Planning Commission Meeting   1/11/2022

I call us to order Charlottesville Planning Commission, January 11th, 2022.

Let's start up with commissioner reports.

Yeah, I've got one and that's more related to the LUPEC committee.

And the LUPEC group is like, you know, Ravana, water and sewage, Charlottesville, Albemarle County and the university.

Four things to note.

Most important of all, the administrative responsibilities and moderating responsibilities have transferred to Charlottesville now.

So Lauren Hillebrandt will now be the chair of the Lubeck Committee from Charlottesville.

So let's move to us.

James did an incredible job.

Mr. Freeze did an incredible job of walking the committee through all the things we've done with the comprehensive plan.

where we are today and what's to come.

So with an instance from Alex, but he didn't accept the job.

So thank you, James, for that.

The UVA Foundation talked a little bit about the North Fork project.

And that's like 29 North, right across from what used to be FSGC, the government secret place.

And they talked about what they're doing there.

And they are actually

asking for a rezoning.

And the rezoning is to allow for residential to be included in the industrial developments that they're doing there.

The residential could be between 200 and 1,400 units.

And good news, at least 15% of these units will be affordable.

So they're thinking about that in a big way.

Rivanna then complemented what the foundation presented by talking about their plans for bringing water and sewage and buoying water and sewage in that area.

That's it.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

Good evening.

I do not have an official report.

The CDBG in-home task force application review process is underway.

The Rivanna River Bike Head Crossing Stakeholder Advisory Committee met on the 16th of December and we looked at three options for a connection between one side of the Rivanna to the other and we eliminated one.

So now the two options that we're looking at are a connection near Riverview Park on Chesapeake

and the other would be the wool factory, one would span between city and county, the other would be basically just on county land.

Our next meeting is scheduled on January 20th and we're meeting this Friday to walk the site and look at the two potential landing areas.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Since our last commission meeting, I attended two committee meetings.

The first one, the Board of Architectural Review met December 21st.

We approved three certificates of appropriateness.

We had one preliminary discussion for additions and alterations to 540 Park Street.

And we also approved the six preservation awards for this past year.

I won't go through all of them, but I did want to mention one.

Mary Joy Scala received the Preservation Award.

for past service as the city's historic preservation planner and her current volunteer work with Preservation Piedmont and other preservation organizations.

So that was good to see.

And I was delighted to be a participant in that.

The Tree Commission met just last week, the 4th of January.

First off, the Tree Commission asked me to convey and my

Thanks to the Planning Commission for recommending the restoration of the CIP funding levels that were originally requested by the Tree Commission.

Thank you all very much for supporting that.

Parks and Rec staff reported a successful bid for planting this year's allotment of new trees.

It's about $5,000 under the $75,000 budget.

I think it's about 180 trees plus or minus.

And then Relief Seville, which is a component of the education and advocacy subcommittee, is working with the Charlottesville high school teachers to create an environmental awareness day and the component that Relief Seville will play will be in providing tree education.

And then lastly, the Tree Commission elected new officers for this next calendar year.

Peggy Van Yeres will be the chair and Jeff Aiden will be the vice chair.

And thank you, Ms.

So I got a question, if I may.

Mary Joy.

Mary Joy is retired now.

Yes, she retired a few years ago, and Jeff Werner is now the preservation planner for the city.

But since then, I think she's served, Liz would know better than I, I think she served as the director of Preservation Piedmont.

for a couple of years or a year.

And now she's still heavily involved with them, as well as supporting and advocating for other preservation issues here in Charlottesville.

That's just generally good news.

She was an impact player many years ago when I was on my first cycling planning commission.

Yes, she is.

She's around.

Ms.

I have no reports.

I have no active committees.

Jody, you're right.

Mary Joy was the president in 2019 and before then predates my time.

And she's on our board of advisors, I think.

I have no report.

only to report, as you probably know, classes start next week, so spring semester will begin.

And along with upcoming meetings, there's a master planning council meeting next week on the 18th that I think Hosea and maybe James, Mr. Freyas are involved in.

What are the rules and regulations as opposed to kids going to class and going to the cafeteria and gathering?

Yeah, they made a booster requirement.

So employees as well as students all have to show that we've been boosted before we can be on grounds at our jobs or in our classrooms.

Beyond that, I think all the same rules as the fall are in place.

Some limits on gatherings, but mostly most normal masks indoors.

I believe so.

If you have a vaccination proof.

Oh, okay.

I have it, but okay.

I mean, I think I don't even, I'm not even sure what their rules.

That's okay, but

I have a brief report.

The Housing Advisory Committee met December 15th to discuss the capital improvement plan, a topic in all of our hearts.

There was a concern about funding, taxes, how the housing plan will sort of work with sort of our fiscal year 27 crunch, which is all

It was sort of unclear.

I didn't have a lot of light to shed on that topic.

There were two desires expressed out of that.

One was for some sort of joint meeting between the Planning Commission and the Housing Advisory Committee to discuss long term the CIP and the housing plan to see if we can continue the housing plan through

long-term, and also considerations about funding, which were referred to the policy subcommittee, I believe.

This is what I know on this topic.

We did, Mr. Mitchell, thank you.

I'm switching gears.

I would like to hear from staff.

We are moving forward.

We're in the new year.

Last week was exciting for, I think, just about everybody in the community.

But we we carry forward.

I have limited announcements and then I'm gonna turn the time over to James to provide some additional information.

Just a reminder that the clerk has sent you all the disclosure of real estate form.

and I know that a few of you have already processed that, but make sure to do that as soon as possible.

If you did not receive any paperwork on that, commissioners, let me know, and I'll coordinate with the clerk on that.

Good evening, Mr. Chair, members of the commission.

I just wanted to take a little bit of time this evening to provide an update on where we are and getting ready for the zoning rewrite project to kick off.

So we're aiming to formally kick off that process at the end of the month.

There'll be a press release at that time as well as an update of our website where we'll fully flesh out the schedule over the course of the next year plus and clearly identify those opportunities for engagement in this process for the community at large.

Broadly, as we talked about, as we were wrapping up the comprehensive plan, you will recall there was some discussion of what the phases of this project will look like.

Again, it's largely a three-phase process.

The first phase is what we're kind of calling the diagnostic and approach phase.

The diagnostic part of that is where we're looking at the existing zoning ordinance and our newly adopted comprehensive plan, as well as the small area plans, such as the one being considered tonight.

that are part of that document and looking to see where does our zoning ordinance not support our existing zoning ordinance not support implementation of those plans?

Where are the inconsistencies or the problem areas?

And flagging those for change or potential change in this upcoming process.

Most significantly, of course, it's going to be the land use map in that conversation, as you can imagine.

And then the approach part of that report is the one where it says, okay, here's how we propose to make changes to the ordinance to address those necessary changes for consistency with the comp plan.

And I should note, it will also talk to an extent also about kind of best practices in formatting and layout of the zoning ordinance, all that stuff.

Because what we are looking at is a complete rewrite.

This isn't gonna be take your existing zoning ordinance and redline it and make changes.

This is gonna be a complete rewrite.

Now, I also want to clarify in that this does mean we're also there are going to be sections of the existing ordinance that we do effectively bring over into the new ordinance unchanged, except for the formatting and wording and stuff.

But from a policy perspective, from the regulations, there's some aspects of the existing ordinance we anticipate bringing over wholesale, but it will be a new document, new formatting, new

new appearance, and much of it, I anticipate, will also change.

So that first section, that diagnostic and approach, will be in a report, and there'll be community engagement around that report, there'll be a steering committee meeting around that report, but ultimately that report's going to come to the Planning Commission with the City Council.

where we're going to be looking for a nod, essentially, from the commission and council that says, yes, that's the approach.

We see the issues you've identified.

We see how you're proposing to address this.

Go forth and draft us to zoning ordinance.

And that moves us into phase two, which is actually drafting the zoning ordinance.

So that first phase will probably take us right up to, say, end of May.

Hopefully not, but maybe beginning of June.

But I'm anticipating that first phase will take us to the end of May.

Then we'll be drafting over the course of the summer.

And then sometime in the fall, we will start sharing either incrementally or wholesale.

I think that's still something that's being worked on, the actual draft zoning document itself.

And then that'll be subject of public discussion over the course of the fall till we get to a point where we're prepared to start the adoption process.

and I know I've already spoken with Chairman Solla-Yates about how we might approach that here on the commission side, the adoption process, but we're anticipating that adoption process taking us into 2023 and culminating in a vote by council sometime in the spring of 2023.

So that's

That's the overall process over the course of the year.

In terms of community engagement, there's going to be many opportunities.

We're going to be holding both large public meetings at key milestones in this process, really tied to each one of those phases.

We are going to be doing neighborhood and small group meetings.

Both of those are either going to be virtual or in person, depending on where we are in the pandemic as we move forward.

There's also going to be a significant online component to all of this work, including traditional kind of places where you can email or call to share your input, but also particularly once we get up to a draft map and a draft document, there'll be online versions of that that people can comment on directly.

And

We're also talking about doing pop-ups and similar, but have some work to do on what the logistics might be of those types of activities.

So that, in a nutshell, is what we're looking at.

I'll be presenting this to council as well at the meeting on the 18th.

And as I said, we're aiming for a kickoff where all of this will be up on the website and in more detail at the end of the month.

last week of the month.

So happy to answer any questions at that time, if that would be appropriate.

Thank you.

A question.

I'm sitting here thinking.

So between now and a year from now,

Mr. Creasy, how many planning commission members will be rotating off the board, off the commission?

Sorry, I was muted.

So I would just ask the staff to think about, and maybe our leadership, commission leadership, to think about how to

how to update new commissioners and how to bring them into this process as they come in over the next year because we certainly don't want to be going backwards with, I mean, I'm just thinking that I don't want to see the turnover of commissioners to be slowing down this process.

So we need to think about how we incorporate, how we blend in new commissioners and get them up to date with what's going on with this comprehensive plan.

Important, thank you.

Other comments or questions on this or are we ready for...

I've got one.

So I'm curious to hear maybe a little bit more about what the kind of adoption process phase would look like.

Like, since the draft phase is earlier, are we coming into that with what we think is basically a final draft and then the adoption process is, you know, just public hearings and that sort of thing?

I think some of that remains to be seen to a certain extent, but what I'm anticipating, I mean, at the bare bones, it's a public hearing process, right?

With the planning commission and then we'll go to the city council.

And I would anticipate a lot of public comment periods similar to what we had with comprehensive plan, right?

This is a project of great interest.

I can tell you from past experience that in some places where I've worked,

even though we've gone through an extensive drafting phase, the commission has wanted to then go through a very systematic, at this meeting, we're gonna talk about this chapter or this section or what have you and take public comment on that.

And at the next meeting, we're gonna do this section and take public comment on that and done it very methodologically to allow for that opportunity for public comment on discrete sections

and then taken the vote and then passed it on to council.

On the other hand, certainly that could all be done in one night.

Makes sense.

Absolutely.

I think that is a very important idea and something, I mean, again, I would anticipate coordinating and making those decisions with at least the chair, if not the commission or

maybe the chair and vice chair.

Again, we'll figure that out as we get closer to it.

I believe we are ready for public to hear from the matters from the public not on the agenda.

So if you have thoughts on the Ribana River, now is not the time.

Yes, if you'd like to speak at this time, please click the raise hand icon for the webinar.

If you're joining us via telephone, please press star nine.

Each speaker will be given three minutes to speak.

Right.

Emily Dreyfus, URO with the Commission.

Yes, thank you.

My name is Emily Dreyfus.

I'm a community organizer with the Legal Aid Justice Center and on the Advisory Council for the Public Housing Association of Residents, FAR.

And I have one small comment about what was just discussed in terms of the process.

I know that public engagement has been incredibly difficult during the timing of all of the great lengths you all took to gather input just because of COVID.

And I'm hoping that we're going to enter a new day eventually and be in a situation where

public interaction is a lot more feasible and no longer risky.

So I hope that there will be some efforts to do the public engagement in the ways that were envisioned by the consultants in terms of doing much more one-to-one work and neighborhood outreach.

I would encourage you to think about whether there's a possibility of

using some funding or engaging, asking the consultants to engage in that in part of their process, because I do think that there are a lot of people in the city who are feeling very disconnected and pretty hopeless about what will be done.

And I think the more outreach that I did and the more conversations I had, the more I realized, you know, the only way we're going to get at that is really just having those one-to-ones and

ultimately seeing change happen, but the one-to-one really matter.

And then lastly, I just wanted to thank you so much for everything you did in 2021.

It was a very challenging year, and you all have made some wonderful things happen, so much gratitude to each of you.

Thank you.

Moving on.

That is for the plan, not the minutes.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Blank.

I hear a motion.

I believe Mr. Mitchell seconded it.

All in favor, please get a thumbs up.

That works.

I see unanimous on that.

I believe we are good until our public hearing at 6pm.

Thank you all.

Are they different?

Only one of them is talking.

That's a good sign.

It could happen.

We don't know.

We don't know the rules.

I would like to call this planning commission public hearing to order joint joint public hearing to order on

v. Ravenna Small Area Plan.

Council, are you in order?

Yes, we are.

Outstanding.

who is leading us on this.

Welcome, everyone, again.

We have this one item this evening, and that is for consideration for a comprehensive amendment for the Urban Rivanna River Corridor Plan.

Thomas Jefferson Planning District was speaking

was tasked with the second phase of a joint effort with Charlottesville and Albemarle.

In this process, we did phase one a number of years ago.

which involved inventory of existing conditions and that work was completed in 2018.

And then it was determined that we would move to the next phase, which is the phase that we've brought forward at this point in time.

And this involves the development of a joint area plan to guide future development and environmental preservation of the urban portion of the Rivanna River.

I am going to leave a lot of the details to our presenters in a few moments, but I did want to point out a few items from the report just to have as

as you're moving forward.

In the consistency with the comprehensive plan, the sections that we've denoted are based on our newly adopted plan.

So this is the second meeting where we have had items that have been under that realm.

and there are a number of items that speak specifically to this quarter plan because this quarter plan has been underway as at the same time as our comprehensive plan and we have made sure that we're coordinating and corresponding as we go along so that we can minimize any any sort of concerns and and we are not aware of any

any conflicts that would be of concern.

So following our presentation and the public hearing, the Planning Commission has the option to approve a resolution, potentially with comments.

And at this point, I'm going to turn the time over to Sandy Shackelford from TJPDC, who is going to

Sorry, thank you, Missy.

And commissioners, counselors, Charlottesville staff, it's a pleasure to be with you all tonight.

I think I have a presentation.

If you could go ahead and pull that up or I can pull it up on my end if I need to.

There we go.

If you could go ahead and you can go ahead and jump to the second page.

As Missy said, my name is Sandy Shockleford and I'm the Director of Planning and Transportation at the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission and Charisse is also here with me tonight, Charisse Franklin from the PDC and we had another staff member that was also working on this plan that has since transitioned, but I'll make the presentation and if there are questions, Charisse will be here to help respond to those.

So as Missy already reviewed, this is really the second of what was originally envisioned to be a three-phase planning effort that was jointly agreed upon between the city of Charlottesville and Albemarle County.

And so we finished analyzing the existing conditions in 2018, moved on to this point to the visioning phase, which is really looking at what development along the corridor and future use of the corridor should look like.

And then the third phase was originally envisioned to be a master plan to look at implementation of some of the recommendations.

Next slide.

So this is a study area that we focused on for this planning effort.

It's a 4.3 section of the corridor that starts at the north at Penn Park and goes south to I-64 and then it includes the adjacent parcels on both sides of the Rivanna River.

Next slide.

We started this plan initially in the summer of 2019, which as difficult as it is to believe was actually before the pandemic started.

So we got a kickoff in 2019, did some initial public engagement at the River Flow Festival at that point.

And then we're planning to do another big push of public engagement in person in the spring of

of 2020, and clearly we had to reevaluate what our public outreach was going to look like as part of this plan. So what we did was we transitioned to relying a lot on electronic communication, making sure we were updating the website pretty regularly. Thank you.

There was a lot of use along the river corridor during the pandemic and so we took advantage of that by putting some signs up along the river to make sure that people that were using the river corridor were directed to our website, had opportunities to provide comments and

We also made sure that as we were doing some of this public engagement, we wanted to make sure that people throughout the corridor that would potentially be impacted by the corridor plan would have some opportunities to comment on it.

So we also sent direct mailings out to everyone.

I believe it was within

500 feet or so buffer of the corridor, letting them know about the public webinars and the website and provided comments.

So under the circumstances, we were pretty successful in getting some engagement.

We had about overall probably around 100 people participating through one mechanism or another.

We also had a steering committee that some of you served on that met three times over the course of the project to get updates at key points and then to help us further develop the stakeholder or the recommendations for each of the sections of the plan.

We also met with smaller groups of stakeholders that had technical or professional expertise in some of these areas to help us really refine what some of those goals and recommendations should be.

Next slide.

In addition to the public engagement, we also undertook a benchmarking exercise where we looked at other successful river planning efforts to pull out some of the best practices and also just get some additional ideas and suggestions for what other successful planning efforts had included.

And so we looked at four plans, which included Richmond, Virginia and Greenville, South Carolina, which were both kind of the main ones that everybody thought of when they thought of really, really well-developed planning efforts.

So some of the common themes, as you all could probably imagine, were the importance of creating a cohesive trail network and making sure that we were considering how we could promote access to the trail system, incorporating the local history into the plan, and then also making sure that as development was considered along the river corridor that it was done in a way that fostered connections to the water to help

provide a better tie in between any sort of development that was happening and appreciation for the river itself.

And then there were some other items that didn't necessarily come up in all the plans, but we thought were really insightful.

And those included things like considering accessibility for people with different physical abilities, looking at how wayfinding and navigation could support use of the river, and also considering things like environmental considerations and zoning.

Next slide.

After meeting with the public and the steering committee, as well as through several iterations with the technical committee that was comprised of staff from both localities, this is the vision statement that we ended up landing on.

The Rivanna River flowing through Charlottesville and Albemarle County is one of the community's greatest assets.

In the near Freebridge, Wollin Mills and the Pantops area, the River Corridor is and will be a dynamic place where people can experience a natural environment, healthy outdoor activities and venues, peaceful terrain opportunities, and important and historical points of interest.

This went through a couple of different iterations.

You know, there was this really strong desire to make sure that we were promoting the use of the river corridor as a natural environment while also making sure that we're supporting the recreational use of the river.

And I can talk a little bit more about that, but all of those considerations for how to balance

the different priorities for the use of the River Corridor was considered very strongly as we work through what exactly this vision statement should communicate.

So you can go ahead and go to the next slide.

What came out of this was six guiding principles, which helped us further develop the pillars of what the recommendations should be around the river.

So there are the five diamonds that are in the middle of this diagram here that show that the guiding principles are outdoor recreation, public health, safety and wellness, historic sites and cultural features, development and redevelopment,

multi-purpose bridges and trails.

And then you'll see the gray arrow across the top, that staple of environmental protection.

What happened is that when we first started talking about all of these different principles that we wanted to make sure were incorporated into the plan, the initial conversation is that all of these should be considered equally because this plan was a little bit unique compared to some of the other ones that we reviewed and that it wasn't a specific type of plan.

So it wasn't a recreation plan.

It wasn't a flood mitigation plan.

It wasn't an economic development plan.

It was really intended to balance a lot of different desires for uses in this one plan.

But after having conversations with the steering committee, as well as the public, it became really clear that while all of that was true, we needed to balance a lot of different interests.

It was really important that if we were going to state that the environmental protection of the river corridor was a priority, it had to be the most important priority.

So what we ended up doing was basically drawing a band around all of these other guiding principles.

So all of the guiding principles were equal except for environmental protection, which had to be considered as the first and highest importance for the river corridor.

And then all of these other factors could be considered as long as there wasn't any sort of detrimental impact to the environment related to the river corridor.

So you can go ahead and go to the next slide.

So for each of those guiding principles, we basically developed a set of recommendations and I'll just review some of those really, really high level.

So as far as the environmental protection recommendations are concerned, we wanted to make sure first and foremost that we were protecting and educating the public about the sensitive biological and ecological areas within the corridor area.

So there's already been some work that's been done to start identifying those.

So we want to build off of that, but also recognize that there is additional work that might need to be done to further identify where some of these sensitive ecological areas exist.

The second thing that came up repeatedly in our public outreach especially was this really strong desire to adjust the invasive species throughout the corridor.

And then I'd also encourage the use of native species whenever possible.

So that's a recommendation that's reflected as well as

encouraging the continued compliance as well as looking at how we can improve stormwater management throughout the corridor to further protect the water quality and ecological systems within the corridor itself, and then continue to support collaboration with other organizations that are already doing some of this work to make ecological improvements and investments throughout the corridor.

Next slide.

Okay, recreational activities was one area where we really focused on trying to consider equity impacts and you'll notice as you're reading through the plan we didn't really mention or use the word equity a whole lot.

But what we tried to do was be really thoughtful about the recommendations and make sure that we were developing recommendations that would support equity considerations and how we were promoting use and access to the river.

So we focused on, we made sure that we emphasized the importance of increasing neighborhood connections, especially considering who we were increasing those neighborhood connections for, and then diversifying access through supporting different modes of transportation and access to the river corridor itself.

And then we also talked about developing a trail system that accommodates users of all ability levels.

So having different kinds of surfaces within the within the trail system and providing a variety of providing a variety of surfaces like dirt surfaces or soft surfaces and then hard surfaces to to make sure that depending on what your accommodation needs were

that you had the opportunity to use a surface or a trail surface that was accommodating for that.

So for example, if you have a joint challenge or something like that, a softer surface might work versus if you need some sort of accommodation, a harder surface would be better to support a stroller or a wheelchair or something like that.

And then there was also the strong desire to increase public access points to the river and the waterfront.

And then also to make sure that we were providing information to trail users through a regional map of what was available throughout the corridor so that they could plan their trips and know what kind of opportunities

they would have before going to the river corridor in order to improve the comfort and accessibility of the different kinds of recreational uses.

Okay, thank you.

Multipurpose trails and bridges are really important because it's,

It's important to consider how the uses and the access to the reverse system can be for multiple purposes, not just recreation, but also can be integrated into the larger transportation system.

So one of the things that we talked about a little bit that you all talked about a little bit early in your meeting was this bike and pedestrian crossing between basically the Riverview Park, Will and Mills area and the Pantops area.

So looking at key locations where we can fill those network gaps by increasing access to the river corridor and across the river corridor.

promoting a multi-purpose use of the trails and bridges.

So making sure it's not just recreation, but it's integrated into the overall transportation network.

And then also helping people understand how they can navigate through the trail system through different wayfinding systems and signage to just help them understand how they can use the trail system for their commuting purposes.

And then also thinking about how people are accessing the trail system from the larger transportation system and making sure that we're increasing the comfort to help people get to the trail system in the first place.

Next slide.

The public health, safety, and wellness measures was a really interesting set of recommendations to review.

It really started off with

helping people feel the recommendation started off being surrounded by helping people feel safe while they're on the corridor.

And as we talked to the stakeholder group, it really transitioned more to helping users feel empowered and confident and knowing how to navigate different types of situations that may come up.

And so we moved this really from

you know, making people feel safe through things like lighting and call boxes and things like that to really helping them feel informed and educated to know what to do if they're faced with different kinds of potentially emergency or health or safety situations.

We also talked a lot about the importance of building trust with your local public health and safety personnel.

And so there was some interest around developing programming to increase the visibility of personnel that would respond with emergencies.

And we were very conscientious that

If not done well, this could really come across as being a policing of the reverse system.

And so we really wanted to emphasize that the goal of this was to really build relationships and build community trust and community confidence that if there is an emergency that people will be able to be taken care of.

Next slide.

Yeah, there we go.

And development and redevelopment.

When we surveyed the general public as part of the public outreach, there was really the strong desire not to overdevelop the river corridor.

And so the first thing that we really wanted to emphasize is that we are not

We are not recommending development or redevelopment that's any different than what is already in the approved comprehensive plan.

So we wanted that to be consistent and we're not promoting anything.

But what we wanted to do was focus on how we could support development and redevelopment and that was already going to be allowed in ways that were supportive of what we were trying to achieve throughout the river corridor and other ways.

So that included developing recommendations around supporting visual and physical access to and use of the river and trails from service-oriented businesses.

So again, making sure that there's that connection between the business uses and the river corridor to foster that sense of connection to the water through the development that's going in along the corridor where appropriate.

And then again, promoting the economic development that has some sort of tie into the trail system and the riverfront itself.

And then there was some discussion around some of the existing businesses and how we could work with existing businesses to improve the experience of being within the corridor.

And so we also are recommending exploring some voluntary landscaping or industrial art installations that could help

enhance some of the existing commercial and industrial sites along the corridor.

Next slide.

All right, so finally, the last five recommendations was related to historic places and cultural features.

And so the first thing that we thought was going to be really important was to develop a comprehensive inventory of existing sites throughout the corridor.

And then we wanted to make sure that we were balancing between both encouraging additional access and public access to resources that are appropriate for educating and informing the public, but also acknowledging that there are going to be some sites that need to be protected and need to have access limited in order to make sure that they're preserved.

But that starts with having an inventory in place so that that kind of analysis can be done.

We also wanted to make sure that there was support for acknowledging that there's a very wide range of people groups and types of history throughout the corridor.

And so making sure that there was support for increasing education and awareness of that broad range of history that represents so many different types of people and so many different types of history.

throughout the corridor.

And this is also a really good opportunity where we can partner with other local organizations to develop educational programming to enhance not just physically what's on site, but understanding of the importance of this corridor through the history of the local area.

All right, next slide.

All right, so I know this slide is a little bit hard to read, but it's really just to serve as an example of some of the changes that we put into place after we met with the Planning Commission last, I guess it was summer.

Um, one of the one of the pieces of feedback that we got is that there was a really long list and we needed to know how to prioritize some of these recommendations within the full list of recommendations that were that were listed.

Um, so what we ended up doing was we if you look at the timeframe column, we ended up

taking one or two recommendations with each category and prioritizing those as short term.

And so those were intended either to be things that there's already some sort of momentum around or something that seemed to be fairly low cost and high impact.

And so those were kind of the short range priority items that we thought would be a good starting place to start moving forward in the implementation.

of some of these plans.

And then this matrix also included just a little bit more information that would potentially help with implementation at some point, which includes what type of recommendation it was, what category, which agency or departments would be responsible, and then what the general fiscal impact would be.

Next slide.

Sorry, my voice is going a little bit.

So just as a reminder, we did meet with you all previously, and you all had some feedback for us.

So this is just a really high-level summary.

It's not comprehensive of everything you all told us, but a couple of things I just wanted to point out.

There's a high number of action items, so we did already discuss how we were sort of giving you a starting point by identifying some short-term opportunities.

Links to affordable housing, we added a recommendation that basically stated that we would be supporting affordable housing within the corridor in compliance with existing comprehensive plan land use decisions that had been made, as well as supporting robust transportation system access from different parts of the region.

There was a concern about equity not being emphasized, and so we tried to provide a little bit more explanation on how equity was addressed throughout the plan.

And again, you won't see the word equity mentioned more than maybe once, maybe twice, but we did try to be thoughtful about developing the recommendations in a way that considered the equity impacts.

The emphasis on vehicle oriented access and increasing parking.

I don't know that we can take out the need for monitoring additional parking access, but we certainly recognize that we want to decrease reliance on single occupancy vehicles.

And so we did try to be really general about

about making sure that we were also supporting a broad range of other types of modal access to the parks through transit, through improved bike pet access, and through kind of creative use of ride sharing services and that kind of thing.

um we we did after um or prior to prior to the most recent set of updates to the plan we did reach out to the modic and indian nation um and requesting that they reviewed the plan and we had some feedback from them that was incorporated and we also changed some of the language around those recommendations based on your feedback and then we also developed a list that linked um to other plans that

And some of those recommendations were pulled directly into the list of recommendations that were developed.

All right, next slide.

Finally, we developed as a starting point this set of recommendations around implementation strategies.

So the idea around this is that these are a little bit more general and regardless of what the next steps are, there are some intermediate steps that aren't necessarily appropriate as specific recommendations, but would help with the implementation of some of these recommendations.

The scope of this plan was really broad, so it was really hard to be really specific on how a lot of these implementations would be implemented.

So some of the planning priorities that were identified under the implementation strategies were intended to sort of provide a bridge for that to take you from generally this is what we'd like to do to the next step of this is what we need to consider as far as having the information we need to put it into practice.

The other thing that's helpful about some of these planning priorities that were identified is that they would be helpful as far as implementation on their own, but they could also be incorporated into a master plan if that is moved forward at a future date.

There are a number of grant opportunities that can be pursued to also implement some of the projects.

And some of them are already being pursued related to flood prevention or mitigation, transportation system improvements through programs like SmartScale.

So we wanted to make sure that there was support for pursuing any of those grant opportunities that could help with the implementation.

And then there are individual project priorities, which

Again, were identified within the plan as short-term opportunities that were low cost and had high impact or else already had some momentum up towards implementation due to other initiatives that were already underway.

And next slide.

The last thing I want to mention is that the third phase of this plan was originally envisioned as being a master plan.

And so this would really look at what on the ground implementation would look like as far as some of the goals and objectives that were developed as part of this plan.

So if a master plan is going to move forward, basically the next steps would get the financial commitment from Charlottesville and Albemarle, so from both localities, and then we could move forward with developing a scope of work to get a consultant retained to develop the plan.

So that would be something that is determined at a future date if there is interest from both localities and moving forward with that.

And you can go ahead and go to the next slide, but that basically wraps up our presentation.

Thank you very much.

A couple of comments, eight comments.

One, I think this is everything I expect it to be.

I think we've done it.

You guys have done a great job.

The benchmarking, as it relates to the rivers running through, probably is not the best benchmarking we could have done because all of the cities that we benchmarked have rivers running through the downtown.

Our Rivanna doesn't run through downtown.

Greenville, Lynchburg, Richmond, et cetera, et cetera.

They have rivers running through downtown.

Difficult to find a good benchmark for a city our size.

Just something to keep in mind.

Not a negative, just noting the difficulty.

I like what you guys have done by upgrading and highlighting the indigenous community and bringing it forward in the document that was

You're a little more quiet about it in the earlier documents.

I would encourage you, as you present this to others, to be more vocal about the Monica and Trahat Nation and the work we've done to recognize that and pull that into what we're doing and the work you guys have done to invite them to provide additional input.

But otherwise, I'm

I don't have any questions per se other than the comment that I did make in the pre-meeting and which was just for general knowledgeable purposes just that I wanted to make sure that we document it with the water quality level was an actual number so that way as we're moving forward with this awesome plan we can just make sure that we're keeping our waterways safe and to see what the recreation or the development how it is how it may or may not be affecting our waterways I also wanted to say that I look forward

to the implementation of the plan.

The only other thing that I would like to add is so I've tried to even myself as a Charlottesville native use some of our trailways more often to get out and park my car, thanks to Rory and this great planning commission and Lyle.

And the one thing I'd see it not only as a resident, but also as an educator is a little bit more signage, not so much about the trailways, but to give our residents like history on the vegetation

And I heard you did say you were going to have signage about the historical aspects, but it would be nice, especially for our younger residents of Charlottesville, like the preschool, they learn about my locality and like living things.

So if they could like walk those trails and actually have signage of what the vegetation is and maybe a little bit about how it grows.

I know we have stuff about like the birds, but I just noticed when I'm on the trails, I see stuff about birds, but not necessarily on local vegetation.

So that would be it.

sequence is an issue for me when I see for the next steps that for historic preservation to pursue funding opportunities to protect the identified cultural and historic assets.

But at this point, we haven't done the comprehensive inventory of the historic assets along the river.

So

The sequence doesn't seem right to me.

I presume the comprehensive inventory will happen during the master plan, which is sometime in the future, whenever the funding is available to get to do it.

But yet we're going to be going after grants to protect some of those places.

Now we don't even know what we're well.

I mean, certainly if you all have a recommendation for addressing that or if you want to remove it, that could certainly be part of the action that you're recommending on the plan at this point.

But what I would say is that I think some of this is already identified, so it's really a question of do you want to wait until everything is identified before you pursue any sort of funding to preserve what you already know might need some additional assistance or

you know are those things you can do in tandem that that that you know you could pursue funding for things that you know are already of need.

How do we know what the committee has identified already as historic?

Is that

somewhere in the documentation that you provided.

I've gone through it.

I didn't see an inventory or any kind of information on it.

We did not identify specific historic sites that would need preservation.

And you know the city has a preservation planner as part of the city, right?

and has that person been consulted?

I just, I'm seeing recommendations without the support of knowing what you have.

So just, I'll leave it at that.

Is there a corrective action you'd like to see, Mr. Lyle?

Sorry, Lyle.

Just wondering if you,

There might be grant opportunities to address that inventory.

Yeah, possible language and a recommendation, I could imagine.

OK, right.

So I wanted to respond to that.

I am on both the steering committee, I think, for this project, and also I serve on the Albemarle County Board of Historic Preservation.

And our group did provide

feedback not only on the plan, but also sort of like a brain dump of sites and features and districts within the area.

And though those sort of informed the narrative in the beginning part of the document, you know, they weren't listed as an inventory and not everything made it into that document.

But I would say that that

a draft of an inventory does exist.

I thought that the historic resources committee was also part of the, you know, just like you all came to the historic preservation committee for the county.

I don't recall that we had a separate meeting with the city.

Lyle Solla- This process and then and then in terms of the you know the page seven next steps I read it that you know under the category of planning priorities.

Lyle Solla- The item number two is to create a comprehensive inventory of historic and cultural resources throughout the river corridor to be used for planning purposes and then there's another.

you know section called grant application priorities, and that is the pursuing the funding opportunities.

So I don't see that, you know, although it could be maybe better clarified that you can't protect and protect and you know the historic resources until you have them inventory.

I think it's I think it's there.

That was in response to

that previous conversation.

This is my turn.

Great.

So I'm interested in understanding now that we're on this final page and we're wrapping up the document.

I was hoping we could maybe staff, Missy, could speak to a couple of things.

How this work informs the zoning

work underway with our consultants and what the temperature is on the phase three implementation of the master planning.

Is that necessary?

Do we really want to do it?

Where do we feel with that?

And then finally, how do we take these recommendations in this document and move it into staff's work plan if we do ultimately recommend it?

All right.

Just making sure I'm getting all the questions down.

Yes.

Oh, sorry.

I just want to make sure I wasn't speaking out of turn.

For the zoning work, we have included this material with to our zoning consultant to the code studios as well as RHI.

And so they have this information that they're reviewing as part of the diagnostic, similar to what they are doing with the small area plans and other plans that are already adopted to make sure that themes and aspects are taken into account as that review moves forward.

And so that was a very conscious decision to make sure that that happened.

Temperature for phase three.

I know Albemarle is going through a similar process right now with a review of the document.

They are just starting their comprehensive planning process and

Last discussion I was a part of, they were planning to integrate this material into the comprehensive plan as opposed to specifically adopting it in their current plan.

I think that as happened with both phase one and phase two that the appropriate decision makers will have to come to the table to determine if this is a priority for

for both groups since this initiative began.

It began with kind of a smaller discussion that kind of evolved into this potential process.

and we've made it through step one and almost through step two.

And it's something that the community very much cares about.

And so I could foresee something in the future.

I don't know how quickly in the future, but I know that we are keeping our ears out for the discussions that Albemarle is having on this at the same time.

So, yeah.

That's a stay tuned item, definitely.

And then how to move recommendations forward.

I know a number of the physical type recommendations are things that Parks and Recreation will have the opportunity to work with.

As part of this project all the way, we've been working with the Parks and Recreation staff

for both the city and the county, and it takes into account initiatives that they are pursuing, we're pursuing, are pursuing, and those groups are very active in making sure we're moving forward.

I just have one question.

They are going through an endorsement process.

So instead of formally, you know, adopting it as an amendment to a comprehensive plan right now, they are going to go to their board

in February 2nd, I believe, to ask for an endorsement.

Gotcha.

Did they express any reason for that?

Gotcha.

Lyle Solla- Um, I think, I think, let's see.

So the schedule is that that will go to their board on February 2.

And I think the council meeting for this is scheduled for a little bit later in February, February 9, maybe.

So I think, you know, we'll have a discussion with them after this meeting to see what recommended changes might

Makes sense.

Thanks.

No questions, but I just wanted to, yeah, say it's a great, great plan.

I enjoyed hearing about it.

I really like the aspect of elevating environmental protection above everything else.

I think that's obviously the

The most important aspect of the river and everything else kind of comes along with that.

But, you know, we always, and as this becomes a part of the comprehensive plan and our community's aspirations for the river, it really has to

focus on the resiliency of the river to weather that future climate as it changes and provide a safe and beneficial place for our community.

So really I'm glad to see it become a part of our comprehensive plan for sure.

Thank you.

I just have one sort of operational question.

If we choose to proceed with step three, are you free?

I think that would be something where we could potentially help with the project management and coordination, but we would also probably need to be working with, you know, a landscape architect or some sort of

a survey firm or somebody like that, that has a little bit more of the technical expertise to put that actual planning work on paper.

Thank you.

That's helpful.

Of course.

Yeah, no questions, just a couple comments, reiterate what others have said.

Definitely see the environmental preservation as being the most important and key piece of it.

Likewise, very curious to see what will be necessary for implementation on council's end in terms of the resources that we have to give to make it happen.

And the final two points would just be, as others have said, I think

orienting it around pedestrian access as opposed to parking in cars will be important.

I know there's, you know, challenges there, but, and then the final thing is, you know, I know one of the recommendations was industrial art in the area and that just popped out at me as a potential

investment with a lot of returns if we're able to have some kind of partnership with Bridge Progressive Arts Institute or just kind of public art that we see in river districts and other localities that can really open that space up for the public as a real public resource.

I'm frankly

seeing and reading the Rivanna River corridor plan, the urban Rivanna River corridor plan that was circulated I guess about a week or so ago with with your packet was frankly my first exposure to to the fact that there was even this kind of planning going on and I note

And by coincidence, I was looking over the weekend, I saw some article talking about the archaeological work being done at the old Shadwell estate.

And it got me thinking about the river in more detail.

Of course, most of the history of the Rivanna River

is in places that are county places.

They are not city.

The city has sort of the middle part of that, at least part of the middle part of it.

And when I was giving tours,

to school kids.

I would go on school buses with fourth graders and we would go around on the school bus and talk about the history of Charlottesville.

And I would always go down to the woolen mills and talk about the port of Piraeus, which always seemed to me to be a typically Charlottesvillian conceit that we should name our port after the port that was access to the city of Athens in Greece.

But anyway, that's part of Charlottesville's piece of the history, but most of the rest of it, like on down to Shadwell, almost all of that land on the river, almost all of it, if we're looking at page 15 of the report itself with the full diagram, almost everything south of I-64 is owned by the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation.

Were they involved in any way in any of these discussions or because it was only a phase two plan that wasn't necessary to involve them?

I'd love to know if they have any plans for developing the river access that they have as it relates, for example, to the Shadwell residents, as it relates to a lot of the other parts that would help them portray the story of what

They were not on any of the committees and they were not on the stakeholder group.

I'd have to go back to look to see.

We had sent a targeted email list out to different community organizations that might have additional interest in it.

That's not correct.

It's not in the actual boundaries of the urban area.

So, Lloyd, I work for Monticello, I'm the planner, and we have absolutely been involved with TJPDC and the county.

In fact, there was a recent article in the Seville about the restoration.

the restoration work on the historic Shadwell Mill.

And I'll just use this opportunity to say that, yes, we are very much in conversation with the county.

And in fact, it's part of a 2005 proffer that Monticello dedicate right of way

of land on that on that side of the river.

And so that's been we've been working on for a while.

We're currently in the easement negotiation paperwork portion of that, but essentially that would add an additional five miles to that old mills trail that runs along the north side of the top side and then beyond.

So it's a really exciting project and

in my multiple wearing hats roles.

I confess I had not realized your role with Monticello.

So that's great to know.

The related question is at the other end of this snake on the Rivanna River.

And I know if you go far enough up

You hit the site of what is believed to be the site of an old Monacan town.

I don't know whether there is, there's not as much public land on the way up there.

But as I was, as my mind was thinking about, you know, historic trails and hikes and things like that, thought what a great opportunity to connect the Monacan history to the Jefferson history.

and even the 1742 Jefferson history to the 1820 Jefferson history.

Yeah, that's right.

You're talking about the site on Polo Grounds.

I think it's called, it starts with an M. Right.

So, and we have anecdotes of Jefferson.

The Jefferson component of that is not really great, right?

He didn't really, he massacred an archaeological dig and, or a burial site.

And Rory just put the name in there.

This also, I'm going to digress for just a second.

One of the things that came up in the discussion of the Lewis and Clark and Sacagawea statue and placing that at the Tao Park Long Beach Exploratory Center was

the understanding and the recognition that the Monacan tribe and for that matter, the Shoshone trying to sort of represent for the Monacan tribe to work out some understanding for council and for the city as a whole of the fact that this land all used to be Monacan land.

and what does that say about what we should be doing in recognition of that fact?

That's a whole discussion that I really don't want to have get wrapped up in the fate of the statue with Sacagawea because it is so much more broad a discussion that needs to be had.

But this kind of park and this kind of historical trail or whatever we want to call it would be another avenue for discussing that.

Thank you.

That's all I've got.

Final call for questions on this topic.

If you'd like to speak at this time, please click the raise hand icon.

in your Zoom webinar, or if you're joining us via telephone, please press star nine.

That being the case, let's close the public hearing.

Discussion.

I think Mr. Stolzenberg had a minor concern that I think we should he should articulate and we should address regarding the host permit.

Yes.

So I'm actually up to four changes now.

Three of them are just minor typos or typographical issues.

The substantive one is in the public health, safety, and wellness table on page 68.

58 of the plan, which is 37 of the packet.

And I just want to change the word homelessness there to encampment to emphasize that the mere state of being homeless is not illegal on the trail.

Yes.

If no one else says anything, I'd be happy to make a motion.

I move to approve the attached resolution with amendments to amend the city's 2021 comprehensive plan to include the urban Rivanna River area plan dated December 2021.

And those amendments are...

changing bloat to boat on bloat launches on pages 52 and 58, typos in monakin with an I to monakin with two A's on 78 and 82, the heading on the public health, safety, and wellness table of recommendations to pass the

typographical mess in there on page 68 and then also on page 68 editing the word homelessness to encampments in item 2.3.

Discussion?

Any comments on this?

Hearing none, Ms.

Sure.

Mr. Mitchell?

Aye.

Ms.

Dow?

Aye.

Ms.

Russell?

Aye.

Aye.

I believe that is unanimous approval.

I believe we are in and council, thank you very much.

Have a good night.

I believe we are in a discussion on other topics.

Should you wish to raise them?

I see that we have both the fire chief and the deputy fire chief here.

We've had some hiccups with the notifications for

for the meetings.

And of course, we welcome anyone who would like to attend, but we definitely had more invitations go out than were potentially necessary.

So while we've got Lloyd, Siena, and

Sam and Michael, maybe still here, would like to reiterate that I appreciate you guys' input regarding the gas hiccups.

In pre-meeting, we decided that I was going to sit down with Sam and Missy and Lyle and James to

begin organizing the conversation about that.

So there'll be more later, but I want to make sure that we're respectful of the intellect and the work of staff as to making this move forward.

But we do want this to move forward, either moving towards a yes or no, but we'll drive that forward.

I received an email on that topic from Mr. Sanders that I found very constructive and hopeful.

So I'll leave it to you, Lyle, to bring us together.

In the meantime, I'm going to lobby Sam and James separately.

Thumbs up to adjourn.

Good night, all.

Good night.

Good night.