Planning Commission Meeting   12/10/2019

Yes, and we'll work through the amendments.

Do we need to vote on every amendment?

So one that's certain how I'll land the ship.

I think we are ready to begin our deliberations.

And why don't we begin with the report from Mathias and we begin with UVA.

Yeah sure you probably saw we had a Board of Visitors meeting last week so really the only main thing from that that pertains to Planning Commission would be the schematic design review for a housing building at Brandon on the Brandon Avenue corridor so this will be the Bond House open this summer this would be the second one and it

It'll be about the same size on a different site obviously.

That one's interesting because it's the third project that we've initiated on the site and is part of the agreement with the city for giving us the road of Brandon Avenue, like giving us control over it.

There was a couple things we had to

To finish before that third project started, one is a planning study for where and what size the bus stop would be on JPA and then also planning for a future pedestrian link either over, under, across, probably under the tracks to get south.

So that's all been done and shared with the city at this point.

that is just under review and it'll probably be approved in our March meeting.

Ms. Green.

Thomas Jefferson planning district commission meeting last Thursday.

It was the last one for this year until our February meeting.

And we just went over the budget and different things like that and had a conversation about this.

I keep bringing this up, this GO Virginia, which is a grant funding for some districts in Virginia.

It doesn't relate to affordable housing, but for economic development.

So I think it's some things that we could look at potentially and see if there's something that maybe is not funded in our CIP that we can take a look at and get some funding through.

Last month I attended a meeting of the Place Design Task Force where we discussed the Barracks Emmett Streetscape Project and they're leaning pretty heavily towards a separated shared use path going down the south side of that road.

There will be some retaining walls involved and a protected separated bike and pedestrian path.

That should be coming before us reasonably soon.

I think they just had their design public hearing a week or two ago.

I attended the Thomas Jefferson planning transportation meeting last week and they were talking about some interesting public interactions that they want to do at different festivals.

That different festival is not working.

Some interesting public interaction using 3D goggles and things to get the public involved in working through some of the transportation creative solutions they're hoping to get the public talking about.

That's all.

I have not attended any meetings, but I do have a few updates.

So the CDBG slash home task force recently just closed their applications.

Binders are being put together and the task force will be getting them to review them shortly.

At this time, we still need a Ridge Street neighborhood representative to serve on that task force.

So if anyone in the public is interested, please contact Erin ATEC, the grant coordinator.

Mr. Solliotz I attended a recent housing advisory committee meeting.

There was a long discussion about short-term rentals, their effect on housing.

I made no statements of opinion at that meeting and I was incorrectly attributed in the daily progress.

I don't know anything on this topic.

Please don't quote me.

We also discussed initiating a zoning text amendment on our accessory dwelling unit ordinance.

So I attended two meetings over the last month the Board of Architectural Review on November 19th we had two certificates of appropriateness pass.

One preliminary discussion of a new apartment development going on Virginia Avenue and then nine smaller items

where updates were given to us or guidance requested.

The Tree Commission met on December 3rd last week.

We did approve for nomination to City Council about 25 trees for ordinance protection.

The Charlottesville area tree stewards made an annual report on their many activities by the 150 or so members they have.

And then there was a discussion of the CIP coming to us tonight.

There is a $75,000 for tree planting in it, but the $50,000 that was requested for treating emerald ash borer was not approved.

Very good.

We don't have a work session on Christmas Eve.

I know you're disappointed.

We will be back on track in January.

I think that's all I have.

I think we are ready for public comment.

So the comments that you make should be relative to things that are not on the agenda to be heard today in the public hearing.

So if you've got a, Lisa Green did that one student too.

If you've got a comment about the critical slope waiver at the CRJ property, now would be a good time to talk about that.

Or if you've got something about the comprehensive plan you'd like to talk about, or general planning, now would be good.

Or Carlton Views.

Or Carlton Views.

Thank you.

And we currently got a couple of people that are signed up to speak.

Hello, hello.

Hello.

I'm new to Greene County, from Greene County, been following things going on in Charlottesville and I had some questions for you about the Lewis and Clark statue and the city's plan, intent to get rid of that.

I assume that that is under the jurisdiction of this committee since you were involved in the West

Yeah, I understand that you can't answer the question so I'll probably get in contact with the chairman and some of the people on the committee.

But my questions were first has the commission been consulted on removing the statue?

Second, should the commission be consulted since you were involved in approving the West Main project and the statue was pretty central in that.

I mean, I saw it in a lot of the PR stuff.

What would the impact of the statue removal be on the West Main project and the funding for that?

If the statue is part of the agreement with the State Department of Transportation, does that all have to be renegotiated now?

Fourth, what are the legal issues

about removing the statue in that it's a national and state landmark.

Does the state office of preservation have to be considered?

Fourth, have the other relevant committees, the Place Committee, the Architectural Review Board, and the Historical Preservation Committee been contacted for their input because I assume each of them would have an input into this.

Next, what impact would removing the statue have on downtown?

It seems to me it's kind of a gateway to the downtown.

Have you looked into what the implications of removing that and what you might replace it with?

Next, if it is removed, what would be a good location for it, an appropriate location?

I understand the only thing they've suggested is moving it to the Exploratory Center where citizens would have to pay $7 to see it.

So, and you know, I'm just generally to sum up, I'm just interested if the commission feels they have a role to weigh in on this question before the next council makes a final decision on it.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

My name is Bill Emery.

I live at 1604 East Market Street.

The last item on your agenda this evening is approval of the Carleton View's PUD Phase 3 site plan, a site plan that affects the wealth challenged among us.

The site plan before you tonight departs from a promise that has been part of this developmental proposal since September of 2013.

The tree preservation was first stated six years ago as a condition to the SUP for this property.

The condition said, existing trees greater than six inches in caliper in the open space area of the east side of the site shall be retained.

The tree preservation proffer 3F was restated and approved a year ago.

It says, the landowners shall retain the existing tree canopy on the east side of the subject property adjacent to Fracon Street within an area designated as open space for the PUD.

Last year, during interactions with the public, the PC and council, the applicant received stinging feedback regarding the quality of their site plan and the site plan's lack of recreational space

The absence of covered areas for adults to sit, the lack of playground equipment, the lack of toddlers, the developer's response.

The developer has located a 400 square foot grass court and dog park in the tree preserve at the most remote portion of their 4.86 acre site.

If commissioners decide it's a good idea,

To locate the park two-tenths of a mile from the residence in Carlton View is currently under construction.

Then at least require the applicant to do several things.

One, show where the trees will be planted on the site plan.

Two, increase the number of trees planted.

The developer hacks down mature trees and plants little trees, breaking a six-year promise.

To balance out the betrayal, require that they plant more trees and provide a performance guarantee.

Three, encourage them to consult with the Tree Commission regarding the trees.

Nellie Stevens-Holly is a Korean hybrid.

It's not a great tree.

Consider this project with the same care you would apply to the Artful Lodger site or to such a development on Dairy Road.

No one else signed up to speak.

Is there anyone else that would like to speak about things that are not in the public hearing agenda?

I am going to close the public hearing on this part of the meeting.

All in favor?

Aye.

The consent agenda has been approved.

The public hearing doesn't start until six and we need three counselors to do that so we will be in recess until six.

Alrighty, I think we are ready to begin the second part of our deliberations.

The first public hearing relates to the capital improvement program.

That is for

for 2021 through 2025.

And the total amount recommended by SNAP is $127.9 million.

And that covers affordable housing, economic development, public safety, facilities, education, transport, parks and rec, stormwater management, general government infrastructure, and technology infrastructure.

I'm not certain who is doing the staff presentation, but

We are Miss Creasy who's doing the staff presentation.

Mr.

Chair, members of the Planning Commission, I'll go ahead and get started.

We'll be assisted by staff with Krisy Hammill as well as with Mr. Ryan from our Budget Department.

But first and foremost, before we get started, I'd just like to go over the preliminary things just in case those who are not familiar with the capital improvement program understand that we are looking at proposing a capital improvement program for fiscal years 21 through 25.

Basically what the capital improvement program is is a five-year financing plan which I just mentioned and it's usually projected costs that are over $50,000 that are usually non-recurring or non-operational in nature and they have a useful life of five years or more.

And just for those who may be interested in what we talk about when we talk about these capital projects, I just wanted to basically provide them with a picture of some of the things that we put into the capital program.

And as we move on, as we prepare this budget, basically what we looked at was the current balances of various line items that we had throughout the capital project, capital improvement program over a number of years, as well as how much will be spent over the next upcoming fiscal year.

And basically through that we were able to determine projects that had funding as well as projects that we needed to fund moving forward.

And this is basically just an update of the 20 to 24 projections planned as part of the adopted fiscal year 2020 capital improvement program.

And what we told staff was this year is because of the impact of the previous year's

expenditures that we were only looking at things that were considered to be essential in terms of was it legally mandated, does it eliminate or prevent any existing health environmental safety or security hazards.

And this is just our timeline that we basically started in August.

And as you can tell, it's almost throughout the entire year where we go until April, where we actually are adopting the budget.

Moving on, I'm going to bring up Krisy who can talk about the overall revenues and our expenditures moving forward for FY21.

Before I do that, I just want to also make clear what we talked about before in terms of the overall expenditures within the capital budgets.

When we looked at fiscal years 19 through 20,

There was a significant increase in the amount of capital dollars that were expensed.

It went from 23 million to over 35 million dollars, which is basically almost a 12 million dollar difference, or a 51.2 percent difference from one year to the next.

Going to FY20 with that amount, which was $35,400,000, that difference moving forward in the 21 is a difference of about $403,000.

We fund that $35.8 million, which is a 1.14 difference.

With that said, we looked at the proposed revenues that we would be able to generate in order to afford the total capital budget.

So that's why we had to do some things in terms of looking at the essential items in terms of putting in the capital budget to be able to fund it.

As we talk about today, when you give your recommendations,

For us to give back to the City Council, we'll be able to do that and we can talk a little bit more about the budget with the City Council.

But, you know, things were very tight in terms of what we could afford based upon their generated revenues for FY21, which we're projecting.

and that in terms of you know our transfer even the transfer from our general fund into the capital fund as you know and FY20 we put over 3% and that's a mandated amount the 3% that we transferred to the capital projects from the general fund that was over 3% last year this year we're looking at possibly doing way more than the 3% just to be able to afford it now

When we get down to about fiscal year 2026, as we've talked extensively about during our internal budget meetings was that we transfer a significant amount of the capital improvement fund fund balance

to be able to afford the debt service so we don't have to increase the tax rate to be able to fund it but by 2026 we're projecting that that fund balance will be exhausted so with that more money has to come over from the general fund plus that three point whatever percent that we put in there from our general fund expenditures to be able to afford our capital debt so what we're trying to do is basically you know look at ways to

Be able to afford the overall capital improvement program moving forward and to be able to fund these various projects.

It's going to be a challenge, you know, in order to basically maintain the existing tax rate or do we look at other areas in terms of increasing the tax rate or decreasing public services or other things that we could do to be able to afford these various capital projects.

So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Krisy so she can go through the presentation.

And did I mention Ryan Davidson?

Okay, all right, I'm sorry.

All right, so they'll both be assisting with this presentation.

Any questions, we'll come back up for.

But as always and we talked about before is working with the Planning Commission in terms of providing us with, you know, your recommendations and that's one thing I wanted to solidify moving forward that we do have an ongoing working relationship.

in terms of how we operate and do things.

As I mentioned before, this is my first budget here, so some things we didn't know, well I didn't know, but you know, moving forward, I want to make sure that we have that working relationship throughout the entire fiscal year when we talk about different projects and things like that, because I think that's of paramount importance in how we move forward and how we do fund these various capital projects, and I want to make sure of that, and as well as, you know,

with the directorship of the department to be able to have more ongoing meetings with the Planning Commission to talk about where we are with our overall comprehensive plan and other things that we're trying to do in the community so we're in lockstep with the City Council in terms of our overall projects and our vision and our overall missions.

Good evening.

So I want to talk about the specifics a little bit of just the 21 budget.

Dr. Richardson gave you a good overview of the five year plan for 21.

Just looking at the revenues, as he mentioned, the general fund transfer complies with our is the cash that we transfer from the general fund.

It complies with our three percent policy funding policy.

This amount of seven point three seven is a teeny bit more than the three percent that we're projecting.

The bond issuance, again, is something that we look at over the five years.

We do multi-year projections, but for this year we are looking at about $26.9 million in bonds.

The additional transfer for the general fund for the mall vendor fees was an addition last year and that's a specific offset to an expenditure item that is used for mall infrastructure.

The contribution from Albemarle County is a joint project for CATEC roof replacement.

The school small cap contribution is an annual contribution from the schools and it offsets an expenditure on the small cap side for schools.

In addition, the PEG fee revenue, that's a slight decrease this year.

That's a fee that we get through franchise agreements and it's used for cable channel 10.

And then the VDOT revenue sharing is for two specific projects, which was for the hydraulic turn signal and also the East High Street streetscape project.

Those are an offset of the expenditures on the other side.

So that gets us to a total budget for 21 of $35.8 million in revenue.

So conversely on the expenditure side, we balance to the revenues at 35.8.

Just from a big overview in terms of functional budgeting, we're looking at 3.4 million for city schools, 3.5 million for facilities and buildings, 4.9 million for public safety,

$18.4 million for transportation and access.

Parks and Rec, $680,000.

Housing projects or affordable housing, we're looking at $4 million.

And then the rest for economic development, technology infrastructure, and then the other governmental projects.

And we're going to talk about each one of these in a little bit more detail.

So for the city schools, as we mentioned, we're putting in 3.4 million.

This is largely going into what we call lump sum accounts that are allocated out through a joint meetings with school staff and city staff on projects that are identified each year.

This year a couple of the things were modular classrooms, Buford envelope restoration, pedestrian lighting and school security, and then some HVAC stuff.

I'm not sure exactly what's been identified for the priority improvement projects this year, but again that's a joint effort between school and city staff.

Facilities and buildings, as we mentioned, 3.5 million basically.

Half of this is to address the indoor air quality corrections at the Smith Aquatic Center.

That's at 1.5.

The rest of this is, again, something that we put in a lump sum that city staff, through a process of allocation, addresses, uses that money to address improvements that address health and safety or code compliance and things of that nature.

Public safety this year.

Again, this is basically the general district court, which is $3.1 million.

That's the first half of that project that relates to the joint agreement with the county and again addresses also the parking garage that's also in the CIP this year.

The fire and EMS apparatus.

That's one fire truck, one ambulance, and then mobile data computers and portable radios.

Transportation and access, there is a whole host of things that are listed there in sort of broader categories, but some of the specifics, some of the larger items that you'll see there, there's $4 million allocated for the West Main Street project.

Again, that's a revenue sharing match.

$4.8 million for the parking garage, that's the first half of the payment on that.

$5 million is allocated for the Belmont Bridge project and then $1.4 million is to address undergrounding utilities and the rest is just made up of a sundry of the other things that you see listed there.

Parks and Recreation.

This is a little bit of money on a lot of things.

School parks and playgrounds, parks and trail acquisition, tree planting, the downtown mall infrastructure that we talked about, which is offset by the mall vendor fees, and then also some work at Dardentelle Park.

So this year we completed our commitment to the phase one of the friendship court development that was roughly about $395,000 that was not funded last year.

The public housing or CRHA funding was funded at 1.5 and we kept the rental assistance and the rehab at the same levels as last year.

Technology infrastructure, again this is for our public access TV that's offset by the PEG fees that we receive and then there is a citywide IT infrastructure account which is going to be used to address just what it says, city IT infrastructure.

Other governmental projects, there were two that sort of didn't fit in any of the other categories.

One is the Home Energy Conservation Grant, which is a continuation of prior year funding, and then the second is a citywide fee study.

I have one, well I have many but I can start with one.

Belmont Bridge Project, it wasn't in the projections for five years and now it's here for five million.

So we will be coming back to Council with the formal appropriation for the rest of the project.

In an attempt to get ahead of that, we included what we knew or what we think will be the local dollar part and that was included as part of the CIP.

Anything else?

So I am not an expert at the total dollar amounts.

I don't know, Paula, if you can speak to that.

There is, it is largely federal and state funded.

A similar question.

The replacement EMS apparatus.

Good evening commissioners.

I'm Alexey Kefna, planning director.

Sorry, ambulance.

Wasn't in last year's projection.

It appears now.

Where did it come from?

That was a request made through the fire department.

They do have a multi-year replacement schedule.

The ambulance specifically, while it was not in the last year's budget, I'm not sure if their plans for replacement changed, but you're correct.

Anything else?

Downtown Malterra wasn't in last year's projection.

I see it here.

That was a new request this year.

Paul here.

You need to repeat your question.

Hello.

I'm just generally asking about new items and trying to get an understanding of where they're coming from, why they're here.

So that's divided into three phases.

The first phase would be public engagement.

Well I have you.

Welcome.

The Smith Aquatic Center wasn't in the projections and here it is.

Emergency funding right this year.

Why?

So the Smith Aquatic has been an ongoing project to determine what the air quality issues were and so over the course of the last

Oh, about nine months.

We've had engineering firms come in and evaluate the fluid dynamics in the building space inside the sealed envelope of the building and come up with what mechanical corrections need to be made to the systems.

East High Street signalization.

New funding wasn't in last year's projections.

What is it?

I can speak to that generally, and that was in addition to the SmartScale project.

Again, that was outside the scope.

Anything else?

All right.

Good.

Madam Mayor, is Council in session?

Now that Council is in session, we are going to open up to public comments.

So keep your comments to three minutes, state your name and address, and I'll begin working through the list.

Good evening.

My name is Sunshine Mathon and I'm the Executive Director of Piedmont Housing Alliance.

However, I'm standing before you this evening as a representative of CHOC, the Charlottesville Albemarle Affordable Housing Coalition.

We live in a country, and specifically in a community, where the systems that we have designed produce the outcomes they were designed to produce.

Nationally, we have created a system where nowhere in the country can a hard-working community member, working in a full-time minimum wage job, afford a modest two-bedroom market rate rental home.

Nowhere.

Not in a single state, a metropolitan region, or in any county across the entire country.

In our own community, the condition is worse than most.

It takes at least two and a half full time minimum wage jobs to afford a market rate two bedroom rental home here in Charlottesville.

Again, I repeat, we live in a country and specifically in a community where the systems we have designed produce the outcomes they were designed to produce.

Centuries of policies, incentives, investments, and discrimination have calcified a stratification of power and advantage with our most housing vulnerable neighbors accruing the least of it.

Though we ourselves in this room do not necessarily participate in the historical creation of our deeply inequitable condition, we have all inherited it, and we all bear the responsibility, however unwelcome, of deconstructing it.

In the aftermath of the white supremacist assault in our community in 2017, providing access to safe, quality housing that families can afford has emerged as a central means by which we can collectively redress the historical race-based trauma and inequity that continues to fracture our community.

Over the coming year, as supported by the Planning Commission, city staff, city council, the Housing Advisory Committee, and housing advocates, our community is preparing to launch into the development of a strategic housing plan

a process that will ideally dig deep into our history and prepare us for future solutions.

The housing plan will ideally inform and guide the finalization of the comprehensive plan update.

And the comprehensive plan will ideally manifest through a full zoning update.

Ultimately, this work over the next year will culminate in a plan of action.

Some aspects of the implementation plan will require political will to enable impactful policy change, including zoning reform.

However, though policy change will be necessary, it will also be insufficient on its own.

Just as our systems have historically invested in the community in ways that have resulted in inequitable outcomes, if we are going to fulfill in our responsibility to deconstruct this legacy, we now have to reprioritize our investments to redress the past and build into the future.

And this investment cannot be incremental.

The accrued legacy is deep and pervasive.

Only bold, sustained investment can have any hope of authentic change.

Last year, the City made an unprecedented, powerful statement about its commitment to and the prioritization of addressing the affordable housing crisis our community faces by committing roughly $10 million in direct funding.

We need to build on this bold commitment and plan for a sustained $10 million level commitment annually, which equates to $50 million over the five-year projection of the CIP budget.

We need to continue to fund the planned work, the redevelopment of public housing and friendship court.

We need to continue to fund ongoing proven interventions such as home repair, home ownership subsidy, and homelessness services.

And we need to continue to fund the CAF so that we can be prepared for unforeseen opportunities that will inevitably emerge, just like the Crossings II did this last year.

In closing, our community is asking, even demanding, that we collectively invest in affordable housing at a scale commensurate with a scale of the challenge.

We have an opportunity to realign our priorities, redressing the historical outcomes our systems were designed to and did produce.

Thank you.

Peter!

Good evening.

I'm Peter Krebs, 1022 Tofton Avenue.

Good evening, Council.

Good evening, Dr. Richardson.

I'm sure you know why I'm here.

You've heard from many others about the importance, the essential importance of robust funding for sidewalks and bicycle infrastructure.

Residents are rightly frustrated by the many gaps that make it difficult or even unsafe to move about the community without a car.

There are many structural reasons for the slow progress, but I assure you that surplus funding is not among them.

In fact, trying to build a network like ours with a slow trickle has been part of the problem.

There's a large queue of projects awaiting funding.

That won't surprise anyone who walks or bikes in the city.

I think it would be helpful to mention a few projects and why current balances are actually not excessive at all.

Sidewalks cost a million dollars a mile to build, and yet they're needed so people can walk safely.

Right now, that budget's slated for $100,000, so a tenth of a mile per year.

Someone lost their life a few years back on Monticello Avenue, and that's actually on the sidewalk list waiting to be funded.

Elliott Avenue is another example.

You've been hearing a lot lately about the Rugby Avenue connector to McIntire Park.

That's about $300,000.

The bypass trail from hydraulic to dairy

That's bringing in a four to one match from the state.

And yet the city will have to pay $200,000 for a portion of that small project.

But that's more than is either in the proposed budget for trails or in the outstanding balance.

We're not going to get very far with that rate of funding.

These are just a few examples from a multi-page punch list which is codified in the city's bike ped plan.

That plan is already being implemented much slower than anyone would like and funding cuts are not going to speed that implementation.

So please restore or actually increase the line items for sidewalks, bike lanes, and trails.

We have a new city manager, and so a great opportunity to relook at how we do things.

And there's clearly some structural barriers to overcome.

But cutting funding in the degree that's proposed in the budget is not going to be helpful.

I look forward to being part of a creative conversation about solutions.

That's my prepared statement.

I wanted to just drop one other little nugget that you guys might find useful as you're thinking about value engineering.

As you reschedule or scale back projects, I wouldn't recommend prolonging projects because that's part of why the Belmont Bridge got to be so expensive.

It's like $3 million just an escalation.

So make your decision about how you want to build stuff and just do it.

Good evening, commissioners.

Bill Emery, 1604 East Market, Charlottesville, Virginia.

I sent you a copy just a minute ago of a study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine about the emerald ash borer.

That's the bug the Tree Commission was hoping to get, $75,000 in the CIP to fight.

It's the bug that killed all the trees in the entrance to the Charlottesville airport, if any of you guys go out there.

The study showed an increase in deaths related to cardiovascular and lower respiratory tract illness in areas infected with the emerald ash borer across 15 states in the study area.

The borer was associated with an additional 6,113 deaths related to lung illness.

and 15,080 heart-related deaths.

Conclusions, the results suggest when the emerald ash borer kills trees, more people die.

The finding adds to the growing evidence that the natural environment provides major public health benefits.

So I would encourage you to consider restoring the funding for the emerald ash borer treatment and the CIP

and start planning city-wide for when those trees succumb, which they will.

Plant more trees.

The $75,000 spent here would do more benefit than a couple of electric cars in the city's fleet.

Thank you.

Andrew Jones or Jars?

Hello, good evening.

My name is Andrew Jones.

I live at 113 Thomas Drive in Fry's Spring.

It's my first time speaking here, so bear with me.

I want to thank you first for your leadership to date, especially on past investments in bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure.

and on the city's leadership with pledges of carbon neutrality.

Tonight, I'm here to speak in favor of increased investment in bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure.

A few months ago, I was biking behind my wife on one of those roads ostensibly shared by cars and bikes with the bike sign painted on the road.

To my horror, I watched helpless as a car swung into the road directly in front of her.

With no time to react, she collided with the car's side and flipped under the hood of the car.

I've biked literally across the country.

I've biked in many big cities like Philadelphia and Boston, New York.

And of the tens of thousands of miles, some of the most dangerous roads I've ever been on, the least safe I've ever felt, have been on the Charlottesville and Albemarle roads.

I think we need bicycle-specific infrastructure to make these roads safer.

I bike commute to work in the downtown mall, and I listen to my coworkers complain about the traffic and how long it took them to drive the one or two miles to work, and I ask them if they've considered biking.

And the number one reason they opt to drive instead of biking is their perception that cycling these roads can be unsafe.

Supporting bike and walkability is crucial for our city's overall affordability, based on how expensive it is to own and operate a car.

Furthermore, as we turn our sights to hitting our city's emissions targets, the city has few levers to pull, and encouraging zero-carbon, low-cost transportation through cycling and pedestrian infrastructure is one of the few obvious paths forward to hitting these targets.

Infrastructure choices matter, and people respond to the investments that the city makes.

Imagine if 300 or so citizens who currently drive the daily commute within town felt safe to bike or walk instead.

Imagine what that would mean for the whole city.

Less congestion, less parking pressure, less airborne particulate matter, and the myriad intangible benefits like the heightened sense of community that comes from interacting with your neighbors without being separated by thousand pound boxes.

The cities that consistently top world rankings for happiness, safety, and equality are those who have invested the most in bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure, and that's not a coincidence.

We need serious investment in bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure to make our city safe and accessible for everyone.

Thank you for your time.

Very good.

Good evening, everyone.

My name is Larry Scott.

My name is Larry Scott.

I'm sharing my time with Sheila.

Hello.

My name is Sheila Herlihy, and I am a resident of the city at 247 Shamrock Road.

I'm also a part of the Affordable Housing Committee with Impact, the interfaith movement promoting action by congregations together.

I co-signed a letter to all of you last week along with Click and Chalk to support funding for the Charlottesville Affordable Housing Fund, the CAF.

As you know, the CIP for this coming fiscal year only slates $800,000 toward the CAF and the following fiscal years of this proposed CIP have zero dollars in flexible affordable housing funding.

We support at least $3 million annually in the CAF to truly address the affordable housing crisis in our community.

The CAF is an instrument of hope in our city.

It allows for support all along the housing spectrum for people of all income levels.

With the CAF, city funding has the flexibility to support projects like affordable home ownership and low income non-public housing.

When we have local public money for affordable housing projects, it allows developers to leverage state and national funds two times over, three times over, up to eight times over on a national level.

We are leaving money on the table by not funding the CAF.

The $3 million we're advocating is not just a number.

Estimates are that it takes about $30,000 of local public funding to create one unit of affordable housing.

$3 million translates to 100 units annually, which is a significant and visible impact, especially given how many people in our community struggle to afford their housing.

My day job is at a Catholic church.

So as you can imagine, this is a busy time of year for us.

I'm running late to choir practice, but this is deeply important to me to be here.

A big part of that job is supplying emergency financial assistance to parishioners in need.

Someone was in my office last week explaining how she couldn't afford Christmas gifts and wasn't sure if she'd make it two more months rent in her current apartment because her husband's hours were cut back because he's got seasonal work.

I have heard story after story like this.

I myself, a full-time employed professional, share my home with two other full-time employed professionals because we can't afford to live on our own.

This time of year, I am seeing families needing Christmas presents.

That's what I was working on earlier today.

And I stepped away from it because this issue affects them at a fundamental level.

So please support the families in our community.

Please support fully funding the CAF.

I would invite everyone who is here tonight to support funding the CAF at this level to please stand and I'd invite you, even if you didn't come here to support funding the CAF, to stand if you know someone who struggles to afford their housing in the city of Charlottesville.

I'd invite you to stand if you want to see Charlottesville a more diverse place.

Good evening.

My name is Elena Cleveland and I'm a Habitat homeowner.

I've been in my house for two years.

Before that I was renting and my rent was double of the mortgage that I'm paying now.

The shape of the places that I live was severely lacking.

One of the places where we lived, you had to bring the heater in with you when you took a shower because there was no insulation in the bathroom.

With the rent being so high, we didn't have money for anything else.

I was always one month behind to making ends meet.

Now that I have our house, I don't have to worry about catching up or being in debt so long.

And I would like to oh I'm also a Habitat homeowner council member and we have gotten 400 applications from people that want to have their own place So we're working into that.

I'm sorry.

Am I nervous?

I would like to give my time to him Hello, my name is Oscar I'm 15 years old and

Sorry, I'm also nervous as well.

When me and my mom moved into our new house, I could instantly tell that just because of us taking a big chance and of us getting our own new house, we could tell that she had less stress and had more time to be happy, I guess, and to enjoy life as usual.

I think mostly because the most of the stress that she had before was because she was renting and because she always had to sometimes she had to worry that how about she couldn't catch up to all the rent and things like that.

I really don't want other families or other families in general just to not, I don't want people to have to go through that.

I want everyone to have like enough happiness, enough time to spend it with people they're related to or their children or just people in general, you know?

And I feel like the people should have the power of choice really to,

spend time with those that they really want to be with instead of having to worry about costs and all of that and people say that it's really like it's not worth having that big of a change when you might have some negative outcomes in the beginning but I can tell from personal experience that those don't really last that long within the first month of having the new house

It was fully adjusted.

It was partially due to the neighborhood, maybe because the neighbors, because they've also gone through what we had to do, too.

And it really felt like we were at home.

Thank you.

I'm Pastor Emery.

I serve a church at 1130 East Market New Beginnings Christian Community and I'm here to support the CAF Charlottesville Affordable Housing Fund because there are over 3,000 people in Charlottesville who go to bed every night worried if they can pay their rent.

They're paying more than 50% of their income for rent.

My associate pastor and my co-pastor

pay 85% of their income for rent.

And they can barely survive that way.

And we are desperate to find rentals for people in our church.

Many of them have to go to slum landlords and live in housing situations that are terrible.

Two of our folks live in a housing situation where there's mold in the bathroom,

where the flooring is breaking up in the kitchen where there are mice and where there are drug dealers and the police are always there and that's the best that they can afford even with their working and I have someone living with me now

who came from the shelter for help and emergency wanting to start her life again after being beaten up by her husband and she wants to go to PVCC and become an ultrasound technician and she has all the gifts for it and all the grades for it but she can't find any housing and if she cannot find any housing then there's nothing for her to do

She cannot go to school.

She cannot work here.

She has to go and find someplace where she can live, where she has no transportation and has no work.

And that is a deplorable situation.

Charlottesville is a wonderful community, but it's becoming a community

Just for the wealthy, just for the privileged, it's not becoming a community for everyone because our rents are extraordinarily high and the affordable housing fund gives you an alternative

For people who can't get into public housing or cannot get a voucher because those waiting list is so long, the affordable housing gives you an opportunity to offer developers an opportunity to provide affordable units so that we can have our people living here and going to school here and that people like two of my members who've been sleeping in their car

will be able to get out of their car and get into a decent housing situation.

So I ask you very strongly to put your hope in the people of Charlottesville and in the people who are working so hard, often doing two jobs, and vote for an increase of calf for this year and the next five years.

Thank you, Peggy Vagnari, 1700 Chesapeake Street, Ellen Jordan,

Back there and I are here to talk about parks tonight.

We know the community values our parks for what they do for their environment, what they do for our people.

They provide a common ground so everyone can come together, talk, relax, play, exercise.

So we are dismayed to see in the CIP that the bondable projects for the next five years total about $200,000.

And that's for Dardantown Park.

It's not even an inner city park.

It's hard for our citizens to get there.

Instead, there are at least three parks that have had master plans

for four or six years.

That includes Todtzer Park, Meadow Creek Valley Park, and the McIntyre Park East.

They all deserve your attention now.

Since Ellen and I are on a committee trying to raise private funds to improve McIntyre Park, I'll speak directly to this park.

Our project is called The Grove.

Private citizens and the Chamber of Commerce have come together to try to create a beautiful public space on top of the hill of McIntyre Park.

Paths will lead to a great lawn with a stone terrace framed by wonderful 150-year-old oak trees.

And the Grove will honor our community leaders, starting with my father-in-law, 1975, Mitch Vanieris, to today, Juan Diego Wade, was the last honoree from the Chamber of Commerce.

So we dream big.

We hope the Grove will link future generations to our past community leaders.

We hope to educate young environmentalists about oak trees and we hope to bring all sorts of people together.

Now we have an even bigger dream than that.

We hope once we get the Grove done that it will be the launching pad to

improve the whole park.

We call it a central park for all.

We want to change the history of the park and make it accessible to everyone.

So we are also promoting, we will be promoting a crosstown greenway that will go from West Main Street to the park through all our neighborhoods.

You can just imagine everybody walking along going to the park.

And we know from 2018 the park survey that most, the majority of the citizens

want green space and trails.

McIntyre Park will provide over three miles of trails and it will connect to Rivanna Trail, John Warner Parkway, and the Crosstown Greenway.

So we've asked you to consider these three, to keep implementing these three master plans.

McIntyre Park East, Meadow Creek, and Tonsler.

We know that the original request for McIntyre Park East was eight million dollars.

We do not

I feel comfortable for that.

There are so many other priorities.

All these people have spoken so well tonight about affordable housing.

But we request somewhere between $300,000 and $400,000 to have more trails in McIntire Park and the small pedestrian bridge that would connect the two parts.

Thank you.

Vehicular pedestrian bridge.

Good evening.

My name is Ella Jordan, and while I am on the committee for the Grove, I'm also a resident of 824 Orangedale Avenue.

As Peggy stated, we are here to speak specifically about the Grove project in McIntyre Park, but in reviewing the draft CIP, I have some additional comments about Parks and Rec.

After reviewing this in detail, I'm concerned about the funding

that should take into account all city priorities.

I consider housing, education, and public safety as needs and are given that these are funded.

But a lot of your residents also consider that parks and the environment serve a vital role and need in this community.

I bet there is never a day that you travel throughout this city

and not find someone in one of these parks or in many of them.

My basic question is how could parks be completely decimated in your CIP?

You list projects for Tonsler Park Master Plan implementation, Penn Park Tennis Court renovations and Washington Park Basketball Court renovations, to name a few, in the CIP with zero funding.

for any of the five years.

Why are they even listed in the CIP?

Yet there is $5 million listed for West Main improvements for each of the next three years.

And I heard and I understand, I know about revenue sharing, so I understand the match.

But granted,

And I don't know all the improvements that's involved with West Main, but I see constant development along West Main Street.

So where are the developer contributions to these improvements?

Again, the project I'm here for is McIntyre Park East.

In fiscal year 15, $450,000 was allocated by council for implementation of the master plan.

$1 million in fiscal year 16, $750,000 in 17, and $500,000 in 18, with an additional $1.5 million

appropriated to the skate park in 17.

That's a total of $4.2 million to East McIntyre.

We would like to know how was that money spent and on what specific projects.

Also, if it was not spent, is the balance out there for parks and recs used or has it been funneled back into other CIP projects?

Is there a balance for the McIntire East project?

And if so, what is that amount?

The reason we're asking is that after looking at the whole CIP in more detail, it is quite appalling the lack of any future funding for any parks and recreation projects.

Data for the past eight years from fiscal year 13 to 21 shows that Parks and Rec had an average of 1.7.

I will end there and will send you my comment.

But what I'd like to end by saying is that my concern is this.

The Grove Air Committee is going to raise money for this project.

Thank you.

Good evening.

My name is Kimberly Fontaine.

I currently serve as the director of the Alliance for Interfaith Ministries, also known as AIM, here in Charlottesville.

AIM was created in 1981 to address some of the community needs that were not being met, individuals that were in crisis, preventing evictions, preventing utilities disconnections.

Since that time, the organization has really evolved and built itself to be quite a force.

I'm here today to provide you with

My observations.

When I moved to this region three years ago, I was stunned by the number, the high number rather, of affordable housing affinity groups and yet the stunning lack of progress and creation of new affordable housing units.

There were more than enough studies, there were more than enough people educated on the subject and the issues.

and certainly consensus that the lack of affordable housing was a genuine crisis in this region.

Part of the equation from my observation is a university that has failed to provide adequate housing for students and grad students thereby keeping the housing market artificially inflated.

But this is by no means the only reason there's a crisis here.

This issue has been left and not addressed for a very long time.

Therefore, it is now at the crisis stage that it is now.

We receive hundreds of calls from your neighbors every week.

People that are nurses, people that are retired professors, people with master's degrees, people that had adequate savings, or they thought, that are unable to afford to pay their rent.

It is absolutely abhorrent.

We have a moral obligation to provide adequate, affordable, livable housing and we are not meeting it in this city.

There are a number of families that are facing homelessness due to the lack of affordable housing in the region.

I could go on and on about the numbers.

I'd invite you to contact AIM or come visit us.

Volunteer, answer our phones anytime.

I guarantee it will change whatever stance you have on this subject and you'll certainly see it as the crisis that it is.

It would be an understatement to say that the lack of affordable housing units in this region presents an immediate threat to the health and safety of area residents.

Seniors are making choices to forego needed medications because they need to pay a rent they can't afford.

There are people in your neighborhoods that are receiving an income of $771 a month.

Try and live on that.

To fail

To adequately fund, let alone fail to fund at all, affordable housing is inherently an act of discrimination against the poor.

Let me say that again.

To fail to adequately fund, let alone fail to fund at all, affordable housing is inherently an act of discrimination against the poor.

Let me be very clear.

Thank you.

My name is Jake Mooney.

I live at 1816 Yorktown Drive.

Hearing the speakers before me, it's clear that the city needs to find money in the budget for affordable housing, bike infrastructure, all kinds of things.

Here's an idea.

I'm here to speak in opposition to the construction of a new parking garage on Market Street between East 7th and East 9th Streets.

A 300 space garage on that site is such a bad idea that we shouldn't even be discussing it.

I already wrote you, and forwarded to the council, a letter about why, and I hope you read it.

For now, I'll sum it up by saying, building new parking is climate change denial.

It's as simple as that.

That said, I was concerned at the City Council's last meeting to hear someone say that we have to build a garage so that county government will know that they can trust us.

I find that to be a profound misunderstanding of the relationship.

The court should be downtown, but what happened in this situation is that county government got the city in a hostage situation.

They said build us a parking garage or the courthouse gets it.

The city got rolled and now people are talking about trust.

Fortunately, there's a way to keep the courts without building the garage.

It's right there in the agreement that both parties signed.

Give the county the service lot at 7th and Market, or give them 100 spaces in the existing Market Street garage.

The service lot is never full right now.

I work next door to it, and I look out the window all the time.

It's been one half to two thirds full for the last week.

I know some of the people who have parking spaces there, and they're very capable of making arrangements elsewhere.

That is the solution that satisfies the agreement and everyone can keep trusting each other.

The city gets 10 million dollars, give or take, to spend on other things that might make the local environment better instead of destroying it.

Good evening.

I'm Jill Trishman Marks, executive director of the McIntyre Botanical Garden at 200 Garrett Street.

I have some representatives of the garden here with me tonight.

MBG is located on eight and a half acres in the northwest quadrant of McIntyre Park East.

We're all aware that accessible access to the Vietnam Memorial in McIntyre East

is an important and immediate concern.

What many people don't know is that a parking lot, an accessible bridge, and trails were included in the Mahane-Reichel Master Plan for McIntire Park East specifically to address this issue.

These infrastructure plans were approved by the city in 2015 and are shovel-ready, needing only funding to move forward.

In addition to providing access to the Vietnam Memorial, funding of this infrastructure will provide parking and allow access to other features in the park like the skate park, the grove, and the tree stewards arboretum.

It will form an important connection for trails and bike paths that enter the park from every direction.

And in addition, because of its proximity to this infrastructure, MBG is unable to begin construction until this infrastructure is in place.

So once it has been constructed, we can move forward with our plans for the garden.

MBG is a public-private partnership.

The city's responsibility is the 8.5 acres that have been designated for land in the park, and that's where the taxpayer burden ends.

The $25 million that's been estimated to design and build the garden will all be raised privately by the representatives of the garden.

So on behalf of NVG, I ask that you consider an approved and shovel-ready solution to access the Vietnam Memorial that will benefit other community partners as well before exploring alternative solutions to this accessibility problem.

Thanks for this opportunity to lend my support to the CIP budget item that is being proposed by our partners at the Department of Parks and Rec for the infrastructure of McIntire Park East.

Hello, my name is Matthew Gillican.

I live at 726 Orangedale Avenue.

I want to speak on the same page as so many of these other speakers that I'd like to see increased funding for affordable housing.

I'd like to see more funding for alternative means of transportation besides cars.

And I'd also like to see the West Main Street scape delayed or gotten rid of.

Hmm.

Why?

OK, so when that plan came along a few years ago, the pitch

was that we'd have a beautiful street, and they would cost about $30 million, and that Dominion was gonna pay for this undergrounding of utilities, or at least they might.

Well Dominion, they don't really like Charlottesville.

I don't think they're giving us the $10 million to underground the utilities.

Because this has taken a little while, according to city staff, the current projected cost for the project is $46 million.

$46 million, and that's not money that we're paying half and then the state's gonna pay half.

We're probably gonna pay about 30 million of that, and the state's gonna pay about 15 million of that.

The first two phases of the streetscape will be done planned for 2022-23.

That will cost about $26 million.

Currently, phase three, so phase one and two get us from Ridge Street to the bridge over the railroad track,

So that's a third of a mile, $26 million.

We're cutting funding for other sidewalk projects.

Then to get from the bridge down to JPA, first phase not happening currently planned till 2030, phase four till 2035.

My eight year old will be in his mid 20s by the time this thing gets done.

Why are we setting aside money to underground utilities for a project that will look very nice, it'll be beautiful, but we're literally setting aside money for that, that $10 million with the six to eight times match we tend to get on that kind of money for housing projects, we could redevelop West Haven for that amount of money with an increased number of units.

We could finish South First Street on the current plan.

We could finish Crescent Halls.

I would highly recommend that we delay or possibly even cancel and redesign for a cheaper version the West Main Street Scape.

This is an emperor that has no clothes.

It is the largest line item on our kit budget.

It's the most expensive thing the city has going on right now when it should be housing, it should be schools.

Please consider changing the way you're thinking about this project.

I know we've gone way down the road.

I know it's going to be awkward with the state when we say, hey, that $7 million you gave us, we don't want to spend it right now.

We'll come back for it maybe later.

It's a hard ask.

It's going to take strong leadership.

It's going to take boldness.

But I ask that you all and I ask that council and the new councilors be willing to do that.

Thank you.

Carl, Carl Schwartz.

All right, guys.

I understand that the reason given for the cuts in the bicycle infrastructure and sidewalks is a surplus in the accounts for those projects.

And I just want to make clear that that's not actually a surplus.

The planned work for the next few years is currently at least twice the amount that's in that account.

With a pause in funding, there will be a pause in work.

Money is needed for planning and design work, obviously, which needs to come before construction work.

It's also used for outreach.

The city sends out safety messages a couple times a year telling people the rules of the road, cyclists, pedestrians, and cars.

It's needed for matching grants.

You need design money in order to produce a design to get a grant.

Then staff has been saving money so that money is available to match the grants when those grants are awarded.

It's not exactly good practice to not have money available when you win a matching grant.

Meaningful projects that get bids need to be about half a million dollars.

Smaller than that, they usually don't get bid on or don't get competitively bid.

They don't get built.

Again, that necessitates planning, saving.

The money that we're requesting that be restored is a tiny, tiny percentage of the CIP just to keep work moving.

I'm sure as all of you have heard, the list of projects on the bike pad master plan is decades long.

I mean, potentially not going to be finished in our lifetime at current funding.

So I also wanna, I don't wanna take away from anything that others have said tonight, but I do need to kinda stick my neck out there for West Main, just in the sense that BPAC, I wanna remind you all that BPAC was heavily involved in this.

We supported it, and we supported finishing the current plan.

It's not a beautification project.

It's a heavily used and fairly unsafe bicycle and pedestrian corridor.

It's already near its maximum traffic, car traffic capacity and development along the corridor.

is adding many more users only making that worse.

We need to accommodate better bicycle and pedestrian use along the streets for the street to maintain functional.

It's a big project, but it has a big impact.

And I guess I hope that, you know, I know you guys are, you have a lot of decisions to make.

I can't make these decisions.

I don't know where you're gonna get the money, but as you're discussing things, cutting things like this, perhaps at least reach out to the stakeholders that are involved in the project.

I know some of you are new to the commission since the project was approved.

Just do your homework.

Hey everybody, I'm Brandon Collins.

I work for FAR, the Public Housing Association of Residents at 1000 Preston Avenue, Suite C, and you can call us at 434-984-3255.

FAR is the federally recognized resident advisory board and resident council for public housing in Charlottesville.

and we legally represent residents of public housing and we hope you will also recognize Farr's voice in this.

Farr is also a founding member of the CLIC Coalition, the Charlottesville Low-Income Housing Coalition and we've been working with them for a number of years now talking about this issue of an affordable housing crisis.

This planning commission I think has also been paying attention to the affordable housing crisis for about two years and it's been a long slog.

I know you all have been frustrated with the comprehensive plan and how that fits with the housing strategy but I think you've done a lot of hard work on that and I think

It's really important for you to take that responsibility and keep moving that forward and part of your responsibility for that is this capital improvement budget for the City of Charlottesville as that is something that this Planning Commission is responsible for.

This city, this housing authority, and this planning commission historically have done great injustices to the community and have contributed to why we have an affordable housing crisis and to the injustice and indignity of setting up neighborhoods for failure.

creating public housing and then immediately disinvesting from it and that gets us to the point we are now in terms of public housing.

A lot of work has gone into

getting the public to understand the crisis.

But I think it's really interesting because I think this is a priority for the public and I think you guys have heard that over the last two years at every meeting you've gone to.

Not just tonight, not just on foreign base code, it's not just pressure groups coming to you, it's the actual public.

You go out and talk to anybody in this community and they will say affordable housing is a priority.

Why?

Because rent is too high and home ownership is unattainable for almost everybody in this city who works hard.

And that's not fair.

And I think that's on y'all to come up with good planning and then make sure you've got the money to back that up.

This city, and you all were supportive of this last year, there was a lot of work going into coming up with a budget and some ideas for what it's going to cost to meet this crisis, to deal with this crisis.

We don't have a housing strategy yet.

We're going to flesh that out, right?

We don't know exactly what's going to be in it.

We've got some ideas about it, and you all have some great ideas about it, and that's going to show up.

We do have a pretty good idea of the kinds of amounts of money it's going to take to do this stuff and it's in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Public housing phase one and phase two in these next two years needs to be fully funded and it's not just public housing.

The affordable housing fund must be fully funded because it can't just be public housing doing this work.

can't just be PHA it's all these other partners need to get on board and you need to fully fund that at least at ten million dollars per year and no wiggle room we have to know that that can be used in these lie tech applications

The leverage that we get for the money that this city can put into these things is immense.

Phase one, your $3 million from one year is helping us get $30 million in housing.

That's replacement of public housing.

You add that to a second year, that's got two phases of public housing.

You're replacing 163 public housing units and building 110 new, deeply affordable homes for the city of Charlottesville.

$10 million.

Good evening.

I hope the council is listening to all the stories, the anecdotal stories that have been passed on.

I hope the senior administration of this city is listening.

And I want to say that this gentleman, I'm not worthy to come up here and speak after what he said because he's the future.

This is what affordable housing is.

This is getting a child into a home that they know they're going to be in

either as home ownership or as an affordable rental so that their parent does not have to work two jobs so they can go and enjoy bike trails, they can go and enjoy parks, they don't have to worry, well let's say it's 2.30, I've got to go pick up Junior, I've got to be at my second job at 5 o'clock.

Okay, that's what we're talking about when we're talking about putting three more million dollars in the affordable housing fund.

Your CSRAP was carved out for some homeless people.

30 people got CSRAP vouchers.

They're looking for housing.

That's a good thing.

Okay, that's a good thing.

And we could be caused to lose that because we want to be austere or something.

And it really is showing for me that the

The free market system is not going to be able to address our affordable housing issues.

It absolutely will not.

I think people are coming here giving you anecdotal stories and to me it says we can't depend on that.

We've got to use public monies in some way to help our citizens.

If we want a diverse community, if we want to have a student population that also, everybody deserves housing.

I don't want to carve out anybody that doesn't.

But I'm just saying that if we want to be what we want to be,

Then we need to fully fund the redevelopment for CRHA.

I mean, we used subpar construction materials to build those places.

They were never going to last this long.

And for us as a city to allow that to happen year after year after year,

and to see things that don't get fixed, things that wear out.

I mean, we are just we are we don't believe in we believe in planned obsolescence in things that we use nowadays.

And that's what's happened to the people who are struggling, trying to move out of public housing that need a subsidy.

There will always be people that need a subsidy.

We talked about people on SSDI 771.

I know a fellow is going to pay $690 for a freaking room.

OK, that's ridiculous.

But that's the reality for him.

because that's the only thing he can find.

So I think that the city council, and you all need to reevaluate the monies that you're putting in here.

Granted, West Main Street probably needs it, but the developers aren't finished with messing it up yet.

There's still a lot more to go, so why spend money on something when it's going to be messed up for a few more years?

And you know, I'm not going to take anything away from parks and bikes and everything, but I think it all starts with housing.

If you don't have a secure place to live, it doesn't matter how pretty your parks are, it doesn't matter how many bike lanes you have, it's not going to be for everybody, it'll only be for a select few.

So that exhausts my list, but I think there are a couple of other people who would like to speak.

Good evening, Planning Commissioners.

My name is Dave Norris.

I'm here tonight as the Redevelopment Coordinator for the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority.

I'm also on the advisory board for FAR, the Public Housing Association of Residents and a member of CLIC, the Charlottesville Low Income Housing Coalition.

And I'm here tonight to talk about funding for public housing redevelopment, also funding for the Charlottesville Affordable Housing Fund.

I want to start by saying thank you.

Thank you to the Planning Commission and thank you to City Council

for making a historic investment this past year in public housing redevelopment.

Three million dollars a year for five years.

That's an unprecedented level of investment in public housing.

And one year into that five year plan is not the time to be retreating from that commitment.

And so we're asking you tonight to please do not pull the rug out from underneath our efforts to revitalize and improve public housing by this 50% proposed cut in public housing redevelopment.

It's important for you all to know and it's important for the public to know

That that $3 million that was allocated this year, as Mr. Collins mentioned earlier, leveraged in turn about $8 for every $1 put in by the city.

So we have taken that $3 million and used it to get started on a top-to-bottom renovation of Crescent Halls.

We've used it to get started on some new construction at South First Street, 62 new apartments at South First Street.

All of those are heavily dependent on that local government funding.

So yanking the rug out from under us through a 50% cut is going to be debilitating.

This year's allocation, and I should say this year's allocation is fully obligated, that $3 million fully obligated.

This next year's obligation, you're going to be hearing a little bit later tonight about a wonderful project that's going on at South First Street on phase two.

That $3 million that was in the budget, which is now being proposed for a 50% cut, is to fund that project.

And so if you support that 50% cut, you very well may delay that project.

And I'd hate to see that happen.

I also want to see us restore funding for the Charlottesville Affordable Housing Fund, which meets a wide variety of needs, as you've heard.

One of the ones that we haven't talked a lot about tonight yet is affordable home ownership.

There's a huge wealth gap in this country.

There's a huge wealth gap in this community.

For every $100 that a white family owns, a black family owns 10.

and the biggest driver of that is the gap in home ownership.

We have some wonderful organizations in this community that are working hard to improve access to and enhance access to home ownership, but they need the funding from the Charlottesville Affordable Housing Fund to make that happen.

And just to give you a quick snapshot of the 54 families that are currently in the pipeline to receive homes from Habitat for Humanity,

36 of them are actually currently living in public housing or have a housing choice voucher.

So we can help them build wealth, build a stake, and in the process open up 36 units for other families that are on our waiting list.

So please do not retreat from your commitment to affordable housing.

We can get this done.

Good evening.

Thank you.

I'm Paul Josie, chair for the Charlottesville Tree Commission.

I'm going to talk about one very small bug.

This is a small borer.

It's green.

It's related to the ash trees.

And right now, it came over from Asia in 2002.

It has now spread to

It's 31 states and it arrived in Virginia a few years ago.

This little bore is killing all of our ash trees.

It will kill 99% of all of our ash trees and every area it touches.

It is kind of like a plague, essentially, running through, so we will lose all of our ash trees.

The city forests, we have about 2% of our forests have ash trees in them, but when you start to look at all of our city properties, we have

On our schools, on our streets, we have only 107 trees.

But of those 107 trees, that's not including all of our forests, all of our trails.

We haven't inventoried all of those areas.

But those trees are all coming down.

So there's at the corner of McIntyre and Preston, there's a little park there, the crawl park.

Those trees are all mature ash trees.

Those six trees are coming down.

They're dying from the bore damage.

And that will cost $15,000.

That's just six trees.

So if you have 100 more trees coming that are all going to die, these are additional costs to Parks and Rec that are outside of their average budgets.

They have to remove over 100 to 200 trees every year.

So by adding these trees, it's a huge burden in the Parks and Rec budget.

So we've asked for this for just $50,000.

It's a small ask that Parks and Rec requested in the CIP just for this additional damage and the loss from the Emerald Ash Borer, this EAB.

So it's a small ask when dealing with all these other very big issues in the city, but we ask that you also consider supporting the Emerald Ash Borer $50,000 funding for basically removal of those trees as they die.

Good evening commissioners, councilors, Don Gathers, city resident, community organizer with FAR and concerned citizen.

We are a city and a community very much in contradiction with itself.

We cannot claim to want to be moving towards an echo and green community when we're still building parking.

The two just don't line up with each other.

If we can find $15 million for a parking deck, we certainly should be able to fully fund the CAF and find the monies that were requested by CRHA and by PHA.

I'm wondering if anyone had done any structural or mechanical studies on the existing parking deck at Market Street to see if you could build up on that property and then just possibly use those lots across the street, change the zoning, and put some affordable housing in there.

That just seems a lot more sensible and reasonable to me for use of that particular piece of land.

and 45, 46 million for beautification of Main Street.

It doesn't matter how beautiful that you make a place if the people can't afford to live there.

And this is not to knock the tree commission or the bike lanes because those are important issues that truly need to be looked at and need to be put in place.

But understand, no one's riding a bike in from Fluvanna or from Madison or from Green.

If people can't afford to live here, it doesn't matter how many bike lanes we put in, because they can't afford to get here or live here to work.

So please, I ask you to fully fund the CAF, I ask you to fully fund the request for affordable housing, I ask you to fully fund the request to the $10 million level for public housing.

Hello, my name is Jay Heaton, 516 Caroline Avenue.

I've been a resident of Charlottesville since 1979 and graduated from Charlottesville High School in 1980.

In my many years here, the area has grown significantly in terms of population and motor vehicle use.

However, over this period of time, the pedestrian road infrastructure has not kept pace.

I am deeply concerned over it for my 20-year-old daughter, Robin, a very experienced cyclist and also a graduate of Charlottesville High School, was killed in New York City on June 24th when a box truck driver collided with them.

18 days later, my 19-year-old daughter Rachel, a triathlete and second-year Echols Scholar at the University of Virginia, was struck by a driver while she was cycling in a bike lane on Preston Avenue and 9th Street Northwest.

Fortunately, she escaped with no life-threatening injuries, even though her bike was destroyed.

It was the second time this year she has been hit by a driver in the area.

Please think about this for a moment.

I nearly lost both of my children in two and a half weeks time.

I too came close to losing my life cycling in 1982 when a driver forced me off the road near McIntyre Park, caused me to fly over the handlebars, hit my head on the asphalt, and be unconscious for hours.

My wife and I bicycle on a tandem.

During our rides, we have often found the roads to be hazardous for a variety of causes, such as road debris on pavement, distracted drivers, people who speed or otherwise disregard the rules of the road, and bike lanes which come and go.

I do recognize the efforts the city has made in the 40 years that I have been here.

That said, in the future, I hope other parents, friends and family will not be standing here in front of you after losing loved ones because funding to local pedestrian and bike lands were cut, while millions were spent on projects that will exacerbate the traffic situation in town.

How many lives need be lost to convince those on council and the Planning Commission that our streets need to be safer for all of us who call this city home?

Consider this when you vote.

For people, for the environment, and our quality of life, road safety is everyone's responsibility, and good infrastructure is part of it.

And I brought for everyone to see

Hi, my name is Louisa Candelario.

I live at 1406 Sunrise Park Lane in Charlottesville.

I'm here to just amplify the voices of the Habitat homeowners that spoke earlier.

I would like for you guys to fully fund the affordable housing fund.

I'm also a Habitat homeowner.

I've been in my home for seven years.

It's the best thing that's ever happened to me in many ways.

The stability that home ownership brings is unspeakable.

I can't even describe it.

The piece that you see in your children's eyes when you're able to have something that you didn't think you would ever have is something that I can't even describe.

So I'm just here to say that I would like for you guys to consider fully funding the affordable housing fund and to consider putting into that, for the five year process, the 10 million that would be needed for all types of affordable housing.

Thank you guys so much.

Good evening.

My name is Joy Johnson and I am a public housing resident.

I reside at 802A Hardy Drive.

I'm here to also say please support CRHA fund for $3 million and the affordable housing fund.

One of the things that, and later on this evening, you are going to see one of the reasons why the fund is very important for us to continue to work.

We have at least 12 women who have been meeting and designing what their community looks like.

The reason why this is happening

is because in our community, we don't believe anything the city says and we don't believe anything that is being promised.

And so to take away that $3 million is just only going to confirm what folks is already feeling.

They feel like redevelopment of public housing is never going to happen until they see the shovel and until they see things really, really happening.

So to cut that budget in half now

It's really going to disappoint some people.

And Hosea, you know we've been talking about this for a long, long time.

And I know this is dear to your heart.

So please do whatever you can do to make sure that the cuts does not happen.

It is very, very important.

Also, homeownership.

One of the stories that does not get told in this city is about how many public housing residents have become homeowners with the help of Habitat.

That story has not been told, and there's still more in the pipeline.

So contrary to what people think about public housing residents, they do transfer to home ownership.

But the ones who are left behind still need affordable,

clean sanitary housing and the city we live in the city we're taxpayers and I think that you all owe us you have a responsibility to make sure that the folks who are not homeowners still have affordable housing to live in.

Good evening.

My name is Emily Dreyfus.

I can't really top that, but I'm just going to add a few comments, including reminding people about the housing needs assessment that the city conducted last year.

Over 3,300 people in the city have unmet housing needs.

The people with the most widespread and deepest needs are the extremely low-income people.

Public housing redevelopment is one of the city's best options to address these needs.

The average length of stay is less than four years in public housing in Charlottesville.

The current draft budget, cutting that in half, needs to be reversed.

Our other major concern, I'm speaking on behalf of the Charlottesville Low Income Housing Coalition, I might not have said that at the beginning, sorry, is the Charlottesville Affordable Housing Fund.

You've heard quite a bit about that.

We really support a $3 million commitment each year for the Affordable Housing Fund.

Without that, we will continue to see escalating displacement.

Displacement in our community is running wild and it is most negatively impacting low income black families.

Good evening.

My name is Josh Karp.

I live at 511 North First Street.

You all have a lot of complicated issues to think about in this packet.

I want to thank the commissioners for describing what's happening in tweets because otherwise I'd have no idea.

I still don't know what a critical slope waiver is.

I don't know what the right setbacks are.

These are complicated issues for you all to think about.

But some issues that we're talking about tonight are in fact not complicated.

I'm not a community leader or

or a religious leader or an expert in any of this stuff, but some things are simple.

And one thing that's simple is when you've got a housing crisis, when you've got 4,000 people who can't afford a home, some of whom are homeless, you build housing, you give them housing.

It doesn't require a degree in policy to tell you that.

And if we're going to cut back money for housing and delay projects for years and lose matching funds, you don't need expertise to know that that's immoral.

Same thing goes for the climate crisis.

We are destroying the planet we're living on, and you're all talking about building more fossil fuel infrastructure.

Again, you don't need a climatologist to tell you, if you keep burning more and more fossil fuels, you will accelerate the destruction of this planet, which is a different kind of housing crisis if you think about it.

So I can't.

I can't tell you where to put the housing or how to make the transit budget work.

That's your all's job.

But as a non-expert, I can tell you when you've got a crisis, you take action.

And if you can't find the money, like people have said, consider taking it away from the Market Street parking structure.

Consider taking it away from the West Main Street scape.

I appreciate people's concerns about it, but if people can't afford to live, then what are we talking about?

Let's be honest.

And it's beyond the scope of your responsibility.

If you can't find the money, I work in tech.

I do fine.

Raise my taxes.

This town is full of doctors and lawyers.

Raise their taxes.

And what I've heard from city staff so far and city council so far, with all due respect, is explanations of why we can't have the society that we all know that we deserve.

And what I want to see is some moral leadership and some imagination.

Make the budget work.

There are more important things than parking work.

The county agreement.

Figure it out.

Is there anyone else that would like to speak?

I'm going once.

I'm going twice.

Please.

Would you like to speak?

You have to come up to the mic, please.

I mean, you're the only one that wants to speak now.

I didn't hear you say Pontaine.

That will be up in a couple more rounds.

So yeah, that'll be later.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

The public hearing is now closed.

I actually have a question for legal.

Michael?

So something I've been trying to understand from staff for weeks now is the details of our agreement with the county.

Looking at it, I see the word or.

Would you hold up for a minute?

The word or.

So the county agreement, it's been reported in the daily progress that if the city does not meet its obligations under that agreement, the county gets both the parking in Market Street and also the lot at on Market Street.

I see the word or there.

My understanding from that word is that they get one or the other.

They don't get both.

If someone had called me with that question before the meeting tonight,

I would have come with an interpretation, but I'm sorry I can't.

If I may, I actually asked John Blair this question last week.

Nothing personal, Lisa.

No one just said that that's where it came from.

He said it was definitely or, not and.

Yeah.

So it's one or the other at the county's option.

I do want us to begin chatting about this but before we do that I want to thank Dr. Richardson.

The fact that you acknowledge the role of the Planning Commission in this process is greatly appreciated and we are looking forward to working very closely with you as we go through future iterations of the budget so thank you for that acknowledgement and we do appreciate that this is your first iteration and we're going to get better and better every year so again thank you.

So, is there any discussion?

I actually have a motion in mind.

It has been moved and probably seconded.

I suspect that we're going to have to do a little bit more than that.

That would be good.

Well, for me, the first alteration I would like to see is that we fully fund our affordable housing program.

It is no way that as a body we have been, I don't know, in how many meetings, how many sessions.

Now we've also funded a position for someone to come up with an affordable housing plan and we're not going to back that.

That seems like we're working backwards here.

And that was before the public spoke.

So then not only to have that information as a planning commissioner to have put in that time, but then to have so many people

and our residents come out and speak about that.

I have a point of order.

Can we not act on the motion to not recommend the budget and then

What I would like to do and Miss Robertson and Miss Creasy, you can redirect me if I'm incorrect, what I would like to do is I would like to move on the motion that is on the table today right now and then I would like to supplement that with amendments or whatever you might want to call them that walks council through what we recommend would make the budget more to our liking.

So I think that's essentially what you teed up.

Could you be more specific?

It's my understanding that that's what the chair has suggested should follow now, which are specific

items to include in a list of things that should be modified and as you consider adding them to the list of things to be worked upon that those will be individual votes if there's a majority of people who support those things that will start the list of things that you are recommending to Council

Would you accept a friendly amendment to your motion?

Possibly, can you state that?

I would like to suggest that yes, the budget as presented is not accepted.

We recommend the following revisions.

I'm open to that.

I'm going to help make the motion because I can't make the motion, but I would recommend that the budget as presented

is not recommended.

I so move.

Second.

All right, now there was another motion on the table and Miss Dowell was walking us through an amendment she'd like to see.

But I'm also, just to be clear, so we don't have to come back to this, I am looking to, over the five year span, fully fund.

Not just one year, two years, this is a crisis.

It's a little complicated.

The CAP is something that we can speak to that way.

Well, that's fine.

Yes, we will focus.

It's just a process question.

Well, it's almost easier because it's $3 million in the last three out years.

If we, again, it's complicated, but I'll kind of walk you through it.

If we do 2021 at $3 million, 2022 at $3

at $3 million, 2023 at $3 million, 2024 at $3 million, 2025 at $3 million, we'll have committed $18 million.

Council has committed to $15 million because there's already been $3 million allocated last year.

So what we'd have to do is then lop off the $3 million at the end in 2025 to get to the $15 million that's been accounted for.

It's hard to be a wonk about this, but that's just the way the math works.

Yeah, I think I see what you're saying.

So you're saying the CRHA redevelopment funding is the same overall because we've moved the million and a half each year from this year and next year, or rather next year and the following year, to that fifth year in the current outlook?

By the way, I agree with you, and I am keenly interested in making certain that we don't lose money in the redevelopment fund.

This is a five-year CIP.

Again, that's why it's complicated.

City Council has made a commitment of 15 million bucks.

So, if we do this, the motion I would recommend is a motion to fully fund CAP for the five years and to fully fund the 15 million dollars that's been committed.

but we have to take into account the 3 million bucks that was committed last year so that we end up at 15 million bucks when we're done.

It's complicated but you can.

And actually Dave and I talked about this recently so I think that's a number that

And that has already been allocated, correct?

Three million bucks was allocated already.

Okay.

If I may make a point on CAF, so I know last year they tried to zero out CAF to say where you put it in each of the individual budgets for, you know, rehab and CSRAP, you know, et cetera.

And we said we wanted to put it back in CAF or at least some amount in CAF to be flexible.

I think there's definitely value in having those flexible dollars for this coming fiscal year.

But I can see that later in the outlook, after we have our housing strategy in place, it will make sense to directly allocate them to the sub accounts.

So if we could phrase it as like CAF and it's related line items, I think that would make sense for later years.

So if you look at page four of the draft budget item, it looks like this.

Right under cash are the categories that the funds from the original have been pulled out into different categories.

Because to me that's half a dozen one way or the other.

Yes, I know what Mr. Stolzenberg's noting specifically for FY21, that there's an amount for the subtotal of all of the affordable housing categories there.

And you all want that to be fully funded, which was at three million.

What we really need is a very high level motion and then staff can go figure out what the details are.

OK. And let's do this.

Let's do a motion for CAP and then do a motion separately for CRHA so we make it easier for them.

All right.

Hold on.

Thank you.

So I need to do two separate motions?

Yeah.

OK.

This is where it's easier for staff, too.

No worries.

No problem.

So when you you all mean fully fund CAF it means

Does it mean what I said before?

For me, it means not only are we, but I guess here's where the confusion is coming in because he just told us to break it down in two separate motions.

So, to me that means that we are fully funding that for fiscal year, I'm looking at fiscal year 21, 22,

23, 24 and 25.

Thank you.

I just want to make sure that we're worded.

Let's do the three.

I think we need to say numbers.

It's a budget.

I understand that, but we're not talking.

I know.

Why are we making this so much harder than it needs to be?

We're fully funding it.

We've had a second.

Let's move on.

Second.

Well, you know, wait a minute.

Miss Creasy does need to do clarification.

Oh, Miss Creasy needs the clarification.

And we can stick with that definition.

I'm comfortable with that.

Lyle, you still comfortable with that?

Well, I missed that actually.

So I see last year's funding for the CAHF, for the Charlottesville Affordable Housing Fund being $800,000, that's what's being proposed for this year, but then it's dropped off for subsequent years.

The supplemental rental assistance is $750,000 for this current year.

It's proposed to go up to $900,000 and stay at $900,000 for five years.

The housing rehabilitation is at $500,000 for this year and $500,000 for next year and the next five years.

So the only one that's been cut

or proposed to be cut at this point that I see is the Charlottesville Affordable Housing Fund and it is being cut starting in year 2022.

Yeah, and if I may, it was cut to $750,000 from the originally proposed $900,000 as part of last year's budget cycle because they had to come up with extra funds to cover the budget gap.

And the way the voucher distribution was ending up in practice is they wouldn't have needed all the funding in this current year.

But it was always planned to be $900,000.

But I also note that as the years continue forth here that the numbers vary in different categories depending on different commitments.

I'm looking at the draft budget.

So in fiscal fiscal year 22, there's an amount there.

All the housing commitments add up to something that's three times this year's housing commitment.

And then the next year it drops down.

And then the next year it goes to the highest point.

And then the next year it drops down again.

No, three million.

What did you say?

Right.

You have to use numbers to do that.

And I would I would ask you all to clarify which years that would be for, because as we see here, there are higher number commitments in other years.

So my understanding of the request is that that's exclusive of Friendship Court which is what's driving the fluctuations because it's every other year as each of the phases start.

So, just so that I am even more confused, the affordable housing fund is what you're focusing on, right?

Yes.

And currently in 2020, we adopted 800,000 bucks, right?

For 2021?

And then it zeroes out.

Right.

So I think by saying fully fund, I think you're asking for $800,000 across the board until the end of the budget cycle.

Yes, now here's the only, back to I think Ror's question.

So, I know originally I said through 2025, I'm okay and I had already stated that as long as it's fiscal year 21-22, I am okay with also only going there because we don't know exactly what we're gonna need in that fund once the housing strategy is done.

It could be more, it could be less.

Not really, I just wanted to stick with the first one, just to fully fund it.

So, 800 and 800.

Okay, so fully fund, affordable housing means 800,000 added to the columns for 2022, 3, 4, 5.

Okay, I'm clear on that.

I'm not comfortable seconding that.

So could I remind everybody the motion is that we're not recommending the budget as presented.

That's our motion.

Now, we don't have to do the in the weeds work for the council.

The motion before us is not to recommend the budget, the proposed budget as presented and then our courtesy and our help to the council is these are the reasons why.

So maybe you could say the question on the CAF item is then do we want to say we don't recommend it because in the out year projections it zeroes it out or because we want to increase it this year and in future years?

That's good.

Okay.

I guess motion to amend it.

Sorry, you should do it.

Is there any further discussion on that motion?

All in favor?

Aye.

Is there any opposition?

Are there any abstentions?

That amendment will be recommended.

The second amendment was relating to redevelopment.

I'll walk you through my thinking.

And the only thing that we need to amend, because everything else in here is as we need it to be, is that we return to the original funding for 2021, which was three million bucks.

And we'll think about 2025 later.

I really, I mean, because the council will realize that we've overfunded this and we'll roll that back.

Or we can either think about it later or we can just take it up now.

Because we, we, the original commitment was $15 million.

If we do it this way, if you give me, I'm sorry, we need, we need, we need, forgive me, we need

three million bucks in 2021 and we need three million bucks in 2022 because I think both were cut in this budget.

Correct.

Don't move.

Yeah, because it's already, yeah.

Is there any further discussion?

Next I'd like to address Downtown Mall Tara, hopefully a pretty quick one.

That's the one that's the threat and risk assessment for the Downtown Mall.

Essentially, I guess it seems to be, maybe staff wants to weigh in, a response to concerns about the safety of the Downtown Mall crossings and the potential of closing them, and instead implementing some sort of smart bollard system to block vehicles from going on to the mall,

Thank you.

of one year between the initial study and the outlay for the hardware.

To me, it doesn't make any sense to say we're going to do a study and a risk assessment and then immediately plow $2 million into something we've already decided to do of, you know, implement some technological solution to the problem, which the assessment may or may not call for.

So what's your recommendation?

Maintain FY21.

So you're saying you want to push fiscal year 22 and 23 out?

Roy, what line item are you looking at?

It's downtown Malterra underneath facilities capital under bondable page two.

It's at the top, the second item.

Is there a motion?

Is there a second?

Or to remove it from the budget.

I'll make that motion instead.

It's been moved and probably seconded.

Yes.

Can we clarify what we've moved and seconded?

Because I heard one, we're going to move it out.

All right, so you're leaving the budget in to do the assessment, but you want to just cool your cooler jets and tilt.

Okay.

Correct.

Is that what you wanted?

All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposition?

Abstain.

Any abstentions?

All right, I got another quick one for you guys.

The photovoltaic budget for city roofs has been cut to $75,000 as it was last year, well below, obviously 25% below the $100,000 a year budget it received the previous five years before that.

The need to reduce the fossil fuel dependency of our city electricity supply is no less great.

Certainly solar has gotten cheaper, but that is not a good reason to spend less on it.

It's a good reason to generate more solar electricity.

There's been some talk of power purchase agreements, but as I see it the city has a

It's an ability to fund bonds at a very low interest rate.

If you get a PPA, you're just getting some private company to take out bonds at a high interest rate and then charge, put the solar panels on your roof for you and then charge you for the electricity.

We can save ourselves money by putting our own solar up.

So I would recommend that our $75,000 a year, I don't know what page it's on, budget for photovoltaics for the next five years be increased to $125,000, a 25% increase.

So we have to find it on the page.

It's on page one.

Page one.

Is it the city schools?

So is this different from the budget that was presented by the school board and requested by the school board or is this something different?

I know this line item also covers city buildings that are unrelated to schools.

I think it's just a general fund to fund solar installations, which we haven't spent lately.

What's the motion?

Each year?

$75,000 to $150,000 a year.

$125,000?

$125,000.

Is there a second?

If there is not a second, this motion is about to die.

I'd like to recommend to Council that the Transportation Access Improvement

Any further discussion?

I was trying to make sure I found the proper page.

I didn't get any details in that motion.

What we talked about is we're going to try to avoid just giving council exact numbers.

Bingo, that's what I was looking for.

He didn't say whether he wanted more funding, whether we were going to scratch it or remove it.

Okay.

Yep, propose an amendment, maybe a friendly amendment, which is a thing, to not only say that it's insufficient, but that the previous funding levels that we've cut it 75% from

or in this case zeroed out for two years are also insufficient that we should suggest a budget increase over our previous projections.

It is my humble opinion that

That additional verbiage is not necessary.

I think Reverend Heaton's original motion suggests that it's not sufficient.

I think maybe we should leave it to council and staff to figure out exactly what they feel sufficient is.

Could I add a small detail to that as we sit up here and listen about traffic and and

the lady getting hit.

Part of this is not just infrastructure.

It is education.

And I say this for the last 10 years I've been sitting on this board and I say it at every MPO meeting I get to go to at every TJPDC meeting I go to.

If we don't do education for both the bikers who go up the wrong side of the road and on the sidewalks and the drivers of these vehicles, it won't matter if we build

High level bridges for just bikes to go, we're still going to be having problems and unsafe conditions.

So part of this must be for education and where's our city manager?

Enforcement of these laws for our pedestrians especially.

Cars go through pedestrian crosswalks every single day.

And for those people who need to get to work by pedestrian or bike, we can't have that.

For kids trying to get on a school bus every morning, my child personally almost got hit trying to get across the street by a CAT bus.

So we've got bigger problems than just putting stripes on the sidewalk.

Okay, so we are working on a motion.

Gary, and it was seconded by Lisa.

It was seconded by Lisa?

Yes.

And did that second take into the rhetoric?

Okay, it didn't.

So I'd argue there's a difference.

So we're talking about what was a $200,000 budget that's now being zeroed out for two years.

And the wording currently proposed is that it's the zero dollars is insufficient.

But I mean, there's a

There's a quantitative difference between saying anywhere between zero and infinity is okay or somewhere in the range of possibly sufficient and saying that the $200,000 we were putting in before is just not enough and it needs to be more than that even, let alone more than zero or reduced for two years.

That's cool.

Are we ready to vote on the amendment?

All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposition?

Any abstentions?

Amendment will be recommended.

I have one.

Is it okay, Rory?

Take a break.

I would ask Council to recommend to Council that a line item be added to the Parks and Rec

Project lines for removal of emerald ash borer damage trees.

I'm not going to suggest an amount, just something needs to be put in so that the money then doesn't come out of us replanting, putting in new trees, replacing them.

Any comments on that?

Oh, and they were.

Any opposition?

Any abstentions?

No.

That's on them.

Reverend Heaton abstains.

Any other amendments?

New sidewalks reduced from $500,000 a year to $100,000 a year.

Was it $400,000?

I might have messed up.

I don't know.

I think it was a 75% cut.

Yeah, $400,000 to $100,000.

How is that different from bike ped?

Oh, the line for bike was actually bike infrastructure.

Oh, okay.

Did we make a motion for bike ped?

I thought the motion was bike ped.

That's what it was.

I think we're good if we covered it in the last one.

Well that's what I was about to say.

We had a good idea about a way to maintain a commitment to the county but also to look at a cut.

Yeah, absolutely.

So one of the biggest items in this CIP is the parking garage at 701 East Market Street and where Lucky 7 in Guadalajara are.

As you can see in this beautiful graphic, it's this big box right here.

And so we have proposed $10 million to this parking garage on top of the $5.4 million in land.

We've already committed to it.

And for that, we think we can get nothing but a structure of 306 spots closing off 8th Street.

Removing 107 existing spots and two local businesses and a large part of that constraint in terms of what staff is looking to do there is that the current zoning ordinance around the site requires 10-foot setbacks on three sides because it borders three streets above the third floor.

So the amount of usable habitable space on the upper floors is almost negligible because of the restrictions we've put in place.

So the city is restricting itself into forcing itself to spend $15 million on a garage to satisfy an agreement we have with the county times about three and a half.

And it all seems pretty unnecessary.

So I would recommend that we reduce the funding for the garage to an amount that I would suggest in the six-digit level where we can make commitment, ask the Planning Commission to make whatever regulatory changes we need to make this work and do a feasibility study for a public-private partnership and whatever

funding or land commitments or zoning changes that might require so that we can find these spaces for the county without expending $10 million out of our CIP here, a full one-seventh of this year's budget.

That is a rambling motion I would make.

I can't read.

I can't write that fast.

I just want to make sure just for the public.

Yep.

Yep so right now it's what four and a half in this year and well 21 and 22.

Yep so the idea is to reduce the overall budget to a level

I am going to abstain from whatever vote this is here.

However,

It is valuable property.

I do think there's something else that can be done there other than just an ugly old parking garage.

I am in agreement with you.

I think some

thought needs to go in on what we do, a public-private partnership, so be it.

But we cannot, and again, I don't know if you said this, but there is an agreement that we have and the revenue from folks around this courthouse area that potential leave and for the downtown, there has been some arguments made for that.

I am not suggesting that we don't keep that agreement, but I do think there's something else

other than just a massive parking garage that can go in that area.

And I think there's so many options out there.

This is not my idea, but it has been brought before.

And I mean, we've talked about new council chambers.

It's right across the street.

It's not that far.

We could do so much with that.

We could do, I don't know, affordable housing right downtown so people can get to work.

Take a look at that amount of funding to see if there's not a better way to stretch that out and find some temporary solutions for this agreement with the city and search and decrease the amount.

See here's the thing.

If you spend $10 million of the taxpayer's money on a parking garage or even less, you're now asking every man, woman, child, NNB in this city to pay $200 each to fund

Essentially to fund climate change to fund the burning of fossil fuels.