City Council Meeting   2/22/2022

Hey, Peggy.

Clerk, we're at 401.

Let's see.

As soon as I can find all of the necessary pieces.

Let's see.

Okay, so it is 4.01, February 22, 2022, Charlottesville City Council meeting will come to order.

Ms.

Councillor McGill?

I'm here.

Councillor Pinkston?

Vice Mayor Wade?

Okay.

Is there a motion to approve?

We're all here.

That's great.

We have a quorum.

Is there a motion to approve or to amend the agenda?

Any discussion?

All in favor?

Just voice vote.

Aye.

Aye.

All opposed?

Okay, motion passes.

So this meeting, as we've been doing more recently, the meeting is divided into three pieces.

First, a work session to hear and discuss items that require no council vote.

Then there will be a closed meeting, roughly 530.

Then the regular city council business meeting will start at roughly 630.

The first item on our agenda is a report.

Marta Keene, Chair of the Charlottesville Area Alliance, will present the report.

Ms.

I just wanted to introduce Ms.

Keene before she goes to give her presentation today.

My name is Misty.

I'm the Interim Director of the Department of Human Services, and I am part of the Charlottesville Area Alliance Steering Committee and Partner Committee.

and it's myself and Sue Moffitt, Director of Social Services that have been city reps on the Charlottesville Alliance and began getting involved with this group and have really learned a lot about the work that they're doing to make Charlottesville a more livable community and one of the takeaways that I've had

in that work is that based on the AARP definition of a livable community, not only does it benefit our aging residents, but it benefits all of us.

And so what Marta's gonna share with you today is a summary of the FY21 annual report and the FY22 annual report that just came out and give some insight on what's next.

Thank you, Misty.

It's been great having you on the Alliance.

And thank you, Mayor Snook and all of the counselors.

It's great to have this opportunity.

As you know, Charlottesville is a partner in the Charlottesville Area Alliance, as well as having signed the AARP Charter for an age-friendly community.

Albemarle County and Charlottesville City are both listed in the Commonwealth of Virginia, and so that's great.

As you may have seen in the much longer annual report of 2020, it really was a nice summary of our history and our background, our demographics.

All of you have met with me before, and you know my favorite demographics to point out to you.

We are a community that continues to grow in terms of age.

We are looking as a region at 20% being 60 or over, and that by 2030, unless the new census says something different, we should be at about 25%.

So it's really important, and I really applaud that Charlottesville stepped forward to recognize that this is an age group that

should be included in all of the things that we look at.

It's a group that's listed as for diversity.

And there's a lot of intersectionality between seniors and the other areas of diversity.

So there's a lot of importance to looking at this.

On page seven of the long report, it gives you the eight life elements that AARP thinks is so important for an age-friendly community.

and I'll just highlight them really quickly.

So if you don't want to look at the report, you don't need to fumble through it.

So one is buildings and outdoor spaces.

Another is transportation, housing, social, which is mainly social participation, respect and social inclusion, feeling valued, civic participation and employment, communication and information and community support and health services.

So what we did several years ago was do a survey first through the health department and then specific to seniors and then did focus groups.

And it came out that this is a good place to live.

No surprise there.

People love living in Charlottesville.

The biggest issues that I'm sure you could tell me if I asked you to bet

where that people did not feel socially included, affordable housing there wasn't enough of, and of course transportation more in the rural areas, but that always is a high spot.

So that led to our picking those three areas to really focus on.

And so you can see at the end of that report was our high hopes for the goals that we wanted to start working on.

So what I really wanted to do is focus you on our more recent project

annual report from last year, which I have to tell you, I'm pretty proud of the fact that during COVID, we still managed to keep moving forward on these goals.

I think all of us who are volunteers, we have about 30 agencies,

We all obviously have full-time jobs and COVID, as all of you, it turned everything on its head, but we also felt that this was a time when if ever the needs of seniors were exacerbated, it was as a result of COVID.

Isolation is a huge concern.

And so it was really important because transportation being in housing that's in a place that can keep people connected and feeling socially included couldn't speak more to the issues than this.

So we spent time trying to continue to educate people, particularly during May, which is Older Americans Month.

and then we started to look at could we build a citizen advocate group that as we start to look for opportunities to advocate, for instance, last year with your Seville plans,

that we would have seniors that might be interested or others that might be interested in speaking up about some of the issues as they come up.

And so then we looked at what could we do in terms of our three areas of goals.

And we're very pleased that we have a spot on the regional housing partnership so that rather than trying to meet our goals in a separate way, we're meeting them in conjunction with a group that's already come together as a partnership.

And so this was really a formative year as the partnership really looked at what was good for each individual jurisdiction.

And then how could we interact with that?

In terms of social engagement, you can see that page.

They really got serious.

They got an intern from UVA's Internship Accelerator Program and had a survey and looked at key findings and then looked at some recommendations of what could we do

because we know that the hardest thing for people is to get a sense of what is going on.

So what are the ways that we could have a clearinghouse about community activities, email, newsletter, social media, a lot of our seniors, although it's getting a lot better as internet is getting everywhere and becoming less expensive, but we can't depend on

those methods is the only way in which we communicate.

That will, you know, as time goes on, that will be, but right now there still has to be printed material that's available.

How do we look at recommendations around educational programs working with Triad and Dementia Friends and other community groups just to help people become more aware of

The wonderful value of seniors in the community.

It's not just about how we need to help them or support them.

It's also about what do they contribute back to the community.

I think sometimes we forget that there's a wealth of wisdom and we want to make sure that we don't fall into ageism by assuming that everybody is a drain on society.

We should be proud that we're an area that draws seniors to us.

And then we were looking at how could we create a buddy program and Ali is willing to be the pilot for this.

How can we help people?

Because I think it's human nature.

We could probably all agree.

It's easier to show up somewhere if you're showing up with somebody else you know than to walk in to a group of people that you don't know.

You have to be really extroverted to be willing to put yourself forward with that again and again.

So what are the things we could do as an alliance to create some ways that people would feel like they had someone that was going to help them kind of navigate?

And we're going to try that with OLLI this coming year.

And then our transportation team

The Regional Transportation Partnership actually allowed our chair of the committee to be a non-voting member.

And this was really significant because, again, we want to have a voice at the table.

We don't need a vote.

We just want a voice.

And as so much as moving forward with the Regional Transportation Partnership, this is a really important place to be involved.

And then they're also looking at working with CAT in terms of some recommendations around the bus stops.

And then we're looking at are there opportunities for volunteer transportation

More so, again, the rural areas, but that doesn't leave out some of the less served areas of Charlottesville.

So we continue to want to make sure that we're doing the things that would most meet the needs of seniors in the way that is cooperative and collaborative with where the city is going.

You are a key community.

We were really happy that AARP Virginia chose Charlottesville as their key community and that was approved by the national organization.

And what that meant was that this year we were able to sponsor a complete streets webinar and many staff from Charlottesville attended that.

Alex was able to go to the governor's conference on housing with the stipend that was or the amount that was covered by AARP they gave the alliance two spots so we were able to give one to the city and one to Albemarle County who's the other key community and he reports to me it was a very useful conference to attend it also allows participation in

AARP Virginia and national activities.

There's a portal that we can all look at.

There's networking with other communities.

As a matter of fact, on the last quarterly Virginia call, another community was dealing with bathrooms in high pedestrian areas.

And how do we do that?

And I know that was an issue a couple of years ago that never really got resolved.

And so the

People from Roanoke who were putting that together have been in touch with Misty and with Sue to be in touch with the people from the city.

And it may not be a solution that works for Charlottesville, but it's a chance to hear what's been done somewhere else successfully rather than recreating it.

So that's just an example of the benefits of

and there's no cost to it.

It was signing a charter.

But the benefits of being a part of this alliance is that chance to learn from others, share with others what you all and we all have done.

And so I wanted today just to make you aware of your belonging to this group, of the need to belong to this group.

And thank you for the commitment of having Misty and Sue, who are so good about showing up at all of our meetings.

and participating.

It's just been really wonderful partnership.

And I wanted to see if any of you had any questions and report back to you as, you know, as a good guardian of your commitment to this.

So any thoughts or concerns about where we're going as an age-friendly community that I could help you with?

And I hope I didn't know.

You're fine.

Any counselors have questions for either Ms.

Keene or Ms.

I know Marty you and I have talked back and forth over time and I just know one of the things that I am seeing these days as I'm coming up on 50 and many of the people who I went to high school with and such are also having to have

difficult conversations with parents.

And I do know that this right now, it's very helpful every time I have sent somebody your way or if there could be maybe some sort of online tutorials for geared towards those of us who are helping our parents right now.

things that we should make sure that our parents, because I noticed one that I keep asking people is, did any of your parents serve in the military?

Because so many people, especially who served in Vietnam, their kids don't know.

Behind them, they refuse to look at it again.

Or they think if they served it, like my uncle who served his entire service at Cocoa Beach,

He's still, but they don't think they're eligible.

And so many people I know, especially with the veterans benefits, those have changed a lot over the last couple of years to the same to the if somebody has been dishonorably discharged, especially from the Vietnam conflict.

getting them on early discharge is much easier than it used to be and therefore they're getting so many benefits.

Thank you, Councillor McGill.

I think that's a great point.

And I think that would be very helpful because you're right.

We are all

in that position at some point in our life, usually of advising parents and helping them along.

And there are a lot of services out there that people don't know about.

And stepping out of the Alliance for a moment and into Java, I will say that is always our challenge is how to remind people that

We are there to help them through that path.

But tutorials are also the way many of us think and learn and podcasts and things like that.

So then you follow up with getting somebody to help you.

But what are some things that you can start with?

So I wrote that down to bring back to our social engagement committee.

Thank you for the update.

I really appreciate it.

Thank you, Councillor Pinkston.

Yeah, so thank you so much.

It's good to see you, Misty and Marta.

So many years ago when I was working on a project for Hillsdale Drive, you know, in my transportation planning days, and we were meeting with Java and the Senior Center, and at the time the Senior Center, now it's the Center, and Our Lady of Peace is kind of a quarter of a

of services for the aid for the elderly.

And as we were talking, you know, we realized that the transportation improvements that we're making, you know, we realized that it's not only make it safer for older people, but for everyone.

And I think that that can be the same thing with a lot of things that we're talking about.

And one of the things that you mentioned that we're certainly trying to do as a city is the equity and diversity.

and for many years it's been, you know, that the senior services and the senior centers, they, you know, it's like Sunday morning, many of them are mainly catered to one population.

I know the senior center because I've been trying to work with them really diversifying their staff and their membership and if you could just talk a little bit about your

Certainly.

We know that in Charlottesville, some of the most difficult areas for equity are often right around the shadows of UVA.

And so how do we continue to improve

access to health care?

How do we make sure that the bus stops and the transportation are run in a way that is supportive of their needs?

You know, that are the cat routes perhaps as they're rethinking them, are they going the places that people need to go to?

Are they making more direct connections that people could use?

As John looks at micro transit in the county for their pilot,

Are there micro transit either with the taxi services or with John in the city that could be looked at in different ways so that seniors have

easier transportation.

And of course, I know you all are struggling with and trying to figure out affordable housing.

I don't need to reinforce that one.

But that's really where the equity, I think, shows up.

And it is so intersectional.

We see it low income.

We see it people of color.

We see it age.

And it's difficult when there are so many different needs, workforce needs for low income or affordable housing.

and yet also senior needs, because I think if we leave them out, we've taken a valuable part of the community and forced them to move out of the city.

The numbers in the city over time, the last few years have gone down.

We're waiting to see the newest census data, but I think a lot of that

anecdotally is being driven by the lack of the affordable housing.

And so, again, that's a concern, I think, from an equity perspective.

So that's what we're trying to advocate, support groups like Piedmont Housing Alliance when they're looking at some ways to address some of those issues.

And then obviously, again, taking my hat off for a moment and putting on my Java hat, that's one of the things we're looking at is

How can we do more outreach to the areas that address equity?

So we have a whole focus group now that is working on that under our inclusive excellence plan because we recognize as much as we serve a very diverse group, there's more we can do.

Any other questions?

Okay, well, Ms.

Keene, thank you so much.

I know that your work is important to a very large section of our community and a section that often can't speak for itself terribly effectively.

And so I appreciate the opportunity to hear from you all to get your report and to be reminded of the work that you're doing.

Thank you for the opportunity.

Thanks.

Okay, so the next item on the agenda is the State of the Forest, the Tree Commission Annual Report.

Peggy Van Yeres and Brian Menard of the Tree Commission will present the report.

I think I might be.

This is Chris Genzik with Parks, just to introduce the topic.

And my camera's not functioning great, so I'm on the screen right now.

This is an annual state of the forest report given by the commission that details where we are with urban tree canopy planting efforts, community relationships, etc.

And this year is also we have our about every five years we get a consultant to do what's called a leaf on aerial shot from a satellite and do an analysis of our overall urban tree canopy and I believe the commission will be giving some facts and figures and trends from that report as well.

So I'll leave it to Brian and Peggy from here.

Okay, thank you, Chris.

Thank you, Mr. May and counselors.

The Free Commission appreciates this opportunity, as Chris just said, to appear before you and deliver our annual report.

This presentation this afternoon combines a few things.

The first is sort of high-level data from the written report that we submitted for the fiscal year.

also the action memo, which Peggy will address in more detail later in the presentation, which we submitted along with the report.

And she will also be telling you the activities of the commission since the last fiscal year began.

As you know, we usually make this presentation sometime in November, December.

We have delayed it twice because the canopy report

at least the data portion was presented to staff and the commission in December and both the staff and commission continue to digest what is a huge amount of data and are working with the contractor to complete the written report, which I believe will be available and we'll share with council sometime in the next month or so.

But for today, my task as the past chair of the commission

is to tee things up for Peggy.

I have the privilege of presenting the more concerning information about the state of the forest.

And then Peggy will bring us some hope as to things that the commission is doing and ways in which we can work with council and the rest of the city to address what we see as some deeply troubling trends in the state of the forest.

As you know from having seen the report, our tree canopy, which we've been measuring since 2004, continues to decline.

Not only is it a continuous decline from that level you see at 50% in 2004, but in fact, the canopy is declining at an accelerating rate.

Put up here on this first slide, the latest version of the comprehensive plan chapter seven goal contribute to the creation and expansion of a robust forest.

And by that measure, this is we're really not meeting that goal.

There are some sub strategies below protecting and expanding canopy at citywide and neighborhood level in development methods, consider incentives and new requirements, basically for zoning.

And in both those areas where we have perhaps the most control over, clearly we need to find ways to use all the tools that we have, both in terms of financial resources and staff resources, and also to revise the code in a way that we can begin to address this declining tree canopy.

Now this 10% canopy loss, and I don't have time to really go into the details of this latest study and the timing of the study, but this 10% canopy loss is from 2004 to 2018, which is equivalent to 660 acres.

Just for comparison, the total acreage, as you probably know, the city is a little over 6,600 acres.

So a loss between 2004 and 2018 of 660 acres represents almost exactly 10% of the entire area of the city.

Now, again, this is for 2018.

That 2018 data would normally have been, as you probably noticed in the previous bar chart, would have been five years.

But we had to use data that was to scale.

So we had to go back and use 2018 data, as well as the pandemic did delay the issuing of the report.

So we are actually closer to the next report than we normally would be presenting this.

So that next report is probably about 2024.

But we are in 2022, so we know that that 660 acres is not the actual picture.

And if we extrapolate and we look at what we project between 2018 and 2022, which is another four-year increment in which the previous four-year increment we lost 5%, the estimate is actually that we've lost closer to 990 acres of tree canopy since 2004.

That's a 15% loss.

and as staff has reminded us recently that does not account for the removal of approximately 300 city ash trees over the next several years.

Many of those ash trees are mature and they have large canopy so we could actually be looking the next time that the commission reports on the next tree canopy study in a couple of years we could be looking at a number that is actually well over that 998 because in fact it's almost

So this is not just a citywide issue.

This is a neighborhood by neighborhood issue.

The subtitle here is canopy has declined in all but two neighborhoods.

And that's actually quite generous because if you look down the right hand column, you'll see that it's declined in all neighborhoods except for two where it stayed stable.

This is a citywide decline in tree canopy.

And as we addressed the council last year, and as you are well aware, this impacts even more

partially those low canopy neighborhoods, which can least afford to lose tree canopy.

And we know that those low canopy neighborhoods correlate with low income neighborhoods, historically low income neighborhoods.

And so we have a problem in those neighborhoods, but really this is becoming a citywide problem where we're losing tree canopy at a rapid and accelerating rate.

We've seen this before.

This is not the most recent, but of course, this is an overlay of the heat island effects.

So declining canopy has a lot of effects.

It has effects on our livability in the city.

It has effects on energy costs, but it especially has effects on our health.

And so this continues to be of concern and I believe should be of concern for all of us.

Now, the second

High-level data from the recent report is, and this ties into one of the things that we can do the best, that is the city can do the best, and that is planting trees.

Planting, preserving, and maintaining trees.

We have before you with the department with parts and rec and worked up a budget proposal for the CIP for $100,000 for planting in the next fiscal year, which would get us to that 200 trees per year goal.

But for the past five years, we have not been meeting that goal.

And I don't have time to go into the details here, but you can see that plantings and removals and replacements, when you actually factor in all those numbers, we are actually not replacing trees.

We're actually below a one-for-one replacement of the trees that we're actually removing.

So we're not meeting the goal of 200 trees.

And this is a problem.

And this is something that can only be solved

through commitment of resources and staff.

With regard to the code, and we're going to use Garrett Street again this year because we've presented it before to the council.

With regard to the code, and there are no villains here.

There are simply developers using the code, staff working with the code that they have.

But the fact is that if we just take Garrett Street, we look at a street that was featured

in the Smart Street Program, Streets at Work Program.

And we have had just in the past six years, what we think of as a deforestation by code on Garrett Street.

So here we have a tree preserved 50% of the canopy and majority of critical roots removed.

I haven't actually been back to look at that tree, but when you do that kind of damage to a tree, it eventually kills the tree.

we had eight mature large canopy oaks removed in front of Apex Plaza building.

The most recent development, we had a row of oak trees that were removed.

And as you can see, we've replaced it with a single tree.

And of current concern to the commission is the development around Parenthood Court.

Now I will say the commission supports

development in the city.

The commission supports creation of new and more housing, but we have to also take into account the health of our trees.

And in this first phase for Friendship Court, three of the four trees you see in the forefront

are to be removed and the fourth is unlikely to survive construction damage.

In future phases, there are another 20 trees that continue up Garrett Street and round up 2nd Street that also are likely to be removed in this project.

Again, this is an example.

We don't, we're not trying to criticize anybody in particular here, but we could have picked other streets, perhaps not as strikingly that show that the code is allowing for deforestation of our streets and removal of street trees.

It should also be pointed out that this is counterintuitive, but even were we meeting the goal of planting 200 trees, even if we could triple that and plant 600 trees in there, we're planting small trees.

So it's possible as a simple formula, we could plant a lot of trees and continue to have a code that does not treat trees as assets and does not protect them for the public benefit.

And we could still be losing tree canopy.

We would still be losing tree canopy.

So those two things were intended.

The Commission appreciates all of the challenges that have faced the city in the last few years.

We appreciate the dislocation of the pandemic, the effect of the pandemic on resources and staffing.

In particular, the Parks and Recs Department, as you know, has gone through a complete transition of leadership.

The commission is very pleased about that, already working closely with new staff, and we're very pleased about that.

We understand that a lot of those challenges continue for the council and for the city in the year ahead, but we really have to focus on the situation with trees and begin to treat them as best we can as important assets as part of the green infrastructure.

Thank you.

Yes.

Okay.

Well, Brian was sort of the bad guy.

I'm going to be the good guy here.

And we're going to talk about what the tree commission is doing.

And we're going to tell you some things we hope you can do to help us.

Okay, Brian.

Okay.

Brian, Brian is controlling.

All right, so what the tree commission is doing, now these are ongoing activities.

You've created us 10 years ago to advise and assist staff and council and planning commission to plant and protect trees.

We've engaged with the public often.

You see the photograph there with the Charlottesville area tree stewards.

We celebrate a wonderful oak at Venable School a couple of years ago.

We collaborate with lots of other nonprofits.

and we try to monitor the effects of development on our green infrastructure to prevent deforestation.

OK.

Now this year, we have two main projects the Tree Commission does.

First one is to review the zoning ordinance as it gets revised.

And we have four main objectives.

One is decrease the requirements for new trees, strengthen and enforce tree protection, establish consequences for public tree damage.

And let me give you an example.

As you can see, this is Apex Plaza again.

There were the wonderful oaks and you can see what happened when they were taken down.

Richmond, Virginia has an ordinance.

When a developer takes down a public tree, they have to pay into a fund for new tree planting.

And it can result in hundreds of thousands of dollars because it's based on the diameter of the tree.

So a large tree is worth a lot more than a small dogwood.

That's something we're going to look into.

We can also refine the site plan application and review.

Okay.

The other project that we're doing, the tree commission last year initiated this fund called, we call it Relief Sevo.

We had been studying for a couple of years about the effects, particularly of heat on public health.

Scientists have documented that low canopy neighborhoods have more heat and pollution related

diseases like heat strokes, heart attacks, asthma in those neighborhoods with a lot of canopy.

We also know that the city to grow the canopy is mostly going to have to be done on private property.

So we're trying to raise money to plant trees on private property.

Now, we have a big fat claim.

We believe that trees save lives.

So our mission is to protect the health and wellbeing, particularly of our low canopy neighborhoods from the heat effects of climate change.

Brian?

How will we do it?

We're gonna plant new trees.

We're gonna try to preserve existing large trees and we're gonna educate.

Brian?

So,

We're going to, as I said, plant and preserve.

So our first neighborhood is Tenth and Page.

As you know, it has one of the lowest canopies in the city, 18%.

There are few places to plant public trees.

We know the health consequences could affect these neighbors.

We know through the three Cs that families in Tenth and Page, most of them pay more than 10% of their income on energy costs.

The rest of the city is 2%.

So that's not fair.

We need to take care of that.

So on 10th and Page, it's going to be a collaboration between Relief, the Tree Commission and Tree Stewards, okay?

Brian, okay?

The third thing we're going to do is educate.

And here, just tell you a few things we're doing.

At CHS, we're going to have an event this spring to introduce teenagers to jobs in the green industry.

At the City of Promise, we're going to develop teenage ambassadors who can help us go around and knock on doors in the neighborhood and convince people to let us plant a tree in their yard.

We're giving presentations to elementary schools, City of Promise, and Lugo McGinnis about the value of trees.

And the next few slides are an example of our presentation to Venable last fall, okay?

Brian, okay?

Brian, wake up.

Okay, sorry.

Can you go back one?

Brian, go back one.

Brian, can you go back one?

Well, Brian, unmute yourself and go back.

Unmute.

He's been going back, Peggy, which slide?

No, Brian, go back.

Not forward, backwards.

Sorry.

Okay.

So, yes, that's it.

Thank you, thank you.

I just want to, no, go forward.

Maybe I should have switched and been doing the slides.

Tell me, yes.

That's it, right there.

Go back to why trees.

Can other viewers see the slides?

Yes, we can see the why are trees.

Okay, anyway, let me go forward.

I was more nervous about presenting this presentation to Venable than to you tonight.

So anyway, why are trees?

Okay, Brian?

Important to you.

Yep, it's there.

Oh, that's crazy because I don't see it.

Why are trees important to you?

Well, this is one way we show the kids how important trees are to their health.

On the same day in September, we measured the temperature on their hot playground with no shade.

It was 102.

Go forward, Brian.

And then on their shaded playground, at the same day, we measured the temperature, it was 82 degrees, a 20 degree difference.

This is not a good thing to have children playing on hot playgrounds.

Go forward.

Brian.

Yeah, he did.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, we also told him how trees help animals.

By one way, go forward.

by giving them a home.

The trees, the kids love this project, this picture.

Go forward, Brian.

Now, who are we?

This is a partnership between the Tree Commission, Charlottesville Area Tree Stewards, Nature Conservancy, City of Promise, and Van Yeris Tree Company.

Go forward.

So,

We hope to have great results from this project.

Now, what can council do for trees and help us go forward?

Plant and Maintain Trees.

As Brian had mentioned, we hope you will accept our CAP funding this year and for years forward.

This year, we've asked for 100,000 trees, which will allow us to plant 200, which is our goal.

But let me tell you that since all the storms this year, Rian tells me that we've taken down more than 200 trees just till now.

We need the request for ash tree removal.

We have about, and this is in front of Charlottesville High School.

You can see the trees declining.

They're all going to be dead soon.

We've asked over the next five years, we're going to need 100,000 every year just to take care of our 300 plus ash trees to take them down.

If we don't get this request, it's going to cut in half our maintenance budget.

It's going to make it hard for us to respond to storm damage, safety pruning, pests and diseases.

so please consider this request seriously.

New slide.

Preserve and protect trees.

Help us create a zoning ordinance that really treats trees as a vital asset in the city.

Increase our setbacks so we can plant more trees.

Eliminate zero setbacks.

If you see the picture there, this is West Main Street.

That's the standard building.

It was allowed to build the building right to the sidewalk, no trees.

It's the only building along West Main Street without trees.

So increased requirements for new trees, better protect trees during construction, provide incentives or require compensation for damaged trees, and try to locate new developments, particularly large ones, on parking lots and vacant lands to protect our natural resources.

Again, okay, Brian?

Improve the city organization.

We had a great talk with the heads of public works and parks.

Encourage cooperation between NDS, parks and public works.

Support the creation of a natural resource manager.

That would be someone in the city staff that would really have their eye on the ball on keeping our natural resources.

If we had someone like that, we wouldn't have to do the third point.

I go again.

Okay, Brian.

enhance the charge of the tree commission.

Support our request to review particularly large site plans.

If you look at Friendship Court there in the picture, there are 20 trees, as Brian said, surrounding Friendship Court.

We did a quick analysis by the Council of Tree and Landscape Appraisers and those trees are valued at almost a half a million dollars.

Now just the value alone, but they're also important to the people that live there.

for their health, for their energy savings, and also for their connection to the past.

Those trees are planted in the same time Friendship Course was done.

So help us review the next phases so we can see if we can save as many as possible.

Second point, encourage departments to work together.

Let's have a representative of public works attend our tree commission meetings.

and eventually expand our charge to oversee all natural resources in the city.

Brian, go forward.

So I'll almost end with this slide again.

We have a declining trend and we need your help.

There is hope.

The city is hiring wonderful department heads, working very closely with Rion Anthony, who's a deputy parks director.

I'm going to burn his ears.

He is wonderful to work with.

Responsive, great leader.

I won't forget Chris Gensig, who's been with us for a long time.

He's also one of our favorites.

Dana Kasler and Stacey Smalls are both just wonderful and willing to cooperate with us.

So there's lots of hope ahead, as we said, but we need you and the Planning Commission to help us do this.

We want to make a healthier city for all and trees are connected to that.

Thank you.

I found the pictures, can you hear me?

Yep.

Okay, I found the pictures very compelling, kind of some before and after pictures, and particularly the one about the temperatures over there in, I guess, Venable before and, you know, with and without trees.

You know, this is something that I know that came up a lot, you know, the last several months when I was campaigning, particularly in communities of color that they do value trees.

And I was really sad to see the project at Friendship Court, you know, what we found out this week that many of those trees would be lost.

And so we just have to do better, I think, next time for projects like that.

And

I can only imagine what it's going to be when they recalculate or redo it again because the storm in the beginning of January just took down a whole bunch of trees, if not the whole tree, certainly a lot of their branches.

So I think this is very valuable.

I hope that and I don't know I need to look into this more if we have a staff that specifically job is to you know look at ways we can try to save trees you know when site plans and things come up I think that's really vital that that we do that and that's going to be something I'll be talking to the mayor about and to the city manager you know as we you know as we kind of

redo the Community Development Office.

So I really enjoyed the presentation, if possible.

I'd like to get a copy of that.

Anybody else have other questions?

Is it too late for Friendship Court?

I would just note, you know, it's been a very intense resident-led process to design the specific types of units, their locations, and through that resident process and the priorities they chose in terms of the type of housing, number of units, and location of those units, that's where the project is.

And so I'm certainly happy to

Give information to the residents, but I want to be very clear that it's their decisions and they're the ones leading the design.

And this is where, you know, the residents have chosen to put their priorities in design.

Got it.

And then I guess the next question would be for staff.

And I don't need an answer now, definitely, but I would love to hear an upcoming 2-2-1 meeting or some other venue, an email would be fine too.

I'd love to get more information from the NDS side or the site planning side, what our actual rules are relative to trees and

some suggestions for meeting the requests or suggestions that the tree commission folks here tonight put forward.

It strikes me that this would be a relatively straightforward sort of thing to incorporate in future planning and would

go a long ways.

There's more than just the heat island effect, just the general impact of having trees around, just improving people's mental health and just the overall aesthetics for the city.

So I would be interested in staff later giving some more feedback in terms of what we do now for trees, what they think we can do to make

Thank you.

Well, I just want to respond.

You know, I think in the beginning of Friendship Court, and I respect certainly the residents' desires, but if we had made an emphasis to save these trees, remember, they're not really on Friendship Court property, they're in the tree lawn of the city.

I think it wouldn't have to be an either or.

It wouldn't have to be the trees or the wonderful renovation of Friendship Court.

It would just, because it would have been easy to save them.

You just have to move the buildings back, you know, 10 or 15 feet, literally.

So

I think going forward, if we could work together, you know, I hate to bring his name up, but let me bring up a name of Christmas past or Charlottesville past, Mitch Van Yeris.

My father-in-law, Lloyd is smiling, I'm sure Juan is too.

He was, as you know, mayor and city council for 10 years in the General Assembly for 25.

He was also an arborist.

I'm sure he had a lot to do with what the trees were planted around friendship court, and I'm sure he was very proud of them.

Cole Hendricks

that someone that our new interim city manager who had talked about and we all liked very much would tremble in his office when Mitch would come to see him and talk about saving trees.

So I'd like to think in Mitch's memory and also to make Friendship Corps a healthier place that we do look at ways to save most of them.

As I said, it doesn't have to be an either or.

Was there some change in the ordinances that govern trees and site plans and so on over the last 30 years?

Because when I was on the Planning Commission back in the 80s, I remember having to be aware on every project where the major trees were and what was being done to preserve them.

This is Chris at Parks.

There's certainly been some incremental improvements in zoning site plan percentage requirements.

That's one of the data pieces I wanted to look at is a neighborhood like Cherry Hill over on Cherry Avenue was built over 10 years ago and to take this tree data and say did it meet its canopy goal as required in the site plan at that time and is that an acceptable goal still today or now that we have a zoning update coming on

It's a great time to take these questions into account and see, are there more adjustments to the code that need to be made?

But in my career here, there have been some adjustments to code.

I think the tree commission can nominate and council can preserve individual trees, but maybe there should be a conversation about

What I was remembering was, and it perhaps was simply a function of the fact that a zoning director at that point, Satyendra Hoosia, who felt very strongly about trees, that basically every site plan, every tree that was there was identified by its caliper, and we knew what was there and what was being removed and what was being saved.

Is that not happening right now at the site plan process?

There's a landscape page on every site plan that identifies all the trees.

What I can't answer is what does the code say is the end requirement for the developer post-development and who inspects the site two years later to make sure that those trees actually survive to their canopy requirements.

Lloyd, quickly, I just want to add, so it sounds like it's who says she said type of thing.

I just think that from this point on, at least it's going to be a high priority for me and we don't look at them.

I just want it to be, you know, I did this plan and stuff for 20 years and it can be part of that process.

What can we do to save trees?

And I just want that to be part of

the code, I mean, certainly the code, but even if not, that as the planner director and planners, as they're looking at the plans that they said, we need to save these trees as much as possible.

And, you know, we certainly could codify and we should, but in the meantime, we just got to do what I think is right.

And I was part of many of those friendship court

Well, I know Ms.

Robertson has put in the chat the reference to the fact that in 2003 and 2008, the mixed use districts included a number of areas where there's a zero setback line.

So trees along those street frontages aren't practically as possible as they are in locations where there are 10 to 25 foot setbacks.

One of the tensions that we were told

in part of the affordable housing debate, one of the things that is getting in the way of more affordability is bigger setback requirements.

But of course, when you've got setback requirements, you've got room for trees.

And at least part of the discussion that we were having last year about all of this, and I kept saying, oh, don't worry, we'll solve this when we get around to rewriting the zoning ordinance, which is underway.

But part of what we need to do, I guess, is to make sure that we have some better way of recognizing the balance that we're trying to strike and being intentional about it in a way that perhaps we're not being right now.

I note also that a minute or two ago, Mr. Freeze turned his camera on.

I just I only wanted to offer that that I

I think the comprehensive plan does attempt to respond to this concern about trees.

As was noted in the presentation, we have made commitments there to pursue changes in the zoning ordinance during the upcoming rewrite to address greater degree of tree protection.

and I certainly have a lot of thoughts about things we could change within the zoning ordinance beyond those things identified by the tree commission that would really open up the potential for greater opportunities for tree preservation.

Also note that I recently went out and met on site with the Friendship Court team, the development team, their construction team, engineers and designers,

to talk about tree preservation on Garrett Street and to understand exactly why we ended up in the situation we are in today with regard to the trees that are currently going to be removed and understanding that it was kind of a whole series of design decisions that took us to that point driven a large part by the presence of an underground stream and easement associated with that that shifted locations of buildings and underground parking and kind of

I don't want to use the word force, but really kind of led us in the direction of having to bring those buildings up directly to the street.

All that being said, we have more space and more opportunity in the later phases and got agreement all around from the developer and their team that we would make every effort possible to ensure that we're preserving the trees on the remainder of Garrett Street and on Second Street.

Overall, our emphasis was on the importance of trees in this area in this neighborhood and agreement with both the developer and of course on the city side that those were priorities for us to be thinking about.

Sena, you've got your hand up for a while.

I apologize.

The hand is showing up in a spot on the picture that it's not very visible.

So I appreciate Ms.

Thank you.

So I just had this is kind of out.

This is not to do with zoning codes or anything like that.

Just two things real quick.

One, I do know that a local Girl Scout troop has been raising money and wanting to be planting trees.

It's the high school level Girl Scout troop.

So I would like to put you in touch with them, please.

I just I spoke with them last night, actually.

So

I have some.

I have actually all of the flavors.

I'm one of the only places that has all the flavors right now.

A lot of them are sold out and will not be coming back.

Supply chain issues.

The other thing is, is just from a homeowner's perspective,

I have had to take a few trees out because they were either crowding other trees and I had an arborist come in, actually, vaniaries, come in and help me pick out which ones to take out and everything.

But I think it would be also beneficial if

Some sort of public service announcement could go out on what type of trees when people are looking to thin out trees.

Yes, it's advisable to get a tree person in, but at the same time, not everyone's going to have that resource.

So they might take their chainsaw and cut something down on their own, but maybe some sort of guidance of these are the trees that are, if you're going to take trees out, look to take out these trees.

They're the ones that are like, I have a whole bunch of hollies and they're kind of overwhelming things and actually not lasting well with the winds because they're not a very strong tree.

But also what are invasive species?

What are just a simple, easy to use, you know, just a quick, yes, these are good.

No, these are bad.

Could I just say to Constance McGill's point that the commission has discussed this, particularly an option of perhaps using the utility of mailing for a flyer that had just sort of a fact sheet.

Our past urban forester did work last year about this time with a couple of neighborhood associations.

They were having issues with trees, and so he went and met with them.

So that's clearly another option.

But this points to sort of something that we didn't state in the presentation, which I think we all know, is that the majority of trees in the city and the majority of the loss is happening on private property.

So the things that we all together can do and the tools that we can use and the resources that we can bring to bear, including a better zoning ordinance, take us part of the way.

The other part is actually educating private property owners.

who have the majority of trees.

And so that's part of the charge of the Tree Commission, too, is to educate and advocate.

But we'll look for opportunities.

And we'd love to continue this conversation as to what can we use?

What city resources can we use to reach out to neighborhoods?

What kind of mailing opportunities are using the website?

Because we have had many people reach out to us.

That number increased of residents during the pandemic.

They were home, they saw their trees, they saw the neighborhood trees, they had lots of issues.

Just quickly, because I know we're over our time.

James Bryant, who's on the school board and lives in 10th and Page is on the Relief Advisory Committee.

And as we were talking about trees, James and we told him about the energy costs in 10th and Page.

He said, Peggy, I never realized my air condition was so high.

So he's one of the first ones I think that's gotten a tree planted in his yard.

I have one point that we're not going to solve tonight, and I just throw it out there, and that is that we have to balance the need for tree canopy with the need for room for solar panels.

And one of the consequences of that may be that we want to be encouraging folks to not plant pine trees that will grow to 60 feet tall, but maybe to plant something that will only grow 30 feet tall and therefore will not cast as long a shadow across somebody else's roof.

That's a whole different set of balancing decisions that I don't want to get into tonight.

But I am curious about two things in particular.

You've emphasized supporting the creation of a natural resources manager position within Parks and Rec, supporting creation of a position within NDS tasked with preservation and protection of trees.

I thought we had an urban forester.

Is that person the only person in city government whose job it is to be paying attention to this?

If I could answer that, Lloyd, I know creating new positions in city staff is tough.

So I don't think we need, personally, I don't think we need two.

The urban forester was not charged very much with reviewing site plans.

It wasn't a constant thing.

So I don't, as far as I know, and maybe James could correct me, there isn't a really knowledgeable person

in the city about trees and other natural resources could really follow site plan review.

So for us to have someone, whether it's in NDS, which might be the best place, that would really keep their eyes and give you all a good environmental assessment

of what impact is going to be, particularly as you okay large developments, which are obviously affordable housing is incredibly important, and I don't mean to denigrate that at all, but I think sometimes we could be saving our natural resources and trees and doing affordable housing.

I have just two quick questions, I suppose, for city staff in terms about the process for implementing these changes and see them come to fruition.

I'm guessing our zoning rewrite process, which is just beginning, is going to be a pretty good opportunity to incorporate these zoning changes.

I'm especially interested in that one

from Richmond in terms of developers providing money if they're taking down tree canopy.

And then the second in terms of increasing coordination between departments to try to more proactively during the development process prevent losing tree canopy.

Is that something that would be part of our climate action planning process?

Okay, great.

So first, let me start with noting that site plan review is today an interdepartmental exercise, right?

Site plan review involves members of a number of different departments, including Parks and Rec.

And when the urban forester position was filled, that person did provide a comment on site plan review.

In fact, in reviewing the comments that were done on the Friendship Court when I was doing my research to understand how we arrived at the decision, I saw that the urban forester did in fact contribute to that plan.

So I think operationally, we're already there.

It's ensuring that we have somebody in that position and ensuring we have the regulatory tools to back them up as necessary.

And then overall, that we're striking the proper balance.

I think as Mayor Snook referenced before, amongst all of our competing objectives to try and ensure that trees aren't getting lost in the shuffle.

I think procedurally we've got the right system in place.

It's just a matter of ensuring that we have good regulations, which will be addressed as part of the zoning rewrite process and ensuring that we have the policies in place, if you will.

Okay.

So I guess this is a practical matter.

I think it is.

Again, this is one of the issues that has been clearly identified as a priority issue, both in the comprehensive plan and in our conversations leading up to this.

I can't promise the zoning ordinance can solve everything because we know it can't, but it does create a number of opportunities for us.

And a lot of that is going to be in about introducing flexibility, right?

As was referenced earlier, housing advocates often note that

that large setbacks interfere with the ability to produce housing.

By the same token, when you take it down to zero, you potentially lose the opportunity for street trees, depending on the width of the right-of-way.

Obviously, where there's a wider right-of-way, you have more opportunity for trees anyway.

If we can make those rules more flexible, we can attempt to do both and try and achieve both objectives.

And that can be doubly true when you look at side setbacks as well, if we can be more flexible in that space.

All of these things come with trade-offs, and I know that'll be part of the conversation as we go forward with the zoning ordinance rewrite.

The other big driver of the loss of trees is parking.

Just a comment.

I know the urban forester has had the ability to view site plans, but I don't think it's been an ongoing thing.

I will give you a quick example.

Just in late fall, we were about to present a city council

to put all those Garrett Street and Second Street trees around Friendship Court under the zoning, under the tree protection ordinance that we have.

And the arborist did a whole package.

It was about 26 pages long that you were going to get.

We decided to wait till after Christmas.

And then things just got busy and we didn't present it.

But he was not aware, certainly in

early winter or late fall that the trees are going to come down on Garrett's tree.

He wouldn't have spent hours assessing each tree and making a whole package.

So I understand with James that he can review them, but I don't think there's a real coordination and communication going all the time because we had no idea until a couple of weeks ago that the trees were slated to come down.

The tree commission didn't know.

I would just add that, I mean, this is a great discussion.

I know we have to end it soon.

But the commission is aware again of all these countervailing pressures.

We have been pretty much chomping at the bit for several years.

We have an entire committee called Codes and Practices that is meeting and we'll go through the code.

We'll bring in examples from other locales.

So we know that this is a difficult situation.

We know that there's no one silver bullet to solve this.

But I go back to the beginning of the presentation.

This is not a good trend line.

And I think we can all realize that.

So whatever we can do to at least stabilize the loss or reduce the acceleration, obviously, we're not going to get back up to 50% anytime soon.

And that might not ever have ever been realistic.

But I just worry that the next time you're presented a report on the state of the forest with the urban canopy study,

the number is gonna be even lower.

And at what point does that number get too low for livability in all the respects that we've just discussed?

So I'm stepping into Peggy's hopeful shoes after this conversation.

I feel better and I look forward to, even though I'm leaving the commission in a month,

Peggy insists that I stay on the codes committee, so I will be a citizen member of the codes committee, and I look forward to the opportunity to work with some of the audience.

Thank you to both Brian and Peggy.

for the presentation.

Obviously, we're interested in the issue.

We went 15 minutes long.

But anyway, that's not your fault.

We dragged it out.

Unfortunately, it caused some dislocations elsewhere.

But thank you to the Tree Commission for the report.

Mayor, City Council.

It's my pleasure to introduce Mr. Charles Harro, who's an National City and County Management Association credentialed manager, who serves as the director of the Virginia Institute of Government at UVA.

I won't steal all of his talking points, but the Virginia Institute of Government is part of the Weldon Cooper Center, and the city is a longstanding member.

Mr. Hartgrove, a lifelong native Virginian, has served as senior executive for Virginia local governments for over 20 years, including as the town manager of Ashland, Middleburg, and Gate City.

He leads the Virginia Institute of Government with a background in government and public administration.

Through the city's partnership, Mr. Hartgrove, along with Dr. Larry Terry Jr., who had to slip away, will be providing support for council to engage in some work this spring.

Great.

Thank you.

Ms.

Hartgrove.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor and Council for having us on your agenda this evening.

I do want to apologize for Dr. Terry, our Executive Director.

He'd been with us for the last hour, but had to go into another appointment.

So I'll do my best to talk a little bit about the Cooper Center, but also more importantly, the Institute of Government as where the organization has been hopefully working with your staff and we look forward to working with you all later this spring.

So, first of all, the Cooper Center for Public Service.

We are, we've just finished our 90th year of existence, working with local governments and other public entities throughout the Commonwealth.

We just finished a new strategic plan for the Cooper Center last year.

And one of the significant goals and strategies that came out of that for local governments in particular here in the Commonwealth is

building the capacity of public leaders to apply research and engage for constituents and fostering empowered and equitable communities.

So really the bottom line for the Institute of Government is providing assistance, whether it be professional or technical for good governance for Virginia localities, no matter if it's an elected official, all the way down to your frontline employees, and developing leaders at all levels.

We provide professional development and leadership training to local government senior executives from not only here in Virginia, but all across the country.

and work with town cities and counties throughout the Commonwealth and beyond on several initiatives.

We've had several conversations with staff so far over the winter and are looking forward to again

working with the city council and staff later for spring on some strategic planning issues and other topics I think that are important to you guys.

I know that the Bob group has been working with you and you already had a initial retreat back in January to discuss a few issues as you all took office or returned to office.

And then we look forward to working with you guys after you make it through the budget

preparation point and then talk a little bit more about strategic planning later in spring.

So just to give a little bit more background from what Ashley mentioned, I did spend over 20 years working for local governments here in Virginia.

My last post in local government was deputy city manager of Lynchburg, just now we're south of you guys.

So I very much understand the challenges that cities have here in the Commonwealth.

and the things that you're trying to work on to improve for your citizens, your businesses, and your community as a whole.

One of the things we've done over the last couple of years is work with organizations like yourself.

So we have provided consulting services to Richmond City Council.

We've facilitated a retreat for them in 2021, and we've worked for several other towns and counties as well on everything from strategic planning

to, for example, we're currently working and have been working with the City of Newport News on diversity, equity, inclusion discussions amongst their leadership team and their organization in general.

So basically, no matter the economic development, no matter what the topic is, we have the combination of both internal and external subject matter experts we can bring to the table to assist you in making your goals come to reality.

So

Thank you.

I appreciate your being here and sticking with us.

I confess that I don't know exactly what we're going to be doing with you guys.

I know we have a couple of days set out in April for it.

And I guess part of the process here is the suspense of wondering what we're going to be doing then.

But I look forward to working with you all to help us figure out how we need to be working better.

And I gather that's part of what we're going to be talking about.

I'm looking forward to that.

Do you offer quantitative research like comparisons, comparison and contrasts?

in terms of revenue, for instance, that the city might bring in.

Do you have any kind of data sets?

We don't have to go into this now.

I'm just interested as a follow up, perhaps, as we enter a tax season and all that's involved in that.

Sure.

We've got a various group of professionals, both on the practitioner side and on the academic side, that we can pull from.

So really, we can customize the type of work that the city would require.

I really don't have any questions.

I just want to thank Ashley or staff.

I know Ashley was the first one to mention to me that we had this in our backyard and many times we messed around over at UVA, didn't know that this opportunity existed.

So I just want to thank staff for bringing it to our attention and

I'm looking forward to, I reserved those two days, you know, today, I'm looking forward to it.

Well, I'm very excited to work with you all.

And as Dr. Terry would say, it's easier.

He thinks it's an absolutely critical point that the city and the Cooper Center have a great working relationship and that we support each other.

We're all part of this community, and we want to be a part of that support system for you all and the city as a whole.

So it's a privilege for us to work with you all, and we're very much looking forward to working with the council and the staff in April.

Anybody else?

Got any comments, questions?

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hartgrove.

My pleasure.

The next item on the agenda is a closed meeting.

And then we'll come back at 630.

And at that point, we will begin the meeting, sort of the public hearing portion of the meeting.

of the meeting.

I guess the next thing we have to do then is to get into closed session.

Pursuant to section 2.2-3712 of the Virginia code, I hereby move that the city council close this open meeting and convene within a closed meeting as authorized by Virginia code section 2.2-3711 A1 and A7 and A8 for consideration of the performance of a member of a council appointed board or commission for discussion of litigation pending in the U.S.

district

Is there a second?

Second from Vice Mayor Wade.

Okay, let's see, I guess we can just do a roll call.

We can do a voice vote.

Okay, any opposed?

All right, the motion passes.

City Council will now go into closed session.

We will return to this link for the open meeting at 6.30.

So, counselors, we log out of this one, go into the other meeting and rejoin.

Before you get a chance to get some vittles.

Breakfast with some champions and add some turkey soup.

I had some tabbouleh earlier.

Mr. Rogers, good evening, sir.

Good evening.

Good.

Michael here?

One, two, three, four.

Okay, we're all here.

Um...

Ms.

Councillor McGill?

Yes.

Councillor Pinkston?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Waite?

Okay, so that motion passes.

Next item on the agenda, are there any items for recognition?

Commissioner of Revenue would like to announce that applications are currently being taken for the city's real estate tax relief for elderly or disabled program.

If you own and are living in your home in the city of Charlottesville, if you are over 65 years of age or older or are permanently disabled, and if you have a yearly household income of $55,000 or less and a net worth of $125,000 excluding the value of the home, you may qualify for tax relief under this program.

And I want to emphasize it excludes the value of the home.

This was a question that has come to me a couple of times this last week.

And I just want to remind people that this does not include the value of the home that you're living in.

Applicants must apply online at www.charlottesville.gov backslash C-O-R or in person at the Commissioner of the Revenues Office providing valid identification and documentation of income and net worth.

In-person applications should be by appointment Monday through Friday, 8.30 a.m.

to 4.30 p.m.

Schedule an appointment by visiting www.charlottesville.gov backslash COR, that's for Commissioner of Revenue, or by calling 434-970-3165.

Now the deadline to apply is March 1st, 2022, so that's next week.

Thank you.

Yes, Mr. Mayor, City Council, and it looks like several other organizations, including Haven, Kocham, United Way, NAACP, we received a petition from the unhoused in the community for us to

address it.

And it was very, very compelling.

It was signed by, I assume, some of the unhoused in our community.

And I just want to let the community know that the city council will be having a work session once the dust settles from the budget process just to address

housing affordability and housing in general.

And this is definitely will be part of that discussion.

So I just want to thank them and organizers for presenting this to us and other organizations in the community, just to let them know that it has been seen and heard and will be considered.

Thank you, Vice Mayor Wade.

Others, other announcements?

Do we have any items for recognition?

Okay, so the next item on the agenda is the consent agenda.

Ms.

Consent agenda, number four, minutes, January 5th meeting, January 18th meeting,

five ordinance amending and reordaining section 15-99 of chapter 15 motor vehicles and traffic of the code of the city of Charlottesville 1990 as amended to reduce the speed limit on fifth street southwest

second reading six resolution appropriating funds for the runaway emergency shelter program grant $209,444 second reading seven resolution approving a minor action plan amendment

to the FY 2021-2022 Community Development Block Grant Action Plan to authorize the Community Investment Collaborative to implement a contingency plan for expenditure of CDBG funding on or before June 30th

2022.

One reading.

And there was an item eight sent out with the initial packet that was requested by the chair of the Historic Resources Committee to be removed.

Thank you.

And so we'll now take public comment regarding items on the consent agenda that have just been read by the clerk.

Each speaker will have up to three minutes in the zoom webinar, you may select the raise hand option to be placed in the speaker queue.

If you have joined by phone and wish to speak on the consent agenda, you may press star nine.

Note that if you signed up ahead of time, that this is not the time for that.

Okay, this is just for the comments on the last last couple of items.

Actually, there might be one person who had asked to speak who was gonna talk about Fifth Street, I'm not sure.

Anyway, if you wanna talk about items on the consent agenda, are there any speakers who wish to speak on the consent agenda?

Okay.

Is there a second to that motion?

Brian seconds.

Okay.

Any further questions or comments from council?

If not, Ms.

Councillor McGill?

Yes.

Councillor Pinkston?

That's better.

Vice Mayor Wade?

All right.

And actually, good evening, everyone.

I don't have a report after all.

I was able to receive a note from staff that they wanted me to hold the announcements for public consumption until the March 7th meeting ahead of the event that they were having.

Okay.

Well, thank you.

Mayor, council, you save you some time.

So next item on the agenda is the community matters general interest.

We have eight pre-registered speakers for community matters.

There are six on the waiting list.

We have an additional eight in addition to the first eight.

So a total of 16 potential speakers.

Each speaker will have up to three minutes to speak.

there will be an additional public comment section at the end of the meeting.

And we'll now open the floor to the preregistered speakers.

Others wishing to speak may select the raise hand option in the Zoom webinar to be placed in the speaker queue.

If you have joined by phone and wish to speak during community matters, you may press star nine.

Is our first speaker available?

You have three minutes.

I guess, Mr. Dillahunt, are you going to put up the timer for us?

Great.

Greetings.

My name is John Ertle.

I live in Charlottesville and I'm a representative of the Amalgamated Transit Union or ATU for short.

I'm here to speak to council again regarding a public sector collective bargaining ordinance.

Previously, our union has petitioned the city to recognize our union as representing the workers at CAT and also consider a collective bargaining ordinance for all city workers.

We understand through its previous vote on the firefighters proposed ordinance

and looking at the items for consideration in the agenda tonight that the city may actually be inclined to fashion its own version of an ordinance.

That is certainly your privilege to do so.

We just ask that it be done as expediently as possible and that whatever the end product looks like, it provides the same fundamental rights that the union's ordinance has contained.

Months have passed since the firefighters first petitioned the city to establish a collective bargaining ordinance and since then very little progress seems to have been made in moving forward on it.

City employees are eager to have their voices heard and to be able to utilize this basic right to join together in a union, a right which has been denied for far too long to municipal employees in the state.

Right now, as we see it, one of the critical tasks before council is to guarantee that funding is put forward that would make it possible to carry out a collective bargaining program.

The city may understandably desire to hire staff who are familiar with public sector unionism so that they can carry out these new duties such as negotiating and administering union contracts.

We just ask that enough money be put into place in the budget to make sure that the city can hire whatever essential staff it needs for collective bargaining so that this does not continue to languish as an unfulfilled aspiration.

Once the city hires the necessary staff, we would request that council consider passing a collective bargaining ordinance as soon as possible.

One could certainly be passed with a subsequent phase in date so that you'd have enough time to hire qualified candidates to fulfill the job.

However, it's done again, we just want to make sure that it comes to fruition as soon as possible.

Collective bargaining is good for workers and this investment in the city workforce will ensure the continued quality of the services available to our community.

In the meantime, ATU is respectfully requesting the right to have access to the CAT facility so that we can meet with our members at a place convenient for them on non-working hours.

We would also like to start to be able to meet with the general manager so that employees can raise important feedback for his consideration.

CAT general manager Garland Williams has said he will not do this until given the instruction to do so from city.

We would like to start having these labor management meetings to begin to make sure that frontline employees can begin to have the ability to provide their input on important workplace issues.

And just to be clear, these meetings would not constitute collective bargaining and therefore are not prohibited by current state statute.

They would just be for the express purpose of bringing forward frontline employee feedback for the improvement of CAP.

It is not lost on me that what we are asking the city to do here is new and that undertaking collective bargaining is not an insignificant undertaking.

We do appreciate Council's past support for collective bargaining and can assure you that city employees are eagerly awaiting progress on this most important issue.

Thank you, Mr. Ertl.

Next up, Richard Allen.

Good evening, council members, and good evening, Mayor Snook.

I am Richard Allen of Charlottesville, and I know you care about our town.

Our Slave Block Citizens Group does too, and I'm that group's research secretary.

Since as long ago as 1985, city council and city managers have erased the history of enslavement that was once shown visually available at eye level by a sign on the wall at Zero Park Street, Court Square.

Our citizen group sent each of you a replica of that sign missing for decades.

At the last council meeting, just a couple of weeks ago, our group respectfully asked you to change this wrongdoing to the acknowledged history of Court Square.

At tonight's meeting, I ask you, and I ask specifically, who oversees racial equity, diversity, inclusion and history in Charlottesville?

Deputy City Manager Marshall has much of that job title, but she informs us she cannot reinstall this sign until you five leaders authorize that.

We ask you to bolt our replica sign to the parking pole beside the Zero Park Street building, almost exactly where the slave block once stood.

We ask that this occur this week.

Now, you have talked with city attorney, Joe Platania.

He fully provided you with details of this need.

This is not rocket science.

It does not require heavy lifting.

I will not take more of your time, but before you go to the next speaker, Mayor Snook, please.

And I ask you with utmost respect, sir, please use your words right now.

Please publicly answer.

It is you and council who must authorize reinstallation of the site of slave block sign.

Everyone attending this meeting is listening.

in the name of racial equity, diversity, inclusion, and the history, the authentic history of Charlottesville, will you please this very week correct this decades-long erasure of history?

I know we don't always provide answers, but let me provide just a brief answer here.

The answer is that the committee through the Historic Resources Commission, the committee that has been researching this produced a report a couple of weeks ago, which we thought was going to be on tonight's agenda.

It was not.

It was pulled for some reason.

I don't know what that reason is.

One of the things that they found is substantial question about whether there was actually ever a slave block.

If you read the report, and I'm not going to argue the historicity of it all, that's for historians to figure out, and it is not for city council in the first instance to figure out.

There's a lot of history that's got to get sorted out.

and a lot of new historical research that suggests that what you are asking us to do would not be historically accurate.

I say we're not going to try to get into that tonight, simply to note that it's a much more complex issue than what you're suggesting.

Any other counselors want to comment further?

Okay.

Next item, next person, Matthew Ray, talk about whatever you want to talk about.

Mayor Snook, I do not see Mr. Ray in at the moment.

Okay.

Donna Shaughnessy was our next person up.

Good evening, counselors and Mr. Mayor.

I'm Donna Shaughnessy.

I live on Birdwood Road here in the city, and I'm here tonight representing eight groups

in the local climate coalition known as Seville 100.

As I hope you've seen, we recently sent you a letter regarding the city's climate action plan.

Signatories to the letter are the Local Energy Alliance Program, LEAP, Eco Village Charlottesville, the Community Climate Collaborative, the Piedmont Environmental Council, Green Grannies, Charlottesville Center for Peace and Justice, Charlottesville 350, and the Piedmont Group of the Virginia Chapter of the Sierra Club.

We are all in agreement that the city is woefully behind on their promises to complete the city's climate action plan and to move forward to carry out the actions that we need to make sure that the city does what it needs to do.

I remember the happy day in June of 2017 when council passed the resolution to join the global covenant of mayors for climate and energy.

Those of us who are concerned about the looming crisis were so proud that the city was out

on this critical issue.

Charlottesville was the leader we know it should be, and we looked forward to having our plan be an example to other cities and localities around the state and the nation.

Since then, the silence has been deafening.

Despite the promise to have a plan done in three years, and despite having staff dedicated to climate planning, there has been little to no action.

We realize there's been turmoil in staffing, but this can't wait.

We can't wait for everybody to be in place to make this happen.

In the five years that we've been waiting, the cities continue to heat up, climate-related natural disasters have multiplied, and you're all aware of the damage that climate change is bringing to our neighborhoods.

And so we call on you to do four things at this point.

to troubleshoot the climate mitigation planning process, get it moving again, and set the expectation that it will be presented for community consideration and council approval by October 1, 2022.

We ask that you publish up-to-date, complete and accurate greenhouse gas emissions inventory data.

Our current data is from 2016, woefully out of date.

Things have changed dramatically since then in the city.

We ask you to set the expectation that the climate adaptation plan will be completed within six months of finalizing the mitigation plan.

And we ask that you set the expectation that climate change responsibility and sustainability will be integrated and regularly throughout the city's planning documents and actions from here on out.

So thank you very much.

I really appreciate your attention to this critical issue.

We all have

People we care about who are going to be even more impacted than we are.

Thank you.

Good evening, counselors.

To start a tree, you find a location and plant a seed.

You provide water and a safe physical space early on.

In return for this minimal effort, you can grow ancient, gigantic green infrastructure that provides ecosystem services, improves public health, combats climate change, promotes the walkability of the city, increases the value of nearby structures, and all around makes Charlottesville a better place to live.

Tree seeds and tree saplings cost next to nothing.

An individual tree provides thousands of dollars of benefits in the course of its life.

The cost to benefit ratio for a large stature tree is over six to one.

If it costs you 100 to plant and maintain, the benefits that accrue to you are 600 during the life of the tree.

The trees you plant will outlive us all.

When we plant trees, we make a gift to the present and to the future.

Fire engines, affordable housing, police cars, seeds aren't available for these infrastructure items.

Their period of service is generally shorter too than trees.

But when considering your budget, this isn't a zero-sum game.

It's not a question of either trees or housing.

It's a question of both.

Do both.

Do you have a tree commission?

As a city, we've had a vision of the urban forest.

As a city, we've had some sort of tree plant since 1975.

Previous councils and city staff have not exercised their will to follow through on our commitment to the urban forest.

We can maintain a fire department.

We can maintain a school system.

We can maintain streets.

We can employ 1800 people.

We can plant more than 23 trees.

Here's what I want counselors to do.

Become familiar with the tree commission's work.

Telegraph to Mr. Rogers

and to your urban planners, the zoning code rewrite should enable the urban canopy coverage to rebound.

Counselors, I want you to plant a tree next to the street where you live, and maybe you guys already have.

Encourage your neighbors to do the same.

In the words of Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai,

Until you dig a hole, you plant a tree, you water and make it survive, you haven't done a thing.

You're just talking.

Do more than talk.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Emery.

Next up, we have Nancy Carpenter.

Ms.

Carpenter?

All right.

Good evening and thank you.

I am Nancy Carpenter and I reside in the city.

The subject for me tonight is the Charlottesville Housing Fund.

I am strongly urging this council to continue this commitment to allocate $10 million per year to the Charlottesville Housing Fund, which will help to dismantle the long history of racist housing policies in Charlottesville.

I agree.

I wholeheartedly agree that the physical plant of our public schools has dire need.

However, a proper learning environment is but a spoke that emanates from the hub of decent, safe, and deeply affordable housing.

for our students and their families.

I am also watching with trepidation the possibility of house residents falling into homelessness due to increasing rent burdens.

For me, it's not a question of if, but when.

I have to ask, are you delving deeply into departmental budgets that could yield several million dollars

that could be reallocated to the housing fund.

There have been multiple asks about that over the years.

And will you finally be the counsel that looks into that?

I know that you had a presentation at your four o'clock meeting from the Charlottesville Area Alliance on what an age-friendly community looks like.

One of their PowerPoint slides incorporated a checklist of various important points, one of which is housing.

However, what I'm beginning to see doesn't look very friendly, whether it's age or from any other capacity.

I will say that Councillor Payne has made some very good arguments about housing strategies and I hope during your deliberations about the budget that you take a look at them very, very seriously.

In closing, all these initiatives about education, public health, public safety, economic opportunity,

and be successful only with deeply affordable housing for our residents, which has helped by allocating the deep funding necessary to the Charlottesville Housing Fund.

And one last fact, the National Low Income Housing Coalition just put out a graph this week showing that, and we all know it, but showing that the average median rent in this country went up 18 percent

in just one year.

So that's going to be, you know, a very difficult price point to deal with here in this community.

And one last thing, Councillor Wade, I want to say thank you for acknowledging the petition earlier.

Thank you, Ms.

Carpenter.

Good evening city council members and Charlottesville staff and community members.

My name is Emily Little and I live on Moore Ave in Charlottesville.

I'm speaking tonight in support of a letter from eight environmental organizations here in Charlottesville that wrote to you to urge you to move more quickly to develop a climate mitigation and climate adaptation plan.

I am friends with a lot of non-climate activists in Charlottesville who now ask me for updates on what's happening locally in climate action planning.

The people I am often talking to are mothers of young children because I am a mother of young children.

Many of them admit that they can't look at climate related news because it's too gloomy and stirs up so much fear for them for their young children that they have to look away.

I always wish that my glimmer of hope for them could be, I know it's terrifying, I too struggle with thinking about my children's future in a time of climate change, but at least locally we are doing something.

But I feel like I can't say that anymore.

We joined the Covenant of Mayors as a city in 2016.

My son James was still growing in my uterus.

He turned five on February 3rd.

And as a city, we still haven't made any steps towards implementation of either a mitigation or adaptation plan.

I've put solar panels on my house.

We drive less.

We plan the way we use our cars.

But that's not enough.

An individual action isn't enough, and not everyone can make the decisions that I can make with the privilege that I have.

As Seville community members, we need some deadlines for these two plans.

Climate change continues to change our planet.

We need local action to give us hope that our children will be left with a planet they can survive in and thrive on.

We need the city staff and city council to commit to completing the mitigation plan by October 31st

followed by the adaptation plan six months later.

These plans were supposed to be done a couple of years ago and climate change is not waiting for these plans to be done.

All city decisions on budget, comprehensive plan and beyond should not be being made without a climate lens at this point.

And I feel like without the climate action plan, it doesn't feel like the climate lens is in place for any decision making.

Please give us a very specific timeline for finishing up the climate plans.

We need to feel hopeful and this can't wait.

Thank you, Ms.

Little.

Yes, I'm David Redding and with the EcoVillage and our address is 480 Raya Road East.

And I also want to talk about the Climate Action Plan and what we need to be doing.

And in, you know, in June of 2017, Charlottesville publicly joined the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate.

And it's an important thing.

And we've all been

hoping that we would move ahead with it.

But looking at the covenants of mayor, the calls for mitigation and adaptation planning to be completed within three years of joining the covenant.

Well, obviously, we haven't done that.

In four and a half years since Charlottesville joined, its 2016 inventory has fallen out of date.

The mitigation plan has failed to appear and the adaption plan is slowly, quietly moving forward.

So neither of these plans is complete.

We have to work on it.

It's an important thing and people are becoming aware of it now and we just have to keep working on it.

So Donna and Emily have talked about this and so there's no sense me going through the same details, but we appreciate what you're doing, but we got to move ahead.

Thank you, Mr. Redding.

Mr. Dillahunt, I know, have we seen Mr. Ray back yet?

There he is.

Should we go back?

Mr. Ray, you want to?

Hello.

Yes.

Hello, I'm Matthew Ray with Charlottesville Area Transit.

I was calling in support of the collective bargaining in the budget that I know you guys are considering.

I just wanted to go over a few things.

We recently got a 60% raise.

That was good.

But that's just catching up.

We've gone many years without much more than just a cost of living increase.

We have a lot of issues that I think that the ATU and the union could need to be addressed that could help us address some of these issues.

We have some serious, I believe, grievance issues that need to be addressed, policies, you know, that are kind of ad hoc or not in place.

I understand that the director has a lot of leeway.

And I've been told that a lot of this stuff is at his discretion.

I've not had any real support from human resources at the city in this regard.

They basically can't help me.

It's just basically everything has to go to the director.

And that's fine.

He's a fair guy.

He's a good guy.

So, you know, we have had issues arise now that we're coming out of COVID.

And, you know, things are starting to try to get back to normal.

But, you know, we are woefully understaffed still.

I know we have a lot of routes that are being pulled off the road because we don't have anybody to drive them or buses that are mechanically not able to to run and you know that that hurts morale.

We just we just really need to get this done with collective bargaining.

I would really appreciate being put in as soon as possible to allow us our right to collective bargaining.

We also would like a meeting place.

I have gone recently to city parks and rec and was told that other departments have used the city facilities that they're not currently able to be rented right now, which I was willing to do.

I was informed today that they couldn't help me out.

So, you know, we've been going outside to try to meet or, you know, out in the parking lot.

I know that we've gotten support from you guys from what I was told that we could unionize and you're fully supporting of that.

So, as you know, as some good faith, could we please use the meeting room up at Avon Street?

Director Galvin has said that we can't do that right now.

And that is a big issue with us as far as trying to organize and get people together.

We all work long schedules.

Right now, we all have one common day off, and that's a Sunday.

And it makes it real difficult to try to find a place to meet.

So I just wanted to say that we really need to get this collective bargaining ordinance passed and done as soon as possible.

Thank you, Mr. Ray.

So that's our first list of eight.

We then come to our wait list.

The first name on the wait list is Tom Randolph.

I do not see Tom in the list.

Ah, okay.

Okay, so we go back to the raise your hand thing if you would like to speak.

All righty.

First person with their hand raised is Mark Zolenhofer.

Thank you.

Hello?

Okay, thank you.

My name is Mark Zolanoffer.

I'm a member of the Charlottesville Area Tree Stewards.

And by virtue of that, I'm also a liaison member of the Tree Commission.

And I wanted to speak in support of the report that was given by the Tree Commission this evening.

and just to give you a piece of information that was new to me that I found very helpful and that was that there's been some research in the last few years that indicates that wherever there are areas of heat islands in cities and I think research was done in Richmond in the last few years that indicates that trips to the emergency room and 911 EMT calls

when they're mapped against city neighborhoods and the tree canopy maps are overlaid with those calls for health assistance that there's almost a one-to-one correspondence with low disadvantaged community neighborhoods with tree cover and with health issues.

And so the Venable playground that Peggy Venieri's

showed you about the temperature difference last summer of 20 degrees between the shaded playground and the unshaded playground gives us an indication in our city of areas where we are going to have health concerns that relates to climate issues that can be mitigated by trees.

And so with the number of speakers this evening who have talked about some of these issues, I just thought it would be good to highlight

The fact that when we talk about low income housing and putting some priorities on that, one of the unforeseen developments that might come in 10 or 15 years is that when we put in low income housing and we leave trees out, it'll be similar to what the redlining did with insurance and real estate back in earlier generations.

And so as we as a city address the issue of low income housing, it seems like as a matter of equity that we should also include in the priorities, the health factors that trees provide.

So I don't need to carry this on any further, but did want to draw attention to the fact that these equity issues of economics and health can be mitigated by the inexpensive, relatively speaking,

provision of additional trees and preservations of the ones we already have.

Next person to speak is Emily Yen.

Hello, my name is Dr. Emily Yen.

I'm a Charlottesville resident.

I really appreciate the council's support for collective bargaining and strongly urge you to pass ATU's ordinance or a version of this ordinance that would allow municipal workers to fairly collective bargain with the city.

I see this as a very time important matter that should be addressed in a very timely manner and urge you to move forward expeditiously as the city is planning its budget.

I strongly urge you to budget enough

funds to cover the cost of any personnel that is needed for the city to collectively bargain with its workers.

The status quo right now is not acceptable and delaying a decision is preventing hardworking city employees to not

earn a family supporting wage that would enable them to live in the city of Charlottesville for many, many workers.

We heard several months ago testimony from cat drivers who have to work multiple jobs, who have to move outside of the city in order to support their families.

And that isn't

right from an ethical standpoint, as well as from the standpoint of public safety.

We want to be able to offer jobs for our bus drivers to only have to hold on to one job.

This is in the public's best safety.

We want to make sure that anyone using these services can be transported safely.

And just the current status quo, just not just

puts the economic livelihood of these workers and their families at high risk, but it also puts the public at risk.

And so I really urge you to make collective bargaining a priority in the 2022 fiscal budget.

Next up is Ralph Brown.

Mayor Snook and to the council.

My reason for wanting to talk to you today is to seek support for a resolution to honor my father, the Reverend C.H.

Brown, in February of each year.

His birthday is February the 2nd, 1907.

and I'm seeking a path forward to present a number of historical documents that we have in our possession to the city that would just commemorate the work that he did.

I have the building code of the city of Charlottesville for 1952

and I'm sure that there are a number of persons mentioned in that building code.

Right on the front is R.E.

Lee, Jr., the general contract, people who composed and put the manual together in 1949.

In addition to that, a profile

manual that the city used to put out concerning just living in the city.

It was called A Community Profile and was published in April of 1975.

And the last document that I have with me tonight is actually an original contract that my dad had with

the Charlottesville City Schools for the demolition of buildings where Jefferson School currently stands.

And this document is dated May 14th, 1957.

Certainly I'm looking to try to get the

to raise the awareness of the work of my dad and I'm collaborating with the neighborhood association, the Venable Neighborhood Association in order to try to create a historic district to remember those houses that actually still stand in that neighborhood.

As some of you may know, he was a builder

original builder and pastor the Holy Temple Church of God in Christ on the corner of 12th Street and Ross Avenue.

And I do want to thank council for already honoring him by the honorary street name for Ross Avenue.

But in addition to that, looking at

just the current things that we can present to council and looking for an opportunity to come before council to do that presentation.

And that is my request.

Thank you.

Next person to speak is Robin Hoffman.

Hi, everybody.

I just want to say congratulations to C3 is going to be at the Jefferson Heritage at display.

C3, by the way, is a community climate collaborative group, I think.

So I worked with them, helped get petitioned for businesses to

get on board with their energy savings and give them ideas how to retrofit their facilities and stuff like that.

The very strong leadership has been a part of our community actions, giving Terry Kent and Susan Cruz, I mean, and then they all volunteered to join C100.

with Donna and Emily Little was a director for a while.

She was on my TV show.

You can watch it.

And it describes really all these things that people are trying to bring to everybody's attention, you know, that really I'm speaking to the choir, but

You know, it took somebody like Generation 180, Apex supported group.

I volunteered for them.

We got a whole bunch of names so that solar would be put on the schools.

And it took about three years.

But anyway, these things are available.

And these are our leaders.

And congratulations to Mr. Winslet, our CPA TV producer and great leader and royalty, really.

And Andy Copeland, she is doing leadership and chamber of commerce.

That was just really, really wonderful stuff is going on.

But we really have to pay attention.

Oil.

is the key here at this war again.

And the buses and things that we can do to fix, you know, the usage of this oil, this oil that we're going back to war, just think about it.

And all the things that I just spoke of that people are trying to do for the last three years can't be supported unless everyone talks to their kids,

tries to do the recycling in their community, you know, plant your trees and, you know, just pay attention and vote.

You know, I'm really annoyed, you know, the leadership that we had in the House of Delegates, Sally Hudson, please, we need to vote because we have to be able to move on, progress.

Thank you, Ms.

Next person to speak is Kitano de Campos-Lopez.

Kitano de Campos-Lopez Thank you so much.

Hi, council members, city staff.

I would like to share a perspective that I moved to Charlottesville four years ago.

And when I moved to Charlottesville, I was impressed by the number of forward-thinking people that I met interested me

tackle climate change, tackle this climate crisis, understand the role in the global community where even though effects might not be worse here, they're going to affect poor countries and women and children around the world.

And we wanted to contribute to tackle that.

Since then, in 2019,

The city has committed to reducing its climate emissions by 45% by 2030 and 100% by 2050.

Very bold, very ambitious.

Before that, it was only the city had a goal before that, which was 10% of reductions with respect to 2000 by 2035.

So the goal is incredibly more ambitious right now.

But I have also during these four years been visiting the city's website on a regular basis and the incentives, the projects, the actions that actually are engaging with community members and allowing them to reduce their emissions

have not changed at all.

We don't have more programs going on.

We have a huge promise, but we have no actions actually being placed.

We just faced the comprehensive plan process.

We just faced the zoning process.

We are just talking about major decisions right now related to transportation and transit, and there is no climate action plan to help us make the right decision with respect to climate.

And by the way, I wanted to show our support

My name is Caetano de Campos-Lopez, I'm with C3, which Robin just mentioned, and I want to show our support to the transit workers wanting to improve their working conditions because that's key for us to tackle climate change in the future, to have a transit system that works well with employees in good conditions and shape.

That's key for equity, right?

Yeah, so I think it's very important that we finally get a final solution for that.

We are in budget season right now.

Let's just see what's needed for this climate action plan, for this climate mitigation plan, more importantly, to be done this year so that new projects can come along, projects that are related to affordable housing, projects that are related with transit, projects that are related with many different areas.

But they need to have climate guidance, a climate lens, and for that we need to troubleshoot that situation and let's just think how much it's going to cost and solve it, please.

Thank you so much.

Next up is Robin Haynes.

Hello, I'm Robin Haynes, 1709 East Market Street.

I'm the president of the Charlottesville Area Tree Stewards.

I'm here to ask you to give the full amount the Tree Commission asks for, to keep maintaining the trees we have, remove the dying and dead ash trees, which are getting dangerous,

We all saw how much damage we had this winter.

I'm so grateful to your staff for all the work cleaning up.

Trees are vital to us.

These are difficult times.

There are over 140 tree stewards here.

Yesterday 14 of us cut heavy ivy off of trees by the Y in McIntyre Park.

Tomorrow I will report to members

that the long line of mature oaks on Garrett Street are coming down due to the city's approval, your approval of an architectural design.

They will be really sorry to hear this.

Whether due to an underground stream or residents preferring buildings with no setback from the street, the loss of these 40 to 50 year old trees is a hardship for the majority of this community, for many people in Charlottesville.

The trees do their share to counter climate change.

This street will soon be hot.

Pavement and buildings are what we will see.

If you plant trees in a small space, they're likely to be small trees.

Even if you plant oaks, they will not provide shade on that street like these do for another 35 years.

It sounds like you've written the trees off, plans have been made.

I believe you have the power to stop the trees from being cut down.

pushed the plan back a short amount of footage from the sidewalk.

Thank you, Ms.

And Joy Johnson had her hand raised as well.

Good evening.

My name is Joy Johnson.

I am a public housing resident.

I reside at 802A Hardy Drive.

I'm calling tonight to ask you to fund the money for housing, the $10 million.

And here's why it's important.

When

When our children, one of the things I don't like is when one organization pit another organization when it has to do with low income people or people of poverty.

Yes, the school system, children go to that school system, but they don't sleep.

They don't eat in the school.

They have to go home and they have to go somewhere.

Affordable housing is very, very necessary.

Also, I will continue to say that you all need to define affordable housing.

You need to define affordable housing.

Tax credit is for 60% of the area median income.

HUD's definition is 80% of the area median income.

A lot of our folks and a lot of my peers does not make over $25,000 a year or even $20,000 a year.

So when you are building all these tax credit properties without having deeply affordable other funding with it to make it deeply affordable, it is just pushing other people out of the city.

You need to look at what the CRHA is doing.

CRHA is doing something very unique, unique that nobody's even talking about what they're doing.

with the little crumbs that they get from the city, we appreciate it, but it could be supported a little bit more because we are increasing affordable housing.

We're going from 58 units to 113 units.

We've put up 63 brand new units and Crescent Halls is rehab, and now we're going to Sixth Street.

So we are, and the residents is very much involved in this, but nobody's talking about that.

And so I just want to ask you all to please fund the affordable housing and

Again, I don't think we should be pitting school against housing.

I think both are necessary and we should find a way to do both.

Thank you.

And I want to lift up the women from South First Street who have helped to design their community.

And I also want to lift up the women who are helping to design their community in Sixth Street.

I think you all need to pay attention to it.

Mr. Michaels, you need to reach out to CRHA and you need to see what the women are doing.

Thank you, Ms.

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Okay, so we'll close Community Matters.

Let's see, it's about 730.

At this point, I'm supposed to ask whether anybody needs to take a break.

Should we just press on?

Are we all good?

First action item, 605 pressed in place, appeal

of the Board of Architectural, Board of Architectural Review Approval.

The order of business, let's see, first the staff, Jeff Werner, will have 10 minutes to present the staff report and the BAR's decision.

The

The appellant, which in this case are the people who oppose the project, will have 10 minutes to respond.

The BAR chair will have five minutes to share the BAR's comments.

And I was asked, and I checked with a couple of counselors, we agreed, this is an unusual situation because normally we have, normally it's the property owner, it's the applicant for the proposal,

who is appealing.

This is not that situation.

So I told them that I would allow them a few minutes after the BAR chair has spoken.

I would ask them, first of all, to recognize that in all likelihood, both Mr. Werner and the BAR will have made essentially the points that they would be making

so I would ask them to keep it brief and just respond perhaps different things that we have heard for the first time tonight that you feel I need to respond to.

This is not a public hearing so that is the extent of what will be presented to Council aside from answering any questions that Councilors might have.

I will tell everybody

I have gotten, and every other counselor too, has gotten probably 10 or 15 emails, most of them against the project that's in question.

I've read them all, paid attention to them, responded to some of the people in some cases.

So we are aware of the things that you are telling us.

I'll try.

Thank you, Mr. Snook.

I had sent something to David Delahunt.

I don't know if he received it.

So just some images to share.

I know I'm speaking to you all, but also

probably characterize this project.

And I also have been trying to summarize 23 pages of comments into a few minutes.

So I'm going to give it a good try here.

So good evening.

I'm Jeff Warner on the city.

Preservation Design Planner and among several duties that I and my colleague Robert Watkins served as we serve as the staff for the Board of Architectural Review, which is the BAR.

So I have 10 minutes to introduce this project, summarize our response to the appeal before you tonight, and with that I can't cover all aspects of the BAR's purview nor to provide a detailed summary

of their review of this project, which involved roughly six hours of discussions over the course of four BAR meetings.

And the project is a proposed three-story apartment building.

It's located on a parcel at 605 Preston Place.

The property is within the Rugby Road, University Circle, Venable Neighborhood, ADC District.

As such, it's subject to BAR review.

Also on this property is Windhurst, which is a home constructed in 1857, and it was formerly the manor house of a 102-acre farm in

Hang on, David, I'll get to those in a minute and tell you when to click.

The project was presented to the BAR in September 2020, May 2021, August 2021, and October 2021.

And at the October meeting, the BAR approved a certificate of appropriateness, finding that the project satisfied the review criteria and was compatible with this property and with the district.

And that approval was subsequently appealed by several homeowners and residents weren't pressed in place.

As I stated in the staff report and in the comments, which I'll try to summarize shortly,

Staff recommends that council affirm the BAR's approval of the COA for this project.

Again, I recognize my response was organized to the 19 items that were in the appellant's letter.

At 8,000 words, I'll do my best to try and summarize that.

And so, for example, if I say design guidelines, I'm referring to the ADC district design guidelines.

Certainly, if you have any questions later, you can ask.

And also, I know I'm going to have to paraphrase tonight.

Hopefully I won't make any errors, but in the case that I do, I want to make sure that my submitted comments serve as the formal record for this.

So very quickly, just to locate where we are, and David, I'll have you flick through these.

The first one, this is that Rugby Road University Circle Venable Neighborhood ADC District.

Click, David.

This property is within the northern part of that.

and you can see there is the in the parcel 605 is the the Windhurst house and the new in gray is approximately the footprint of the new project.

Next slide.

So Windhurst was originally a property, not just the house, it was a roughly 100 acre

David Vogelpohl, Ph.D.

: property that is now I think the Preston Heights area of the city, so this is a site that's changed dramatically since construction.

David Vogelpohl, Ph.D.

: Next, please.

David Vogelpohl, Ph.D.

: So the project design and i'll try to walk through quickly.

David Vogelpohl, Ph.D.

: From three different views so go to the next one next one, so this is the view next day, but yeah booth in the east, this is the original or existing.

David Vogelpohl, Ph.D.

: You see Windhurst there as you're standing on Preston place.

Next slide.

This is what the BR saw in September 2020 preliminary discussion.

Next slide was the progression into May and the next slide August and then wrapping up with the design in December.

I'm sorry, October that was approved.

and it's quick go to the next two or one, two.

Yeah, one more next one.

So this is a view from the Southwest.

This is the other side of Preston Place.

It's a loop.

You can see Windhurst there in the back of the lot.

Again, go to the first slide.

Next slide is what the BAR saw in May after some discussions.

It was brought back again in August.

The next slide.

and then the green didn't go over so well and the next slide is what was presented in October and was ultimately approved.

So I'll just stop there and there are additional images we can certainly go to if you have any questions, but just to, and I don't know what the clock is that I'm gonna give myself, see how far I get in three minutes, but just to respond to the- You've used about four minutes.

Oh, wow.

Okay.

Responding to the applicant or to the appellant, and I'm sorry, thank you, Mr. Snook, for making that clear.

The appellant is not the applicant.

So this is unusual for a BAR appeal.

But

The first item was that the ADC district guidelines were not properly applied.

Staff's response is that as the BAR stated in its motion, it did consider the guidelines and found that this project satisfied their criteria and was compatible with the district.

The second item was that the footprint and the massing of the new structure were not in harmony with the district.

To be clear, the design guidelines are intended to be flexible and flexible enough to both respect historic properties and to embrace future and new design.

So the BAR staff reports summarized the design materials and architectural elements relative to the design guidelines.

So the BAR reviewed all of that, and as you've seen,

and they determined that all of those were compatible with the district.

It includes the footprint, includes the massing, it improves the scale.

It was stated that new apartments are not consistent with the city's affordable housing goals.

BRR does not evaluate uses.

This is about the design and how a property or structure will be used.

It's not part of that consideration.

Item four was that the new structure will remove a portion of Windhurst West Terrace.

As I stated, the context of Windhurst has changed dramatically.

And we can assume that the adjacent grade and even that terrace are not recent or contemporary, but we have no historic documentation of what the original landscape was.

And in fact, the original facade of the historic house faces the back of Preston Corps Apartments.

and the original one of the east side facade does still face Preston at place and the original rear faces a house at 611 Preston place.

The comment was made that the height and width of the new structure will obscure Windhurst.

The BAR just gets into the height and width.

BAR looked at the building height.

It's consistent.

Sorry, my list seems to be off here.

The height and width are consistent with the design guidelines.

I was going to say that the obscuring of Windhurst, when you view this from the east, the new building is actually behind Windhurst.

And certainly when viewed from the west, the new structure will somewhat obscure the view.

Again,

comments about the footing, footprint, the side spacing, BAR reviewed those consistent with the guidelines.

The design and massing, BAR reviewed those consistent with the guidelines.

One of the comments was about the application of Secretary of Standards, Secretary of the Interior Standards, and to be clear, those are federal guidelines, and they're viewed as, they're advisement, they are not prescriptive.

The comment about the new structure should be redesigned.

Again, the BAR approved this after review of the guidelines.

Items 10 through 12 were citations from the city's design guideline and code, so there's no comment there.

There was a question about maintenance repair.

Staff will acknowledge that per the COA.

Item 14 addressed that the setback and spacing was not per design guidelines.

Again, the setbacks were established by zoning, and with those, BAR determined the building as designed, as placed, and as oriented was compatible with the historic district

and then items 15 through 19 again were more citations from the design guidelines.

So no staff comments on those.

So very, very rapid whirlwind summary there.

Is there anything I can share?

I do have images of what was approved and if the context of that neighborhood would be helpful.

Very nice.

So any questions right now, or we can ask questions of Mr. Warner later on when we've heard from everybody.

I just wanted to know, did the bar find any issues?

So all I can say is that in September 2020, as required, it came to BAR as a preliminary discussion.

And then there was input given.

There was followed by a meeting in

May, where there was a formal submittal, BAR gave a lot of feedback that's reflected in minutes.

There were changes, came back in August, there were changes at BAR's discussion and there was public comment.

And in October, what came to the BAR, they determined it was compatible.

So I would say yes, you know, they were responsive.

You good?

Yeah.

Sorry.

Okay.

Any other question right now or we're going to move on to the appellants and their view of things?

Okay.

Who will be speaking to us from the appellant side of things?

I know a couple, I know Ms.

Turner, Mr. Getty were among the appellants.

I'm Elizabeth Turner.

I live at 630 Preston Place.

I filed the application.

Great.

Okay, you all have 10 minutes.

We can't hear if anybody's trying to speak to us.

Can we?

All right.

Okay.

This is Larry Getty with Christine Colley, my neighbor.

We are

Okay, we have started video.

Start my video.

Okay.

We actually feel that the Board of Architectural Review did not really explain their decisions as to why the number of

Elements that Jeff Warner discussed actually do satisfy the guidelines.

The building, just looking at it, is very much larger than the Windhurst.

It certainly

blocks the view from all but the east side.

It is larger, it is taller, it is much more massive.

The Architectural District Guidelines.

So I want to just point out that we were trying to cite these guidelines and what they in fact describe.

The building as designed is a big brick block.

It is totally out of place with the buildings that are on three sides of the site.

granted there is a very large apartment building on Grady Avenue, but this building is, it's as though it were an extension of that rather than a response to the structures that surround it.

We are also just arguing that approving this as the Board of Architectural Review recommends will set a really bad precedent

because basically what it means is that new construction really does not need to follow the architectural guidelines that say homeowners in this district would have to follow.

It is a

Very important to emphasize that this is a historic district and ignoring these guidelines basically will completely vitiate the historic character of the neighborhood.

And what we point out in our message is that it is already being used, the decision of the BAR is already being used this way on Wirtland Street for a proposed building that will basically dwarf the original house on Wirtland, quite fine historical structure.

Christine Colley I'm Christine Colley.

I live at 611 Preston Place immediately to the north of Windhurst.

And we will be close to the catty corner from the proposed building eventually.

The two oldest houses in the district are adjacent to the proposed building, and that is a key point in our appeal and in our response at this point.

We're confident the BAR has, as it states,

considered concerns about scale, massing, and spacing of the proposed building.

There are buildings in the district that are placed close together.

The proposed building is similar to the neighboring Preston Court apartments in some aspects of scale, roof shape, and dominance of structure over setting.

However, the Preston Court apartments is not typical of Preston Place area in general.

and it is not at all similar to the two oldest buildings in the historic district, which are also adjacent to the site.

In our view, loose parallels to an atypical area building are not sufficient to demonstrate that the proposed building is in harmony with its historic neighbors.

The guidelines, as cited in our appeal, states that the historic district is not uniform.

A loose interpretation of standards might be sufficient for much evolved areas, but areas with a high concentration of historic resources require sensitive and rigorous applications of the standards.

The area around 605 Preston Place is such a concentration.

Our appeal is not about imposing conformity to historical styles on new building.

We welcome increased density, economic and ethnic diversity, and varied architectural styles.

Indeed, all those trends have been in progress since the Quarters, the oldest house in the district at 611, was built in the early 19th century.

The Quarters once sat on a 500-acre farm, down to about 100 when it

when Windhurst was built.

The farm was owned by the Kelly and Norris families who lived on Cork Square.

It is a small vernacular board and batten building like many others that could be seen quietly disintegrating in fields a century ago.

The quarter survived by the grace of an accident.

When Windhurst, the first house in the area designed for landowners to actually live in, was built in the 1850s, the neighboring older house was repurposed as a dwelling for the slaves of the grander house, and perhaps for a time as its kitchen.

What began as a shelter for farm labor is now an urban home for retired academics.

Survival entails change.

Charlottesville is not a museum.

True preservation is neither appropriate nor possible in a vibrant living neighborhood.

The goal of historic districts is not to freeze an area in an era, but to manage its evolution without losing the variety that is built into the past.

The historic district has been home to slaves, wealthy planters, academic pioneers, and urban workers.

Architectural survivors of another time enrich us by making stories of these people visually present.

When my husband and I opened walls and floors of 611 pressed in place for rehabilitation, we saw axe-hewn tree trunk floor joists, hand-packed clay insulation, and chestnut log foundations.

Those details preserve something of the people who built the house and lived in it.

Stories are as much in the relationships among buildings as in the details that recall the workmanship of the builders.

Some years ago, developers at 605 proposed moving Winters to the vacant lot at the bottom of the block.

One objection was that so doing would lose the relationship between Windhurst and the quarters.

The present proposal would severely reduce the visual presence of Windhurst in the neighborhood.

That's the heart of our appeal.

It would reduce it by encroaching on the west elevation and by obscuring views of the house.

The proposed building would contribute to the growth of a monoculture of expensive student housing.

Student residents are part of the mix.

Neighbors recently welcomed harmonious additions to the Sigma Chi house at 608 Preston Place, also right across the road from 605.

We welcome students.

We're concerned when development for the student market diminishes historic buildings that contribute much to the character of the area.

Preservation of historic character, much like the goal of producing affordable housing, will not happen on its own as homeowners and developers pursue sometimes competing goals.

In discussion of the present case over several years, the applicant has often responded to neighbors concerns about scale and spacing with statements that the dimensions and placement of the proposed buildings are by right.

So implying that these issues are not really part of the negotiations about appropriateness for the historic district.

The guidelines clearly state that scale, massing, and space are important parts of the discussion and that crowding, overshadowing, or obscuring historic buildings is not appropriate to the historic district.

Thank you.

I think to sum up, we think that- About a minute left, just so you'll know.

Thank you.

We think that the the board's comments that as delivered by Jeff Warner just now really do not adequately explain why this totally out of scale building really does comply with the historic district guidelines.

And that is the basis of our appeal of this decision.

Thank you.

and finished right on time.

Thank you.

I believe Mr. Gastinger.

There you go.

Yes.

Thank you.

Well, and I apologize in advance.

I'm traveling and so I made it back to my hotel room just in time.

I don't have all of my normal access to documents, but my name is Brett Gastinger.

I live at 612 Wine Cellar Circle in the city.

So thank you to Mayor Snook and the other city councilors for the time.

I serve as the chair of the BAR and I've been on the BAR for about five years.

Professionally, I'm a landscape architect here in Charlottesville.

And I just want to note, since we don't come before you often, that we are made up of nine citizens of Charlottesville.

All of us are volunteers.

and we are appointed by city council.

We work on your behalf and for that for the city.

We're made up of design professionals, business owners, residents of properties within historic districts.

And recently you gave us two new members.

So thank you for those appointments.

As members of the BAR, we're charged not to apply our own opinions, but to rely on the provisions in the city code and the adopted guidelines that are applicable to the various city designated historic districts and properties.

In fact, we are charged to approve projects unless they fail to satisfy those guidelines.

We use our judgment as professionals and citizens as to the impacts of the projects on our historic fabric.

So we deal with these kinds of issues all the time.

We volunteer our time and we take our roles very seriously because we think it's really critical and important to our community.

It's important that all of these stories are legible and that they're conserved for future generations.

But we are part of history as well.

and our community's story is always being written.

Our work and our guidelines for the BAR do not mandate particular styles of architecture or prevent new buildings from being added within historic districts.

And as Charlottesville continues to grow and evolve as a city, we want to make sure that it's done in a compatible way.

And so this is really important work.

Our guidelines provide that framework to build appropriately in and amongst our historic fabric.

605 is a really interesting project that we were familiar with and has been in front of us.

This is actually the third time that it's been in front of us in the last several years, even in addition to what the project, the current project that we were reviewing.

This, as some of the history of the project has already been noted, you know, it was built, the Windhurst was built in 1857, one of the oldest in the city, and it was built on 100 acres of farmland, if you could just imagine the scale of the land at that time.

The change of this home and land around it really tells the story of the early transition to a residential neighborhood and in particular to the boarding for students and later the transformation of the district into residential neighborhood.

Together the buildings of Preston Court and Preston Place and Windhurst

to their relationship within each other with all of the addition of the subsequent homes with all of the oddities and quirkiness they still they together tell a fascinating still legible story about Charlottesville's growth and development.

So we review this project for occasions each time materials were submitted by the architect comment was made by the public.

and we applied guidelines in our commentary and our guidance to the design team and to the earlier question from a counselor, we made many suggestions as to ways that we felt the project could be improved to better satisfy our design guidelines.

I feel confident that that made significant improvement to the project throughout the process.

And in our judgment, the changes were consistent with the guidelines.

When the board performed our final review and considered the multiple changes, the project was approved and as appropriate in a unanimous vote eight to nothing.

Further details of our discussion has been recorded and submitted in staff report.

Jeff has noted some of those, all of our minutes and recordings for the meetings are available for review.

I am welcome to answer further questions as needed, but I ask you tonight to consider the care and the diligence that the Board of Architectural Review has given this matter and to uphold our decision to grant the project at 605 Preston Place a certificate of appropriateness.

Thank you, Mr. Gassinger.

Now, as promised,

Yeah, thank you, Mayor Snook.

We appreciate the time to speak.