Jim.

I think Chris is on, so you need to have a chat with Parks and Rec as well on that stuff too.

We'll do that.

I think that's all for our questions for Park Street, unless the team had any that we needed to have direct.

Okay.

Let's then segue into MACA.

Okay, so I'll introduce the second item, which is another rezoning request, again by Piedmont Housing Alliance in partnership with BRW Architects, Timmins Group, MACA, and Habitat for Humanity.

And this is a rezoning request for 1021, 1023, and 1025 Park Street.

which is the current MACA site as well as two single family properties on Park Street, consisting of about 9.3 acres.

The current zoning is R1 residential, but they are proposing a rezoning to PUD land unit development to accommodate a redevelopment of the site with a mix of apartments, townhomes and duplexes, non-residential childcare space and parking spaces.

Right before we do that, we have one statement that needs to be read into the record.

So let me bring that up real quick.

And this is on behalf of Ms.

Dowell, who isn't able to be here right now, but this is a statement pertaining to this application.

And it says,

She has a statement to make regarding participation in the planning commission's discussions about a rezoning application involving property owned by MACA, who is my employer, her employer.

I am required to disqualify myself from participating in this transaction of the commission.

The nature of my conflict of interest is the annual salary that I receive as a MACA employee.

If anyone would like to review the more detailed written disclosure statement filed, that's been filed with the Secretary of the Planning Commission.

So I have that information.

We have that on hand as needed.

And Ms.

And I'll probably note that there are at least two, maybe three questions that

in your list of questions that you want to ask that I frankly would rather defer to staff to answer.

Maybe the other commissioners will take a whack at it, but I'm not technically competent to answer them.

But anyway, so Mr. Orr, who's up?

Okay, this is Bruce Ford and I'll jump in and I will again serve as the tour guide through the presentation.

The process for this proposal is very similar to the one that we just reviewed, although the project itself is significantly different.

Let's go to the next slide.

The collaboration this time is between Piedmont Housing Alliance, our firm, BRW Architects, Timmons Group, MACA, and Habitat for Humanity as part of this proposal as well.

Let's go on.

Again, we all know where the dates are, we have the same driving schedule, because this project, again, depends upon a successful application for low income housing tax credits, which is that March submission deadline.

And the schedule is generated by the kind of reverse engineering of the of the entitlement process to meet that March deadline.

Let's go on to the next.

This project, I think as most people are aware, is the current MACA site, which is entered off of Park Street just north of the 250 Bypass on MACA Drive.

Currently has some relatively aged buildings along the crest of the slope.

There's a relatively level area in the central part of the site, and then the slope breaks rather sharply to the west.

just below where the existing buildings are.

There's a gentler and more manageable slope that comes down to the south towards 250.

And then there is a long stone wall on the north side adjacent to a residential property.

Go on to the next right there.

There we go.

You can see the two houses along Park Street.

You can see Macca Drive, the existing conditions.

There is also this kind of wonderful old drive and drop-off path that was part of the original estate on the property.

And then some quite beautiful terraced landscape gardens.

that go down to the southwest of the property as well.

And you'll see how we have sought to incorporate those elements of the historic landscape into the proposal.

Let's go on.

Again, photographs of the site, you can see the photographs of the terrace gardens in number one and then the open green space down below that.

And then number three is that trail access or the, what was the old driveway when 250 was a two lane road.

So let's go on.

Zoning here is R1.

Currently in the proposed land use map, it is proposed to be a neighborhood mixed use.

I'm trying to read neighborhood mixed use node.

I think it is right.

Yeah.

I'm reading that correctly.

Let's go on to the next.

This is the generic layout diagram of the layout in which the two houses along Park Street are preserved.

Macca Drive, we are proposing to in fact relocate Macca Drive directly across from Davis Avenue to clean up that intersection that now is misaligned and creates a whole series of very difficult interactions along Park Street.

Along the proposed new MACA drive, we are proposing market rate townhouses, a number of habitat townhouses and duplexes, and then two multifamily buildings that are more towards the center of the site or center of the land.

And you can see how they are framed around the old historic stone walls that are there.

And there is a community green in the middle of the property.

Let's go on to the next.

The summary of this is that we are proposing 65 apartment units, 20 townhouses, eight duplex units, and two existing homes.

And then in addition to that, MACA is proposing to continue to operate an early childhood learning center that would be no more than 7,500 square feet on property.

We are proposing 147 parking spaces.

And you can see the data down here.

And the way that the housing is the kind of mixed housing, that is a mix of market rate, affordable habitat units that are home ownership.

And then the rental apartment buildings that are proposing what we're calling building one and two.

Let's go on to the next.

Affordability, there are currently 85 proposed affordable units and those are the Habitat units and the PHA units.

There are eight market rate units and that includes the two homes that face onto Park Street, which will continue to be residential homes as well.

Let's go on to the next.

This is a conceptual section with Park Street on the right.

And you can see how there's a kind of basically close to level area in the middle of the site.

And then you can also see where the landscape sort of transitions to the steeper slope that goes down to the Rivanna Trail, Shanks Branch, and the John Warner Parkway.

We have organized the site to have the single family homes along Macca Drive, which relate more to the scale of the existing neighborhood.

And then the multifamily homes are actually planned further deeper into the site where we can take advantage of the topography that actually the existing buildings already take advantage of.

and we are proposing to sort of use that break in the topography to minimize the volume of these buildings towards the neighborhood and take advantage of an extra story going down the slope.

Let's go on to the next.

Again, this is back to the basic layout of the proposal.

Go on to the next.

This is a very conceptual view of the duplex units and the townhomes that would be along Macca Drive on either side.

The street would be laid out with the main street, a planting strip with the sidewalk separated from the drive, and then front porches on all of the units going in.

That planting strip will allow us to plant tree streets along Macca Drive coming off of Park Street.

And one of the interesting factors is as you enter this site, once the building is gone, you actually see all the way to the Blue Ridge Mountains.

So let's go on to the next.

This is, again, a very early conceptual view of that central park or that central green, the sort of village green with the townhouses on the left.

And then on the right, that is the scale of the what will be three-story buildings facing the green.

That's also where the landscape, the topography breaks to the west.

If this drawing were a little bit wider, you would see that the slope goes down to the right, and you would get a lower fourth

And then beyond the townhouses on the left, you can see the other multifamily building further on down the green, the village green.

So let's go on to the next.

One of the things that we wanted to just point out is that when we talk about building affordable housing, there are a lot of images that we have based on what was built in the 50s and 60s and early 70s of what affordable housing is.

This is, in fact, affordable housing in Charlottesville.

These are Wickham Pond out in Crozet.

I think Cleveland Avenue.

These are Habitat affordable homes, homeownership here.

And so these are the kinds of homes that we are proposing to introduce along Macca Drive as you enter the property from Park Street.

Let's go on to the next.

Also, the apartment buildings will be similar in some sense or another to what are the proposed PHA apartment buildings that are currently under development for the entry to the Southwood community along Hickory Road.

And so you can see that both the amenities around the buildings and the buildings themselves, again, built to passive house standards, 85% of the exterior of these buildings will be brick.

And by and that's just part of the LIHTC application.

But see that these are this is not what we we imagine as our as our grandparents affordable housing.

Let's go on to the next.

Here again are those kind of views of the volume of the proposed development.

This is the three story, three and a half story building along the west side of the property from the bypass.

Let's go on to the next.

Sure, be happy to.

Again, you know, we focused for the purpose of this site really at the intersection of McAdrive, Davis Avenue, and Park.

As you can imagine, the through volumes on Park Street showed a level of service A and operated fine.

They have the through movement.

The side streets operate at a level of service C or D.

in the AM and PM peaks.

We anticipate that traffic coming from the MACA site to get a little worse with the development of the site.

The volumes we count out there were fairly low.

With all that being said, the traffic generated by this site does technically warrant a northbound left turn lane on Park Street.

From an operational perspective, it's not required.

However, you know, again, we look at the operations of this intersection, a northbound left would be a benefit.

However, the corridor itself is constrained based on the limited right of way, the existing sidewalks and rock walls in the area.

So that's definitely something to consider when looking at improvements for this intersection.

Yes, the next slide here.

As Scott was saying, we're constrained by the existing right-of-way and geometry of the road and what we're able to do on the

the parcels with the applicant controls and so looking at this and hearing community input and also just looking at ways we can make this intersection as best as possible with this project we're looking at realigning MACA drive currently in the red dash down below the gray shaded line that's the current alignment as you can see it's offset from Davis Drive it creates a lot of comp

or just those offset intersections are less safe.

So we're going to look at realigning MACA drive up to the north, directly across from Davis, also eliminate a driveway from the property of the north, reduce conflict points there.

And then also look at removing some brush and fencing and some other obstacles to increase the site distance north on Park Street.

So that's a major improvement there.

Currently there's not a lot of sight distance out of MACA drive.

We're also looking at preserving the no left turn lane out of MACA.

So the basically only a right and potentially a straight movement out of MACA is what we're looking at at this point.

And that would also help increase safety of the intersection and maintain that current condition.

So I guess we can go to the next slide here.

I'm not sure if it's

Okay, so here's just a little more background on the site distance.

Looking north currently, if you're a car trying to take a right turn, looking north, watch for oncoming traffic, you can see there's a number of obstacles there to visibility.

And so it shows the current view over on the left in kind of a darker color and then the potential improvements and how we could increase that site distance, both with the drivers turning out and the cars coming down the road.

So if we go on the next slide.

And this is a map here.

I'm not sure if this is still part of our presentation or kind of the additional information, but basically this is a map here showing the proposed site and showing what would potentially be public right away versus what would be private area or private roads and parking lots.

And one thing we are looking at here is having a loop, the parts can come into the site and circulate around the parking lot

but we're also trying to minimize the pavement, minimize asphalt so we didn't want to have both a public loop which would reduce the green space and then a private parking lot there.

So one thing we're looking at is potentially having a right-of-way or access easement to the city so we could have a public loop through the site but really minimize the asphalt and the pavement needed for that.

And I guess we can go to the next slide here as well.

And basically, this is another slide similar to the Park Street presentation where we're responding to some of the things we've heard in the community meetings.

We've talked a bit about traffic, intersection improvements that we've been adding in as we've gotten feedback.

Also, Bruce, I don't know if you want to talk about

Yeah, I'll jump in here in that one of the things that we heard in our community meetings was the access to the Rivanna Trail or the bike and peg trail that parallels the parkway.

And currently you now walk or ride your bike along Park Street down to the entrance ramp onto the

the highway and then you're walking or biking right along the edge of 250 until you connect to the trail beyond.

And one of the things that we thought could be a real benefit to this kind of connectivity to the larger neighborhood is actually providing an ability to walk along that treed street, which will be Macca Drive, and then down along through the

the sort of town green along there, and then be able to find a path through that terraced landscape or even back through that old historic drive with the stone gate.

and you can see what we're looking at is trying to make a connection down at the western edge that would actually allow you to connect to the trail and kind of bypass all of that kind of treacherous pedestrian way along Park Street and then along the entrance ramp to the

to 250.

And so anytime we do something like this, obviously we want to make the proposal that we're doing the best for the people who are going to be living in the proposal, but also to offer something back to the community.

The other thing you'll notice is that we're planning on developing a kind of screening landscape buffer along the north edge on our side of the stone wall.

There's a

Actually quite a nice stone wall along most of that edge of the property.

And we've configured the parking in a way that would give us a slope that we could plant along in there and buffer the property, which is actually uphill from our property along that north side of the property.

We can come back to this slide.

I think the questions in here are bike and pedestrian.

We can talk about affordability, which is our number three.

It's really small.

I think we've addressed the issue of the non-residential uses being an early learning center and then

the area, all of the property will be maintained through some kind of arrangement between MACA and the homes as some kind of community and homeowners association, something like that.

And then the other issue was offering the views into the site.

And I think the development of the tree-lined street

from Park Street into the site was part of that transition from the neighborhood into the property.

Let's go back.

Let's go to the next one, I think.

And yeah, there we are.

So that's basically our presentation.

And we are happy to sort of slide around it and answer any questions.

I think when we get to these questions for the Planning Commission, I think Kurt, you're going to

So what I'd like to do now with your permission is to invite the public to comment and then the commissioners will ask questions and then we'll provide input.

So Ms.

Everyone, if you would like to make public comment at this time, click the raise hand icon or press star nine on your telephone.

Great, thank you.

I'm speaking tonight as an individual resident, but I'm on the board of the Martha Jefferson Neighborhood Association, and I'm also a member of the Comprehensive Plan Updates Steering Committee.

So I've been addressing issues regarding the provision of housing in this community for at least a year and a half.

So I'd like to speak in support of this project.

I think it's a great example of the type of infill housing we should hope will be of consideration in the future across the community.

I think the scale and the texture of the proposal fits well with the adjacent neighborhood.

I think it's respectful of some of the environmental restrictions, such as the slopes, et cetera, the cultural,

It certainly is making an effort to address affordable housing in the city.

I would like to note that this is an example of the public process working.

The initial applicant for this site came forward with something that was not a good fit.

They've now returned with a site plan that is obviously of a appropriate scale and texture, as I've noted, but they've also bought in a local partner, Habitat for Humanity, who has demonstrated

success and knowledge in the provision of affordable housing in this community.

And so it's a real good, a strengthening of this proposal.

And I note this because I hope the planning commission will keep in mind the value of constructive public dialogue as they consider under the proposals for the comprehensive plan update that some of the zoning proposals have included extensive by-right

Designation of the zoning.

And, and again, I think that it's really important to have the process, a constructive process, have the opportunity to work.

Thank you so much.

Ms.

Hi, I'm speaking again on behalf of Impact.

To support this project, neighborhoods succeed when housing is affordable, when elderly residents have a safe place to live, when young people can find that first apartment, when parents and children can put down roots in the community with confidence, then our whole community benefits.

But today, our neighborhoods in Charlottesville and Albemarle are under pressure, with over 4,000 families struggling to go month to month.

with their rent or their mortgage.

Lack of affordable housing is putting older neighbors at risk and causing families to move frequently, disrupting their lives, hurting their ability to make a living, and threatening their children's success in school.

It does not have to be this way.

Let's make more housing more affordable and our neighborhoods more successful.

Together we can do this.

Hi, this is actually the husband, Jason Haag.

Hello.

I'm kind of mirroring a comment that we heard on the first proposal in terms of zoning protecting the existing properties there in terms of like what the environment is and also providing planning safety for the property owners in a neighborhood.

So I

I kind of caution against this a little bit.

I just heard about this coming back from vacation so to me this sounds very much like a very much smoke in the dark and like ram it through kind of project as opposed to what the very first marker project a couple of years ago was when we were individually contacted by marker to be brought in and see what

This time around it was basically just a letter that they're planning some kind of things.

It took us a little while to actually find access to this meeting here.

Due to our vacation we missed the very first meeting so I'm really kind of worried about what is going on here.

Nevertheless, as previous people have said, we do need more affordable housing in Charlottesville, so I'm definitely not against that.

I just want to make sure that with multiple projects going on along Park Street, both in the city and the county,

that the impact not just to the traffic but also to the environment and overall the Park Street which was just a few years ago alleviated by introducing the John Warner Parkway that we're just putting the same problems right back into Park Street and yeah basically just want to put a light on that.

Thank you very much for your input.

I'll just remind the public and you.

One, I'm grateful that you're providing your input so early in the cycle.

It is not likely that we'll make a recommendation to council until the first of the year.

And then council is not likely to vote on this until a couple of months into the first of the year.

So you'll have many opportunities to chime in on this, but I'm glad you're chiming in now.

So thank you.

Ms.

Just raise their hand.

If you guys want to make public comment, please make sure you hit the raise hand icon now so I know.

Welcome, Tim.

Hi.

I think this is a

big improvement thing we were looking at two years ago.

One thing I realize this is really out of the scope of what Bruce is dealing with.

And, but I also think it's one of these things where maybe the city could step forward and try to help, you know, reinstate some degree of the grid.

And I realized there are problems with that.

But for instance, I think the

Pressure on the Davis intersection would be different if, for instance, there was a way to bring Watson up through.

But I also think that that whole Park Street connection with the 250 bypass and all that is really kind of a mess.

And it'd be nice if there was some way to address that at the same time, because it's just compounding.

And I'm not an anti-traffic person in the sense that I understand people have to get around.

I think that some of the benefits of the parkway as far as Park Street are concerned are pretty watered down by the fact that we still have those exits to and from the bypass and the very strange condition with houses entering onto those entry ramps.

I just think it's a legacy of some really bad planning from quite a ways back.

But if the city were able to put a shoulder in this and actually help at the public

private sector trying to make something work.

I just think there might be some urbanistically advantage things, advantageous things to do here if we could throw a little more weight behind what they're doing.

I think it would be nice, for instance, I think this is an opportunity to create more of a center for that part of town that's walkable that we can have

You know, to restore that sort of thing that basically I think creating the more of a series of nodes for the neighborhood, the various sort of bedroom neighborhoods we have would be great.

And it just seems like helping them achieve that might require a little forward thinking in terms of how we're dealing with some legacy that's really pretty badly designed.

So anyway, that's my 10 cents.

Welcome, Constance.

Actually, my sister's going to speak.

She's also a homeowner on Davis Avenue.

Okay.

Yes, we both live here on Davis Avenue.

Come on.

We did participate at the last time.

Also, and then trying to trying to be, but we, like some other people have said, we were caught off guard by the short notice.

And we did participate in the meeting, the public meeting.

That was it.

a couple weeks ago and we're very disappointed about how that meeting was run.

This is much better tonight.

A lot of questions raised.

I know we're still at the beginning and this is what we're trying to do is just get questions answered, but just a lot.

We just got a lot.

We don't feel like everything is out on the table right now.

We are not against some public housing or some more diverse housing in the neighborhood but one of the things we need to remember or I think I'm correct on this that this is a PUD zoning request for this particular site but it needs to be looked at in the larger

The zoning changes that are going to be made on the land use map, I hope I'm using the right terms, that is also coming up in about February or March for approval.

And this whole neighborhood is being changed to something called, or is being proposed to be changed for neighborhood mixed use node.

And that's, by five minutes, I have not participated in some of the things that have gone on, how we got to that point.

But, you know, I just, we're concerned, we're reading it right, that this particular part of part three is going to be turning into

kind of a corridor that's leading to commercial districts.

And we are talking about an R1, single family.

And to us, that's a huge and a huge change.

So tell me if I'm reading this wrong, but if we are reading this correctly, to us, that's just a huge jump.

And we're kind of asking why us, why this particular part of Park Street?

Then I would just wanted to say I agree with a lot of the other things that have been said.

This is a green area.

This is a historical area.

The history that runs down Park Street continues to impact the BIPAC.

up to this part of Park Street and down to North Avenue even.

And there's some on Watson's.

And I think a lot of people kind of forget that.

And I just, we need to keep in mind

Land use, rain, trees.

I'm very upset about how many trees are disappearing.

The last MAC proposal, one of the things I believe got kind of helped nix that one was the huge amount of light that was going to be introduced and the amount of parking and

What am I talking, hardscape between the buildings and the hardscape in this current proposal.

It is more than the last proposal and I'm very concerned about it.

And we want to be good neighbors.

We want, you know, we're open to proposals, but I'm just not quite, I'm very concerned about some of the things I'm seeing so far.

And the other thing, it's been three minutes, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

She's also on phone.

Ms.

So Sarah Hanks did have her hand raised, but she lowered it.

Sarah, if you did want to say something, go ahead and hit that raise hand icon again.

Good evening, friends and neighbors.

My name is Sarah Hanks.

I'm the executive director of MACA.

And I just want to take the opportunity to thank you all for entertaining this proposal, the partnership between PHA, MACA, and Habitat.

To our neighbors who may feel concerned, we're hopeful to partner with you moving forward and appreciate your participation in this process.

When I joined MACA two years ago this week, the city council had already voted against the prior proposal, and I was responsible for understanding what was next for our property.

Over the last few years and reviewing the feedback that has been provided, understanding the critical needs in our community and responding to our clients and families experiencing low income, I believe that this is a positive step forward for our community.

And the why Park Street is because we have an opportunity to blend our mission serving those who are experiencing low income and poverty, breaking cycles of generational poverty, providing an opportunity for housing in an area where it does not currently exist for those who do not have financial resources,

and to do so in a manner that allows us to continue operating our organization and providing the critical services that we do across the five localities to include the city of Charlottesville.

With that, I just want to invite anyone who does want to reach out to MACA directly to please contact me to thank the commission for their time and thorough review, as well as the staff and our community partners here.

We look forward to your feedback and the opportunity, we hope, to partner in making a positive, lasting impact in the city of Charlottesville for those families who are the most vulnerable

who are experiencing financial hardships, and in order to build a bright, thriving, and resilient community together.

So Ms.

Parks, if there are no other folks who want to speak, we can now invite Ms.

Johnson back in.

If there are others that want to speak, then yeah.

Ms.

Johnson has her hand raised, so Ms.

Parks, you can invite Ms.

Hi, thank you.

First, as my sister said, we're all for this type of project at the opposite end of our street.

And I do applaud MAC at this time for reaching out to the community and to the city, which they didn't do last time.

They surprised us with that last proposal and the prior proposal.

And anyway, I'm

I'm a little happier with this proposal.

Of course, there's still some issues.

And the one thing being is the traffic issue.

And I also wanted to point out, it seems to me they're redirecting that drive to align with Davis because they want traffic to come up and down Davis Avenue.

Well, it's not just Davis Avenue.

The other way in and out there is going up Watson Avenue.

And the outlet to that is to go up the bypass ramp going to Logan.

That's the other exit.

So someone, you all need to drive that and see how that is on a busy hour, okay?

So, you know, someone proposed at the meeting that maybe they put a strip so people tonight go in and out from Davis Avenue to the MACA site.

So you have to go exit your park street.

So I do have a question about what MACA's footprint is gonna be on the property

Are they staying?

Are they owning?

Are they renting?

They've been a good neighbor.

But I want to know how that affects the future of the commercial property they're going to have here.

Either they're going to be renting it or owning it.

So what is their footprint going to be?

And I am concerned about that building that they're going to be in.

I think it's building two that has a commercial aspect, which is right down it looks like to us on the bypass ramp.

If they were to leave that spot, what happens to that spot?

And will there be future entrances and exits as are concerned that somehow this whole block is going to become commercial as people may be driven out by high traffic and so forth?

I think that's about it.

I'll think of something else.

I've got a list of questions.

I'll probably be writing to you guys.

But thank you for listening to this.

But again, it's a much better proposal than the last one that they presented a couple of years ago.

And I'm pleased that they did their homework.

But the traffic is the huge, huge problem here.

Thank you very much.

Are there any others, Ms.

Okay, so we're gonna close the public hearing.

Sunshine,

Sure, so the majority of the site will be residential.

As you enter along the updated MACA drive, it would be

sort of neighborhood scale residential like you would see in any other part of the neighborhood.

As you move to the back of the site, you would have the residential multifamily buildings.

Currently in the plans is on the ground floor of one of those buildings would be a preschool center run by MACA.

That's the proposed commercial use.

The one I do want to highlight that the funding that we pull together, and by we, I mean Piedmont Housing Alliance,

and Habitat.

The funding that we pulled together only covers residential uses.

So there is still work to be done on the funding stack that would support a new community, not community center, sorry, early learning center or childhood center to be run by MACA.

And whether they own that space or whether they lease that space is still to be determined.

There are a number of financial gyrations that we have to go through before we have clarity on that.

I can't speak directly for where MACA's permanent offices will be, but it would, you know, assuming this project moves forward, their permanent offices will not be on this site.

The only presence they would have is the preschool center and they would be moving their office function to a different location.

Okay, thank you very much.

So that's right.

Let's begin with questions and then we'll do input.

So Ms.

I did have a question about the Davis Street concern that the two members of the public were voicing.

I think there's been a concern expressed that by lining up that intersection that makes it easier to cut through and I think there currently is a fairly robust traffic pattern that goes between Park Street and Locust through the neighborhood.

Um, I think given the the current situation between at that intersection where they are misaligned, and the kind of conflict between the left turn coming out of Davis, and the right turn coming out of Macca, that's a very, very awkward intersection.

And so I think given the circumstances, the

the kind of scale of improvement that we can make is to in fact align it so that it becomes a more manageable and more familiar kind of intersection.

So Ms.

Russell, if you don't mind,

because it's a great question and hopefully Mr. Duncan can help better answer the question.

Russell is asking about?

So they did this upon my request.

This was a request that I made of the previous application as well.

Anytime that you have that kind of offset intersection, it does create kind of a conflict.

When you have a traditional intersection, a traditional across

You kind of see the vehicle across from you.

You know who's got to go first, who's going to, you know, whatever.

When you have that offset, you're not necessarily the kind of off you to the periphery of your vision.

So realigning is really more of a safety concern than it is anything else for me.

Okay, thanks.

aren't asking the same question about whether a PUD is appropriate.

And I'm just wondering, you know, it sounds like some of the ancillary or some of the, I suppose, office uses might be leaving this site.

So why the PUD?

Sure.

The same logic in that we wanted to kind of be very transparent and kind of have a more developed plan as we presented it holds true.

But also this site, it does have a mix of uses.

And it does cluster the homes in a way that provides for amenity and preserves a lot of the kind of the

the reasons that PUDs exist in the city, or at least some of the anticipated language.

But more importantly, I think this one, if it were to rezone to something different, it would be very spotty.

PUD in itself is inherently, some could argue, spotty anyway, but it's so laden with process that the trade-offs are there, but there's nothing around this site that would lend itself to be

Another zone where on Park Street, there are some other zone, you know, that other zone is kind of close, you could maybe make a leap of faith, but in this case, it would, it'd be kind of on an island.

Okay.

So Ms.

Russell, I just want to ask you to have conversations with Jody and Kurt and Jim.

Those folks, that's a great question.

And I'm not sure we have much PUD expertise on our board.

And when Jody rotates off, we have none.

So please continue to ask these questions.

Also, maybe have a conversation with Jody and Kurt and Jen about PUDs and why they're important.

OK, thanks.

Yeah, so I guess I'll ask the same question I asked last time.

We have a 9.3 acre site here.

You're looking to build it at about 10 units per acre, which is well within the low density designation in the currently adopted comp plan.

There is a lot of just open surface parking on this site.

Do you feel that you have maximized the use of this site and that, you know, with this kind of rare, mostly greenfield opportunity, I think there aren't too many more of these left in the city, relatively low hanging fruit.

So again, a complex answer.

I will say that the first versions of our sketches around the site plan included, I think we at one point were exploring something probably closer to 20 or 30 more units initially to see what we could fit with some of the same core principles underlying your question.

As we got into the fine mesh of balancing open space, preserving some of the existing cultural infrastructure, and then frankly parking, this is where we landed.

We ended up having to trim back the number of homes.

This is a site where it really does have to manage all of its parking load on the interior, since there is no

neighborhood parking anywhere nearby.

It's also a family site where you're talking about some homeownership and some rental.

The homeownership parking, that was, we had a very lengthy discussions around what habitat buyers typically expect and need.

And when you include those, and then you look at the requirements that you expect that our residents, when you need to have visitors also parking on site,

but not having anywhere nearby they can park on the street.

This is the tightest we felt comfortable making it as far as a parking ratio.

And as we looked at, we did look at adding 10 more units here or 20 more units there.

And then the parking started to, it never worked.

Either it hit critical slopes, it pushed the buildings in ways that didn't function properly.

And we were also doing our best, it's not a perfect site plan, but we did our best to distribute and scatter the parking kind of around the buildings as opposed to one large thing in the middle.

Again, it's not perfect, but it's as tight and close as we could make it.

The other layer to the response is that we intentionally made the decision at the outset to include some homeownership and recognizing that it's not just units that matter, it's the range of housing type, affordable housing typologies that matter.

All right, my other question, can you tell me a little bit about this, I think you're calling it a historic driveway loop that you're kind of protecting right as the sort of centerpiece of this site.

I haven't been up to the site yet, but when I look at it in Google Maps, it looks like a little bit of mostly broken asphalt that doesn't actually close the loop.

What's going on there?

I think I'll jump in here.

I think when you go out to the site, the broken asphalt isn't the nicest portion of all that.

The stone walls that parallel those paths are actually, I think, the historic resource and cultural resource that's there.

It's also a reminder of the pattern that existed along the old historic

250 when it was a two lane highway.

And I think we also probably gave it a fairly important component in our planning, because I think in the previous application, one of the parts of the discussion were that that previous application did not preserve it, that actually eliminated a good

a good portion of that.

And so I think our thought was that given the idea of trying to develop a community in there, to have that kind of asset and that kind of linkage to what was a historic landscape, when you walk through it, I mean, it's full of thorns and underbrush now.

But when you pull that stuff away, it actually is quite an extraordinary landscape in there.

And there was a section 106 review done of this area

with the construction of the bypass.

And I found a link to that talking all about the historic landscape.

Yeah.

And I think the other, well, I was thinking there's an irony in terms of what the, one of the schools that was, the way one of the schools that actually occupied this property was one of the schools that was

was developed when integration was ordered for the public schools.

And to now have that property kind of reclaimed, I think is a kind of pretty nice historic justice.

And to remember that I think is fairly important.

So maybe if I could ask a quick follow up.

It kind of has the potential to be an outdoor room.

If you can imagine that kind of bridges and it's a little bit of a contrast to some of the more open gardens.

So my dog's barking.

So he doesn't agree with this opinion of what we should do.

I don't know what I'm going to do with it.

Anyway, it has potential, but it's going to take a little work to be a different.

I think the other thing that we were trying to do

has set up a series of different kinds of experiences that people might be able to enjoy as they pass through the neighborhood.

MACA Drive is going to be different from the Community Green, which is different from this space in the Loop, which is different from the gardens, which ultimately leads down to John Warner Parkway.

And so anybody, as we invite them to travel through, either pedestrian or bike, would actually be able to experience different

Thank you.

That historic perspective is extremely helpful.

I knew some of that, but not all of it.

I have sort of a design question and bike question.

A design question, I've admired that drive many times.

I'm a regular on the greenway there.

It could have been possible to sort of use that as like a regulating line in the design to make that sort of an area that the buildings kind of form around.

But that's not really the case right now.

Everything sort of like cuts into it.

I'm not exactly sure I understand the question.

So PUDs are weird.

Part of them is about aesthetics and innovation and design.

So one story that I could see, that just has occurred to me looking at the site, is that that is an interesting sort of vista.

So it's something that you could organize buildings around.

Right now, as far as I can tell, there's no relationship between the buildings and that line.

It's just sort of floating.

Is that intentional?

The line of the old stone walls?

The same.

The way we laid the multifamily buildings around, we placed the multifamily buildings on either side of what was historically a carriage drop-off area.

I think we imagine taking up the asphalt out of that area and making it a green space so that it becomes this garden between those two buildings.

And so that's the kind of relationship between those historic walls and the new buildings.

And then that drop-off area is actually centered on the kind of village green that's up further along.

So that's as much of a relationship as we had.

Let me add one line to that, which is one of the organizing principles of the layout two is actually the entry along Macca Drive.

That right now, if you're driving in, you see building and trees in a way that obscures the long range view to the Blue Ridge Mountains.

And so as you're driving in, the multifamily buildings are set slightly to the south.

You have that view.

And then one of the multifamily buildings in particular has stunning views off the backside.

you know out beyond that.

So in some ways that was the more driving organizing principle of how the site got laid out rather than the walks themselves.

Makes a lot of sense to me.

Bicycles.

This is the best greenway resource we've got in the region which is sort of unfortunate and you're right up on it.

Right now you're doing sort of a conventional parking strategy

I think Lyle's right.

I mean, I think the trouble we're having is a little bit of just the technical aspect of being able to connect down at the western end of the site to kind of get through that existing stone wall that was built as part of the bypass.

So there's some logistics that we're going to have to work out and in terms of engineering to make that feasible for back access.

I think the easiest back access right now will be down the old driveway.

but we've been told that that's the part of the off-ramp that everybody wants to avoid is the skinny part.

So yeah, but it's definitely on our mind and Jonathan and his gang have been looking at how we can try to make a logical connection.

What's a little bit hard to tell from some of these diagrams is that the lower part of building two and the T-shape on building one

has that basement level.

So there's almost four stories facing 250.

And that bottom level is the one that we anticipate animating with some of the community spaces and the amenity spaces that will essentially open out onto the gardens and would be a perfect place to have bicycle infrastructure of the kind that I imagine you have in mind.

Because of that split level, we have some spaces that are going to be

It's definitely something we're looking into there.

even the PUD planning items on this.

We haven't gotten, we're getting into some initial gradings and things, but we are looking at ways to connect from basically you come apart through the site and have some sort of bike or potentially a shared use path that would get you down there.

And then, cause that is kind of like that path ends there and there's just a narrow sidewalk along the long ramp.

Thank you.

OK, so I believe Jody had to join another Zoom call.

But he wanted to pass along to you guys that his comments are no different from the comments he made when we met with you, sunshine.

He is blessed by this and ready to go.

He wants to see some things filled out that he suggested when we met.

But those things need to be filled out.

The only question I've got is for Mr. Duncan.

And the question I got for Mr. Duncan, or if he's not available, Ms.

Sorry about that.

That's my dog this time.

Okay, the question I got for the engineers is, there's only one place to enter and exit.

And so with increased density,

So in this particular instance, I don't see how that's possible.

There's limited access to 250, so we can't access through the

You know, really that whole side of the property and the rest of the frontage of this property is bordered by single-family residences.

So what they have is kind of what they have.

And the only other question I got, just something for the applicant to think about is,

What's going to be the reaction from the public safety officials when there's only one way to get in and out?

The fire chief and et cetera, et cetera.

Something to think about.

The telephone pole that's right there.

We're moving away from the telephone pole.

We're moving closer to the telephone pole.

Do we have to worry about that?

Is that a problem?

We're moving, we're realigning the entrance towards the telephone pole, so that would have to be relocated.

So that's an item we've talked about and would have to be coordinated at site plan.

Yeah, so something to think about and some perspective.

Okay, cool.

So left to right, any input, any guidance from Ms.

I don't have any guidance.

I would just say I really support the concept and thoughtfulness of this project.

I'm really happy to see that affordable housing can be well designed and be beautiful, connected to the landscape and thoughtful within the historic context of the site.

So I'd love to also see those historic features if we could get site visit.

Yeah, echo that.

It's good to see this project again badly needed affordable housing and MACA serves such an important purpose.

You know, Econ, there's Professor Peckman who says

who shows that early childhood education is possibly the most valuable investment we can possibly make.

So anything we can do to keep furthering that mission is super important.

In terms of this plan, I mean, again, like I said last time, I'd like to see more, if at all possible.

If we can't increase the footprint here, consider overhanging more buildings over this surface parking area.

I think in this case,

Some of those townhomes could potentially be stacked townhomes, which I know is a kind of a new housing format that Dan talks about a lot that's flying off the shelves in the private market.

especially with the great change with the surrounding properties.

I think there's possibly a good opportunity for it.

I think the parking near the townhomes and duplexes is a little bit strange and maybe almost like institutional in that it's like a parking lot.

Whereas, you know, given that these are single family homes, you know, I wonder if a driveway where you fit into spaces just by tandem parking, because it's within the same family, makes more sense and then potentially could fit more parking spaces outside of that.

that can be more effectively kind of

flexible.

So if one family only has one car, but they have two spaces here, that other space is never going to be used.

And if we can, you know, make it more flexible and so it's implicitly reallocated, I think that's going to work better.

Honestly, I think this is over parks.

You're like over one and a half parking spaces per unit.

It's a lot of parking, especially for one that's even closer to downtown and that you can very viably get downtown without a car.

and can very reliably be a one car household at most.

To that point, I think you absolutely 100% need to get that Southwestern bicycle and pedestrian connection punched through that stone wall.

You know, the bicycle amenities going down Park Street, even though they unfortunately end at the county office building, are the best in the city.

And even going north are also great, especially with recreational, eventually it gets to Route 29.

The alternative is Sharrows on Park Street.

If you go to the east, you absolutely need to be going down McIntyre there.

So you 100% need that connection.

Lastly, I think a playground is something you're going to have to show in your final plans.

I would assume MACA needs one.

They have one now.

I don't know if you are already thinking about that.

It seems like you are.

In that central green space there in the middle of the parking lot, I'd like to see that programmed in a way that makes it an inviting place to use that isn't just green space in the middle of the parking lot.

I mean, unless you're planning on using it as stormwater infrastructure.

But I mean, again,

A good plan.

It's good to see affordable housing.

Oh, and then I forgot to ask a question about the funding gap and whether you're expecting funding from the city for this stuff, for this and the other one.

Let's get an answer.

So the short answer is yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Fundamentally, affordable housing these days requires some level of support locally.

The cost of construction is so damn high.

And justifiably, MACA is looking at recouping the value of their site, their land, to be able to support their programs.

And so we have the land cost in an expensive part of the city that we also have to account for as well.

And I mean, again, in that case, especially if you're able to squeeze more units in there, I would maybe encourage you to phase it into two separate parts to get even more of that LIHTC funding if you're going over the limit of what we're allocated in our qualified allocation plan.

But those are my thoughts.

So the critical slope looks like, again, Sheik's Branch may be impacted by this.

It's important to me, and I'll bug the heck out of you guys about this, that you guys put together a good plan to protect it when you disturb the critical slope.

So please work with our engineers to make sure that you're doing a good job of doing that, and you clearly articulate your plan to do that.

I am pretty geeked about this.

As I mentioned during Sunshine when we met last week, I was the chair of the Immaculate Board a few years back when we began thinking about this process.

I thought, one, we're in the wrong location.

We need to move into someplace like the Friendship Court to provide our services there, sell that land, and live off the annuity

that would present us.

So I'm geeked about getting out of there and putting up the affordable housing that you guys are doing.

Love the idea that you're partnering with Habitat and doing affordable housing with Habitat because their plan is to build wealth.

And so there's all kinds of great things.

I like what you're doing.

Just make certain that you're protecting the slopes and make sure that you're working with them

Duncan to work through the totality of what you guys are thinking about building with Park Street Church and with Mecca, as opposed to the impact on traffic.

With that, I'll open it up to other commissioner comments.

Mr. Solla-Yates, you need to unmute.

So a lot of what I've had to say has been said.

Just one thing I'd like to urge you to consider is unbundling.

Instead of giving every unit the same fixed amount of parking regardless of need,

offer it as a separate service.

It's a hassle, but at the scale that you're working on, it may make operational sense.

And when people have to choose space to store vehicles, they often choose less, significantly less.

They have to make the decision.

Once that space is no longer used for storage of vehicles, it become available for many other things, for example, affordable housing or trees, a consideration.

That's what I have.

I was just going to briefly respond that under LIHTC, that's extraordinarily difficult to do.

It's in the market rate sector.

It's a not common, but easy thing to do.

Thank you.

I was just going to say, in your PUD use matrices,

I think you're going a little bit too hard in removing things and making some changes that are just kind of noise.

If something's an SUP, it doesn't make sense to make it like add more yellow for us to pay attention to when it's going to require a special use permit anyway.

And you're removing things like amateur radio antennas at the 75 feet and like family day homes that are required to be by right by state law, as far as I'm aware.

So to the applicant, any questions for us that we haven't answered?

Yeah, I think this has been super helpful.

I'm sorry.

I looked at the wrong thing.

I'm having trouble finding which, oh, there it is.

Sorry.

Yeah, we talked about the loop, public street connection, sideline.

Yeah, I think all of these are things that we can talk to the staff with.

I think this is, we've covered all that ground.

So I think we're in good shape on the questions that we had.

Thank you.

So Ms.

Creasy, anything else?

Actually, Park's record is on as well.

I think there were some questions with

I thought there were questions, if we're correct.

Any questions for Ms.

Creasy or Chris?

Any comments?

I think one of the key connections we'll make is with Chris Jensic about the trails and those connections as well.

Okay, very important.

Ms.

I believe so.

I do want to thank our staff folks for attending and listening to the discussion and providing comments where requested.