Planning Commission Special Meeting   10/21/2021

Jody, you've got your hand up and you're muted.

Oh, good evening.

How are you?

It's feeling good.

How are you?

Good.

I'm great.

No, you're perfect.

What kind of song?

Oh, it's all Paul Revere narrators.

I'm ancient.

Okay.

No, they used to be on the Dave Clark Five TV show during the week.

That's good.

Okay, enough silliness.

Welcome up.

Do we have a quorum?

Fantastic.

We're doing great.

Much lighter agenda.

I think we're getting out of here before midnight.

It's going to be great.

Any thoughts about moving Lyman to the consent agenda?

That would be perfectly honest.

The only question I've got about that.

is what does the public think?

Are there people that maybe wanted to speak to the Latin piece?

Well, that item is not for public hearing, so anyone who would want to speak on that would speak during matters from the public, and you all would be moving that to consent, which comes right after that matters from the public.

Well, with that, I'm very happy to move it to the consent agenda.

I agree.

It gives us 30 minutes back.

Do we do that now or do we do that in the meeting?

In the meeting.

Okay.

And if I forget, just remind me.

Other questions about the agenda?

We've only got two things.

Hi.

I guess I

I wanted to comment on the Lyman thing.

It is a project by my office, I guess, for Kurt and Bruce, who are my employers.

So for that portion, I might abstain, I guess.

Yeah, I mean, it seems, yeah, you can recuse yourself.

Ms.

Yes, I think recuse is the correct word.

That would be good.

Thank you.

Other items?

I'm reminding myself what the other items are.

Grove Street is the big one.

I had a question on, I guess not an agenda question, but more of a procedure question on the JPA.

Are we asked

for comments or in dialogue on like a specific planning commission capacity or entrance review board or both?

Ms.

Sure.

Sure.

This is a preliminary discussion.

It's an opportunity for the applicant to introduce the project.

Typically, also, there are questions that the applicant has proposed that they would like to get some feedback from the commission on.

I know Mr. Offley has outlined a couple of questions in the staff report for considerations for the discussion.

and so there's no action that comes out of this.

In past experience, it can be productive.

Little things can pop up that can become big things.

Can we talk a little just on that same vein?

Yeah.

Yeah, it's a it's a it's kind of I it's sort of a

chicken and egg thing, right?

Yes, I mean, because both would apply and you all would hear both items, it's not a bad idea to share from both perspectives.

Okay, thanks.

They may ask for some, and that may help them in asking for clarity on how the two issues

come together or don't come together, which can happen.

So that's a really good point, Ms.

Anything on growth?

This is an item we've talked about, I think, twice before.

That's it.

Commissioner, I'll go, when I did my presentation, I'll give a recap of the last Planning Commission meeting, that's kind of also in the staff report about what was discussed, what

Thank you.

The site is notable for its kudzu.

from the staff report and, you know, maybe just want to talk a little more in the meeting.

So, Commissioner, our Community Solutions Representative will be here, Alex Ukufuna.

He can talk about that.

I know the applicant is working on some resolutions.

That can be brought up kind of more in a public setting because the information they have been passing back and forth came too late to be included in the packet.

So I didn't want that.

I wanted them to talk about that in a public setting and not just

be in the background.

So they definitely can speak to what they're willing to address from the staff report.

I don't know if Alex is in the meeting yet?

Brenda was unable to make the meeting.

She's here.

She's here.

I had it reversed.

I'm sorry.

I must have had it reversed.

Brenda and Alex is at the meeting.

No, that's okay.

Thank you very much.

That's everything I've got.

Do we want to take a few minutes off, relax, kick our feet up?

Yeah, we could be screaming.

I could just note a few logistical things as we move forward.

It won't take very long.

Second.

I just wanted to point out that for our public hearing this evening, there are three potential actions that need to occur.

And so we have them combined into one presentation because it is a full application altogether.

but there are three actions that would need to happen and they need to happen in the order that they're noted in the report, meaning the rezoning critical slopes and then the site plan.

And there are recommended and alternative motions for each of those located in the staff reports.

I do have a question about that.

Well, the thought from staff is you're making a recommendation.

So if City Council could enact really, you know, they could enact the rezoning but not the SUP of the critical slope.

Yes, Ms.

Russell, you have that correct.

It was rezoning SUP because you can't do the SUP without the rezoning and then the critical slope.

I had in my brain another application.

We have a lot of things going on.

Thank you for that.

but no, you're right.

And like Mr. Offley said that you all provide the recommendation, council could choose something different than the recommendation.

Thank you that's helpful.

Shall we take some take some time off and it would get any last last questions.

See you at 530.

and welcome to the Charlottesville Planning Commission regular meeting.

Do we have a Planning Commission quorum?

Looking at faces.

I see faces.

Thank you.

Moving to the first item, matters to be presented by the public, not on the formal agenda.

I believe you'd call this public comment.

So this, as I understand it, basically anything except for the item we're considering on Grove Street.

Thank you, Chair, and at this time, 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, and you'll have three minutes for comment.

It might be worth mentioning that this includes the grocery PUD, which is different from our other grocery thing.

I don't know if anyone wants to speak on that.

I think we're at last call here.

The matter of the consent agenda.

Yes, I'd like to move that we move Lyman Street to the consent agenda.

Second.

Yes, thank you, Chair.

That being the case, it may be wise to do roll.

Ms.

Sure.

All right.

Mr. LeHindro?

Aye.

Mr. Mitchell?

Hosea Mitchell, Lyle Solla-Yates, I believe that concludes the items on our regular meeting.

Any further business to discuss before we are meeting the Council begins at 6pm.

Bearing none, I suggest we take a recess until 6 p.m.

I can go back to singing.

I believe we are at 6 p.m.

Planning Commission meeting resuming now joined by City Council.

Yes, we are.

Thank you.

And I believe we are ready for a public hearing about

Shifting my notes, shifting my notes.

Here we go.

1613 Grove Street, ZM 20-000.

Yeah.

Certainly, Chair.

Thank you very much.

So, commissioners, tonight you'll be holding a public hearing for a proposed rezoning and special use permit for 1613 Grove Street,

and deliberating a request for a critical slope waiver.

You will hear all three applications in one presentation, but you will need to make three separate recommendations to City Council.

On May 11, 2001, Planning Commission held a public hearing for the requested rezoning and SUP applications.

The application was seeking to rezone the subject property from R2 residential to R3 residential and increase the density

to 43 dwelling units per acre.

The applicant was also seeking a recommendation on a critical slope waiver at that meeting.

All three applications were needed for the proposed development.

That development included four apartment buildings with seven two-bedroom units per building for a total number of 28 residential units.

During the public hearing, the Planning Commission heard from five members of the public.

Two members of the public voiced support for the proposed development and three voiced opposition.

Public in favor of the development stated the city's continued need for affordable housing.

Members of the public opposed to the development believe parking will be an issue on Valley Road extended and the road cannot handle increased traffic.

They also stated the development would not fit the character of the surrounding single and two-family homes.

During the Planning Commission's discussion, traffic, density, stream restoration and impacts to the surrounding neighborhood were discussed.

Planning Commission did not know if the location at the end of a dead end street was the best location for a 28 unit apartment.

Some commissioners would like to see more than the by right density, but less than 28.

Traffic was the biggest concern as Valley Road is a narrow road and would be hard to improve due to Rock Creek running on one side.

The commission also stated they would like to see more affordable units within the development.

This proposal, the proposal at the time, only required one affordable unit for Section 3412.

At the end of the discussion, the applicant requested and was granted a deferral to address some of these concerns.

The information before you tonight is pretty much the same.

The critical slope is not waiver request, has not changed at all.

The information is the same as what was presented prior.

The rezoning application, the applicant has

provided additional proffer in addition to the existing proffers.

And the new proffer is related to affordable housing.

The applicant updated the proper statement to add an affordable housing requirement.

The applicant is proposing that eight of the 28 units will be affordable units.

Of the eight affordable units, four will be for rent affordable where the monthly cost of rent

including any tenant paid utilities does not exceed 125% of the fair market rate by unit bedroom for the Charlottesville MSA.

And four units will be four rent units where the monthly cost of rent including any tenant paid utilities does not exceed the fair market rate by unit bedrooms for the Charlottesville MSA.

The affordable units shall be reserved as such throughout a period to last 10 years from the date on which the units receive a certificate.

The special use application.

This application has changed in that the original building height was a maximum allowed of 45 feet and a proposed height of 40 feet.

The updated plan calls for a maximum allowable height of 45 feet and a proposed height of 35 feet.

The applicant is proposing to lower the rear of the building so that each unit has one below-grade apartment.

The original development called for 28 two-bedroom units.

The updated plan calls for eight one-bedroom units and 20 two-bedroom units.

Parking The original development called for on-street parking on Valley Road Extended.

The updated plan removes the on-street parking.

With the original plan that you saw originally, the development was required one affordable unit per 3412.

The updated plan has been reconfigured that it is now below the one FAR that would require an affordable unit, but the applicant is proffering the eight affordable units as mentioned prior.

The applicant representative

All right.

Good evening, everyone.

Justin Schimpf with Schimpf Engineering.

A quick sound check.

Everyone hear me okay?

Very good.

Thank you.

I have a presentation.

If we could get that pulled up, I'll go through our changes.

briefly and give a summary of how we see the project here.

Starting with the location, I think for all but one member here, this is the third time perhaps we've seen this, the fourth time now, but it's at the end of Valley Road Extended and it's an undeveloped site, basically a kudzu forest.

Nothing particularly redeeming about it from a landscape perspective.

They are long platted and undeveloped lots

that Rock Creek runs between them and the road.

And if I can get to the next page, please.

I'll go to Mari.

So our concept, I want to remind everyone, there are four buildings proposed in the parking lot in between.

The buildings, you'll see this pink area in the middle between the two buildings actually represents a covered kind of patio area.

This is not structure, so it's

one structure, two structures, three structures, four structures.

The footprint of these structures is around 2,100 square feet a piece.

So this design itself, the layout, has not changed.

We have revised the grading a bit based on some of the feedback we heard last time just to help fit these buildings into the terrain a little better.

If that was possible, the suggestion made, I think it was a good one.

So next slide, please.

We'll go over the specifics here.

So the summary of changes are, as was noted by the staff, 28% of the units, so 8 out of the 28, are now proposed as affordable units.

Our clients were listening in last time and heard the concerns from the council.

They know what issue it is in the community, and so they've looked at this and feel comfortable proposing this.

It's a fairly substantial offer of affordable housing for a project this small.

We have changed the bedroom count.

Still 28 units, but gone to eight one-bedroom units.

The thought is most of them would be the affordables.

That effectively dropped the floor height of the two buildings at the front, these two, down one story.

So just smaller structures, basically.

We also adjusted the grade in the back of the site.

There was a large retaining wall along here, and we eliminated that particular site retaining wall.

So in detail, and next slide please, affordable housing you heard, so four units at the 125% HUD FMR rate, and then the other four units, 14% at the HUD FMRs.

Of the units, they're broken up, you know, half being for household incomes of less than 65, half less than 80, trying to hit both sort of the more affordable than the middle sort of workforce, which is

what a building like this is designed for many ways to begin with.

The initial thought of this property, and this would be more of a student type situation.

We were looking at four bedroom units and original design, and we really pivoted something that's really more focused on what those who are working and living in the community would need.

I'll just touch on the affordable housing proper.

There was a comment kind of, oh, we didn't have the information clear or didn't have everything complete on

the proper language.

Some of that, I think, is related to confusion about how we had submitted it.

We had submitted a proper statement and this covenant, which effectively is a recorded agreement that would act like the city's standard operating procedure.

One of the problems with the affordable housing is that you really dive into it, and it's been talked about many times here, if we just said, hey, we'll give you eight affordable units, if nothing else said, it leaves way too much to the imagination when you go to actually enforce those rules.

So part of the reason this has been a number of months since we have been back was we worked with the city attorney's office and they developed a template, if you will, for this that we work from, which includes the proper, which outlines the high level, hey, we need to do this, this, and this, and then we're going to do it in these very detailed ways with this cover.

And the benefit of that is that if the proper statement covered every single item relative to the affordable housing, it would be 14 pages long.

And if we ever made a mistake or anything, we'd have to come back to city council to amend that.

So I think the suggestion was appropriate from the attorney's office and to our mind that the changes we're talking about are not substantive.

We're not disagreeing that we're going to provide all the affordable units as we described.

It's really just a matter of cleaning up some of the language or clarifying things in this covenant, which we have every confidence we can do working with the city attorney and those staff members.

moving forward.

So we don't consider that really an issue, but we're happy to answer questions about that in more detail after our presentation.

If I go next slide, please.

Other details, this is the sort of building change.

So you'll notice the building on the right is the original building concept, which has a fourth floor with bedrooms in the top.

We've sunk in the building down now and brought the grade up from the perimeter so that we can achieve the 35-foot building

Height in the R2 code.

So basically our proposal now falls within the thresholds of the current zoning.

We're not asking for an expansion in building height or footprint or anything of that nature.

The front building on the left, this is the one that we've dropped a floor from.

This is now just one, two, three floors, 35 feet tall, max height again.

Same footprint as other buildings, but just one story short.

That was in response to some of the comments about the

the massing of the building that came up at the last meeting.

We think this is a reasonable approach to the site and does get the building height more consistent with what's allowed in the neighboring areas.

As we've talked about, this site does sit down substantially from what's behind it.

So these building heights were really not sticking up or tucked in the corner.

We don't think that from a massing standpoint, this is going to really stand out, particularly because of the topography it sits in.

Next slide, please.

This is just a little summary of where we've been to change that whenever earlier again.

Floor moved from the front buildings, retaining walls, we got down to four or six feet to the 15 feet.

So you've worked with the site a little better to make that just a little better green design and sort of limit the size and mass of buildings.

And then next slide.

Interesting comparison to all these things.

And I'll talk about this a little more in my closing remark is, you know,

There are quite a few larger structures built around town, none of them small apartment buildings because it doesn't allow it anywhere, essentially.

It's very difficult.

So what we have, we've looked in three years, there were 20 homes over 3,000 square foot finished six.

These are the ones we found, the online records, or probably more.

Our buildings are 2,100 square foot in footprint, so it's three and four stories.

because of the roof construction, we're also losing square footage for parking underneath.

More like 5,000 to 6,000 square foot of finished space.

So yes, these are larger structures, but they are not entirely out of character with single-family homes that are being built all around the city.

And I'm sure many large homes are equivalent to 5,000 or 6,000 square foot single-family homes throughout the city.

Maybe not in the streets,

but certainly it's not an impossible thing.

So we have worked hard to get these things at a scale that I think is appropriate, but also providing a density that we think is healthy.

The key thing to think about, if you were talking about just four single family lots, that's four households.

Our structures provide housing for seven households, two of those affordable and five market rate in every structure.

So the big benefit in how many people are housed and then what the income of those folks are

and this product versus the single family and the duplex zoning that's the predominant construction types.

Next slide, please.

Just quickly, we've kept the same stream buffer mitigation restoration and the $48,000 sidewalk proper.

That's the same, it hasn't changed, but we still are offering those things.

And then last slide.

So in summary, I'll leave you with our cross-section

of these two structures here.

You know, I do lots of projects in all sorts of places, and I can tell you I have never once prepared a development project that didn't impact somebody somehow, whether it was buy-write, whether it was rezoning, whether it was, you know, we'll do everything from a 20-acre estate out in the rural area where somebody clears 20 acres of trees for one house.

That's an impact.

An office building downtown draws more traffic into downtown.

The pedestrians who are walking have to deal with that traffic, right?

Parking is an issue for folks with that.

There's more traffic congestion, or that's a by right office building.

We've done a big apartment complexes.

Is it one and old trail at 200 plus unit development there?

Yes, adds more traffic.

In this case, that's our, I think, our primary impact here.

So if you crunch the numbers and look at, let's say, the duplex by right plan, there's around 10 trips in the peak hour in the evening.

Our plan with these 28 units smaller comes out to 19 gig hour trips.

So it's nine trips in an hour.

So it works out to be an increase of one trip every six minutes throughout that hour on average.

Cars may come a little close together here and there, but that's our impact.

And I won't say it's not an impact, but I will say it's not much.

The benefit of this project

is 10 years affordable rental.

That is a subsidy of about $260,000 developers offering.

So somebody is receiving the benefit of that.

Eight units are voucher eligible in this project during that whole period of time because of the affordability levels.

We have $48,000 in sidewalk improvement money.

And I will concede that may not, you know, not going to build a sidewalk all the way down the street, but

The money will be used somewhere in the neighborhood, and if that's improving handicap ramps or crosswalks, somebody's getting the benefit of that money, somebody's in public. And so if I look at this on a fatality, it feels very much to me that some of the benefits far outweigh the impacts. And I understand the staff's recommendation is based upon, yes, the map is orange, 21 units an acre, we're over that, right, we have these maps, we have these Oh, yeah.

to tell us what we should do.

At the end of the day, zoning is really about the health, safety, and welfare of the public.

And that has been used often to say, oh, well, the public is like those, you know, right around, the people on the street, how to protect their health, safety, and welfare.

But really, it's about everybody.

It's about the community.

And so we look at this, just from an overall standpoint, what's the purpose of zoning?

Why are we looking at this on these projects?

Is this an overall net benefit

to the public.

And to me, it's a no-brainer.

It is.

There will be impacts on the street.

I won't deny that.

But the benefits to me far outweigh those.

And that's why we bring these kind of projects forward.

And we'll keep doing that because I think it's necessary.

And we hope you support this project in front of you.

So I hope that covers everything you were thinking questions-wise.

Any questions?

I can take note.

Yeah, okay.

Sure.

Mr. Schultzenberg, you said that each unit would have two affordable homes, or sorry, each building would have two units that were affordable in them.

I noted that in your proffer, it did not say anything about the distribution of units.

which is something that our standard operating procedures typically call for for affordable units to be distributed throughout the development in a way that doesn't crowd them together and that was noted in the staff report.

The plan is actually to do all the

one bedroom is affordable because what we have gathered is that's actually the greatest need because those are often like single households who, you know, may have vouchers, but like, you know, don't have necessarily a roommate to help with rent, right?

So that's what we had thought of.

I don't think we're opposed to otherwise, but I use that as an example to say, hey, a single family house is being replaced effectively with, you know, two affordable plus five units to really kind of compare

what we traditionally build versus what could be built.

But our intention was to have it actually all set in the one bedroom.

Maybe in two.

Gotcha.

Got a question for staff.

Two questions for staff.

Staff is pretty silent on two things.

They're silent on the impact of the $48,000 proffer.

When would we be able to take advantage of that in

project being undertaken.

When would the work be done?

When would the community around that benefit from it?

Because we've got a huge backlog of works.

And the other is they give, they offer a mitigating

to support this, but they're silent on critical slopes as well.

Commissioner, I can speak to the proffered donation to the CIP improvements.

There's not a good answer because this would basically sit in a fund waiting for a project in that neighborhood.

So there's not a time horizon built into the proffer as far as it's not a loan.

It is just a donation, but it is tied to this neighborhood.

So it would

So follow up.

So there's a calculation in Mr. Schiff's proposal that kind of walks us through how the $48,000 would work.

Would it be a greater benefit to that neighborhood if Mr. Schiff and his team

They are required to do sidewalks that are in front of their property.

So this is in addition to, so that is on the developer's expense.

When you develop land, you have to provide sidewalks or request a waiver.

But I'm wondering if it's legal and can we do it?

That would be off-site improvements.

And the reason I ask is because I know what our backlog is, our work backlog, and I'm concerned that

I think that's a fair statement.

Ms.

Since this is a rezoning and these are proffered conditions, which must be proffered voluntarily, the question for what you can't require him to do

Sure.

I just want to clarify, we would put the money in up front, just so everyone was clear about that.

Our contribution is due with the first building, so the money would be available, but you won't make a good point, when the city will spend it is out of our control, certainly.

We're not opposed to some specific amount, but the trouble with it is we have to start doing that.

We have to go find a place to put a sidewalk in, survey an engineer, figure out the right of way.

These things, you know, part of what they don't happen quickly,

is kind of a lot of lead work into it, and so that was our thought with zoning the money was that you have a sidewalk fund and ideally the city is going around if they had been more staff to identify you know these places where it can be done using that money along with other monies to be you know larger projects.

Although there are I would plan I mean this you know I see the city all the time going around fixing you know handicapped ramps and

where there are poles in the way doing bump outs for folks to get around things like that.

I don't know if that comes from the sidewalk fund, but those are the sort of things that are also meaningful.

And those are maybe, you know, five, $10,000 a piece.

So you could do five or more projects like that with the money we've offered.

It's just a matter of, it's simpler because we don't have the right to go on people's property and it's just harder for us to go and execute those offsite improvements.

That's the contribution.

I'm not saying we're

So I'd like to talk a little bit more about the critical slopes, but I'll defer to other commissioners because I think I've taken up more time.

Sure.

I have a few questions.

Thank you for the presentation.

I know I wasn't on the Planning Commission before when this came around, so I might have some redundant questions.

Quick one, I guess, off the bat is,

Well, certainly that's, you know, an option should this not be approved.

That's what's there.

you know there's a layout you could do a couple you know kind of duplexes like four bedroom each unit student housing kind of style which is not you know not a bad thing we just don't think it's the best kind of development you would end up with similar structure sizes in some ways is a benefit to us because what we don't have to do if you do that and you're clever about it you can

You know, sell a couple of lots and you don't get into building, you know, stormwater managed facilities, parking lots, like, for example, a duplex, you put a driveway and a couple parking spaces, all you're required.

You're not required to be all this additional site engineering.

So it certainly was looked at, but it's, you know, my opinion that these sort of pieces of land really should try to be a little more creative with and get some more density.

At the end of the day, if we could, right away, we can potentially close, and we could get four duplexes on here, right?

So if we did four bedrooms, that's eight units, four bedrooms apiece, that's 32 bedrooms.

We're asking for 48 bedrooms.

So it's not a huge stretch at the end of the day over the, by right, it's just, in our mind, a better housing project.

You know, getting those one bedrooms and two bedrooms that we think there's a big need for people in the community trying to find housing.

So could it be done as R2?

Yes.

Should it be done?

In my opinion, no.

That's why we're here.

But it certainly is an option.

Okay.

Thanks.

My second, I guess, question or kind of concern,

As my major concern, other than all the traffic I'm sure somebody will get to, is regarding the affordable housing units.

And I know it's not your intention, but the language in the application kind of leaves the door open to those units that are

around 60 to 80% AMI for 10 years.

I would hope that they're not the ones located in the essentially the basements of the two buildings on the front.

Yeah, if that was the case, that might be.

They actually are not, though.

They are on the

Al- First floor of the front buildings.

So all the affordables are in the three-story buildings up in the front, which is not sunken in.

But at any point in the, I think the language you can swap them around, right?

In the language of the proffer.

But I guess they wouldn't be one bedroom.

Right, yeah, the city attorney, yeah, it depends, these are the kind of questions I think that you discussed with the city attorney some, but the intention was that they would remain the four, the one bedrooms would be the affordables.

And it would be eight of them, they are not, they are in the front building on the first floor.

May I chime in with our response as well?

Please.

Thank you.

So, my name is Kelsey Schlein, I'm a planner with Schimp Engineering.

So,

I think additionally with the language in there that allows you to move it around in the covenants, there's also some language in there.

So, for example, you could have somebody live in an affordable unit, they get a raise, they no longer qualify for their for their affordable unit after there's a grace period in there for them to

remain with the affordability period, but like, you know, let's say they love their unit, it was affordable, they got a raise, they no longer qualify that, and so the owner needs to fulfill providing eight units, and they then can shift that around to allow that one tenant to remain in the, which was formerly affordable unit.

Yeah, thank you.

Mr. Mitchell?

Oh, yeah, I'd like to wonder why the analysis was quiet on the critical slopes.

I mean, there were recommendations.

There were recommended mitigating motions at the end, but there wasn't much analysis.

I see Mr. Dawson on.

Sure.

We did not look at this again since the last time it came from planning commission.

And there is not, depends on the project, how much analysis you get on these things, because it's kind of obtuse, the guidance that we're given to provide to you and the way it's compiled through our various divisions, et cetera, et cetera.

But doing lots of these critical slope things, I can tell you, and having looked at this before,

They're essentially the two findings that we're supposed to provide guidance on with with looking essentially at within the state's storm requirements are water protection ordinance and then the six or seven items are listed specifically in critical slopes.

And so most of those, you know, it's essentially two things that we discussed about before.

Disturbance during construction, which preserves, keeps sediment from moving into the streams.

And then there's sort of more of a general description for preserving environmental, and I don't have it in front of me.

the existing features on the site.

And so most of what we focus on for this site, it's really just the stream that's an environmental feature here because there is so much kudzu.

And so again, the threats to the stream really are during construction as well.

So that was our focus and that's where the recommendations come in.

I could say very generally there are some sites that probably will come before you eventually that are pretty nice sort of like pocket forests and things like that.

This is not one of those.

So

Staff's Public Works Engineering was a lot more focused on the road semi-control aspect of this, which is why our recommendations are geared towards a four-stage planning.

And I believe, I don't know that we saw a plan, but I know that Mr. Shim and I discussed that at some point prior to the last meeting, which is where we arrived at our recommendations so that it could be done.

And then the only other thing I'd point out, we discussed this last time,

on this vein of preserving or not destroying natural benefits is the stream.

It's obviously not the greatest stream.

Touching it sort of necessitates making, stabilizing it at the very least to make sure it can flow within reason what's coming to it, especially depending on the development.

Those are all in code.

And so what I would just, when you, when

In the engineering field, stream restoration is something pretty specific and it's probably not what's ultimately going to occur on this site.

But again, that being said, the stream essentially starts here at the outfall from the railroad.

It's not like it's a segment between two pristine drainages, you know, with trout rising and all sorts of benthic invertebrates and all those things.

So this is probably not the most

eligible site for this sort of thing for a real restoration, but I pointed that out last time.

I just want to reiterate that again, that what's going to be done to the stream is essentially like a stabilization, which is probably what's most appropriate for a stream like this in this location.

That's pretty general at this stage, but again, it'll have to comply to basic stormwater requirements.

You know, they can't propose we're going to put vertical faces on it and press some stone into the side of it, call it a day.

So all those details are to be worked out.

But again, a true restoration is more of art than science.

So I'd rather keep it in the sphere and come away with a culvert that works, a driveway that works, and a stream segment that's in better shape.

Okay, just to net this out so that I know where I am because I usually follow where you are.

You can nod.

I'm going to move button again.

Yes.

Yeah, correct.

Thanks, man.

Yeah, thanks.

So I've got a couple questions about this cash proffer.

I'm intrigued by this idea of using it for easy wins or smaller items like ADA curb cuts.

I haven't really thought about that.

And so

First question is, can it be used for bus shelters, like a bus shelter at the stop at the end of the road?

Are we saying that's within pedestrian improvements?

Yes, getting that going.

I think that to generally answer that, yes, anything that is

pedestrian, but I say that with the caveat of there has to be a project.

So not to bring up other projects to align this with, but just because it's fresh in everyone's mind, the stribbling situation.

When we talk about making public improvements or we're talking about contributing to public improvements, there's the assumption there is a plan that is something that is being contributed to.

In this situation, the applicant, you know, they're wanting to provide money toward a project.

There's just not a project.

So they're saying, here's money.

When there are projects that are pedestrian-based, this money can be used for it.

Yes, it would be much cleaner if we had a list of projects that were ready to go.

And the applicant said, I'm going to contribute a percentage to X project.

But that, unfortunately, is just not where we're at.

Right, yeah, no, I get that.

So we'd have this pot of 48,000, and if, say, Kat wanted to go install a bus shelter, they could draw from it.

My next question, I'm looking on Street View right now, and I see the intersection of Cherry and Valley.

It does not have an ADA compliant curb cut.

And I forgot to look at the curb cut when I was out there, but on the west side, it's just a raised curb.

On the east side, there is a cut, but there's no, you know, yellow truncated domes for the visibility impaired.

I know that the city has to like go around and replace those, you know, as a matter of course, we have a CIP item for that.

There is a multitude of lists that are generated from various sources and of various priorities that are handled by various departments.

And we've attempted to tackle that several times.

The ADA coordinator position is one that's

not consistent, so we've had some trouble getting that done, so I can't clearly answer your question.

Okay, but I mean, I think I'd say like whether there's a specific thing on the list or not, you know, for anyone walking west along Terry plus everyone walking from this street, not having any curb cut at all is going to be a big impediment to people who need those right and so that could be a good project.

I'm also thinking about, you know, other kind of strategic like stretches.

I know we

We don't really do kind of those like really small sidewalk projects.

We talked about that with the rayon thing.

It looks like the good news is here, the really most dangerous part of the road to me would seem to be that big bend, right?

And that part does have a sidewalk just for that part.

So the thing I'm wondering about is, you know how there's that stretch of Baker Street that kind of burns.

It's almost like a cul-de-sac little part that branches off.

Sorry, is this relevant to this project?

Yeah, it is.

And it goes into Valley Road or into Valley Creek, right?

Is that the sort of, if you know what area I'm talking about, it might help to look at a map.

Is it sort of like pedestrian bridge that would span 10, 15 feet?

Is that the sort of thing that the city would do or could partner with RTF on or something that could be a use of this fund?

It across from 503 Valley.

That's not something that we typically do.

That would most likely be something that parks would initiate through the trails program because that's sort of external to right-of-way pedestrian activity.

Yeah, it's a, it's, it can be complicated trying to tie projects to this funds and this project.

That's sort of the issue is that the impacts general.

You don't know, you know, the trips are generated at these units and the destination is these units, where they're going to, where they're coming from, nobody knows.

And so that's how you get

you immediately jump if it's not in the frontage here to make a logical connection that again they sort of have to offer that we can't step in and come up with a a project again we're struggling to to get some you know um get some of these things done as is it's not like we got and and it's convoluting the process to sort of look look for projects there so um yeah that's that's probably a little bit out of what we typically would do this it most likely would go

Okay, thank you.

Mr. Palmer, then Mr. Mitchell.

It's in the university's backyard here.

Well, the only thing that came to mind, and it's more for clarity and just understanding the affordable housing proffer.

So, you know, I'm thinking of it from the UVA student perspective, let's say, if I'm a poor graduate student, would I qualify for one of these affordable housing

Just want to get back to Mr. Stolzenberg's comments and just help him

Sure.

So, well, the curb cuts at the end, I think, are pretty straightforward in the bus shelters.

It doesn't exactly help with along the length of the road.

The pedestrian bridge to Baker Street has the advantage of

Baker Street has sidewalks all along, so any pedestrian walking along and trying to get to Cherry could cut kind of short circuit a whole section of valley that they wouldn't have to walk along without sidewalks.

That's the goal there.

I think maybe my point was like, you know, if that sort of thing would be in the purview of parks and rec or even RTF and a shelter would be under the offices of CAC,

You know, maybe there are these kind of small wind projects that could be done with this relatively small pot of money that, you know, might happen in the near term without putting more load on NDS.

Yeah, my only, yeah, I like small wins and like small quick wins as opposed to this.

My worry is that the development will happen and the $48,000 will be put in the pool

and not used for five years, 10 years, and not used to create a mitigating situation as relates to this development.

Thanks.

I had a question or wanted to have kind of I guess a conversation with staff about we heard in the staff report that there were some questions about the affordability component and proffer and language and I understand there's been some information that's come to light by the applicant and

I noted in your presentation, Mr. Schimpf, you mentioned percentage AMI and I didn't find that anywhere in the staff report or application materials.

So is that 65 and 80% AMI provision something that would be updated in the proper statement and or is there clarifying language that staff would

Kjell Anderson, Kelsey, you want to jump in on that?

The short answer is we do have that language.

We have the language for the proper rate.

It's really more about some of the details of exactly which units they were and then

how they might be swapped around.

But yeah, we've had the proffer range of affordability in the application.

But Kelsey, do you want to maybe outline how we structured that just so it's clear?

Yeah, certainly.

So the proffer that was put forth references covenants.

And in the covenants, there is a description for a qualified tenant.

and then in those covenants that's where the qualified tenants are described is up to 65% for the units and then up to 80% for more of the units.

And so, I mean, we've been trying to, you know, figure out this affordable housing thing for a while and we'll keep working at it for

for clarity.

And so if that clarity is needed within the proffers, then we'll keep working with staff to clear that up.

Could we hear from Ms.

So one

one of the concerns staff has and

I would ask that the city attorney jump in and correct me if I misspeak.

One of the concerns staff has is that we have to react to the proffer.

Since the covenants are not in place, we might be able to iron out details in the covenants, but if there's disagreement, it goes back to what was the approval based on the proffer that was offered.

So that's why staff has put forward the concerns.

We have met since the item was posted and we got some clarification that these will all be for rent units, because we also are concerned that there's some conflicting language in the proffer that almost makes it seem that some of them may change towards homeownership.

So we also have that concern that is listed.

I was asking Ms.

Yeah, so I think that the housing issue is so complicated because it could all come to paperwork and so Ms.

Kelly is correct and what you will see in the proffers is

a commitment for rent workforce affordable dwelling units where the monthly cost of rent doesn't exceed 125% of fair market rent.

And then for rent affordable dwellings where the cost of rent doesn't exceed fair market rent for the Charlottesville MSA.

Unfortunately, the draft covenant that the applicant intends to sort of implement those proffers isn't in your packet.

That covenant does reference the information that Mr. Schimp gave you, which is that half of the affordable units would be reserved for

Solla-Households having income of less than 65% and then half of the required affordable units would be reserved for households with income of less than 80%.

So one thing, if the applicant's willing to consider it might be, and I don't think this would require additional advertisement, but would just be to clarify in

in the paragraphs that reference the rent amounts, reference the percentage of AMI, if that would be acceptable to the applicant, because that would sort of close the loop and include that information in the proffers themselves.

But I do believe that the applicant's intention in submitting these together

was for them to work together.

Yes, that's right.

I think if you look at the two documents together, the proffer and the covenant, they wrap up essentially our intention of affordable housing here.

It's spelled out quite a bit of detail within that document.

I think maybe the issue was

how that got coordinated and reviewed internally with the city folks is a little bit different.

It was sort of out of a meeting we had with Mr. Robertson a month ago now with the idea that there would be some sort of more kind of a standard template on most of these projects as this covenant.

And the property would fill in kind of the main issues and the covenant's attached to that.

The covenant gets recorded with the property before the site plan is approved.

So it's actually a deeded restriction, not just a proper restriction on these things.

think we're headed in a good direction with how to implement these, but it maybe didn't get exactly perfect with this first go around, however, I think our intentions as to what was offered was clear.

Thank you, that's helpful.

Is that something we should craft into any motion we do or is that something that

legal and the applicant will work on after the fact.

Ms.

I just want to make sure that we're going to say it's the lower of either.

If that's what we're adding, like keep the FMR and say if you're adding the AMI, the lower of which is which.

Does that make sense?

Because I think the AMI levels you said are a little bit higher actually than the FMRs would be.

Yeah, what we're trying to do is, and again, this is not optimal because we're trying to do this without the guidance of a finalized, you know, affordable housing program formally, but what we're trying to ensure that people are not focusing solely on AMI and not without a care for whether the rent is affordable to people with that AMI.

and also that we're not focusing solely on rent, which would allow people who don't fall within the income levels to rent them.

So we're trying to make those things come together.

And as I really appreciate the efforts that Mr. Schimp and Ms.

Schlein have put in so far to work with me and Ms.

Kelly, because I think we're making a lot of progress.

These documents are getting better.

but we still have a lot of work to do not only in these applications coming through but in our affordable housing program in general so that we don't have to have this list level of discomfort every application.

We know exactly what we want in the documents.

So I can work with Mr. Schimp and

Mr. Ikafuna and Ms.

Thank you.

I'll say that my major concern with the project, and I may just be taking a very superficial look at it, is simply Valley Road Extended is a mess.

And I wonder whether there either is or should be some effort that the city makes to do something better by Valley Road Extended.

if we're going to be approving more density on that street.

And I mean, there's not even street definition in many parts of that street.

And I just wonder what the long term of that street is.

And are we going to say, sure, let's throw another 28 units on the end there.

I think it's probably fair to say I haven't thought about it deeply.

that's probably about doubling the capacity of the road, doubling the use of the road, doubling the number of dwelling units on the road.

Does that make any sense at all for a road that is in that poor shape?

That is a concern.

One of the big concerns from staff and from the traffic engineer was just the

The one, just the condition of Valley Road extended and any kind of large development at the end of it.

And two, if there even could be improvements to Valley Road extended in the future due to the constraints of Rock Creek to one side.

Right now you're seeing, you know, cars have to pull over to pass.

People are using the western side for parking.

There's not a definition of even where I think that's maybe a I'm not sure what the right of way width is.

I think it's a varying width right of way road.

So when you talk when you even talked about improvements, you know, long term to Valley Road, you're talking about you can really only go to one side.

I mean, I'm also concerned, quite frankly, about what would happen on Valley Road extended during the construction phase.

I don't know how construction vehicles are going to get down there, but that's my concern.

I'll let other folks ponder whether that's a fatal flaw, but that's what my questions are about at this point.

Thank you.

Sure.

Well, they certainly can.

I mean, we get construction vehicles into all sorts of places more complicated than that.

Now, look, is that the widest road in the city?

No.

So I think I don't have the measurements in front of me, the narrowest width or things like that.

But, you know, we're talking about building essentially like four large houses, which is a project, but it's going to be done.

The vertical construction should take maybe four or five months to get through.

There's a period of time where there's going to be some delivery trucks, there'll be some people going down working within the road, but I don't know that it would be meaningfully different than what the buy right is, right?

If you built four duplexes or four seven unit buildings, it's a little more material, it's a little more labor, but it's going to be a similar amount of traffic.

People come in and out building.

I don't know necessarily it's a great zoning

in this instance, we're not proposing a seven-story steel building where I can acquire different cranes and things like that.

The same framers, the same electricians, the same, you know, plumbers are going to work on either project.

So I recognize the concern, but I would just say I'm not sure how much the change in zoning changes the, you know, construction issues.

And certainly there are, you know, more trips overall for the day, but we're talking about, you know, if you do the

By right to our zoning change, it is a step down.

Sorry.

About 70, no, about 80 or 90 additional trips versus what the, you know, sort of by right development would be.

But it does add trips.

I don't know how many trips in that road now, how many units in that road now.

I think we're doubling it.

But it would add trips.

These are all one and two bedroom units.

They have fewer trips than they have four bedroom units.

that might be there otherwise, but I don't think it's double.

It's an increase, and as I said, you know, it's a certain, it's a couple cars, it's a car every few minutes, and I can pretend it's not, but I also think that you'd find that if you look kind of in any infill development around the city, you're going to find a spot where the road's not perfect, the sidewalk's not perfect.

I can think of, you know, very few times I've run across a site, the infrastructure was terrific all around it, maybe never in Charlottesville.

So these are kind of issues that come with these infill projects, and you have to weigh that benefit of getting those folks in the city in a place that's good for them against sort of, you know, the infrastructure being maybe not by the book.

That's going to be a judgment call.

You know, I certainly, between now and the city council meeting, go out and make some measurements and surveys and talk about that more specifically.

How many how many dwelling units are there on Valley Road extended at the moment?

It's a fine question.

I guess my my so my question is if you've got six or seven hundred trips

a day.

And again, I haven't done the count, but I'd be surprised if there were more than 28 dwelling units on Valley Road extended at the moment.

It's essentially doubling the number of units on the road.

I wonder why we would not then assume essentially a doubling of the number of trips.

I mean, maybe my initial premise is faulty.

Maybe there are actually five times more dwelling units

on Valley Road.

Maybe there are 150 dwelling units already there.

There's currently about 27 structures, but I would say over half of those are two-family, so around 40.

Okay.

Well, I know, so, well, I say more, more than what's the comparable by right, right?

Our, we would generate, according to calculations, 171 additional trips for our project in total.

If we just felt the duplexes, it'd be more like 80 trips, right?

So it's a, the road to face on the current zoning addition of 80 trips in total per day, and then 170 under this project.

Can you confirm?

Yeah, so I was just going to note, I'm not a traffic engineer, and the city traffic engineer is not here, but I don't want to, I referenced stream restorations, there's a manual, the ITT traffic trip generation manual, and I think as Justin alluded to there, it's based on housing types a lot of times and bedrooms, and so it's not a perfect calculation.

But that's essentially the industry standard, obviously, which you have to go off of.

And like a lot of the other projects, the way the trip generation work looks primarily at levels of service, which doesn't necessarily get into dated sections of streets that are essentially yield streets and with ad hoc parking and all these things like that.

the traffic engineering is not the end of the obviously of the existing situation.

It's just a tool that's used.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So thank you, Lisa and staff, for also bringing up about some of the issues with figuring out the affordable housing component.

For me, that's a very important issue.

When I run some kind of quick and dirty calculations, 80% AMI, if you're thinking one third of your income is supposed to be going towards your dwelling, that would mean that the rent would be around $1,458 without taking into account utilities.

With a 64%, 65% AMI,

in order for it to meet like that fair housing standard by HUD where one third of your income is going towards utility, and this is not thinking about utilities, would be $1,184.50.

So, and then fair market rent for our area for one bedroom apartment is $1,077.

So I get a little bit, even though if something is HUD eligible, voucher eligible right now, honestly,

all apartments have to take vouchers.

But what's the problem is background checks, criminal records, and also then fair market rent because HUD will only reimburse up to 1,077.

So there's still this gap potentially.

I just don't know.

What I'm bringing up is

It's one thing to talk about AMI, it's more about the actual rent that's the issue.

Could I jump in and clarify the rent?

Kelsey, please tell me if I get this wrong, but I believe the proffer is written that the rents are based on the FMR.

The eligibility is based on the income.

So the rent levels are four units at the FMR and then four units at 125% FMR.

Yeah, that's correct.

I mean, because it's really a two-pronged approach, right?

Like you want to cap the rent to ensure that it's voucher eligible and that it meets HUD FMR levels.

And then additionally, you want to ensure that qualified people are actually occupying those units.

so that who needs the housing at that price point the most.

So it is a two-pronged approach, though.

The proper is limited to four units at 125% AMA HUD FMR.

So for the one bedroom, that's 1346 utilities included.

Ms.

So the information provided by everyone is correct.

So two items, it's my understanding, I might be wrong, but it's my understanding that Housing Authority is approved by HUD to issue vouchers up to the 125% FMR at this point because of the cost of housing in Charlottesville.

and also as to the question about the students, it's also my understanding that we can't restrict renting to folks because of their employment or education or non-employment.

If they meet the guidelines, they meet the guidelines, provided it's the income verification and the age, all those types of things.

So, and as Ms.

Robertson said, what will happen between the proffer and the covenant and the language is that basically you're not, the applicant or the property owner, project owner will not be picking or choosing if it's an AMI or if it's an FMR.

They will have to comply with both, basically, is how that works.

Some, I mean, I know that there was, and maybe that's because it was LIHTC units maybe, because I know at some point there was a restriction on properties that I worked in that somebody could not be a full-time student for more than five months out of the year.

And that was, I mean, and this was years ago, so maybe that's changed since then.

And I don't know the answer to that.

I can try to find that out before the city council meeting and, you know, so we can clarify.

I can make a call to somebody.

I'll take care of that.

And then if it is, I'll shoot the info to you.

How about that?

I mean, but again, one of my deep hesitations on some things is we want to put fair market housing in and we're looking at this, but then if the landlord doesn't make

the allowances for someone potentially having had some bad credit in their past, having had issues that caused them to not be able to make enough money to necessarily live in Charlottesville, that they can still be denied the housing even though they can afford it with the voucher system and everything.

And I don't know, we can't write that into proffers.

Additional questions from Council?

I appreciate the clarification.

Thank you.

Commissioner Habab?

Just switch gears a little bit.

I have a quick question.

There would be four, one per unit.

The first floor of each building is one standalone two-bedroom unit.

Thanks.

Additional questions?

I believe we are prepared for public comment.

Sure thing, Chair.

And at this time, if you'd like to address the Commission on matters pertaining to 1613 Grove Street, please click your raise hand icon.

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

You will have three minutes for comment.

And first up, we have Kevin Hildebrand.

Kevin, you are on with the Commission.

Hi, good evening.

Thank you for allowing me to speak again.

I want to applaud Councilmember Snook for his recollection of the condition of Valley Road extended there.

If you go back to my testimony two hearings ago, I did give specific numbers, but this unit or this development represents about a 40 percent increase on the street as far as unit count goes.

And the

applicant has said something about eight units.

So my understanding is that there are three lots currently that are not developed.

So by right development would be six duplexes or six units in two, three duplexes, I believe, not eight.

And so 28 units represents quite a substantial increase over six units that are by right.

I'd like to also reiterate that this would be the first foray of R3 zoning south of the railway under the current zoning map configuration, and that is inconsistent with the development of the street or the capacity of the roadway.

Also, with the recently recommended future land use map and comprehensive plan update that the Council just undertook last week, this site remains a general residential site

not a medium density site.

And I think we would all agree that at 28 units, what we're talking about is a medium density development R3 development on this site.

So I would strongly urge the commission and the council to reconsider this, even in light of the, I think the offer of eight

If you were to look at this under the proposed zoning as general residential with three lots at by right development, four units per lot, that would be 12 units.

And then beyond the 12 units, you would get into an affordability component.

So what you're basically giving with this development is eight

additional market rate units to offset the proffer of the eight affordable units.

And I just don't think that's fair.

The basic issue is that the roadway is not appropriate for this level of development at the end of a dead end road.

And I would suggest that you look at the decisions that you made relative to the woolen mills site and the dead end road there, where you made the conscious decision to remove it from medium density and turn it back into general residential intensity as part of the F

L-U-M, and the new comprehensive plan.

The other thing that concerns me is the $48,000 proffer for Fifeville.

This really isn't Fifeville.

Fifeville stops at Atten Street.

This money should be used for Valley Road Extended, and the road is currently collapsing, and this money could be used to fix the roadway.

And next up.

We have Stacia Reinhardt.

Stacia, you're on with the commission, please.

I'm sorry, you have three minutes to speak.

Please unmute.

Chair, she is using an older version of Zoom.

That seems fine.

Please.

Welcome.

Yeah, sorry.

Yeah, this happened last time.

I'm so sorry.

Anyway, okay, so I agree with everything that Kevin was saying.

I think the biggest issue for this development is the road itself.

I live on Grove Street Extended.

It's actually kind of going up the other way, so I have to travel the entire length of Valley Road Extended.

I walk my dogs every day.

My husband walks the dogs in the mornings.

My neighbors walk their children on that road.

The

Makeup of the road has changed in the four years that we've lived here.

When we moved in, it was mostly students.

Right now, it's mostly young families.

I've seen at least five or six people walking their children on that road.

We don't have sidewalks.

Someone mentioned there's sidewalks on the dogleg.

Yeah, there's sidewalks, but people park over the sidewalks because there's no other place to park.

you know the the ends of their cars cover the sidewalk so you're still walking in the road when you're walking in the road and two cars are coming I've had to jump over the guardrail before I've had to stand in the weeds that are growing along the guardrail that the city lets grow there they're usually about two to three feet high I've had to walk you know step into those trying to get out of the way of cars you know if you add people if you add units you're adding people

there's a bus stop at the end of Valley Road extended.

So you're gonna be walking, all those people are gonna be walking to that bus stop or walking back from that bus stop if they don't have cars.

If they have cars, they're gonna be driving down that road and driving back.

You're also increasing not just those trips, but you're increasing delivery trips.

There's a ton of Grubhub and DoorDash that gets delivered in the evenings on our road.

And those cars, they just stop and they literally stop in the road.

They run, you know, and they block the traffic.

I've waited for them to deliver food and then try to turn around somewhere before trying to come home.

Getting in and out of Valley Road

you know on to Cherry sometimes there's you know three or four cars trying to get in or out and it's very narrow trying to get out it's very dangerous so I mean that's that's a big a big concern when you talk about the health and safety of you know that being the the main concern how are you getting fire trucks down this road if you're adding more cars and more traffic

you know how are you getting an ambulance on this road if you're adding more cars and more traffic, how are you making it safe for people to walk up to the bus stop if you're adding more cars and more traffic.

The road is collapsing like Kevin said it's that's true that needs to be fixed, no matter what happens like whether or not the development goes in the road needs to be addressed there's no way that that $48,000 can put sidewalks in.

because there are no, the last meeting, everybody agreed there's no way to put sidewalks in on Valley Road Extended.

So that's, the traffic is, it's not appropriate for a building like that.

And if anybody else would like to address the commission on matters pertaining to 1613 Grove Street, please click your raise hand icon or press star nine if you're joining us by phone.

Thank you very much.

I'd like to begin deliberations.

I'm getting some odd echo.

The $48,000 that is proper will not be of immediate value to this project.

Again, I don't think it would mitigate the traffic issues that we're dealing with in the area.

So I don't see where that is of great value.

I am worried that the folks that will benefit from the affordable units will be students.

I love UVA students.

I love UVA.

But I think if we're going to allow rezoning, we're going to allow a special use permit, then we should benefit the greater city as opposed to the institution that I love.

So that doesn't help much.

By right, even by right is going to put a lot of pressure on the neighborhood.

Barrett will at least allow us to allow us to deal with the cut to and other critical slopes.

I think Mr. Mr. Dawson has relaxed my concern about that.

That's where I am at the moment.

That's fine.

Thank you very much.

Mr. Bob, please.

Right here, Chair.

I think, I mean, my two pros and cons, I think it does a lot of things right, you know, the scale fits the neighborhood, the buildings specifically.

I appreciate, you know, considering maximizing vacant land, we don't have much left in the city, so the more we can do that, the better.

It's right by the train tracks.

I think more density in that general kind of condition is good.

There are no major tree canopy issues.

It's an empty plot of landfill cut to and it provides sufficient parking on site.

Not that I'm a pro parking advocate, but in this case, it helps, I feel like so.

I mean, it only goes bad and they provide enough

I guess I should say sufficient stream restoration, not restoration, but stabilization.

The only concern being the traffic.

Thank you.

Mr. Yeah, thanks.

I'm in the same place Mr. Habab is.

I'm teetering on this thin line.

And I have the same positives that Mr. Habab shared about it.

And I have the same negatives about traffic.

And I mean, I just drove down this road today and had a very difficult time turning around getting out of it.

So I'm waiting for someone to make a compelling argument one side or the other.

I'm teetering.

Ms.

Well, I don't think you'll hear a compelling argument from

But I just wonder, you know, sort of how we can be of use as a body, right?

And so if we, it seems like what I'm hearing from council is they have some major concerns about, you know, what we're talking about.

And in that way, I'm wondering,

you know whether we approve or deny it will go to Council and so if we were to approve or deny are there conditions in addition to what's being recommended by staff and I've heard some some other revisions, mainly to the proper, which sounds like the applicant is comfortable doing around refining that AMI

language and someone I hope can capture that more eloquently, but the percentage AMI being being captured in the proffer and around flexibility of the use of the proffer funds being flexible in sidewalk curb cut improvements in that vicinity.

Are those are those amendments or recommendations enough to alleviate the

concerns we're all sharing around increasing the traffic.

I don't think so.

So what are we doing at the end of the day if we can't change this really big concern over the safety of our community on that street?

I don't know if that will spur any other conversation because I feel very

Thank you.

Thanks.

I mean, I'm definitely in agreement that everything about this project is good except for the concern with the traffic.

The matching is fine.

I'm happy with the stream.

I think that's all great.

I think

It really can't be understated how important four units at 65% AMI and another four at 75% AMI would be for the people who live in those households.

And I'm looking at the housing needs assessment.

and where it talks in table A43 in the appendix, the applicants on the wait list for housing choice vouchers or for CRHA housing, 52% of them are single-person households and another 15 are two-person households.

That could also probably fit into bedrooms.

And people need homes.

And that is a really meaningful proffer.

At the same time, we also have heard a lot in this process for the future land use map and for the comprehensive plan

from a large segment of the community that wants us to maximally utilize our vacant land in particular.

And, you know, the fact of the matter is most of our vacant land is vacant because it's the marginal land that wasn't the easiest to develop.

And, you know, this is at the end of an almost third of a mile street.

I wish I had sidewalks all the way down.

It doesn't.

But between the affordable housing and the stream improvements, and I'm confident there's enough parking on site in this plan as well.

And, you know,

whether or not there's an immediate use for $48,000 or whether it will be put towards sidewalks here.

I am very hopeful that there are some small projects in particular along Valley Road and at the end of Valley Road that this could be used for.

And I think Kat would jump at the chance to take, you know, $15,000 and put it for a shelter there.

And certainly an ADA cut so people in wheelchairs can continue going down Cherry would be very valuable.

And so the question at the end of the day is,

you know is it worth to get all those nice things to to inflict on the residents this road an extra you know five cars per hour or a car every five minutes it was driving down during the peak hour and I

and where the alternative is three or potentially four duplexes with their four bedrooms and are almost certainly filled by students.

And again, I don't really totally understand this thought that all of the affordable units would be filled by students.

It seems to me, you know, there's people out there who need affordable units are waiting for them who are in the community.

You know, students are going to be the first to jump on those, I would hope, just in practice, even if it is possible for them to do it technically.

So I think at the end of the day, for me, you know, to get eight affordable units, to have homes for 20 other families starting out in the community for community members and not students living in a four bedroom, four bath house, I think it is worth an extra car every five minutes.

And I say that in particular because, you know, most mornings, you know, I walk down Altamont Street, which has a narrower right away than this, cars on the road,

and it has a 24 unit building at the end.

It's a bit shorter for certain and everyone has to walk in the road and it's okay.

There are definitely times where, you know, it could be better, but cars for the most part slow down because they know people are walking.

And, you know, I just think of the dozens of people who wouldn't have homes if we had applied these standards universally to everything that already exists.

I don't have too much to add.

I guess, you know, I asked that question about the student only because I think it's more in the context of a lot of what we've talked about during the comprehensive plan and affordable housing discussions and

And not that there's like a value judgment made on who should get those units, but just kind of the optics of, you know, if all those units were occupied by students, I think some people might, you know, have a negative thought about that.

But I appreciate the candid answers on that question.

I've been familiar with the site for a very long time.

I originally scouted this many years ago, working on the bicycle and pedestrian plan that we have now.

And it is, in fact, an intersection of two major bicycle and pedestrian paths, which are not built, have no funding to be built, have no timeline to be built, but they look beautiful on a map.

I continue to believe that this would be a spectacular place for bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure.

It makes so much sense where it is, but we just we haven't gotten the money together.

We haven't gotten the logistics together to make that happen below these many years.

The question I asked myself is, do we get it together if we get a buy right duplex or do we get it together with something more creative?

I think the city will prioritize this more if there are more people shouting.

for the safety improvements that, frankly, should have been there many years ago, in my personal sense.

MR. Yeah, I would like to move that we deny the application for rezoning.

The rationale is traffic concerns

The fact that we don't know when the $48,000 proper will be available to be executed on, when public works can get around to it.

We don't know exactly where it's going to go.

And even though by right will present a little tension in the area, it's still a better way to go than the additional density.

I hear a second.

Because it's fewer cars.

I'm guessing it's slightly better for traffic, maybe.

But

You know, I think we just heard about how the street had been all students almost, especially at that end, and has been turning over to families.

And, you know, I think that is in part because we built things like West Main that drew people away.

I think if you get four bed, four bath units, those are like explicitly designed for students and will encourage students to live there rather than

you know non student community members and so to me the advantage of doing it in the form of one and two bedrooms you know slightly more total bedrooms I think we heard as the rather large advantage that probably almost all of them all the people who live there will be community members and especially you know elderly folks who need to downsize into one and two bedrooms and young professionals at the start of their careers

Actually, I didn't mention this earlier, but I know a guy who lived right across the street from there and those in those duplexes that were built about 10 years ago in like a basement apartment in one of those.

Actually, that was his wedding a week and a half ago.

And I know for a fact that he made quite a bit less than, well, let's just say he would have qualified for any of these affordable units.

And

You know, I know having an affordable place to live at market rate was part of what enabled him to live in our city altogether.

Mr. Leonard?

You called on me, Lyle?

I'm sorry.

Well, I'm just remembering, you know, just driving around today, the city has so many constricted, difficult streets.

I live on one that have parking on one side, can only allow one, even though there are two lanes, two

of traffic going both ways.

Only one lane can go at once.

People trying to walk their families on it.

It just seems like we can zone the hell out of the city, but if the infrastructure is not there to support it, we're going to keep turning down developments.

I'm leaning towards

I like what you said, Lyle, about maybe this will get the city to start prioritizing and start to work on the infrastructure.

And that's the way we're going to be able to grow the density and get the affordable housing.

Anyway, so that's as much as I can offer at this point.

So I would vote against denying it.

I guess I want to say anecdotally, at least I have heard how hard it is to be able to use a voucher to get an apartment, at least especially one bedroom units from people that are looking for them within the, I guess, Virginia housing threshold of, you know, I think it's a thousand, some almost a little over a thousand dollars for that voucher.

And just hearing that this project allows people to be able to get those units, I think, you know, it provides so much and the applicant also brought a lot to the table.

And I think it just brings a lot of, I guess, public good to the residents of our city.

The only other point I'll make is that we have a huge backlog.

Lyle, you suggest that moving forward projects like this would force the city to move the infrastructure increase in improvements up the ladder.

But we have a huge backlog as it is.

Um, you know, I just want to say, I commend the applicant and the owner in this example for their efforts in, in trying to work around our, our, our rules, right?

In this, and in this case, I think

to what Commissioner Alejandro said about, you know, we have streets where people walk down the middle of them and, you know, it's just sort of like a thing we accept.

It's the condition on Graves Street where, you know, someone in a wheelchair goes down the middle of the street almost every day because the sidewalks don't have, you know, have power poles going through them, but that's not acceptable.

And in this, you know, in

In supporting a denial, I think what I'm personally trying to say is like, this is not, this is not indicative of a world class city that we set out to be.

You know, we're, we're, we're all losing in that, in that scenario.

And I don't have a solution, really, just that I just personally feel like this

This does put too much of a burden on the residents on that very constrained street, just like we discussed in Stribbling.

It's kind of similar.

It's like, will it even be possible to make that road better?

I don't know.

The power poles, we talked about that in October.

Initial commentary?

Discussion?

Sure, let me unmute.

All right, and this is for the motion for recommendation for denial for the rezoning request.

Ms.

Russell?

Yes.

No.

I believe the motion fails, but thank you for making it.

That was constructive.

I would like to have an item of discussion just before we make an additional motion.

We have talked about proper clarifications.

I think there was talk about putting AMI levels for eligibility in there.

And there were talk about explicitly saying the 48,000 could be used for ADA or bus stop improvements.

But I think the applicant may have said in the chat that they illegally alluded that he was okay with it or that they're okay with it.

Sure.

Yes.

We are agreeable to the additions to the proffers as discussed to clarify the rent levels and the AMI folks as discussed previously.

That was our intention the whole time.

And likewise with the sidewalk proper that too was intended really to be used for whatever was easiest the city to do in the neighborhood to make the sidewalk infrastructure better.

Thank you, that's helpful.

Is there a second for that motion?

I see a second.

And here one.

Give me one second.

You have five.

Okay.

There were some staff recommendations regarding this motion, weren't there?

I don't think in the... Were they in the SUP?

Okay, cool.

Okay, cool.

Thank you.

Additional discussion on this topic?

Hearing none, Ms.

Sure.

Mr. Mitchell?

Nay.

Mr. Russell?

No.

Aye.

I believe that passes.

I moved to recommend approval of the application.

Okay, sorry, hang on.

Did we have any extra additional FTP conditions that we had discussed that were not recommended by staff?

I move to recommend approval of this application for a special use permit for text map and parcels 2301-3300, 2301-34000, and 2301-35000, 1613 grocery extended, to permit residential density up to 43 DUA and adjusted yard requirements as depicted on the site plan dated September 29, 2021, with the conditions recommended by staff.

Second.

I hear a second.

Discussion, please.

Hearing none, Ms.

Mr. Mitchell?

Aye.

Mr. Russell?

Nay.

Aye.

I believe that passes.

I move to recommend approval of the critical slope waiver for tax math and parcel three I said just now as sorry as requested with conditions outlined in the staff report based on a finding that the public benefits of allowing the disturbance outweigh the benefits of afforded by the existing undisturbed critical slope for section 34-1120 B61.

Second.

Hearing none, Ms.

Ms.

Russell?

Yes.

Aye.

Goodbye, Katsu.

I believe that passes.

I believe we are prepared to close this public hearing.

Council, thank you very much.

Moving forward, as I find my notes, I believe we are moving to a discussion of 2005 Jefferson Park Avenue.

How are we feeling?

I'm hearing three minute bio break.

And I believe we are back.

Welcome, all.

Hope you are feeling refreshed and strong.

I believe we are prepared for a discussion about 2005 Jefferson Park Avenue.

Who's leading us off on this?

Yes.

So, commissioners, can you hear me?

So great.

Commissioners, tonight you're holding a preliminary discussion.

Mitchell Matthews, representing the applicant, Aspen Heights Partners,

is proposing to develop the 1.7 acres of land located at 2005 and 2007 JPA and 104 Observatory Avenue for residential use outside the current by right density parameters.

The comprehensive land use map for this area calls for high density residential

Prior to submitting an application to the city for a SUP application and an entrance corridor approval, the applicant and his team is looking for feedback from the Planning Commission on the proposed project.

In a moment, the applicant will give a presentation, and at the conclusion of that presentation, Planning Commission may want to consider whether a DUA of 70 at this location is appropriate,

if the height of 75 feet is appropriate at this location, and if the rear setback abut is the rear setback they're proposing as part of their presentation is enough to protect the R2 district behind it.

With that, I'm going to turn it over to Mitchell Matthew Architects.

Thanks.

You sound great.

Great.

So I'm Erin Hannigan with Mitchell Matthews Architects.

Also on the phone tonight is Timmons Group, the civil engineer, and Aspen Heights partners, the client, if there are any questions that need to be directed to them.

I'll run through this quickly, but we've provided a substantial packet with a lot of justification that hopefully you've had time to review in advance.

If we can pull up the slides.

Hosea Mitchell, This is a condensed version of that.

Hosea Mitchell, If we can go to the next one as Mr athlete said 2005 JPA is a proposed multifamily residential project it's on Jefferson park avenue and its residential units over parking below.

and we're here to discuss whether our future SUP requests are appropriate, as well as to get your initial reaction to the entrance corridor review that will also take place for this particular parcel.

We have three requests and as Mr. Afflea mentioned, it's for increased density, increased height, as well as a rear yard setback reduction.

And so

We're again, we'd like to know that we're on the right track with this application before we submit a formal application to you.

The parcel is located, as you can see, on Jefferson Park Avenue.

It's not far from central ground CVA.

Can you go to the next slide, please.

So this slide demonstrates that we are in census track six.

And so census track six

data shows that the median age is 21 and a half.

80% of the people living in this neighborhood are under the age of 29.

And we put this up here to show who this project would be impacting.

93% of the units in this neighborhood are renter occupied.

and 79% of those are non-family.

So that means, as we all know from living here, that it's predominantly student rental population in this neighborhood.

If you can go to the next slide, please.

This is an enlargement of the site plan.

So 2005 JPA, as mentioned, is an assemblage of three lots.

It has

frontage on Jefferson Park Avenue and then extends between Observatory Avenue and Washington Avenue.

Washington Avenue is a through street between Jefferson Park Avenue and Stadium Road, whereas Observatory Avenue is a dead end.

And we're about a block from the commercial district or commercial properties that are at the intersection of Maury and JPA.

Next slide, please.

So again, the site is currently all renter occupied.

And the pink on this slide is demonstrating those parcels that are renter occupied.

We only have one contiguous neighboring parcel to the rear, which is 116 Washington Avenue.

And that neighboring parcel stretches as well between Observatory and Washington.

And the majority of the other parcels

Vast majority are also renter occupied along around the perimeter.

And this data comes from the city's GIS data to understand who our neighbors were.

If you can go to the next slide.

This is the current zoning map and just running through again the existing zoning on the site.

So by right, 21 DUA is allowed.

and up to 87 is allowed by SUP and we're requesting 70.

Skipping down to height, 45 feet is allowed max by right.

And we're requesting 75 feet from the average grade plane, whereas 101 is allowable with a special use permit.

So the 75 feet that we're requesting is in the middle range there.

You can see for the range of 22 to 43 DUA,

it's still under that 80 foot mark of a height in increment listed in the zoning ordinance.

The setbacks, the front yard setback is an average of the neighboring properties.

It's averages out to 26.35 feet because we're on two side streets, both side yard setbacks are 20 feet.

And then the rear setback is the interesting one.

The minimum is 25 feet, but as you increase in density, there's a jump in the rear yard setback.

So the density that we're requesting would put us at a 75 foot rear yard setback and the first 25 feet of that would still be a type S3 buffer and we're requesting a reduction from 75 feet to 36 feet for the rear yard setback as our third request.

under the future SUP application.

While we're on this slide, it also shows that the previous zoning designated university high density between the railroad tracks and Jefferson Park Avenue.

And then it was step-down zoning that went from university high density to R3, which is the northwest side here of Jefferson Park Avenue.

And then that stepped down again to R2U.

And of course,

The 2013 comprehensive plan zoned all of those areas the same and your current recently approved work reflects more of a corridor perspective to the zoning.

In the next slide is existing context in the vicinity.

The most recently approved project is number five, which is near the middle.

That project is six stories, as you can see on the facade, it has a 25 foot front yard setback, a 25 foot rear yard setback, and five foot side yard setbacks.

The rest of the projects are greatly varied in their architectural character and height, generally in the district.

Can you go to the next slide.

This is the site survey.

and the existing buildings are in pink.

And the thing to point out here is that there's a three-story drop in grade diagonally across the site.

So that is a challenge for the site to deal with that much grade change.

The other aspect of this is that the rear, the property, the rear, excuse me when I take a drink of water,

The property of the rear is currently adjacent to a parking lot.

It is a fenced parking lot, but that's what they're currently adjacent to.

And under redevelopment, it would be a 25-foot buffer.

for a project that stretches quite a distance from the front yard to the rear yard, that that much grade change means that you have, like other places in the city, there's ways that you have to mitigate the grade change with entrances and connections to different levels.

Thank you.

Sure.

This shows the 2013 comprehensive land use map.

And again, this is the timeline where the whole neighborhood for the most part in this vicinity was all designated as high density residential consistently on both sides of JPA and the whole way to UVA.

There was no R2U step down in this vision.

And I took out the slide for your current comp plan because I didn't know where it was headed when we submitted the slides.

So it obviously, you know it better than I, but it is proposing the mixed-use corridor along JPA and recommends heights from five to eight stories.

And JPA qualifies as one of the streets that can be up to eight.

The next slide, we dive into the actual project.

So this is a roof plan of the project.

Jefferson Park Avenue is on the right.

And to note here, the setbacks are shown.

You can see that we're up against the front yard setback and the side yard setbacks.

And then in the rear, the blue line represents the 25 foot buffer.

The 75 foot setback is shown and the 36 foot

that we're requesting.

Excuse me.

Other things to note is that the primary entrance is on the corner of Washington and JPA.

The pedestrian entrance is focused on that corner.

We've taken a lot of effort to design the streetscape along Jefferson Park Avenue.

Again, the grade change just between Washington Avenue and Observatory Avenue is 10 feet.

So there are a series of terraces that mitigate that grade change.

Mr. Offley, while we're taking a moment here, can you help me understand the front setbacks we have in JPA?

As far as,

When you say, what's the thinking as far as just the... In many places like this, we do zero setback to the front to create more of a pedestrian friendly experience, but we don't do that here.

I don't know if I can speak to the history of that.

Generally, I have seen pedestrians on JPA.

Generally, we're trying to create a pedestrian-friendly feel on JPA.

The last 1725 was the last project that came through.

That was several years ago.

And that was a big focal point of the SUP.

But typically, I think probably what it has to do with is

So while the speaker is hydrating, another question is 1800 JPA, that's the big tower there.

I've got nine in my head.

So nine stories and how many feet?

And that's like right at gray, isn't it?

There's no slope there.

It's sort of set back a ways, like it's down a side road.

But yeah, I don't think there is any down slope.

You definitely see it.

I would assume it's 101 feet like our other nine-story buildings.

That would be the max because that's our max allowable height.

And that's three blocks down, isn't it?

Three blocks towards the university.

Right.

About three to five.

And they're looking this 75 feet is what we're talking about here.

Yes, correct.

Our request is for 75 feet.

I would assume 101, the height limit.

Okay.

Got it.

We don't have that data.

Yeah, it's probably about right there.

It is nine stories, and I would say it's right around that 101, maybe a little less.

Ms.

I hope so.

Thank you for the break.

So again, we're focusing on the pedestrian experience along JPA because we learned from your comments for the 1725 project that that pedestrian experience is important to you.

and as an entrance corridor, as well as with the future vision of the comp plan that you just recently recommended that turns this into a mixed use corridor that we envision that you will want increased pedestrian amenities and spaces along that corridor.

So we've paid particular attention in this mission in our early design work to think about

the conditions along Jefferson Park Avenue.

And so as we look at the next slide, you'll see that there is a brick plinth that the building sits on and that it's low at the street.

And we've pulled back the one wing of the building.

It's about an additional 45 feet away from the front of the brick plinth.

And that so

In the last image, you might have noticed that there was a pool in the corner that is raised and above view and not visible from the street.

There it is on the corner observatory in JPA.

So that's up at the top of that brick plinth.

And if you again flip forward, the building on the other corner stretches down to grade with its material and massing.

to highlight the entry condition and draw attention to that side architecturally as the more prominent corner and the entry corner of the project.

Again, there are terraces that step down between

the higher side of Observatory Avenue and the lower side of Washington Avenue the 10 feet grade change between those two and the corner that you're looking at that's there at Observatory the thought is that that could be designed in a way for future flexibility to commercial space and so it's small enough to currently work as an ancillary

And then we have commercial space that works for the current zoning as well as the idea that it could potentially be a future little coffee shop or some amenity condition like that for the neighborhood on that corner and then other amenities stretch across from there that would be for the residents and it stretches down to the entry condition. So as we go to the next slide, this Thank you so much for joining us.

This shows, again, that the orange volume is the maximal buildable envelope, representing the 101 feet from the average grade plane, representing that it would be likely at the street.

It shows you the 75-foot rear yard setback that would be required for that density.

And the pink volume, or purple, that turns pink when it's overlapping with the orange, is our proposed

buildable envelope.

And as you can see, the heavy black line is representing where that wing is pulled back, the extra 45 feet.

And then again, there's another in-between shade of orange for the wing that's beyond that would come forward to the street.

And so at the rear, the important thing to note is that it would only appear as five stories because there are two stories of parking below grade that are all concealed.

and the grade is working to our advantage for that condition to be able to conceal all the parking and then we'll show you some more slides to for the condition at the street and to draw attention to the things we've highlighted on the left hand side of the slide that the adjacent against the property line to the left of that the adjacent property is currently allowed 35 feet, but under your

comprehensive plan that just got recommended for approval would go up to five stories on that lot.

And that would be around 55 feet.

And that's generally equivalent to the height of the building that we're proposing.

And so the two conditions become more compatible, which is part of the reason why we believe a reduced rear yard setback is

idea ideal or compatible with the conditions here that with a dense buffer and that reduced rear yard setback.

If we apply a hypothetical bulk plane to the project, which we've used the West Main East zoning ordinance bulk plane as an example, since that's sort of become a precedent, you can see

that it's described with that diagonal line, the proposed building massing as well as the maximum allowable both reside under it as another sort of metric to show that we expect that the reason that increase of the rear yard setback was taking place in our current zoning ordinance is because as it steps in height, you would be further and further away from that rear yard.

of property line.

So going to the next, oh, while we're on this slide, also, again, the project that you previously approved was 25 feet for the rear yard setback.

So we're, you know, an additional 11 feet beyond the most reasonably approved project.

If we go to the next slide.

So this is an enlargement of the floor plan as it would interact with the streetscape along JPA.

And this is a bit of a composite.

So the right hand side of what you're looking at shows the first floor where the lobby would occur at the lowest level.

And then the left hand side is actually showing the floor above that because, again, as it terraces up, different levels would engage.

with the adjacent crates.

And so the corner condition there on the left shows an amenity that could be converted to future potential commercial space and would have access to terraces that would be outside that space.

And then we're focused on the ability to provide street trees and external sitting areas that would

allow one to interact with pedestrians on the street.

Can you move to the next slide, please?

This is a view of that entry corner where vertical emphasis is given to the entrance.

And you can start to see the terraces stacking up the street in the distance.

Can you go to the next image?

So this is focusing on the main entrance off of JPA and the terrace is there to the left.

And you can see above how the other wing is pulled back to help mitigate the massing of the building at this JPA.

And if you go to the next slide.

Again, another view of the streetscape and providing

interest along that area and engagement with the street.

So again, the questions that Mr. Affleet outlined, is the density appropriate for this location of 70?

Is the height of 75 feet appropriate?

Is the rear yard setback reduction appropriate?

And I would add a fourth, are we on the right track for the entrance corridor review that would also be undertaken?

Thank you.

Commissioners, I'd urge you to consider questions for us.

So I would always defer to Mr. Indra when it comes to the interest quarter stuff.

I'd love to hear what he thinks about the tower abutting against the streetscape and would love to hear what Mr. Hinger thinks about 75 feet height.

Is that appropriate?