Planning Commission Meeting   10/12/2021

Good evening.

Hello.

We got two gigantic emails like a minute ago.

I saw the one from Rory, are you talking about another one?

Student Council.

I have not digested them thoughtfully.

Good evening, Kareem.

This is Joe.

Can you hear me loud and clear?

Yes, you sound amazing.

Perfect.

Hi, everybody.

Hey, Missy.

Got the timer ready to go, and that is going to count down to the start of the 530 meeting, and we are ready to stream at 5 p.m.

Sorry to be bothered.

I just want to make sure.

Is this time correct or should there be like nine more minutes on this?

Maybe my internet clock is off.

Well, now's a good time to get it straight.

That looks right.

Yes.

And as discussed, Missy, you and I discussed, and just to bring Lyle back up to speed, that we will, I will put in the chat that we will lower all hands for the public hearing if there are any hands raised prematurely.

And I will go ahead and put that in the chat in the directive of the chat.

Sure, we'll take care of that.

Sounds great, Joe.

Thank you.

All right, Lyle, you do have a quorum.

I do know that Ms.

Dow will not be here until 530.

Welcome, all.

Big night.

Hope you're in a situation that you can stay in for many hours this evening.

Lots of... Okay, great.

Yes, that's true.

We should talk about the agenda.

Anything on minutes that we need to be concerned about?

I see one from Ms.

Russell.

Any other issues with the minutes?

Okay, sounds like, Ms.

Yes, I don't know what I said, but whatever I said wasn't a word, so I think I can figure out.

Fair.

Moving into the substance, my understanding is the structure will be first

Michael Koch- Mr free school introduced the topic the consultants will give their presentation, then we'll have some brief period Michael Koch- To for us to ask questions of the consultants.

Michael Koch- Then public comment two minutes each that will happen for many hours.

Michael Koch- And then

back to us for discussion of the issue, discussion of possible language or amendments.

We're also requesting that the commission and council spend more than just a brief time on that first discussion round.

And that may assist and be refined once you hear additional public comment.

But just knowing that the hour when you all get back to it is probably going to be pretty late.

If you all have

part of the discussion prior to the public and maybe refine questions or other such things that may help keep things on track.

Definitely want to keep, you know, that this is a public hearing and it's the opportunity for the public to provide feedback and definitely have that weigh into you all's discussion.

So opening statements and discussion, would that be fair to say?

That's fair.

we'll take a note of that just a couple of other logistics for the group we as part of the discussion for this meeting we the public comment is going to be limited to two minutes per person and that is

you to our expected high value and we want everyone to have the opportunity to be able to share their comments with us.

And one thing that Mr. Rice and I talked a little bit about this afternoon

is trying to have a general schedule for that to build in breaks as needed.

And one suggestion that we had was into the public comment if we're at a two-hour point to have the chair touch base with the group.

to see if they feel like it's an opportunity for a break or if it's okay to continue forward.

I mean, there could be other, you know,

potential opportunities, and your fellow commissioners may ask for breaks from time to time.

I guess we'll have to just see how things go.

A question for Ms.

Yeah, going back to what you said about structuring, like opening comments, Missy, you had given us kind of a proposed format talking about straw poll items.

And, you know, is that sort of what I'm thinking is we kind of

Right.

For commissioners who may not have seen that in their email this afternoon, there's been a lot of traffic.

When we had some

coordination for this meeting.

We thought that the vote for the discussion, the vote and the discussion for this may be similar to what we've done in the past for CIP hearings, where there has been the

Sorry.

Discussion where there's general in those cases, there's been a general agreement one way or the other, but there are

amendments that folks would like to propose.

And so we've structured CIP discussions in the past where commissioners share all of those topics that they would like to speak through.

And then we organize those in such a way to, there may be some that folks are okay with general direction on, and there may be some that need some further discussion.

and that would give the opportunity to kind of to the things that still need further discussion to have them kind of organized from a discussion standpoint.

And then when it has gotten to a vote during a CIP discussion, the individual who gives the motion includes as many of those amendments as they feel

Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg,

You know, if they're topic areas, I know that there are a few areas that folks are sure that they want to be talking about.

It would be helpful to make sure that you have those in mind and share with colleagues.

Oh, my missy allow me.

May I make a recommendation?

during the second part of the meeting, the meeting when we actually begin our real deliberations.

I'd recommend, Mr. Chair, that you ask for a motion to start the meeting.

A motion would be, an example of a motion would be, I move that we approve the comp plan.

I move that we recommend the approval of the comp plan as recommended by the consultants, subject to the amendments to be discussed.

and then we begin discussing the amendments and then we follow the process that Mr. just outlined.

That would be you, Liz.

I got a thumbs up on that.

I'm hopeful.

Thank you for that constructive suggestion.

Do we want to talk about possible amendment language while we've got some time?

I believe it is 11.

And there may be, and yeah, Rory Stolzenberg

forwarded us some materials.

I believe most of them are similar to some things he had sent to the consultants already, and I believe that they, I know from discussions last week that there have been deliberation on a number of those.

I don't know if each and every one, because I didn't have time to look at each one in depth, but we may be able to address some of those through the analysis that they have done

on the comments along the way.

Mr. Lohindra, please.

So I have an amendment that I would like to propose too.

So should I send that around to each of the count commissioners ahead of time right now?

Please.

If not, it's okay.

Okay, I'll do that.

And again, on Mr. Lenders comments, he's already, he has submitted that and those have been looked at.

Good.

I mean, certainly at least two are just basically reflections of reality.

I would suggest that maybe we kind of go through them.

And if there are no objections, we just quickly vote on them.

And I think those should maybe take

Chair Greg Musil, I mean I kind of a I have a problem with with making changes to the map at a point in which

public won't have the opportunity to see that and provide comment to it.

I mean, I think administrative amendments are one thing, and I just glanced through the list quickly, and I think at the bottom you address a PUD.

So I think for most, if not all of them, we have received substantial comment that discusses them, at least in principle, you know, in the sense of many hundreds of comments that we've gotten suggesting that we maximize the use of our vacant land in order to reduce pressures off of other areas.

you know I recognize that obviously they wouldn't be published as part of the agenda for this meeting, but I think you know they have been discussed right and they will still be published as part of the agendas for the next two Council meetings where it will actually be eventually voted on for approval in December.

So I hear the point, but I

I don't know.

Well, and do we want to spend our time talking about those, or do we want to spend our time talking about the text changes?

Sure.

I'd like to step back from these 11 ideas briefly.

Is there anything else on the map?

I've got Jody, I've got Rory.

No.

Well, I'm using metaphor.

As a discussion point, I think we should talk about the merit or drawback of pulling back the medium intensity as shown on the map, right?

This was something that was discussed between Councilwoman Hill and Snook and I know we

talked about it a little bit yesterday.

And I just think we should, I don't know if that's in a motion.

I'm thinking that's more like a strong item to query the commission and sort of gauge where people feel on that.

Yeah, what I want to do is I, that is one of the things that I was going to talk about very, very briefly.

I was going to talk about it very briefly and then throw the ball to Mr. Fraves.

I think he did a very, very good job of walking us through at least a way to intellectually allow the public to relax as it relates to what's going to happen.

I mean, I think he did a really good job.

My intent was to throw you the ball when it's my turn to talk about this, to have you kind of walk the public through what the process is going to look like so that they don't think this is going to happen all of a sudden without any additional intellectual resources being lit to the process.

It will not relieve the emotional issues, but the public will know that, you know, we've got a thoughtful process in place that's going to help us work through this.

And then I can all of a sudden have, you know, a 14 story building next door to their to their residents.

Okay, I appreciate it.

And I'm actually also touching on this issue in my opening comments to the presentation, and we've incorporated some additional material on the medium intensity in particular into the presentation that Ms.

Mr. Stolzenberg?

Well, I mean, it is my tip.

And if Mr. Brees does a really good job tonight, I'll carry the day.

But it is my intent not to recommend anything different from what the consultants are recommending.

So that won't be an amendment.

That won't be a change.

It will be a discussion.

I think that's worthwhile.

I think actually, you know, all the things you guys are discussing are more substantive and should have more time devoted to them.

I don't think it's unreasonable to devote the small amount of time that I think my suggestions would take

I mean, most of these things should be two-minute items.

There are things we need to vote on in that they are changes to the map, but I would say that most of them are not even things that we need to discuss.

I could show my screen to visually show them.

Again, they're all in your email inboxes, and I think

I was going to say, I got a chance to read your email, Rory.

And I think it seems like a lot of them are catching up to what the zoning is now.

And then there are a few that are suggesting changes to that.

And we can isolate the two different, you know, bubbles into what's just catching up to now and what are the actual changes

then we can have a discussion on those changes and it'll be a lot shorter discussion, I would hope.

If the items are things that we're already doing, that we're catching up to, why do we even need to talk about it?

Yeah, I would say we don't discuss those items.

I would just add that we're not redundant.

We're not repeating ourselves for the consultants.

I haven't made my mind up yet.

I may back off, but I may want to talk a little bit more about buy-right development, affordable buy-right development in general residential.

I don't know yet.

It depends on,

Rory's got something out there I haven't read yet.

I'm going to go read that and it depends on what the consultants say leading up to that.

Not yet.

I want to think about it.

I'm just giving you a heads up.

Thank you.

I'll be net for you.

Just wondering, is the attendee chat supposed to be enabled?

I know it's typically not.

Also, I might point out that the latest chat we received, one of my changes is very germane to.

Ms.

So we had also, and I think this is what Commissioner Mitchell was getting to,

sort of talked about some potential tweaking of the land use category descriptions as shown on page 27, 28, 29 of the comp plan.

And that's that matrix of form and use and affordability specific to each land use category.

And I think we obviously spent a lot of time yesterday talking about

what our intended outcome is, knowing that there will be more details forthcoming with the actual zoning ordinance, how specific or general should we be?

And I do have some ideas.

One thing that I'll repeat a couple of times, and Mr. Rice may as well, all hands will be lowered prior to the request for public hearing so that everyone will

get that opportunity at the same time.

So we'll mention that again.

So no one in the participant area or in the attendee area needs to worry about raising their hands at this point in time.

Mr. Mitchell.

So just so we know what the logistics look like,

What is it you want from us in the first discussion?

And what is it?

I know what you want in the second discussion.

That's where Liz makes the emotion and we then begin deliberations.

Anything additional or shall I take a brief break?

I believe we are at 530 and live.

Do we have the Commission present?

I see.

I believe we have everybody.

I called the Charlottesville Planning Commission to order for Tuesday, let's say October 12, 2021.

Here to discuss the Charlottesville Comprehensive Plan.

Going into the

Items expecting a long night, lots of public comment.

Oh, Lyle, we still have our regular meeting in the beginning.

Thank you very much.

From the 5.30 to 6, and then we'll begin our hearing.

We're ready to go, though.

I'm at 6 o'clock, and my brains are short.

My camera is off.

Thank you very much.

Let me refresh myself.

I believe the only item we have for 530 is to consider the consent agenda.

Second.

All four?

Everybody say it, please.

Looks good.

I see unanimous.

I would like to hear Planning Commissioner updates.

Ms.

Good evening, everyone.

I have not attended any meetings, but we do have the school CIP committee coming up on the 26th of this month at 9 a.m.

that I plan to be in attendance for.

Ms.

The Citizens Transportation Advisory Committee met September 15th, and we just got updates on three items.

We had a presentation on roundabouts, an update on the North 29 corridor study, which is in the county from Airport Road up to Deerfield Drive.

And then the last item was the Charlottesville Alvarez MPO identified the Rivanna River bike and pedestrian crossing as a project that would benefit from

more additional engagement and is putting together a stakeholder advisory group to inform the development of that project.

That's it for me.

Are you muted?

We can come back to him.

Yep, so we had a meeting of the MPO Technical Committee.

As Commissioner Bob said, we are getting ready for stakeholder engagement on the Rivanna River crossing.

So there are a couple possible routes, and there are a number of potential stakeholder groups that will be brought onto an advisory committee, which will be formed shortly, or I think maybe were formed by the Policy Committee just after that.

We got an update on the BDOT pipeline and the 29 North corridor updates, study updates.

And then we had a TJPDC meeting.

Most notably, we, well, actually second most notably, we approved the solid waste plan.

and Ms.

Palmer?

I'm sorry, Mr. Palmer from the university?

Sorry.

You may have said that.

Oh, just in time.

I lost you all for a moment.

We're still doing committee's report?

Yes.

I attended the tree commission on October the 5th.

There is a report by the Seville Relief Committee, which is an initiative created by the tree commission.

And this

group will be planting about 17 trees at Venable School and the Lugo McGinnis Academy, specifically sited to shade the playgrounds.

It was discovered there's a 20 degree difference between the areas in the playground that have trees and the blacktop areas that don't.

And then this Seville Relief will be mostly focusing on educating children through school presentations with the city and school staff on the value of trees and nature in Charlottesville.

There are presentations planned at City of Promise, Lugo McGinnis, Venable, and other city schools.

and then the CIP funding from last year is allowing Parks and Rec to plant about 150 trees this coming December and January.

We are prioritizing playgrounds, parks, and right-of-ways.

The Board of Architectural Review met September 21st.

I wasn't able to attend because I conflicted with the Planning Commission meeting.

certificates of appropriateness were approved.

And then there was preliminary discussion of a demolition of 745 Park Street.

And that's as much as I can tell you about that right now.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And Ms.

I have no committee reports because all I do is meet with you guys.

You have stolen the words out of my mouth.

That is also my report.

Thank you all.

Couldn't think of a better group to be spending time with.

I believe we are prepared for the Department of Neighborhood Development Services.

Sorry, Lyle, is this to start the presentation?

Are we ready to get an NDS update?

I don't have any particular updates this morning.

Ms.

Creasy, do you have any, or this evening?

Ms.

It's not morning yet.

Just briefly, just briefly.

We have our special meeting scheduled for October 21st.

That will be similar to our regular meetings.

We have the agenda materials already posted, but I didn't want that to get lost

in all of today's messages.

So we will remind you all of that later in the week.

We have one public hearing on that meeting and we have a couple of regular items as well as a preliminary discussion.

So a full meeting on the 21st and then we'll be back on our regular schedule.

We'll have our next regular meeting on November 9th.

and that agenda will be to be determined and we'll just have to wait and see what that looks like.

So that's generally where we are.

I don't anticipate an October work session.

You guys will have met quite a bit at this point in October.

This is wonderful.

I believe we are now ready for public comment on items not on the agenda, which when you're talking about the comprehensive plan, that doesn't leave a lot off the table.

But if you could please, two minutes on items not on the agenda.

Mr. Rice?

And if you'd like to address members of the Planning Commission, please click your raise hand icon.

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

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

You have two minutes for comment.

And first up, we have Martha Smyth.

Martha, you're on with the Planning Commission.

Good evening.

Thank you for allowing me to speak.

Martha Smyth of Rutledge Avenue here in Charlottesville.

I'm speaking in support of affordable housing now, not at the end of the comprehensive plan process.

In fact, the need for affordable housing is so serious in Charlottesville that I believe we should uncouple solving this challenge from the necessary research and ongoing debates about the plan and the map.

I observed City Council yesterday at noon, City Council meeting with the Planning Commission.

Many familiar questions were asked again by various members of each group.

Blair, do you have a comment not about the comprehensive plan?

Then I should hold till later, because this is all about the plan.

Okay, thanks.

And next up, we have Mary Whittle.

Sorry about that.

My mistake.

Thank you.

And next we have Elizabeth Marshall.

Elizabeth, you're on with the Planning Commission.

I was muted.

Earlier, you mentioned zoning and the comprehensive plan, but it sounds like it's not completely.

I can answer that question.

There is a rezoning that will follow the comprehensive plan that the comprehensive plan will move into.

I do.

I am literally so stressed out about the last few houses on Preston Place.

I live here in Preston Place.

My mother grew up in this house.

My grandparents grew up in this house.

I remember being here with a little kid and playing with other families.

It was a family street on the board of the university.

It's on the edge.

It's turning into a college party zone.

It wasn't like this even 10 years ago.

Changing these last few houses and turning them from

single family residential university to high density is not going to provide affordable housing for anybody.

It's going to backfire and just make the party zone for the university students larger and pushing out families.

Is this part of the comprehensive planning process?

I'm sorry to be going back and forth.

It is a distinct issue.

It's the street pressed in place.

There's a few houses on it that are still, including mine, that are still in our residential one, so single family university.

And the new zone looks like it wants to change it to high density.

And it won't end up providing extra housing, affordable housing to families.

what's going to happen is it's going to turn into a university student party zone.

Currently the neighbors who, it used to be families.

My whole family has been here.

It used to be all families.

And currently there's students coming in, which is great.

I'd love to respect them.

They respect me and intermingle, but a lot of them, some are great, but a lot of them are very disrespectful and they will say things flat out like,

Oh, well, we can do what we want because it's all fraternities here.

They're not respectful to the neighbors and they're a nightmare to live with.

Thank you very much.

Next, please.

And next up, and I do apologize if I get this name wrong, Caetano de Campos Lopez.

You are all at the plaintiff and I think we just lost him.

Next up, we have a hand raised from Charlottesville, Virginia.

and you're on with the Planning Commission.

And you will have to unmute.

Thank you very much.

I do apologize.

Rachel Lloyd, would you like to take her comment?

And Rachel, you're on with the Planning Commission.

Thank you very much.

Good evening, Planning Commissioners and City Councilors.

My name is Rachel Lloyd and I live at 810 Tunlaw Place.

Tonight I'm speaking on behalf of Preservation Piedmont.

Thank you for taking our comments.

Preservation Piedmont's members and supporters come from our entire region.

They include the young and the old, people of different backgrounds, people of different races, the homeowner and the renter.

We will come back to you.

We're not there yet.

My head is where your head is.

Thank you very much.

I believe we are ready for the comprehensive plan discussion.

I know I am.

I suggest that we adjourn until 6 p.m.

when we will have our discussion and joint hearing.

Sure, I do want to remind the public, we have people joining us constantly, so we're going to make these announcements as we go.

When we do get to the public hearing portion of the evening, it will be two minutes per speaker.

Also, all hands will be lowered.

And then when the call for the hearing starts, there'll be the opportunity for everyone to raise their hands at that opportunity.

So just wanted to put that reminder out there.

Let us please return at 6pm.

Have a good break.

and I believe we are back.

Planning Commission meeting, joint consideration of the comprehensive plan.

There are three of us here.

If that's the case, then we're in order in that respect, yes.

Thank you very much.

I would like to open this public hearing.

Sorry, I wasn't sure if you were going to take that public comment.

That actually is a good point.

Thank you.

There was one member of the public who was having some technical issues.

Mr. Rice, could you put him on two minutes, please?

I certainly can.

I believe Caetano, let's see if I can get him.

And I do believe we have him.

You're on with the commission.

You all have two minutes.

All right.

All right.

Thanks, George.

Yes, we'll be joined with the

with the video, I don't know what the issue was, but thank you so much for the opportunity.

I just wanted to mention that Tomas, can you hear me?

Okay.

I just wanted to mention that Tomas Jefferson planning district committee, commission, sorry, is undergoing right now what's called the Toronto division study for the

Charlottesville and surrounding municipalities.

And as a result of this study, we are going to likely make the necessary investments or decisions in order to improve the transit in our region.

But one of the things that was missing in that meeting was planners of the city or any kind of authority or decision maker related to planning decisions.

And when we are talking about improving transit, it's important to have the transit agencies in the room, that's true, but it's also important to have the people that are going to decide where sidewalks are going to be placed, where roads are going to be constructed, where crosswalks are going to be placed.

And I just want to invite and actually urge the city to please bring planners or planning commission members

for these transit vision talks, meetings, events in the future so that the conversation can be more, I don't know, more holistic, more transversal with all the authorities that actually need to be thinking together to make transit a better solution here in our community.

Thank you.

Absolutely.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

James Freese, and good evening, members of the Planning Commission and City Council.

Again, for the record, my name is James Freese.

I'm the Director of Neighborhood Development Services.

James Freese, Tonight we're here to speak about our draft Seville Plans Together comprehensive plan.

And before we get started on the formal presentation, I did want to take a moment to acknowledge the hard work that has gotten us to this final draft of the comprehensive plan.

I think it's safe to say at this point that many hours of time have been spent on this plan amongst our own city staff and consultant support team, the planning commission members and city councilors, but most importantly, the many community members who have taken the time to share their thoughts and concerns with all of us.

The result of this process to date is the draft plan that you have before you tonight, which is itself only a first step as we move on to the implementation actions and rulemaking through the zoning ordinance project.

In the presentation here tonight, there will be a brief description of the guiding principles and goals of the plan, which is really there to remind us all that as we move into implementation we will be considering this entire plan.

While there has been much discussion of the land use map, the strategies in this plan call for environmental protection, historic preservation, recognition of neighborhood context,

addressing climate change and providing affordable housing, among many other issues.

And all of these will go into our efforts to craft a new zoning ordinance.

This work will involve a great deal of further analysis, which must be done within the rulemaking context of the zoning project.

And that work really cannot start until this phase of the work is complete.

As we craft rules that bring together all of these different goals of the plan, there will be places where the suggested density may not work, and we will prepare plan adjustments or amendments accordingly.

Now, as I'm the newest person to the city and in this planning process, I just wanted to note that I'm excited and looking forward to working and collaborating with members of the public, the community, planning commission members and the city council as we move forward into the zoning amendment process and further implementation of the plan.

So with that, I'm happy to turn things over to Ms.

Koch for the presentation and we look forward to questions and discussion following that.

Thanks, everyone.

Thanks to James for those opening remarks.

We're glad to be here with you all for this milestone event in the comp plan process.

Joe, if you wouldn't mind bringing up the slides, please.

Thank you.

I just have to reorganize my screen a bit.

All right.

So my name is Jenny Koch and I'm an urban planner with RHI, also known as Roadside and Harwell.

I'm the project manager for the Seville Plants Together consultant team.

You often hear from me on these meetings, the public and planning commission and others, but there's a large team of people who's involved with the Seville Plants Together consultant team.

Tonight you'll hear also from Ron Zessoms, who's an urban planner and urban designer with the team.

Leigh Einzweiler and Christy Dotsan from Code Studio are also here, as is LaToya Thomas of Brick and Story, who led the community engagement for this process.

I know for those of you who aren't on the panel, you can't see there's 125 of you in attendance tonight.

We know there will likely be more that join.

So thank you for for joining us.

Next slide, please.

This is the agenda for tonight's presentation.

I do want to note there have been some adjustments to the slides since we posted them last week.

It's mostly additions to the slides.

So you can go to civilplanstogether.com and find a link to the meeting materials there if you want to review anything more closely.

There's also some links you might want to go to and whatnot.

On the next slide, the civil plans together process we've talked about many times is three parts.

James mentioned mentioned some of them earlier, but they're all really focused on updating this future vision for the city of Charlottesville with a real focus on equity and affordability.

And I'll discuss those terms in a second.

The comp plan again is the sort of the middle of the three pieces, as you'll see on the box here.

We're showing the affordable housing plan with a checkmark because that was completed after a year long process with council endorsing the document in March.

We're currently phase of updating the comprehensive plan, which is this guide for the future of the city.

And after we'll work together on this, we'll work with all of you on the zoning ordinance, as James mentioned.

Next slide, please.

I want to speak just for a second about equity and affordability.

We've talked a lot about equity and affordability throughout this process, but when we talk about equity, I just want to make sure we're on the same page where we're talking about incorporating policies throughout this process, including the Affordable Housing Plan and the Comprehensive Plan and then the zoning ordinance, you know, looking to mitigate any disproportionate harm that might happen or might be faced by certain communities.

And we all know this is not how land use planning policies have happened throughout history in most places.

When we talk about affordability, there are many factors that relate to affordability, affordable transportation, access to healthy and affordable food, et cetera.

But the thing we're talking about most tonight is, of course, affordable housing.

And we're looking to support housing options that are affordable at all income levels.

The federal government defines affordable housing as a household can obtain that housing for 30% or less of their income.

So that's sort of the general guide for affordability, but we know that significant subsidies needed at the lower end of the income spectrum and less so to support housing at the higher end of the income spectrum, which is more market rate or more toward market rate.

So we know subsidy is needed to support, you know, those lower income levels and then land use policies can make perhaps a bigger dent on their own at higher income levels.

I also want to mention before we move on from this, that the supply side of affordable housing is really only one part of this.

Income levels are also important and, you know, raising the tide in that way.

And there are policies in the comprehensive plan that support that, but they may not be the focus of our discussion tonight.

I just wanted to make sure that was clear.

Next slide, please.

So the Siegel Plans Together consultant team began our work in very late 2019, a very different time for all of us, but we want to note that the comprehensive plan process has been in motion since 2017 and the planning commission began this required five year review of the comprehensive plan

There were three rounds of community engagement between May 2017 and May 2018, and during this time, the city also commissioned a housing needs assessment, which identified, you know, the housing market is very tight, demand significantly exceeds supply.

So recognizing the need for a focused strategy to address housing issues, the city sought a consultant team to help guide an affordable housing plan, as we've already discussed, as well as complete the other activities that we're undergoing now.

And we, as I mentioned, began our work in late 2019, and most work began in early 2020, which means that several pieces of our schedule have needed to be adjusted as we went due to COVID.

But we are glad that we've been able to have three rounds of engagement during this process, including both virtual and in-person engagement and input opportunities.

We've met nine times with our Seville Plans Together Steering Committee, and we're very grateful for those folks, some of you on this call.

And we've also met with the Planning Commission and Council several times throughout this process, not to mention the countless meetings we've had with staff, city staff.

So that's a very quick overview of our process.

I want to just make sure it's clear.

This is just a snapshot.

If we go to the next slide, please.

I want to give a brief sort of high-level overview of some of the themes we've been hearing.

We've heard from thousands of people in this process in the city, both city residents and county residents and some who who don't live in those areas at all and maybe own property within the city.

And we're again really grateful to everyone who's participated I know it's it's not been the easiest couple years for everyone for anyone.

We want to give a snapshot of what we've been hearing, and this is obviously just an overview list of things that we've heard in this process.

I'd encourage everyone, if you haven't, if you're not familiar, please read through these booklets that we've put out to show what we've heard throughout this process from 2017 through 2021.

What has been done to reach out to folks?

What have we heard?

How have we responded to that?

You know, a lot of I won't go through all these things on the slide.

The first section sort of talks about what we've heard around housing affordability and allowing potential for increased intensity of uses, both for housing and otherwise.

Varying opinions on that.

But one thing we have heard is that there is support for improved housing affordability in the city, even if there's varying opinions on how to how to get there.

We also know that housing is not the only concern on your minds, on the community's minds when it comes to the future.

You know, climate change, we've heard a lot about, environmental protection, improved multimodal transportation, economic development and job opportunities, community wealth building, food equity, community engagement, you know, I could go on and on.

And these are all topics that are covered in the comprehensive plan.

So again, please, if you haven't, just read through these documents that really show what's been done to date.

Next slide, please.

We've mentioned the housing need.

A lot of us are familiar with the fact there is a need for more housing and more affordable housing in the city, but I want to show a few bites of information here.

Regional studies have found that the city and county, Albemarle County, are expecting to see something like 15,000 additional households in the next 20 or so years.

Because the Charlottesville housing supply is constrained, much of this growth is expected to occur in the county.

And within the city itself, though there is capacity for growth in terms of some of the zoning, there is little capacity for growth and change within residential neighborhoods, many of which only allow single family homes to be built.

That means unless you can afford a single family house, you're not able to afford to live in certain neighborhoods in the city.

I know I'm telling many of you things you know, just making sure we're all on the same page here.

We know that many people in Charlottesville currently pay something like more than 50% of their income on housing or some somewhere around there.

And if you recall that benchmark for 30% being affordable, 50% is certainly not affordable for anyone.

So we know that housing is a regional need.

It's a regional issue to solve, and there are regional solutions that are needed, not only working with the county but also with UVA, with TJPDC, with all these other regional players.

But the city, including all of you, you've really recognized the need to look inward to see what Charlottesville can do to reduce displacement in the city, to support aging in place,

to support climate change mitigation goals, to reduce vehicle miles traveled, and to achieve all these other goals that we've been discussing.

Here the next slide, please.

So the affordable housing plan, I've already mentioned, it really sets the stage for many of our housing focused strategies in the comprehensive plan.

This document is robust and includes lots of recommendations, but overall it defines a vision for a local housing market that's healthy, high quality, affordable, and equitable.

There were three guiding principles in this affordable housing plan.

Racial equity was identified as a priority, recognizing that historic local and national housing policies have led to segregation of many neighborhoods that persist today, and there are also displacement issues driven by development pressures in certain communities.

The second guiding principle is regional collaboration.

We've already talked about that a bit, and we've heard community input that supports this, recognizing the housing's a regional issue.

The final guiding principle in the affordable housing plan is taking a comprehensive approach recognizing that there's no silver bullet to address housing needs, but it needs a strategy that combines everything from land use subsidy tenants rights governance and all those different strategies that are included in this plan.

I do also want to call our attention to the fact that there were a lot of recommendations.

There were three major initiatives listed here.

One is dedicating $10 million annually to affordable housing.

Second is to build inclusive governments at all levels.

And then a third, to adopt progressive and inclusionary zoning reforms.

And then we're not talking about zoning specifically tonight, or we're not talking about zoning.

We're talking about land use, which is providing a vision that we'll be looking to implement through the zoning.

Next slide, please.

So all that is some intro to talking about the comprehensive plan itself.

And the comprehensive plan might be most easily thought of as sort of an umbrella plan.

It provides an overall vision for the city.

It's supported by and supports several functional plans, things like the affordable housing plan, things like bicycle pedestrian master plan, the forthcoming climate action plan.

It's also the comprehensive plans also supported by several small area plans, which identify sort of a future vision for land use in greater detail for these defined spatial areas in the city.

One example is the Cherry Avenue small area plan, but there are several that have been incorporated into the comprehensive plan.

And then the zoning ordinance, as we've mentioned, is also a piece of this future of the land use in the city, and that'll be that next step in this process we've shown here.

On the next slide.

Coming into this process, we as a Seville Plans Together consultant team were tasked with picking up on the previous updates that have been started and working with you all and the community and staff to continue and finalize revisions.

So some key pieces of this are listed here.

They include incorporating equity considerations throughout the plan, not only for housing, but also other community access to facilities and access to food and whatnot.

Another key update was updating the land use chapter and the housing chapter and the housing chapter was informed largely by the affordable housing plan, but that's not all that's in there.

And then the land use chapter we combined two chapters from the previous plan to make sure that the ties between land use were clear to urban design and historic preservation, so those two chapters were combined.

and then of course the new community engagement chapter and the new implementation chapter that we've added as well.

And we've worked with staff to identify changes throughout the plan.

In terms of the sort of structure of the plan, if you go to the next slide,

We mentioned guiding principles for the affordable housing plan and the comprehensive plan has its own guiding principles.

There are five of them.

You can see them here.

And the purpose for these is to identify sort of overarching priority areas driven by community input that we've received throughout this process that really tie together the goals throughout the chapters of the plan.

So each of these has additional description in the plan itself.

And we've been discussing these with the community since November 2020 when we sort of had a draft version and language has been adjusted.

But these five guiding principles have generally received support and they've been studied since that time.

The next slide, please.

So the guiding principles apply throughout the plan.

They tie to goals throughout every chapter to make it clear how everything in the plan ties together, because there are these separate chapters that seem sort of separate from each other, and we believe these guiding principles help to tie it together.

So they apply to goals throughout the plan, and the goals are contained in seven topic-specific chapters, and those are shown here in the bullets.

Within each of the chapters, as you've hopefully seen, there's a vision statement for the future as well as goals related to that vision statement and then strategies for working toward each goal.

So there's sort of a nesting format within each of the chapters.

And we know there's been rightfully a lot of focus on housing and on land use, which are important topics for the future, to put it mildly, but we wanted to go quickly through each chapter to make sure that everyone's aware of what's contained in the plan.

So these are something we have added since the original document was shared.

If you go to the next slide.

Thank you.

In the Land Use Urban Forum and Historic and Cultural Preservation chapter, this tackles topics related to zoning, and it includes an outline for what we'll be considering in the zoning rewrite, which is again that next step.

This chapter also talks about processes and potential future small area plans, and has several goals related to historic and cultural preservation.

And there's also, I would add, a robust preservation appendix that has been updated from the 2013 version.

The other thing contained in this chapter is sort of ways to support a livable community through urban design, which is something we've also heard a lot about.

Next slide, please.

The housing chapter, as I mentioned, incorporates all of the

Well, the recommendations for many of the affordable housing plan goals are specifically related to funding, governance, tenants rights, subsidy, and regional collaboration.

Those are all in this chapter.

And it really looks to support diversity of housing options throughout the city.

and identify strategies to, in addition to the things in the affordable housing plan and identify strategies to house the unhoused in the city, as well as to address energy efficiency for housing, which is also an affordability concern and an environmental issue.

Next slide, please.

The transportation chapter supports improving transportation options, including and especially for walking, biking, and public transportation.

It also identifies various mechanisms to seek funding for transportation projects, and it talks about prioritizing different types of projects.

And like the historic and cultural preservation piece, this chapter is also supported by a robust appendix which describes the city's transportation master plan, which is really a collection of several planning efforts.

Next slide, please.

The environment, climate and food equity chapter seeks to address ways that the humans and the natural environments in the city interact.

So this includes considerations related to climate change, both in terms of mitigation and adjusting to future conditions.

It supports the ongoing Climate Action Plan process, which we know is of great importance to the city.

It includes recommendations or strategies around water quality and other factors that affect the natural environment in the city.

In the next chapter, on the next slide, economic prosperity and opportunity.

In this chapter, there are considerations for both community wealth building for individuals and families, as well as overall economic health of the city and partnerships and diversifying the economic framework of the city.

In the next chapter, the community facilities and services chapter is quite broad on the next slide, and it covers topics ranging from schools to utilities and stormwater to parks and recreation.

It also covers community safety, including fire, EMS, and the police department.

And then the final chapter is new again, and it's focused on community engagement and collaboration, includes strategies related to public education, building more inclusive and effective engagement processes and building more transparency and communication into all efforts in the city.

So that's a lot.

And as I mentioned, there are a lot of topics covered in this plan, really important topics.

And accordingly, there are a lot of goals and strategies in the plan.

And they're all important.

And they've been identified by staff and the community as areas of interest.

But in the interest of making sure that limited resources are focused in the short term, we have proposed six priority areas for implementation.

Those are listed here.

There's also 30 priority strategies that are tied to these priority areas.

And again, they don't negate other strategies, but they are just meant to serve to elevate those priorities that we've heard repeatedly from people in the community.

Things like housing options and affordable housing, access to vital resources that people need, climate change, multimodal transportation, protection for the natural environment, and communications and collaboration in the city.

Some of those major topics we've heard about.

So that is the overall plan framework.

Thank you, Jenny, and good evening, everyone.

Land use is an important component of the comprehensive plan.

It's one of many important elements that will be included in the plan.

And over the past seven to eight months, we've been working hard to develop the future land use map.

But before we put pen to paper back in the beginning of the future land use planning process, we came up and developed nine key planning objectives.

and these planning objectives were developed based upon what we heard from the community.

We had a fairly robust community engagement process throughout this planning update study.

So we were able to use that information of what we heard to develop these guiding objectives that really serve as a point of evaluation and a means to guide the recommendations of a future language map.

and you can see the non-objectives in front of you.

They're not organized in a particular order, but they do recognize all the different opportunities that we have at our disposal to develop the future land use map.

And they range from A, being able to integrate the previous studies that have been completed throughout the city.

The comprehensive plan is one of many

studies that are underway or have been completed in recent years, including small area plans, studies such as the Streets That Work program and others that we use as a foundation of our work.

As Jeannie had mentioned, housing is very important.

That's an issue that we've heard quite a bit through the planning process.

So we've identified ways on the map that we can begin to provide for equitable housing opportunities throughout the city, recognizing that

Future Lane's map is only one tool of many.

Jeannie had touched on a couple other tools that need to be combined with the map to really make that equitable opportunities come to fruition.

But we do see and we have integrated opportunities in the Future Lane's map to support equitable development.

Another form of equity is providing access to community amenities such as shopping, employment centers, and transit.

Charlottesville is the hub of Albemarle County, and it is a regional hub even beyond that.

So providing opportunities for people, the citizens of Charlottesville, to live close to those amenities, something that is very important.

Also, taking advantage of vacant and underutilized properties.

We know that there are commercial properties, particularly, for example, along the U.S.

29 corridor that can support higher and more intensive development, that can support economic development goals, as well as housing needs as well.

Also, not only thinking about Charlottesville in a bubble, but how it fits into the region and relating the city's future land use opportunities with those of the county and incorporating that urban ring, the area of growth right around the city into how we think about future land use within the city.

Also, thinking about access to transit, making this a very livable city, one where you don't have to rely on the car.

So providing

access to transit, providing more amenities for walking and biking, all while preserving natural and cultural resources.

Charlottesville is a very historic community, and we've heard a lot from the community regarding preservation of historic resources, and its natural resources.

The Rivanna River is a major natural resource.

There's several streams and tributaries that meander off of

the Rivanna River corridor into the city.

So natural resources are very important.

And then last but not least, economic sustainability.

How do we support economic development as part of this future lane use planning process?

Next slide, please.

So as I had mentioned, we've been working closely with the community, the Planning Commission, to refine the future land use map.

As you all know, we went through several iterations of the map, and this is where we are today.

We know that there is a zoning process that's coming up after the comprehensive planning process, and we recognize that through the zoning process, there may be further revisions to the map.

So we see this as not the final map, but there may be updates that happen in the future to the map.

This is a living document, so we don't expect for these elements to remain static.

As you can see, there are several core land use categories that we integrate into the future land use map.

In fact, there are 10 and they range to the left in intensity from the least intensity being the general residential category

all the way up to the downtown core, which is the center node of the city.

You can see from the map that these land uses are fairly distributed throughout the city.

We first started the future land use planning process through the development of a land use framework where we identified how do we see the city growing in the future.

And we built the process of identifying nodes and corridors that will serve as a framework for the future land map.

Nodes being central, more densely developed places in the city.

Think about downtown, areas around the strategic investment area.

We've identified areas along the U.S.

29 corridor, for example, that support more intensive development.

In between these places, these nodes, we have corridors.

Think of places like High Street, Preston Avenue, Cherry Avenue, Fifth Street, and so on and so forth, that really becomes extensions between these nodes and how we've thought of these places were opportunities that could support higher intensity, particularly higher intensity residential development.

because along many of these corridors are transit routes.

There's community amenities.

These are main conduits that connect employment centers, not only in the city, but to the region.

So that was an important element of the framework that we carry forth through all the iterations of the future landings map.

For those land use categories, we have a series of residential land use categories, general residential being the least intensive residential category up to higher intensity residential, which would be if you think of more larger scale apartment building.

And then we also have a series of mixed use categories that range from neighborhood mixed use corridors and those which are more smaller scale mixed use developments that allow for commercial development on the ground floor and residential development on upper floors.

And we did hear from the community that they would like to see commercial

neighborhood scale commercial being offered in the general and medium intensity and high intensity residential categories as well.

So we did integrate that into those categories.

So we have opportunities for places to develop throughout the city, even in residential neighborhoods that can support community serving retail and community services.

Next slide, please.

We've heard a lot about equity and Jenny talked about the need for affordable housing within the city.

Housing costs are rising.

It's not only unique to the city of Charlottesville, but it's a phenomenon that's happening throughout the country.

So we have thought this future land use map as a means to perhaps to accommodate more affordability throughout the city.

For every land use category, we have included an affordability measure, and we're going to talk a little bit in more detail on the next couple of slides, particularly for the general residential and medium intensity residential categories.

But even beyond that, the higher intensity and mixed use areas, we are including a inclusionary housing mechanism, which we will talk about the next slide to promote affordability within those mixed use districts.

And then also, of course, in the general and medium intensity residential areas as well.

and we'll talk a little bit more about that on the next slides as well.

So this was very important.

We heard that, you know, we wanted to or need to include affordability across the board.

We've done that for all categories of the future land use map.

Thanks, Ron.

So I just want to dive into a few topics I've had recent discussions around to hopefully provide further clarity.

And again, these are some slides that have been added since the original presentation was posted.

So if you haven't gone back and redownloaded it, you might want to do that.

There's a forthcoming inclusionary zoning study.

It's part of the zoning rewrite that will look at a variety of ways to require inclusion of affordable homes in market rate developments.

You can see this graphic here we've got from the affordable housing plan shows the various types of considerations that needs to be taken into account with this types of policy and administrations considerations, looking at things like depth and length of affordability, incentives needed, program management and all these different factors are listed.

And the goal will be to be providing for as deep affordability as can be supported.

We do note that inclusionary zoning is most effective when there's maybe about 10 or more units involved in a development, housing units.

And we've also, in that case, provided a bonus program for smaller scale development.

But it's important to note that a bonus program, you know, in many cases, in most cases, might require subsidy to provide affordable units.

And so that subsidy commitment in the affordable housing plan is really important to make some of these changes happen.

Next slide, please.

As Ron alluded to, we also want to provide some notes about the general residential categories.

There's two categories of general residential shown on the future land use map within sensitive community areas, which is the yellow without the dashed outline.

The draft plan proposal allows for up to three unit dwellings if the first new unit meets affordability requirements to be established during the zoning update.

It also allows a fourth unit on top of that if the existing structure is maintained that's the current proposal or the current draft plan.

outside of sensitive community areas, which I might have misspoke.

The first category was within those sensitive community areas with the outline, but outside of those in the yellow areas, the plan we're talking about now allows up to three unit dwellings.

with up to four unit dwellings allowed if the existing structure is maintained.

And this is where we'll be talking about a potential bonus program as we get into the zoning rewrite to look at allowing for additional units and potentially some additional height under that bonus program.

And we know that this is a big change.

This is a significant change in the city.

And along with the changes we've discussed to medium intensity residential, we know, you know, there are a lot of thoughts around this.

But we also know that the status quo in the city is not working for many.

who cannot afford to purchase these types of homes that are being built.

And so what we're trying to do here is to provide a future land use vision that's more supportive of a variety of types of housing, affordability levels, and whatnot for a variety of people.

And so, you know, this vision is really aiming to provide these opportunities, this potential,

for housing as well as for commercial at a variety of scales, commercial uses, including at a neighborhood scale, which we've heard a lot about throughout this process.

Next slide, please.

One question we want to hit on, we've heard both in discussions with you all as well as we've heard from some community members is a question of, you know, can we apply this idea of the first new unit being affordable within the general residential areas outside of sensitive community areas?

in addition to within those sensitive community areas.

And the goal with the sensitive community areas is to protect these areas, these communities, which are based on demographics, are potentially most at risk for displacement based on development pressures in these areas.

And so one thing we would mention is that if this idea of having the first new unit be affordable to a certain level was applied in all general residential areas, we think it might lead to two things.

One would be reducing the amount of housing that's built in areas that are currently dominated by single-family homes outside those sensitive community areas.

And we think that in those areas, allowing a base level of market rate development will provide more incentive to build additional units at a variety of types of units.

The second thing we think may happen if we were to apply that requirement outside of sensitive areas is that it would increase or maintain this pressure that we're trying to mitigate in sensitive community areas.

We are trying to make sure these are not such a focus for development as they have been, while still allowing for and supporting this community wealth building for people who do own properties, especially longtime community members.

So we want to note, we do include in the chapter that the zoning update that process should explore whether it would be feasible to, you know, include this requirement within some of the zones outside of sensitive areas, but we believe that additional analysis is needed first.

Next slide, please.

So the final topic we want to touch on is medium intensity residential.

Again, a topic of heavy interest and one that has dominated many of our discussions with you and with others.

And we know there are folks that feel many different ways about this.

The intent with medium intensity residential is to support a variety of housing types and scales to help build these housing options into all neighborhoods.

And in particular, it's located near community hubs such as parks, schools, employment and job centers, transit corridors, shopping, these places that we know people want and need to go.

And this is building on what's called for in the Affordable Housing Plan, which calls for restructuring multifamily zoning and approval processes, which is a supporting element in the comp plan.

In order to increase the production of new housing in the city,

and the affordable housing plan notes that this these changes should be made in tandem with an inclusionary zoning policy, which, as we've already discussed, is a piece of the next step.

This category allows for a range of housing up to 12 units, and so we want to talk a bit about what that means.

This 12 unit maximum for medium intensity came about because it's sort of the upper limit for what would be considered sort of missing middle housing, which is what we're looking to support here.

And it's a general sort of maximum of what can fit within a form that's compatible with single family homes.

And that includes having similar setbacks and building widths.

These buildings structures may be sort of deeper and maybe taller than some existing single family housing forms.

Go to the next slide, please.

As a final note about medium intensity, these areas will be refined further in the zoning ordinance to make sure that the scale is compatible with site constraints and context.

And there will be likely several zoning classifications within all these residential districts, including general residential and medium intensity residential that will lead to sort of transitions between areas.

It'll make sure, again, it's compatible with what's, you know, or that it reflects what's possible on a site.

And again, in these areas, the inclusionary zoning study will define what's feasible in terms of level of affordability, incentives, process, and whatnot.

Again, really prioritizing, focusing on the deepest affordability as possible.

So a few final notes on the next slide.

We've met with you all a couple of times, a few times since August.

We've refined, or excuse me, we also met with the steering committee in September and want to make sure everyone knew you all met yesterday to discuss, have some discussion on these topics.

And we were there with you.

And so as we've gone through these meetings, not so much yesterday's meeting, but the other meetings, we have listed some areas of refinement.

We've refined how we've talked about sensitive areas or made some clarifications about what their intent is around them.

We've clarified this affordability framework, recognizing we've heard a lot of ideas about overlays for affordability.

We've provided this sort of framework concept.

And we've also made some refinements to implementation, that chapter, refining different priority strategies.

If you go to the next slide, please, we've listed here, and we won't go through all these, but we've listed some of the most recent map refinements that we've made based on conversations we've had, which includes some adjustments to medium intensity, some adjustments of mixed use,

throughout the map.

But what we've been doing here is just refining the map as we've been working with you all, as we've been working with the community since the first version came out in May, building on previous versions that the Planning Commission had developed.

So we just wanted to list out and make it clear what has most recently been completed.

So the final thing we want to note on the next slide, and this is also, this is as a separate document in the materials,

we've we've gone through now the comprehensive plan, the document itself was posted last week and we have made see I think this is six seven edits maybe to document since then, so we listed those here.

Some of them are clarifications.

We added a map that was missing, an environmentally sensitive areas map that was intended to be within the chapters and the appendix.

So we won't go through all these, but we want to make sure it was clear.

There's a list if you would like to look at it.

So that was a whirlwind.

But on the next slide, the final thought is that just reiterating that after we've got the comprehensive plan update adopted, which will be once council makes that decision, we will work to update with you with the zoning ordinance, working with you and the community and council again through that process.

And there'll be several community engagement points, which will work to outline likely early in 2022.

Thank you very much.

I'd like to have a little bit of discussion from the Planning Commission and Council.

I'd like to hear opening statements, discussion, and questions.

And actually, if you happen to have any ideas for possible language for consideration later on, I wish that you would please post that in the chat so that others can read it and think about it as we proceed.

Oh, I'm never bright enough to have, like,

deep statements, but I can do the high level stuff.

So the document that we've got in front of us is not perfect.

It isn't.

It never will be perfect, but it is a document that moves us to the next iteration.

We embrace this document and then we move on to the zoning ordinance, et cetera, et cetera.

And we get more perfect.

So I'm hoping that by the end of the day tonight, we are able to have a vote that supports the document that the consultants have presented with amendments that make this a more perfect document.

Just to talk a little bit about the issues that I've been worried about, the overlay.

I think Ron did a good job of making me more comfortable with the portability overlay.

Ron did a good job of making me pretty comfortable with their articulation of how an overlay ought to work in the various districts.

So I'm pretty cool with that.

So I will not object to not having the overlay there.

General residential piece is still up in the air for me.

I would love to hear from other commissioners.

I understand what other commissioners want as well as to that.

The natural gas piece, I think Mr. Phrase has pulled me back to the edge on that and suggested that they need time to think about it.

Cool with that.

the natural gas component looks like and how that affects our city.

Medium intensity.

Jenny Keller, past commissioner, past chair, wrote an incredibly elegant email to us, Burnett, love that, that suggested that we should think about this a little bit

I'm not going to include that in the map.

It might not ever make it there.

So I'm becoming pretty comfortable with that being included.

But I'd like, if Mr. Chair, you don't mind, to invite Mr. Freeze to walk us through what he walked us through last night.

in support of it, including that in our plan.

So, Mr. Preece?

I would be happy to.

I wish I had a recording of exactly what I said last night, but I don't.

Here's how I've been thinking about the medium intensity is that

The process, the next step in our process is that we're going to move into writing the zoning.

And as Mr. Einzweiler pointed out at the last meeting as well, our process there is that we're going to look at this map and the strategies within the plan.

And we're going to use that to develop a set of zoning districts and rules that incorporate all of these various goals, affordable housing, environmental protection, historic preservation,

on and on, that whole list of things.

So we're going to develop a body of rules and a set of zoning districts that encompass the objectives of the plan.

And then we're going to attempt to apply those into the creation of a zoning map, looking at the conditions on the ground, understanding the lots that are present,

And as we're doing that, as we're taking that body of rules that we've created and applying it in a specific location, we're going to say, hey, does this work?

Does applying this body of rules in this location still accomplish our goals given the lot sizes here, given the environmental constraints in this location, given transportation and other infrastructure issues?

And then if it doesn't, we may step back and say, you know what, this is a general residential location rather than a medium-intensity location.

Or we might say, this is still a medium intensity, but in this location, this is one of those districts that allows up to six units, not up to 12, right?

Because as we've said a number of times, each of these land use designations could very well have within it a set of districts representing different intensities of development, right?

but having the medium intensity on the map right now allows us to have an educated way to, I'm sorry, not an educated way, it allows us to have a document to work forward with which areas of the city are we supposed to be doing this analysis for in terms of considering these medium intensity districts.

If they don't show up on the map, then how are we guiding that work as we move forward, right?

If we didn't put it on the map, then instead we would have to say, well, here's a set of principles and guidance and guidelines you should use to consider and test and analyze for the application of these medium intensity zoning districts.

That set of guidance and what have you that would go into that is what is illustrated in that plan.

So we'd be taking a picture that's illustrating for us where to consider the medium intensity use as we're working on the zoning and we're removing that picture and replacing it with a set of words.

Or we're not doing medium intensity at all.

You know, we need as staff, we need something that's adopted by the city that represents by the city leadership that represents a policy that tells us here's where you should consider application of these zoning districts

that represent a medium intensity.

So I know that's not what I said exactly yesterday, but that's how I've been thinking about this as we go forward.

It's how we get direction from our elected and appointed leadership that allows us to move forward into the next phase of this work.

Mr. Mitchell, did that help you?

I think Mr. Mitchell just lost connection.

You've banished him.

Mr Dell please statements and questions.

Yes, sorry about that.

So thank you for the update for tonight.

I know I was absent from the meeting yesterday.

I was observing our Indigenous Peoples Day, but I did have a chance to watch the meeting today, which was very insightful.

And so a couple of things that I wanted to take away, not only from the meeting that happened yesterday, but also from the presentation today is that

I know we already touched base on saying that in the zoning we will make sure that every district has the wording to support affordable housing, but I still think it is important that it's almost okay to be redundant at this point to have it not only here, there, everywhere.

So it's no question or no shadow of a doubt that we are including this affordable housing protection.

in every sensitive area and even some of it in the general area.

areas as well.

I also looked at our future land use map and was just curious as to, and I think one of our citizens had also mentioned it as well as to the delineation of the sensitive areas.

Particularly looking on Ridge Street, I was just wondering why the cutoff was where it was at, especially being a lifelong resident of Charlottesville.

I am very familiar with, as you come down

Registry, well past Langford Avenue, that there are people that have been in their homes since I probably have been on this earth.

You have the Birds, the Carvers, the Jacksons.

I mean, I can go on and on and on, and they are single-family homes, and I would hate for those families to not be included in that sensitive area.

So I looked at that area, and also in the 10th and Page

area to kind of closer back to the school.

And I was trying to check during the presentation to see if it had been extended a little bit.

Can I respond to that right now, Mr. Solla-Yates?

Okay, great.

Thanks, Tania.

So I'll respond to the delineation of sensitive areas.

And it was, you know, this presentation was

getting to a lot of different things.

So we didn't dive back into those details.

But to clarify, last time you all saw sensitive community areas, they were just outlined the census block groups that had come out as high percentage of communities that are non-white, non-Hispanic, as well as high percentage of communities that are, I believe the income threshold is $30,000 a year.

Annually.

So looking to identify block groups that have high proportions of each of those communities or both of those communities.

And so we originally showed the outline of each block group and noted that in the zoning update we would be potentially refining these further and also noting that they only applied to the general residential land uses within those areas.

So what we heard last time we met with you and from some community members as well was that it would be best if we're only applying to general residential to show it just around general residential.

And so we reduced within each of those community black groups, census black groups, we reduced the outline to just be around general residential within those areas.

But as we've said previously in the zoning rewrite, the zoning process we move forward, we will be looking to see are there places that don't make sense to include within those census block groups.

They are large.

The block groups are fairly large.

or there's other places that it makes sense to include neighboring areas.

You mentioned 10th and Page and Ridge Street, for example, those would be areas we would be looking to see.

And I know we've heard comments, I believe, from Bill as well about 10th and Page, Bill Palmer.

So I'm glad you mentioned that to give me an opportunity to clarify.

Thank you.

I was just wondering, I guess I'm wondering why we have to wait for a conversation with the community when I see it as something that we can fix and work on now.

So we've our goal and using this census data to do the first cut at this was that we want to pull out those communities that we've heard a lot of concern about in terms of demographics to provide this first cut at these areas.

And so we, we, again, that was our that's why we took the sort of data driven approach to this first piece building on what was proposed by the hack and by click which focus on sort of neighborhoods in general so.

I think we...

wanted to leave flexibility as we get to zoning, or we've heard a desire to see more flexibility to, as we're talking about what each of these zones means and we're working at what it means in implementation and the zoning, then that's sort of a different conversation potentially to have with folks at that point and a more clear vision of how these might be applied, as opposed to looking at those revisions now.

Okay, and so just to give you a little bit of context for my concern is if you look on Hartman's Moreau they're doing, they've subdivided a lot at the bottom of the street.

They recently put in a new subdivision that is definitely not comparable to anything around it in the neighborhood.

And so by not extending that sensitive zoning, I'm afraid that what our traditional neighborhood looks like is gonna turn into the subdivision

and the new, excuse me, the new subdivision that's down the street, which is definitely not compatible with the salaries of the neighborhood and also the families that have been long in this neighborhood for 30 years plus.

Like I can go down the street and tell you who lives X, Y, and Z. So it is definitely important to me that we preserve all of this neighborhood.

It's a lot of single family homes.

They have front yard, backyard, on and off street parking.

And we are close to downtown.

We are not downtown, but we are one of the closer neighborhoods to downtown.

So I do not want that to go unnoticed.

Thank you.

Sure.

I guess, are we discussing everybody's questions at the end together, or how are we?

Okay.

I guess.

Opening statement for me, I think this is a great deal of work and I appreciate all the effort that was put into this.

I believe there's enough language in the comp plan to basically cover everything in zoning.

So I'm comfortable with that.

A question I wanted to bring up, and I don't know if it's a good or a bad thing, but do we want to add that, consider that affordability bonus at the sensitive areas, which it is not included, I think, right now, Rory, I think, brought that up last meeting.

Would it be bad for concentrating affordable housing, or maybe it has a high affordable housing threshold in those neighborhoods if someone wants to develop?

Most likely nonprofits, maybe it opens the door for them.

but just wanted to talk about between us.

I think for the general residential affordability, hearing what our consultants had to say, I think the language that's there that poses the question to explore adding that affordability in through the rezoning stage, I'm comfortable with that.

I would be hesitant to add something now that we don't know how there are precautions of or how it will play out feasibility wise, but I would like to talk about that a little more.

That's it for me.

Well, I guess the other main topic is the medium intensity.

I'll also say that I would be afraid of taking it all out now, as it will probably not make it back later on if we do.

I think what Mr. Freese said makes sense.

It is a guide for them to use.

I would suggest keeping it and possibly I think something that came up in yesterday's meeting too was revising the future land use map based on the zoning amendments that we make throughout the zoning map throughout the zoning rewrite process.

That could be a way to blink it back and update it.

Thank you.

Ms.

Yes, thanks.

Well, I think the one I marked down to want to respond to, and I'll invite the team to respond as well.

You noted the idea to potentially allow the affordability bonus that we will be looking at the zoning rewrite for general residential outside sensitive community areas.

Philip Cash, I think what Jenny said is accurate, and I think the tension that was noted is the tension here.

You allow the bonus, that's great because you can get more affordable units,

There is a real, you know, mostly because of the restrictions we're putting in place, most of the new development you're going to see there in terms of soft density or smaller development is going to be affordable.

And so there is a potential for some concentration.

And so that's something you've got to balance here.

But these are small parcels.

There's not a huge amount of subsidy going on.

So you're not likely to see

a lot of concentration.

It would be pretty hard if you have to get control of several small parcels in one area, you'd have enough subsidy for all the deals.

So you're going to see more of it, but you're not going to see, you shouldn't see a street bought up an entire street becoming entirely affordable housing at a higher level of density.

Is that a helpful answer?

Mr. Bell?

Yes, thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

So, Ms.

Dow and I are now approaching six years with working on the comp plan.

I have worked with my colleagues through a lot of questions, a lot of issues, a lot of potential options for solutions, and I am now coming into this homestretch with one main concern.

I want more housing in Charlottesville that's affordable.

I also want to protect the physical features of Charlottesville that we all want which make us all want to live here.

And so striking a balance between those two is my primary concern.

I have introduced an amendment that we'll talk about later, so there's no point in talking about it now.

But I do want to say that I have been one who has pushed back against the number of units and the size of what's allowed, would be allowed within the medium density areas.

But I am now comfortable with knowing Mr. Freeze said it better than I could that these are guidelines only.

These are the upper limits and that I trust and expect that we're going to be doing during the zoning ordinance rewrite a fine grained examination of every neighborhood

and aligning the allowable units and sizes with the physical characteristics of that particular neighborhood.

So...

That's all I wish to say right now in terms of questions for the consultants.

Since last Thursday, we've met over three hours with them and have had plenty of opportunity to ask questions.

I have no more questions for them at this point.

I've got to say, just so I can jump in, because I've known Jody for like four years now.

That's why I always look at Jody for his wisdom.

Jody, thank you.

These sort of concerns about balancing affordability.

and historic preservation.

Well, I guess I would ask NDS to perhaps speak about the procedural aspect of that.

Sure.

Just in general, since we have a lot of new people since our pre-meeting earlier, the commission has dealt with complicated issues like this on numerous occasions.

one of the yearly opportunities is review of the CIP program, the capital improvement program.

And so the commission in years past with that has chosen to express issues that they would like to talk more in depth on or if they're

They have concerns and want additions or deletions to that document.

They've identified what those issues are.

and then we then have dialogue concerning those and then determine whether they have a consensus to add or delete or refine the proposal that's been brought before them.

And so we anticipate that the conversation and the discussion this evening

to be somewhat similar to that process, whereas the commissioners will outline areas that they would like additional consideration, whether that be additions or deletions or refinements of language, they will deliberate on those.

We anticipate that there would be a motion and the potential motion could have amendments to the document that is before them this evening.

In the example that Mr. Alejandro has some language additions that he wants considered this evening, there'll be the opportunity for the commission to review that, refine that, and if there is consensus, then that may end up being part of a recommendation.

Thank you very much.

Ms.

Thank you.

First of all, I just want to say that I'm really proud to have my name on this document.

I am honored to have worked alongside the consultants, my colleagues on Planning Commission and staff to develop it.

can't say I've been involved in the process as long as others, though.

The process's focus on affordability and equity has meant that we as a city have looked critically at the way land use decisions have been made, the impact those had on traditionally marginalized, but nonetheless institutional members of our community, and the impacts those decisions continue to have today.

We know that Charlottesville is a great place for those that can afford to live here, but many of our neighbors are severely cost burdened in trying to stay in this community or trying to find a new home here.

I think we're making great strides in moving away from R1, which I hope will increase the supply and affordability of housing and the variety of types of housing in our neighborhoods.

Eliminating R1 zoning is a sweeping change and we're one of, you know, the first communities to be doing that.

There may be some additional tweaks to the land use category descriptions as we've

others have alluded to really trying to balance, not restricting supply and not constraining the natural, the market forces to add infill development, but ensuring affordability is a requirement in these developments.

And I think everyone on this panel shares that desire.

Moving forward, there's a lot of work to do.

It's my hope, and I'm starting to become better assured that as we move into the zoning ordinance rewrite, it will be sensitive to the actual conditions on the ground, the context, environmental features, infrastructure, and existing structures.

There is value in the existing housing form in our neighborhoods, both in the integrity of the built form and materiality, but also from a sustainability and economic standpoint.

We know that deeply affordable housing requires subsidies, and we all want affordability.

So let's dedicate resources and dollars towards what we want.

I want to see intentional

public investments towards affordability while still allowing for natural infill to occur within well-crafted guidelines.

I look forward to that process and continuing to work with you all and on behalf of our community for that.

Thank you.

Thanks.

I think that was very well said by Commissioner Russell.

I think the plan is drafted, provides a big step forward towards a more equitable community that welcomes every member of its community and stop the cycle of displacement and pushing people out of our city because of the limited room we have available and limited homes we have available.

I don't have many points for the staffing consultants at the moment.

I'd like to highlight Commissioner Dowell's point about sensitive areas.

I think what she said really highlights the deficiencies in the block group approach, which I think is a good start.

But that block group in particular

has a number of newer developments, the Brookwood PUD, the Burnett Commons PUD, Willoughby, which is a little older, but is very much separate from the rest of the neighborhood, that kind of skews statistics in that block group in a way that makes it so that what local knowledge knows about parts of that block group, I think, is more valuable than necessarily the aggregated statistics.

So I don't necessarily know that it needs to be changed tonight or that we need to redraw the map tonight.

I wouldn't, you know, be super sad if you did a little bit of talking with Commissioner Dowell and got some new batteries to propose that Council amend.

But I think it would also be appropriate to fix it, you know, next year in the zoning rewrite process.

The big question I have in my mind tonight is really for Mr. Freeze on the natural gas issue.

So I appreciate what you said in your email.

I am willing to give you guys a chance to, you know, make a plan and, you know, approach it on your own.

I am concerned that, you know, even yesterday, you know,

The idea of really phasing out new natural gas hookups and eventually the system as a whole was already starting to be hedged against.

And any new natural gas hookups we have in the coming years are very likely to last until the very end of this decade, many, many decades after we have vowed to reach net neutral.

And natural gas is not a thing that can be zero emission.

and so, you know, I trust you guys to approach that process, but as Commissioner Mitchell said, we'll be watching closely.

That's a very specific question that I'm not sure I know the specific answer to.

Is there somebody here available who can answer that?

He is.

I was looking for

Ms.

Sure.

And Rory, thank you very much for that question.

Okay, Ms.

Yeah, that would be who I would pull up.

He's got her hand up too.

Mr. Rice, did you catch that as well to elevate Ms.

I did.

Thank you so much.

Welcome to you both.

It looks like Lauren declined.

Let's see if we can get her back.

I suspect she declined because Ms.

I see Ms.

Hi, good evening.

Sorry for the clunkiness.

The Climate Action Plan is, as Ms.

Koch mentioned, forthcoming.

It's a process that was launched in the fall of last year.

I think many people in the audience and many people in the public are aware that there's been sort of some competing priorities that the city's worked on.

And so we have, in some ways, given some deference to the comp plan process.

There's been a lot

of sort of groundwork and climate protection related supporting work that's been going on for the past year.

It is there is still fully a commitment to develop a climate action plan, since that's consistent with Council's commitment with the compact of mayors.

It is not my understanding that that is a plan that is specifically

to come before the planning commission for adoption rather that would come to city council and have the related public hearing process.

So a question for Ms.

Creasy, why, because this is so strategic and we are a strategic body, why wouldn't we have a chance to provide input, Ms.

Well, you guys will have the opportunity to provide feedback as any other groups will within the community, but that wouldn't be a plan that would come specifically to the Planning Commission for a recommendation necessarily.

it would be something that would go straight to council.

So it goes straight to council.

What other public body provides council input and advice before it goes to council?

I think I don't want to contradict anyone here because, again, I'm the new guy in town, but I think this would be a topic that I'd love to open a conversation with Ms.

Rittervold.

and others to talk about this potentially being adopted as an amendment to the comprehensive plan or appendices, which we've done on a number of other occasions for other plans, and therefore bringing it to the Planning Commission for a recommendation to City Council.

I mean, Mr. Stolzenberg and I would probably be happy to have it come before this body before it goes to council.

I apologize if I stepped on any toes too terribly.

I think it's wise to have it be an amendment to the conference plan just because of the importance of it and how central addressing climate change is

within the comprehensive plan, within the city's goals.

I would like to put a pin in this discussion and return to the comprehensive plan.

Ms.

Rittervold, thank you so much.

Can we keep Ms.

Rittervold on for a second?

I guess the second follow-up question is, is the natural gas question going to be addressed in the climate action plan?

So I believe that as James presented yesterday, there is now a direction and a commitment that the city look at this.

And if we have the opportunity to embark on a number of those complex discussions, there, from my vantage point, is really not a way that you can do a community-wide action plan without consideration of

all fuel sources.

And so that's a long-winded way of saying yes, but it's not going to prescribe perhaps the exact end point that we could arrive at in 2021 because we're talking about climate commitments that are within a decade and then out to 2050.

And there's a lot of

Sure, absolutely.

That sounds good to me.

That makes sense.

Yeah, and I want to clarify, I don't mean we're shutting off all the natural gas figots by the end of the year.

It really is about determining exactly what that phasing is to getting to the end goals that we need to in the time that we need to.

So that's all I have coming to question-wise.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

Rittable.

Thank you.

Sure, thanks for calling on me.

Yeah, I'll try to get this all out quickly.

I would say, yeah, generally agreeing with the goals of the comprehensive plan and the acknowledgement of UVA's influence on many aspects of Charlottesville, both positive and negative,

I think continuing, obviously, the collaboration and cooperation between the city and the university is very important and the county as well.

It's really been interesting to hear and ponder all the comments that have come about through this process, especially those that pertain to UVA.

That said, UVA obviously is not taking an official position on the future land use map or anything like that.

You know, in terms of the land use map, I think it does show growth patterns, the future land use map, that is.

I think it kind of, you know, when you look at it closely, it shows growth patterns around UVA that are largely already there and are occurring, especially in like mixed use zones and university HD and medium density zones.

So I share a lot of the commissioner's desire for sensitivity, you know, to like the environmental impacts, like stormwater increases and tree canopy loss, as well as impacts to historic heritage of neighborhoods and traffic in those areas, you know, especially I'm focusing around UVA, that according to a land use map would see some increased potential for development

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Tania, hearing about your comments on the sensitive areas, I was kind of picking up on that as I looked at the map earlier today, especially around the Venable Elementary School area, and that might be one of those block group kind of disconnects that needs to be looked closer at, especially if, you know, one of the goals is to kind of

have a buffer between what you consider general residential first student housing.

That might be an area that would be really stressed if it didn't have as much kind of protection as you could give it.

Just beyond that, I think those were pretty much all the comments I had.

So thanks.

I'd briefly just like to congratulate

Michael Koch, Lyle Solla-Yates, Michael Koch, Lyle Solla-Yates, Michael Koch, Lyle Solla-Yates, Michael Koch, Lyle Solla-Yates, Michael Koch, Lyle Solla-Yates, Michael Koch, Lyle Solla-Yates, Michael Koch, Lyle Solla-Yates, Michael Koch, Lyle Solla-Yates, Michael Koch, Lyle Solla-Yates, Michael Koch, Lyle Solla-Yates, Michael Koch, Lyle Solla-Yates, Michael Koch, Lyle Solla-Yates, Michael Koch, Lyle Solla-Yates, Michael Koch, Lyle Solla-Yates, Michael Koch, Lyle Solla-Yates, Michael Koch, Lyle Solla-Yates, Michael Koch, Lyle Solla-Yates, Michael Koch, Lyle Solla-Yates, Michael Koch, Lyle Solla-Yates, Michael Koch, Lyle Solla-Yates, Michael Koch, L

It's a remarkable effort.

My big questions to the consultants going back to the beginning was adequacy.

Can we deliver on all of our goals?

Can we make measurable improvements and can we achieve them in a reasonable amount of time?

My sense is that we can make progress for sure.

We are not getting to perfect on basically anything in a reasonable amount of time.

but there's a lot of good in here and I'm very pleased to see that good and I think it will be a benefit to the city.

I'd like to turn to City Council if I may.

I think that during our time yesterday I certainly shared many of my comments that certainly still stand and I recognize how many people are going to be speaking tonight so I don't want to

Thank you.

Sure.

I don't really have any new questions that haven't been raised by other commissioners or myself either yesterday at earlier meetings, but I guess just to reiterate them, again, others have covered this, you know, big questions around

Michael Koch, Lyle Solla-Yates, Michael Koch, Lyle Solla-Yates, Michael Koch, Lyle Solla-Yates, Michael Koch, Lyle Solla-Yates, Michael Koch, Lyle Solla-Yates, Michael Koch, Lyle Solla-Yates, Michael Koch, Lyle

Everywhere there's medium and high intensity.

If that was the highest bill that was allowed by Wright, we might not be achieving our affordability goals in every area.

And to be clear, it's very clear and I'm very sure to know that that is not what's going to happen.

And I think that's important for the community to hear as well.

That's not what this document means.

But I'm very curious to see

as the zoning rewrite process develops, what specifically it will actually look like in terms of bonuses and affordability requirements with number of units, AMI levels, and how that is done throughout the city.

you know and I would just be curious what if any assurances you know can be given that affordability is really going to be promoted and delivered on that process just because it's naturally a big question mark.

I think the suggestion of revisiting after the zoning rewrite the land use map is potentially an assurance that this is actually playing out to promote affordability as much as possible.

Probably the biggest immediate questions I have are still just around the general residential.

You know, I know we've heard the idea of extending, you know, allowing four units citywide if there's a requirement of affordable unit.

Quite frankly, I just thought we've heard both that both that, you know, could produce more affordable units and income segregation by getting affordable housing and general residential throughout the city.

We've heard the flip side that no affordable housing would actually get built if we did that in general residential and that it would push more displacement and gentrification into what we've defined as sensitive areas.

Quite frankly, I just don't know enough to know what the actual impact would be, but I would be very interested to, you know, discuss and think about that more.

And at a minimum, I think Commissioner Dow's point is very true that

There are some some neighborhoods and areas at immediate risk of gentrification displacement that aren't in what has been defined as sensitive areas.

So I'm just curious.

if during the zoning rewrite process, somewhat similarly to the medium and high intensity residential, there will be opportunities to look in more specificity in terms of neighborhoods, streets, parcels of at a minimum, where are there areas that extending that affordability requirement could make sense and promote our affordable housing goal.

And the final comment,

Like I said yesterday, we know that zoning is one tool.

It's an important tool, but it's only one tool.

And we know that zoning on its own is not going to produce the 1,200 new units of affordable housing that our housing needs assessment said we needed.

The market is not going to do that on its own.

And so just reiterate the

Philip d'Oronzio, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg, Rory Stolzenberg

And so I think it's just going to be extremely important, extremely difficult, but necessary to figure out how we're actually going to do that, because if we change the zoning and we don't follow through on our affordable housing plan, we will absolutely have not made a dent in actually achieving affordability.

So those are my final comments.

Yes.

Chair, I'm sorry, really quick, Michael just came up and just hearing the other comments earlier.

I did want to kind of raise my thoughts around the map itself.

I mean, obviously, as we're talking about changes to the sensitive areas happening, we're talking about the medium density where it does and doesn't belong.

What was the other part?

Oh, Rory, sorry, Commissioner Stolzenberg brought up several areas that he identified before this meeting that he feels that we should be looking at differently.

for all those reasons and probably countless more, I'm very hesitant about saying this is an adopted map at this stage because there's just too much work still to be done.

And I agree with what, you know, Counselor Snook said yesterday, full-heartedly.

It just creates this anxiety when it's unnecessary.

We're still working through this.

And I think that I understand the importance of showing some things so we have a base from which to go.

But I also see what can what the perception is if we have this be viewed as a final or adopted map when it actually isn't that.

Thank you for that.

Ms.

McGill, I see you there.

Well, most of mine have actually already been covered by others.

I don't really feel and I did take the opportunity yesterday to ask questions.

Again, I just want to voice again.

as everyone has heard.

The importance of the neighborhoods being truly identified is very important that the natural gas issue is looked at seriously.

And I'm not saying that it's not being, I'm just reiterating

that we're looking at the combination of equity and our climate goals.

Thank you.

My overall statement has a number of pieces to it.

The first is I want to try to reemphasize something I said yesterday, and that was, it's not an original thought with me, if anything, it's original with Jenny Keller, that her recommendation, and I think it's a good one, is that we not designate areas that are

medium intensity residential at this time that we leave that for once we've figured out what the zoning ordinance is going to look like.

I will tell you that most of the conversations that I've had, the email traffic and so on with people who have expressed to me their dismay about, usually it's that their neighboring property would be

in this higher intensity category, medium intensity category.

And my answer has always been, just wait, the zoning ordinance is going to fix it.

We'll have to see what the zoning ordinance says.

They probably won't be able to build a 12-unit apartment building next to you anyway.

That's a very unsatisfying answer to people.

And it is not, I think we need to acknowledge that

that the process that we have used here is perhaps inflicting more anxiety on people than it needs to.

I think in the long run, we need to have significant areas that are designated medium intensity residential.

But to use as an example, one of the folks who have commented to us a number of times

I think I can say to them, listen, I've seen the property there.

No, if there's any kind of reasonable setback requirement, you're not going to have a 12 unit apartment building in your backyard.

But the key is still any reasonable zoning ordinance.

They don't know.

And I don't know.

I assume we would pass a reasonable zoning ordinance, but we won't know this.

We don't even have a draft.

Now, I say this, I recognize that we are asking people to watch us make sausage.

We are asking them to watch us do about what should be about three or four things simultaneously, or perhaps to put them in a sequence that may not be the perfect sequence, but something had to go first.

And we chose to go first with the comp plan.

We chose to go first with the future land use map.

largely because I think we acknowledged that the zoning ordinance was not, we should not start with this zoning ordinance, that we needed to remove, to change so many things about the zoning ordinance, it was better to start someplace else knowing we were going to amend the zoning ordinance or rewrite it very heavily.

So I have no problem with the overall way in which we've done it, and I've tried to tell people

that, particularly the critics of this effort, that if we waited for all of the answers, we would never move.

We cannot wait for all of the answers.

We have to take some steps.

We have to acknowledge that this will be, as Commissioner Mitchell has said, an iterative process, and that it may take a couple of years of going back and forth and tweaking here and there,

between tweaking the land use map, between tweaking the zoning ordinance, making sure they work together.

And I wish that I had a way to help reduce the anxiety of people who are convinced that they are going to get something jammed down their throats.

This is a reaction I'm getting not only from Greenbrier, but also from Cherry Avenue.

It's not just one part of the city that's doing that.

I think we've got some real issues on whether, and I have to say, I am very optimistic

that we're headed in the right direction.

And I tell people I'm optimistic we're headed in the right direction.

And sometimes it's an article of faith because we don't actually know.

But we have to move in the direction in which we are moving on more affordability.

I wish we had some better economic analysis.

I wish we had the $165,000 study that we've ordered up on what affordable programs are actually working.

and that kind of thing, but we don't.

And again, we have to move forward somehow, somewhere.

This is a good step forward.

Even if you leave the medium-intensity residential designations in there, it's a good step forward.

Thank you.

Ms.

Koch, could you address some of those issues?

Sure.

Well, we've talked about yesterday.

Again, that session was recorded for those who are listening who weren't there.

But we talked about yesterday again, and we've reiterated in the presentation today, our goal was showing that medium-intensity residential.

as Councillor Snook has said, that as well as the other categories that sort of define a number of units, for example, we are looking at a maximum number there and it will be further refined in the zoning ordinance.

We, you know, again, also looking at what Director Freese said earlier about sort of either the

We go into zoning with a map that shows us the areas we'll be looking at in terms of where that medium intensity, those medium intensity related zones may go, or we have defined a statement, a series of statements for the areas that we'll be looking at, which would produce that map anyway, if you're sort of looking at areas near corridors, near transit, near schools and parks, you know, it's the same areas we're showing on there.

We're happy to entertain further discussion from the Planning Commission about that tonight, but that's our thought on that.

Thank you.

Actually, I'd like to do a last call.

Any final questions?

Ms.

I don't necessarily have a question per se, but after watching the meeting yesterday, and if you haven't, I would recommend that you go back and review it.

It was definitely a good conversation.

I appreciated it.

But I just wanted to go on record for myself, saying not only do I'm very concerned about affordability in our city, I'm very concerned that the people who have built this city, that their families will still be able to benefit from their hard works and labors.

and be able to afford to stay in this city.

And I also want to make sure that we, it was said yesterday, but wanted to bring it up today, that we are acknowledging our student population.

We know that our students are part of our population and our community.

Yes, some of them just come to go to school, but we do also hope that they do migrate and integrate into the overall community.

But at the same time, I do feel like we need to make sure that we are securing partnerships

and encouraging our students to use that on-campus housing to make sure that they are not creating more of a problem where we're not setting up a situation where we are trying to provide affordable housing, but only providing affordable student housing.

So I just wanted to put that on record.

Thank you.

Yeah, just because I was briefly mentioned earlier, I want to emphasize that the amendments I'll be proposing later are really minor tweaks to a very small proportion of parcels in the city, mostly just to reflect reality, and in some cases to better utilize vacant land, as many commenters have suggested, and I think nobody has really disagreed with, including our friends at the Citizens for Responsible Planning of

very much emphasize the use of vacant land.

They are not intended to say that this map is deficient or that it is not worth adopting.

I personally believe that the map as it is now is a very good map and could be worth adopting wholesale.

I have more thoughts on this idea about medium, which I'm sure I'll talk about later.

I do have one question for or

hope that the staff or our team can address.

My understanding is that good planning practice is to create a comprehensive plan and a future land use map and have that guiding plan serve as the basis for decisions you make in law, such as the zoning ordinance and zoning map, and that doing them all together is not good planning practice.

Can you walk us through how this sort of thing normally goes in other places?

Like, is this the right process?

I am sorry, can you repeat that question because I'm totally lost.

Sure.

So I think the process we're going with is creating a comprehensive plan, including a future land use map, adopting those as our guiding principles, and then moving forward to creating a zoning ordinance and a zoning map that implement those principles.

Well, I saw Mr. Einzweller raised his hand, so he might want to tackle this one as well.

I mean, my short answer is yes, in terms of kind of your most transparent and effective way to engage the community around this discussion is to map those policies that you're intending to implement through zoning, adopt that map, and then

work on the zoning that implements that map.

That's a transparent process for moving forward that everyone can see.

And I understand the concerns.

I'm not blind to the concerns that are being raised.

I absolutely understand them.

But I guess the question I'd have is if we are moving forward with a map that shows a medium intensity residential category on the key but doesn't show that mapped anywhere, does that, the direction to staff and our consultant team then is to apply medium intensity, you know, to figure out where to apply medium intensity at that point in time based on

a set of principles that we've identified.

I guess it just doesn't, it just, it strikes me as a potentially less transparent approach to the, from, again, but recognizing and very sensitive to the issues that are being raised.

Well, I did want to say that, yes, you have to do the policy first and the generalized future land use map, whether those are being closely aligned as they are in this process or not.

It's infrequent that we get the opportunity to do what you're doing here, which is to tightly code to a very specific plan.

This is the best result.

Well, Lisa, what I was going to say, this is, it's not every day that you do a comprehensive plan and then go to a full sort of looking at the entire zoning ordinance as we are.

Often you're making tweaks to a land use map based on existing zoning ordinance that you won't be changing wholesale, you might be changing districts.

So there's already some parameters around which you're thinking about land use.

So this is a different process, but yes, I agree with everything that's been said.

Thank you.

I'd like to

move towards public comment.

Are we feeling okay?

Do we need a brief bio break?

I see an interest in five.

I have a brief statement I'd like to read.

You may recognize this from last time before we begin public comment.

We welcome comments and questions and commit on our side to listen carefully and thoughtfully to what we hear.

In recognition of the great number of people who would like to speak and our limited time together, I offer two requests.

First, everyone will have two minutes to speak.

However, I encourage everyone to be concise, use less time, and if someone has previously raised your comment or question, please don't repeat it, but instead,

note that you agree with the previous statement.

Second, the Commission will disregard personal or professional comments against our members, staff, consultants, fellow speakers, or property owners.

Please focus your comments and questions on the substance of the plan.

That is what we are here for, and we expect to welcome differing points of view.

Thank you, Chair.

And at this time, if you would like to address members of the Planning Commission, please click your raise hand icon, or if you're joining us by phone, press star nine.

We'll call on you in the order of hands raised, and you will have two minutes for comment.

Chair, we have about 138 attendees, and right now it looks like we have about 26 hands raised.

And the first is Julia Whiting.

Julia, I want the Planning Commission.

You have two minutes.

Welcome.

I would like to read a quote from two years ago.

This is a voice from City Hall.

Quote, if we literally eliminated single family R1 or R1S zoning and allowed two units on each parcel like an R2 zoning, it would actually further increase the risk of gentrification in neighborhoods like Fifeville because it would become more profitable for investors to buy the homes and rent them to different groups of students.

It was precisely that problem that led to the creation of the R1S zone in the early 90s.

We need to be careful about any change like this.

Every time we change the zoning ordinance, we risk unintended consequences.

In any case, changing R1 zoning doesn't create new units.

It allows present R1 homeowners to do different things on their property.

So if we are looking for ways to get 3,000 more units in the next five years, changing R1 zoning won't do it.

That is the end of the quote.

This is the sentiment of homeowners who have now been placed into zones of four to 12 unit development.

Lloyd Snook said this when he was running for council in 2019.

As citizens have repeatedly said, there are other paths to affordability, including an expanded community land trust and retail redevelopment with inclusionary zoning.

The process that got us to this point has been incredibly flawed and now barreling toward a forced premature conclusion.

And thank you.

And next up we have Ted Pearson followed by Philip Harway.

And Ted, you're on with the Planning Commission.

Good evening.

Thank you for having me.

I live in the R1 zoning area, Oxford Road.

This is my fifth house.

I have started a long time ago and moved up to this is my final house in the city.

We moved here for loss in property, acreage, and, you know, higher cost and higher taxes.

But we did this because this is our final house and it's close to everything.

We feel this potential planning commission report will

make our dream of living in this particular neighborhood will change dramatically.

And we wish severe criticism of this, but also we make sure that planning will help us to keep this neighborhood as our own and not change it accordingly.

We wish that the city please

make a priority of planning and building affordable housing.

I think this has been lacking in the past.

I think developers have gotten away paying penalties and not building affordable housing.

So the city, I think, should make, in any way possible, make their resources to build affordable housing.

Thank you.

Next up, we have Philip Harway followed by Ellen Cantini Marava.

Philip, you're on with the Planning Commission.

A council person yesterday asked a question of the consultants specifically about the possible effect of UVA and the student population in the city.

Had the consultants worked into their analysis, their significant factor?

He asked this significant factor.

The answer given like many answers given yesterday and throughout this process was not an answer.

The student body of UVA is affecting housing in Charlottesville significantly.

Our city government should not make radical changes in our land use without this significant factor being given more attention.

The consultant study failed to account for the impact of the student body.

Their slide today, seven, was pretty much

par for the course without much details.

Other studies by Charlottesville for responsible planning have determined that a significant number of burden households are actually students to the tune of close to 30%.

The UVA Student Council tweeted to the students this weekend to sign the livable Charlottesville letter in order to get, in their own words, more housing and cheaper rents for the students.

Since UVA's endowment is now worth something like $14 billion, it should not be the residents of the city who should have our city turned upside down to provide inexpensive housing for its student with this radical as of yet undefined changes.

Instead, adopt a general residential category of two and three and up

on the R1s and 4th last affordable and keep your ability to approve other plans to special use permits for the rest of the city and pivot as well to developing and targeting properties that are available now for development.

Make citywide investments into providing truly affordable housing for our teachers, firemen, first responders, and others who are having difficulty with the expensing

I'm going to read a statement on behalf of Nina Barnes, President of the Jefferson Park Avenue Neighborhood Association, who can't be here this evening.

The JPA Neighborhood Association Board respectfully requests that the Planning Commission delay its vote on the future land use map to allow for a coordinated delivery of information to the neighborhoods and city leaders.

With the distractions created by the pandemic and the turmoil in city leadership over the past several months, it's been challenging to focus appropriate attention on the proposed plan.

In particular, for neighborhoods like the JPA neighborhood, which are directly impacted by the suggestion of intensive density, there should be a presentation of the plan to our neighborhood association.

We believe the enhanced communication and education up front will make for a clearer understanding of what's being proposed.

So then that was the statement from the board of the JPA Neighborhood Association.

Speaking for myself, I strongly support creating more affordable housing in Charlottesville.

But as acknowledged by the city's own informational documents, increased density doesn't guarantee affordability.

And in some cities, the result has been the opposite of that.

It looks like there's a disconnect between the affordable housing plan and exactly how it would be implemented.

Because decisions about requirements for how affordable will be defined, how affordability of units will be maintained in the long run,

as well as about infrastructure and green space are just being relegated to the zoning process instead of being specified up front.

Next, we have Bill Emery, followed by Anthony Artuso.

Bill, you're on with the Planning Commission.

Commissioners, you are updating the comp plan and the zoning ordinance to guide the way the city grows and to work towards corrective and justice related to land use.

Well-done planning is supportive and visible armature woven with functionality, beauty, and comfort.

like the Garden of Eden.

The outcome of zoning depends on the intent and skill of those in charge of planning and implementing.

Currently, it feels like we're driving drunk at night.

Kind-hearted developers will not address our shortage of affordable housing.

I challenge you to produce a map of where affordable housing currently exists.

Create a second map of where you want to locate housing and other placemaking amenities in a smart, equitable citywide distribution, nodes in all quadrants.

Ensure your zoning approach is based on science, not on current political fashion.

Zoning is a tool that can be used for good or ill.

Use zoning for good.

Start with the correcting injustice piece.

Previous planners located all the heavy manufacturing dumpsters zoning in disenfranchised neighborhoods across the city in East Belmont, Carlton, and Fifeville, Locust Grove, Ridge Street, Rose Hill, Star Hill, and the Woollen Mills.

Practice your planning jobs on those manufacturing brownfields first.

Produce small area plans in concert with disenfranchised neighborhoods with the disenfranchised neighborhoods involvement.

Write the necessary code and prove to city residents that together we can build

new places worth caring about.

And once we have the proof that you can clean up past messes, then we'll consider this great big new plan.

Thank you.

Next up, we have Anthony Artuso followed by Chloe Estrada.

Excuse me.

Anthony, you're on with the Planning Commission.

Yes.

Thank you very much.

There's more work to be done on this plan, much more work to be done.

The goals are admirable, but the plan does not yet adequately address those goals or provide a way for achieving them or balancing them.

There has not been adequate community engagement, participatory community engagement at the neighborhood level.

We've heard that repeatedly at these sessions.

And this is not just my opinion.

I urge the Planning Commission and council members to look at page 55

of the materials prepared for the June 28th Planning Commission meeting.

On that page, it shows community responses to this question.

Do you support what the future land use map is proposing for future land uses in your neighborhood?

Answers from all, all racial and ethnic groups were uniformly and strongly negative.

White, African American, Latino, Asian American.

If you look at that single slide, there is no way that you can adopt the land use plan and map that is in front of you unless you want to override the opinions of almost the entire community of Charlottesville.

I've repeatedly asked at these meetings and now I strongly support the recommendations that have come from several of the Planning Commission members

and several of the counselors that the Planning Commission and the Council take the proposed land use map under advisement at this time.

Do not adopt anything because whenever a question is asked, the answer is we'll deal with that later.

We'll address it in the zoning map.

Go through the zoning process and then adopt a final land use plan and map.

Next up is Chloe Estrada, followed by Katherine Laughlin.

Chloe, you're on with the Planning Commission.

Hello, Planning Commission members.

Thank you for your time today and for your continued efforts as part of this commission.

My name is Chloe Estrada, and I'm a third year student at the University of Virginia.

Today, I want to bring my perspective as a tenant of an off-ground property and to share common points of concern

on behalf of many other off-ground tenants.

Earlier this year, we conducted a survey of students who have lived off-ground to learn more about their housing experiences with specific regard to the treatment they have received from landlords.

Broadly, only 43% of student renters were satisfied with their most recent off-ground housing experience and only 40% felt that their landlords were accountable and transparent.

When we look further into the reasons behind these negative experiences, it is largely due to an immense lack of landlord accountability that is so prevalent among off-ground housing landlords that it feels inescapable or unavoidable.

And once locked into a nine to 12 month lease, students feel worried that they, like so many others, will endure untimely maintenance support, unsafe or unsanitary living conditions and other consequences of poor property management.

In sharing this perspective, we hope that we can bring a sense of urgency and necessity to improve tenants' rights for students and more broadly for community residents.

We call on the city to follow through on its adoption of tenants' rights under the Affordable Housing Plan, and we believe that power must be shifted from landlords to tenants in order to minimize the exploitation of tenants and to promote fair housing experiences for all.

Thank you.

Next is Catherine Laughlin, followed by Josh Cran.

Catherine, you're on with the Planning Commission.

Hi, thank you for the opportunity to speak again.

I just want to briefly say that I support increasing density as it is shown on the future land use map that you have in front of you.

I would recommend that you not slow down the process, that you go ahead and adopt this map as a guide for creating zoning.

We know that changes in status quo are going to create a lot of backlash.

We've seen the data that some of the loudest voices do not represent Charlottesville more broadly, and that groups like livable Charlottesville do come closer to reflecting the demographics of the city of Charlottesville.

So please take this moment, be courageous.

Thank you.

Very brief.

Next up is Josh Cran followed by Deborah Murray.

Hi, am I unmuted?

Good evening.

I should note that I'm speaking tonight on behalf of the Livable Seville group that Catherine mentioned.

First, I want to thank the members of the Planning Commission for their hard work through this years-long process.

So livable Seville is encouraged by the progress made in the current plan.

Now we ask the city to continue this encouraging work by creating and passing zoning ordinance and map that addresses past exclusionary housing practices and meets its stated goals of providing diverse housing types accessible across income levels.

one that will allow more houses near jobs, schools and amenities so that the city might meet its pledge to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030.

We remain committed to increasing density, building capacity for equitable and affordable housing, and making our community more sustainable as the city moves from the comprehensive plan to the zoning rewrite.

To that end, we recommend the following aspects of the map remain or be added.

Allow greater building heights in the general residential areas.

Improve accessibility by allowing four unit dwellings by right, which are subject to the Fair Housing Act requirements.

Encourage a broader range of housing types, including stacked triplexes, row houses, and cottage courtyards.

allow higher intensity residential in historically affluent white exclusionary neighborhoods and in the JPA student corridor and encourage small commercial and institutional uses throughout the city to allow amenities within walking distance of every resident in order to build a vibrant, walkable, bikeable and diverse neighborhoods.

Again, thank you very much for your time.

Next, please.

Next up is Deborah Murray, followed by Kevin Hildebrand.

Deborah, you're on the Planning Commission.

Can you hear me now?

Yes.

Okay.

Thank you.

My name is Deborah Murray, and I live on Lexington Avenue, and I am deeply concerned about and opposed to the proposed designation of Lexington Avenue as medium intensity residential on the draft land use map.

I do appreciate and support

the city's overall vision to increase the supply and affordability of housing, but classifying Lexington Avenue as medium-intensity residential would be contrary to the existing residential fabric of the neighborhood.

Currently, the neighborhood consists of single-family residences and includes mostly older homes as well as some newer homes that have been built as infill.

The medium intensity residential category, however, with its significant increase in density would be completely out of scale with the neighborhood.

I also have learned this evening that Evergreen Avenue has been removed from that classification on the future land map.

And you may be aware that Lexington Avenue turns into

Evergreen Avenue right at the bend.

And the reason apparently was that the Evergreen is constrained with the right of way.

Well, if you've driven down Lexington Avenue, you will see cars on both sides of the road because most people don't have garages.

So it just doesn't make any sense.

And I would question the fairness and of removing Evergreen, but continuing to include Lexington Avenue in the medium and density.

Ask you to not adopt the map.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up, we have Kevin Hildebrand followed by Elaine Poon.

Thank you.

Once again, it's a pleasure to be able to talk with you.

I was encouraged after listening to yesterday's meeting that the up to 12 units is not a by right development in medium intensity.

here to four that has not been made clear and that perhaps the allowable density will be based on lot size.

So I'm encouraged by that, but I also think it's caused an unusual and unfair amount of heartache not to have been clearer about that from the beginning.

As you know, I don't like the corridor approach, but I know the city is wedded to that now, so I won't belabor that.

But what I am going to ask is that you consider

The potential downsides of how you're treating sensitive community areas.

Are you artificially lowering the land values in those areas so that when there comes a time for those families to sell, that they don't have the same economic opportunity to get investment from their property because of the inclusionary zoning only being attributed to their property, not to residential property throughout the city.

and in doing so, are you falsely depressing the land values in those areas because developers won't be interested in purchasing?

So I think there's a definite negative side to hurt for families in the city by not allowing them to get equity out of their property.

And conversely, I think you are also concentrating

than new affordable units in already impoverished areas, as opposed to spreading it more broadly across the city.

I really encourage you to look at the opportunity to require affordable units throughout the residential neighborhoods.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Next, we have Elaine Poon, followed by Rachel Lloyd.

Elaine, you're on with the Planning Commission.

Chair, Commissioners, good evening and thank you all so much for your service.

I know you are totally exhausted.

This has been such a long haul, many years.

I thought that I would zoom out for a minute and maybe prematurely congratulate you on making history tonight.

I just want to zoom out.

I've been focused completely on the pernicious history of land use and zoning laws in Charlottesville, talking about the housing crisis, the fact that we are actually

working on the very land use map that was created by the known racist Harlan Bartholomew who went around the nation, you know, trying to fossilize segregation through single family zoning as well as massive cultural loss that has happened in our city because of these land use laws in combination with other spheres of oppression such as education, labor and policing.

and I hope that many others can talk about that.

But I want to say that I look forward to a time in this city where everyone, including the people who disagree on this call tonight, will be proud to live in a city that chose to shed this discriminatory scheme and become a better city.

The adoption of this land use plan in combination with the housing strategy, robust investment, which we will hold you to, and a very strong inclusionary zoning ordinance that we will pass and we will also hold you to that.

We are saying yes to allowing families to attend the schools that they want to so we can chip away at continued school segregation in our city.

We are saying yes to economic opportunity for households who have been commuting over 40 minutes to an hour to Charlottesville.

We're saying yes that the people who clean our hospitals, prepare our food, care for our children matter in this community.

We are saying that we are going to be a welcoming city for the people who have lived here for generations and the new residents who want to add to the richness of our city.

I know this is a really hard time in our city, but this city is more than 2017.

We are a city that believes in inclusion and equity, and we are a city that will do what it takes to be an anti-racist, welcoming city for all.

Thank you.

And next up, we have Rachel Lloyd, followed by Katherine Brooks.

Rachel, you're on with the Planning Commission.

Good evening, Planning Commissioners and City Councilors.

My name is Rachel Boyd.

Tonight I'm speaking on behalf of Preservation Piedmont.

Thank you for taking our comments.

Preservation Piedmont's members and supporters come from our entire region.

They include the young and the old, people of different backgrounds, people of different races, the homeowner and the renter, old timers, newcomers, and

Those along a whole spectrum of incomes.

Most importantly, we all share love and concern for the Piedmont region and for the city of Charlottesville.

We care deeply about how the city changes and grows.

We ask that you complete this planning process while remaining attentive to all considerations comprehensively.

We believe our future land use map should encompass the narrative goals of the comprehensive plan, including the protection of historic and natural resources, neighborhood preservation, and efforts to decrease the impacts of climate change.

Our viewpoint is that preservation is about managing change, not about freezing our city in one condition.

To that end, we respectfully request, first, that change management and regular evaluations as

Alison Ecklund, Clear Implementation Goals of the Comprehensive Plan, which is initiating dramatic changes in land use and building types.

Alison Ecklund, Second, an invitation to the Board of Architectural Review for inclusion in the planning process to assist the anticipated outcomes of this plan on the city's historic resources

and design control districts.

Third, no rollbacks of environmental protections in the city for critical slopes, floodplains, specimen trees, concentrated tree canopy and other environmental resources.

And fourth, the addition of at least one voice for preservation to the Seville Plans Together Steering Committee.

Preservationists know how to rehabilitate, sensitively develop through infill,

and when to preserve or replace historic building materials.

Next, please.

Next is Catherine Brooks, followed by Anne Woolhander.

Catherine, you're on with the Planning Commission.

Thank you.

I am concerned that this is a plan in which residents of modest income will bear the cost of development and in which the benefits will go to the richest institution in our town, namely UVA, and internet, large, huge internet companies like Airbnb.

Before you open up the city to developers, you need to tell us what your plan is for making sure that whatever development happens will house real residents of this city at a reasonable cost.

Please just don't tell us to wait for the zoning.

We need assurance that the city has the legal tools to restrict short-term rentals in newly added units.

We also need assurance that the city has buy-in from UVA such that the university and not the city will provide housing for any incremental increases in enrollment that it plans.

This entire plan will be an egregious failure if it just provides more stealth hotel rooms and party pads for UVA's wealthiest customers.

You haven't told us how you will prevent this, so you should understand then why we are reluctant to let this plan go forward.

Thank you.

And next up, we have Ann Woolhandler, followed by Peter Krebs.

Ann, you're on with the Planning Commission.