Planning Commission Meeting   4/12/2022

Welcome all, I believe we are at 5pm.

Just setting up a little, some things on my side.

I hear happy chimes, probably a good sign.

We do.

Duly noted.

Thank you.

Trying to get all my things in order in advance.

I count four commissioners.

That's adequate for a pre-meeting to start?

Mm-hmm.

Fantastic.

Let us go.

Welcome all.

I have a prepared statement to read.

I hope you enjoy it.

I'll be the best.

Overly kind, but thank you.

The applicant for 2005 Jefferson Park Avenue for entrance corridor review and special use permit recommendation has requested deferral of the applications at this time and a formal review will not take place this evening.

As this was advertised for public hearing, and it is anticipated that members of the public will be here for that purpose.

An opportunity will be provided following the actionable items.

Following the three remaining public hearings, there will be an opportunity for members of the public to share comments of up to three minutes regarding the 2005 JPA applications.

With that stated, welcome all.

Hello.

comments and questions on that statement?

Ms.

I have one question about that in general, general question, right?

We've been taking our planning commission certification, fingers crossed I become certified.

Okay.

I was just curious because I learned that that's possible because it takes up staff time and et cetera, et cetera.

Interesting question, thank you.

Let's turn to the agenda.

Any questions on CDBG and home funding?

I have not heard from her.

I'm hopeful.

Nothing CDBG home?

Copy.

Questions on 209, Maury.

This is a, maybe this is a silly question.

Can we talk a little bit about the Office of Community Solutions?

Sure.

I'll tell you what I know.

Community Stations is a group under the city manager's area that was set up to focus mainly on housing.

to start, but I believe that their mission is going to be much greater to really focus on neighborhood needs as well as time goes on and they staff up.

So for right now, Mr. Ikafuna is the interim director of that department.

Brenda Kelly, who was redevelopment director, who was with the city manager's office, is in that department as well.

And then Aaron Attac, who's the CDBG grants coordinator, who was with NDS, was put into that team when it was created probably about eight months ago or so.

And so there's vision for

more aspects to that, but that's where they are right now.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Just following that line of thinking, I noticed in the report

from Maury, the staff report that the Office of Community Solutions references some issues with the proper commitments, binding commitments, things like that, while the staff analysis says there's nothing in the SEP that would conflict with the proper regulations.

Well, we will have staff in attendance tonight that can hopefully assist with that.

We have a set of proffers that say certain things for this site.

And there are different ways that those could be handled.

We have to go with the letter of

letter of what's part of the proffers.

And so Community Solutions provided some additional feedback on how that can move forward.

And it's definitely going to be a discussion.

It's one of the big things that that office is focusing on is trying to strengthen the language

Um, no, because, because that was part of the rezoning.

So they have to do the proper as it was noted.

And what is, what are the, like, consequences of a proper terms aren't adequately met?

Like, is that, do we refuse to issue a site plan approval?

Do we refuse to issue a certificate of occupancy?

Well, it ends up being a zoning violation.

And so they're cited for a zoning violation specific to the zoning for the site.

It could lead to other violations if they have approvals of other plans.

And then it's a matter of how that gets pursued.

And some of that ends up ending up where we have staffing issues.

So it is, you know, making sure proffers are addressed prior to sign off, at least of the site plans and the certificate of occupancy is something that is looked at.

But as you all know, the language that is in proffers sometimes can be ambiguous.

And there typically are conversations towards the end of projects about

what that language is and what it means and how it moves forward.

As I'm sure Ms.

Well, so in this specific case, the proffer says, like, prior to issuance of a building permit, we will do this.

Well, we would start by going with the letter.

Ms.

Russell, could you have some language prepared for this and for the code slash home slash CDBG?

Oh, and for the home, we're just making a recommendation that council adopt the budget as blah, blah, blah.

Oh, I had to have one question on Maury.

So, you know, I noted that one of the recommended

I mean, this is better to wait until Matt gets here if he is going to be here.

He's in the process.

Oh, great.

He's on his way.

Should I hold off?

He's having some technical... Working through that.

Ah, there he is.

Anyone want to?

We could talk 14th Street Hotel if you want to.

Let's talk 14.

15 minutes ago that that exact property was approved for a hotel in 2010.

Do we know what happened to that?

Did it just like not happen and so it expired in two years?

Hmm, I don't remember there being one there.

Yeah, I dug up the file on that.

I don't remember the exact time.

It was a couple years ago, but a special use permit was approved to basically add on to that property

several more units and create a much larger hotel and basically redevelop it.

The special use permit was approved.

It went through BAR and then they got the site plan and then the paper trail stopped.

So I can only assume that they eventually withdrew their application sometime during the site plan process.

Fantastic.

We've been talking about you.

Sorry, one more thing on that last thing.

Just to be clear, so they faded away or whatever, and so their original approval expired or something?

I didn't see any withdrawal of their approval.

Well, if they didn't have, if there was not an activated site plan, then it would have expired in the 18 months.

So it sounds, Dan, that it was more than 18 months and we don't have a site plan.

So expiration is where that would go from a code standpoint.

If they were actively moving towards a site plan, then they would still

be able to move forward.

That's a code section that was added once when SUPs were being suspended while they were actively working forward.

So that doesn't happen anymore, but these folks were not actively working on a site plan.

Thanks.

Yeah, and I sent the articles about that to the chat.

Apparently it's 2010, which is not 10 years ago.

That's 12.

It's not 2020 anymore, surprisingly.

So on Maury, I was wondering, so I noted the condition about the seven foot sidewalk with landscape buffer.

And I'm assuming the buffer is between the sidewalk and the road, right?

Correct.

And so, you know, noting the park, the bike ped plan, Hosea Sharrows and that's not really up to what we planned for there.

And that's, I think, probably the most dangerous stretch of Lory Alderman.

Is there any way we could get a condition in there or in some way, like, fit some kind of bicycle improvement as well?

whether that's, you know, just a lane, green markings, green markings by the crosswalk, something like that.

Like, do we have the right-of-way width for it?

Do we have them dedicated?

So I think there is a kind of concern with the right-of-way width.

The, I think,

why staff was leaning more on the streets at work plan was because it was fairly detailed what was called out for on this typology and the bike ped plan, you know, it had some information, but it just didn't seem to work in that location.

I mean, the sheriffs were there and staff felt that was at least for now tended to work.

And if we could get the streets at work sidewalk

That buffer, you know, that would be an improvement.

Yeah, I mean, I guess, like, could we have them widen the right of way since they're, you know, ripping it all up to put in the sidewalk anyway by a couple feet?

Doesn't seem like they're doing anything with that front yard space really in their plan.

It's a short block and they are with the 10 feet that's going to be needed for the seven foot sidewalk and for the buffer, you're really pushing into some grade changes there, especially as you get in your stadium.

Okay, that's fair.

Switching back again to 14th Street.

We understand the building assessment, the real estate assessment on that one.

It's 139,000 in 2022.

How is that possible?

They're condos, so there's like 20 of them.

Oh, okay.

That's why they had also, because they also said one room, one bath and 373 square feet.

That makes way more sense.

Anybody just want to talk about JPA?

I'm going to throw in another 14th Street while we're here before we move on.

The application kind of made reference to a by-right use in B1 of an in.

And that, if I'm remembering correctly, an in requires a resident on-site manager, right?

like a feed without food.

Furiously enough.

Right.

Any other questions on 14th Street?

Want to take a 10 minute break, just relax.

I see some thumbs.

See you in 10 minutes.

Thank you very much.

I mean, I usually see you not in these meetings.

I see you running the streets.

I haven't seen you out there.

I'm out there just times a day.

When's Boston?

I know, Jim.

Yeah, no, I'm not.

I saw that he is doing that.

It's pretty cool.

It's his 11th, his 11th Boston Marathon in a row.

That's crazy.

Yeah, he's dedicated.

You got one, right?

One.

Yeah, but I do think it's Monday.

If it's not this Monday, it's the one after.

Maybe the one after.

All right.

I see 5.30 PM.

How are we on council?

I don't see council.

We don't need them until 6.

Yes, I'm sorry.

I'm time traveling in my brain.

Excuse me.

Hello, all.

Let me get back to 530 p.m.

I have a prepared statement.

I hope you will allow me to read.

The applicant for 2005 Jefferson Park Avenue for entrance corridor review and special use permit recommendation has requested deferral of the applications at this time and a formal review will not take place this evening.

As this was advertised for public hearing and it is anticipated that members of the public will be here for that purpose.

An opportunity will be provided following the actionable items.

Following the three remaining public hearings, there will be an opportunity for members of the public to share comments after three minutes regarding the 2005 JPA applications.

Let's end at the state.

Thank you.

Oh, good evening, and thank you.

Let's see, we had a couple of meetings in the last few weeks.

One of the meetings was with the LUPAC crew.

And if you remember, LUPAC is Charlottesville, the county, the Ravana Water and Sewage Authority, and UVA, and UVA Foundation.

And our focus is just to chat about land use issues and environmental planning issues.

There were two presentations and two conversations that took place there.

One related to the removal of clean fill, the removal of dirt.

It seems that the removal of dirt is quite a problem for developers when developers are doing new construction.

They just need to find a place to, they need to dig it up and then find a place to put it.

So the Solid Waste Authority, the Ravana Solid Waste Authority, is running a pilot to help them think through how we might best do this.

This pilot is happening at the Ivy Landfill.

And what they want to do is figure out how best to address the challenges and find a way maybe to make a little money addressing the challenges that they've got.

The budget started at the end of January and run until the end of May.

By March 15, about 15,000 tons of dirt had actually been deposited at the landfill.

between January and May, they've been fairly busy.

And they'd actually generated about $50,000 in revenue, just some tipping fees from allowing developers around the area to deposit, again, dirt, clean landfill in that area.

They are projecting by the time the pilot ends, the pilot to end again in the May,

50,000 tons of landfill dirt will have been moved from one point where things have been developed in the city as well as in the county into the authorities' landfill.

They have estimated that this could probably generate about a million bucks, over a million bucks, over the next five years in revenue for the Solid Waste Authority.

An interesting question was posed in our meeting.

And that's what was, well, we're taking all this dirt in.

Should we sell the dirt to people who want to buy the dirt?

And the question was not answered.

But it is something folks aren't thinking about.

Since you got the presentation earlier today, so hopefully you've got it.

Dive deeper.

You've got the presentation on your iPads and laptops.

The other piece was interesting as well.

Albemarle, we had a chat with Albemarle County about their planning and community development organization and their work plan for next year, 2023.

We

and our folks, our team are incredibly busy.

Our team is unstaffed, but we are not unique.

If you guys can't take a moment to just read through the power presentation that I sent you, you'll see that they've got a lot of stuff going on as well.

And again, we don't need to feel sorry for ourselves because they too are challenged with staffing issues in any amount of work that they've got.

I won't walk you through the workload and the challenges, but there were a couple of things that piqued my interest and a couple of things that, you know, maybe down the road we want to think about doing.

One is they recently did a force stabilization, force, force, like force people stabilization program.

and that resulted in them recognizing the need for 75 FTEs and those FTEs have been approved.

And they've actually onboarded 71 of those FTEs.

So it's just something you just keep your eye on and watch and maybe we can, I think James is there too.

So he heard this and he has a relationship with their developer, their director as well.

I may have to close the window because the train's going by, but let's give it a second.

It's a short train.

So that's just interesting, something to know about.

The other thing that they were talking about, and again, this is something that James and Misty are beginning to think about.

I think we actually purchased the software.

They are going through a re-engineering of the processes

and they're going to marry new software to these reengineered processes.

And the objective is to reduce the number of touches that an application has to have before it gets to the planning commission and then goes to the board of supervisors.

And it's also the other objective is just to increase just general throughput, not just

reduced over touches but also increased throughput.

They expect to have significant gains in throughput and more touches significantly by installing this new software.

The overall project is called the Project Camino, Project Camino.

So keep your ears to the ground for that.

What they're doing is replacing software and processes that have been placed for 20 years.

So good to them.

And again, I think James and Missy also have something like this on deck for us.

The other meeting was with Parks and Rec.

Let's go into the Parks and Rec.

Walk you guys through all of it because you guys are pretty much aware of it.

Tunstall Park, you guys have been reading about the community engagement there that's happening.

Darden Tau, you guys are aware of that.

You guys are aware that we have funded a significant amount of capital budget to the improvement of Darden Tau.

We're waiting for the county to

to decide what they're going to put into that.

So that's happening.

Meade and Belmont Park, we are looking to improve the facilities there.

And anything that's like between two and five years old, we're looking to take a look at and fix or improve.

So that's happening.

We'll be replacing that stuff.

Honesty, the replastering of the pool is now underway.

And a bid went out in mid-March to allow us to actually use the pool and use it in a way that's safe.

And we should have gotten responses to the bid back by the end of March.

So I'm not sure if that's happened yet, but that's something there as well.

But the most interesting thing to me was the Dogwood Festival has been moved.

Maybe you guys probably knew this, but I've got a board to know this.

The Dogwood Festival has been moved.

It used to be at McIntyre, and that's going to be in the Kmart parking lot.

All right, thank you.

Ms.

Dell, are you with us?

I don't see you.

All right, thanks.

The Citizen Transportation Advisory Committee met on March 16th, and we elected the new chair and vice chair.

The chair was Lee Condor and the vice chair is Dr. Thana Chen.

And we went over some updates from the MPO Policy Board.

The updates were what projects we were applying for for smart scale.

The MPO is applying to four projects.

The first is the Fifth Street extended project at the Harris Street area.

The second is the Avon Street bike bed infrastructure.

And the third is a roundabout at District Avenue, which is at the intersection of hydraulic and Cedar Hill.

And the last project is the Rivanna River Bike Pet Bridge.

Exciting, thank you.

So I've attended two committees since our last meeting.

The first, the Board of Architectural Review met on March 15th.

We had two Certificate of Appropriatenesses approved.

And then we had many discussions, preliminary discussions of projects, potential projects.

And those projects are the new residential building at 1301 Wirtland Street, window replacements at 32 University Circle, a rear addition at 1901 East Market Street,

in a mural at 111 14th Street.

And then lastly, Mr. Freeze joined us to discuss the zoning ordinance revision process.

At the Tree Commission last week, April 4th, we did get news that a new urban forester has been hired for the city.

Steve Gaines will be joining Parks and Rec as the urban forester in a week or so, mid-April, I'm told, we were told.

The final tree canopy study was submitted, and we will be sharing that with the Seville Plants Together consultants and the steering committee.

Our relief subcommittee has arranged an environmental career day at Charlottesville High School on April 21st.

There will be about 25 professionals and vendors associated with the environmental issues there, and it'll all be held outside.

On Arbor Day, April 29th, there will be a program around the Elm Tree at Sojourner's Church, which is at the corner of Monticello and Elliott in Belmont.

and then we had a presentation by a city utility staff member on its energy saving trees program.

And then lastly, Mr. Freeze, he just likes going around.

Apparently he doesn't have a life other than the city, but he came again to the tree commission and Laura Hildebrand also was there from utilities and the two of them,

were very gracious and generous in sharing their time with the Tree Commission to discuss issues of tree preservation and protection.

And that's it.

And thank you.

Ms.

Yeah, busy month, sort of.

First, we had our MPO Technical Committee meeting

a couple days after our last meeting.

That was an interesting meeting.

We discussed our upcoming work plan for FY23.

A couple interesting things are in that.

One will be our 2050 long-range transportation plan to kind of set the stage for what projects we're going to pursue over the next couple decades.

The one map project to create kind of unified maps for the city and county.

a boundary analysis, because the census could change the MPO boundaries, and a transit governance study that will look at ways we can have a regional transportation authority, hopefully getting the General Assembly to give it taxing power, since we already have the authorization to do it, but with no actual power to raise revenue.

And

Yeah, so that will be a study to set the stage for regional governance of Cat and John.

Also at MPO Tech, we made a recommendation for an alignment on the Rivanna River bike ride crossing MPO submission for SmartScale.

We recommended that across at Chesapeake near Riverview Park with nice sidewalk facilities and bike facilities to get to downtown.

I believe the stakeholder committee made the same recommendation, but our electeds decided not to do that.

And MPO policy pushed for the wool and mills or the wool factory alignment.

So that was on PO tech.

We also had a hack allocation subcommittee meeting where we reviewed staff committee responses to the Charlottesville affordable housing fund notice funding availability and allocated some funds to some good organizations there.

We had a hack policy subcommittee meeting where we discussed various tax relief programs

in the city and that we have General Assembly authority for but do not use yet.

And we're starting to get towards eventually making a recommendation to council on ways we can improve that.

However, later in the month, no one's actually mentioned this to me yet directly, apparently council has reformulated HACC and I am no longer on it.

We do not have a Planning Commission representative.

So I will, I guess, not be participating in any future discussions on that policy proposal if they continue.

Yeah, three months.

Well, thank you.

Did I just hear that we don't have a representative on HECC?

So, Mr. Chair, I think you need to have a conversation with Mayor Schnuck to fix that.

This has occurred to me as well.

Thank you very much.

Sorry.

Forgive me, stating the obvious.

It is worthwhile sometimes.

Thank you.

Yes, I see some logistical challenges from that.

I don't know that a PC rep is the only way to solve that problem, but we will need to solve that problem.

Thank you.

On that note, speaking of problems, I don't know, we can think of a better intro.

The university, Mr. Palmer, please.

My month has been busy, but I don't have a whole lot to report, even though I've been very busy.

I did want to acknowledge, I think I mentioned a few months back that my colleague and Jody's colleague, Mary Hughes, had retired as the long-time landscape architect for UVA.

She started in 1996.

The only reason I'm mentioning her publicly right now is because tomorrow is a celebration on the lawn to plant a Founder's Day tree in her honor in front of Pavilion 3.

It's in front of Pavilion 3, and it's at 11 o'clock, open to the public for anybody who would like to stop by.

I don't know what kind of tree it is, though.

I'm excited to hear.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

To my report, the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission met on April 7th.

The issue most relevant to this body was that we allocated $1.8 million in grant funds for affordable housing.

I'm quoting infoseevil.com here, thank you for covering this, $640,000 for three Habitat for Humanity chapters,

for 32 new units to be built throughout the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission region, $660,000 to the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority for 48 units at the second phase of the South First Street Redevelopment, $500,000 for Virginia Supportive Housing for 80 new permanent supportive housing as part of the Premier Circle project.

Very encouraging, very happy about that.

Also, I would like to note that there was a code committee meeting this morning talking about possibly allowing some missing middle housing in the state of Virginia, requested by Lyle Solla-Yates, which is going to committee.

So very exciting.

Yes.

All right.

Good evening, everybody.

A couple of things that I'd like to do updates on.

One, you guys may have already received notice of this, but we are doing a project.

The city is looking at the Fifth Street corridor and making safety improvements for that corridor, hoping to culminate with a smart scale application this summer.

There is an upcoming workshop public meeting on

it'll be April 25th from 11 to one and then again from five to seven so there'll be two opportunities for people to join participate in that meeting.

Then on a month later May 24th the planning commission that's all of you will be hosting a yeah we'll be hosting a work session on this topic in conjunction with city council at least that's the goal for those city councilors in the room.

So mark your calendars we've marked ours May 24th work session on this fifth street safety plan and then that'll go back to Council at the end of June and then on to spark a skill application, assuming everything has gone according to plan.

and then and then the other big project, of course, is our zoning project.

So where we are right now is we we are probably about two weeks behind schedule at this point.

So just laying out there and there's a variety of reasons for that around.

Well, with our consultant team in terms of getting

their analysis and data and the work that they're doing together.

So what we anticipate is by the next meeting, or A, we'll probably have released this first report by our next meeting.

In fact, we definitely will have.

But before that, we'll have shared with you guys what we anticipate the schedule looking like going forward from this point.

literally met this morning to walk through this, so I'm kind of processing news that's kind of fresh off the press to a certain extent, but we'll be releasing new schedule information to get this back or keep it really on track for our overall goal of seeing zoning adopted by roughly this time next year.

So I don't see any reason to extend or earlier than I

or, you know, hopefully by March of next year, we're fully adopted.

That's what we've been aiming for.

And I don't see any reason to push that back at this point.

Were there questions on that?

Okay, that's okay if you're asking questions, no problem.

All right, I'll go ahead and then you can go, Mr. Mitchell.

Wanted to let you all know at Council's 4pm meeting on April 18th, which is next Monday.

there'll be a presentation on the climate action plan and we know that's something that a lot of you all have quite a bit of interest in and so there'll be some good information presented then and then I'm sure that we will

be intertwined in that in different ways as we move forward.

So just wanted to have that note so that you all would be ready for that.

I will note that that meeting on April 18th with council is going to be a hybrid meeting.

And so they are trying out some new technologies and methods of moving forward.

And then we will be shortly behind them.

with moving towards that.

And so I don't have details for you quite yet because we'll be doing some regroup following the council meeting.

But as soon as we've got something set, we're going to let you guys know and let the public know how we'll be moving forward.

So should we note, Missy, I mean, just to

be explicit about that.

So potentially, if this plan goes together, we'd be looking at a hybrid meeting for the Planning Commission for your May meeting.

Yes.

Potentially exciting.

Absolutely.

I believe we have five minutes of open space at this time.

Or then maybe Mr. Mitchell's question?

Mr. Mitchell?

I was just trying to tell you guys I missed you guys.

Missed you too.

Thank you.

I believe we are, you know, I don't have it written down, but I believe you're right that we have matters from the public at this time.

These are items that are not on the agenda as public hearings.

2005 Jefferson Park Avenue is an agenda item.

If you want to address that, you're welcome to do so at that time.

Anything else?

Yes, if you'd like to speak at this time, please click the raise hand icon in your Zoom webinar, or if you're joining us via telephone, you can press star nine.

Each speaker will be given three minutes.

And first up, we have Bill Emery.

Yes, thank you.

This is Bill, broken record, Emery.

You know, March 3rd of 2008, following an interview for the Planning Commission, the council asked me if there was anything I wanted to mention.

I argued for the usage of maps, specifically talking to Lyle here, GIS, advocating for the city to integrate data into the city's GIS system to track items like where CIP monies were being spent, where was the population density, where was the affordable housing, where were the sidewalks.

I advocated for hardy use of GIS being a plan commission priority.

GIS mapping is a tool for planners, policymakers, and city staff to acquire an up-to-date portrait of the city.

GIS provides a means to drive strategic planning based on existing ground conditions.

GIS can provide graphical representation of need and accomplishment.

Like radar and weather, the complex is rendered visible.

Effective action is enabled.

Trust you heard Mr. Sanders' reflections regarding tracking outcomes from the $47 million spent on affordable housing in the past decade.

How many dollars have gone to who?

How many of the units are still affordable?

Mr. Sanders points out that getting the information has required to make use of this Indiana Jones toolkit.

City records are a hot mess.

Mr. Sanders mentioned more than a half dozen deficiencies listed by the

165,000 HRNA report, which when corrected will enable more accurate tracking of our affordable housing in the future.

The final report from HRA will be delivered April 20th, next week.

To the HRA and Sanders list of necessary developments, I would add the urgent need for a map with GIS functionality.

The map

I mean, or just a plain map from HRNA.

The map will provide a readily understandable means of knowing how many and where our affordable housing assets are.

Cities have structure.

They are not suit.

Knowing the location and status of housing assets is critically important for planning.

Thank you.

And next, please.

All right, thank you all.

I believe we are one minute early to start our public hearing.

Outstanding.

See, this is a good thing.

How about that?

At this time, I would like to begin public hearings.

Yes.

All right, so tonight we'll be talking about the Community Development Block Grant and the Home Investment Partnership Program.

So as an entitlement community, the city receives grant funding from the U.S.

Department of Housing and Urban Development each year.

We receive the two federal grants, the CDBG and the HOME grants.

For fiscal year 2022, the CDBG program has an estimated total of $433,471 and the HOME program has an estimated

of $84,576.88.

Right now, we don't know the exact grant amount until May 2022 when HUD sends us the grant award for the city.

So we're working on last totals.

On September 21st, 2021, city council set priorities for fiscal year 22 for the CDBG and home program, which included the following, access to affordable housing, workforce development,

Microenterprise Assistance, Access to Quality Child Care, and Homeowner Rehabilitation and Down Payment Assistance.

This year's request for proposals were based on City Council's priorities for CDBG and Home, 2018 to 2022 Consolidated Plan, which is like a game plan for CDBG and Home, Charlottesville's Affordable Housing Plan, and HUD's CDBG and Home National Priorities.

It's important to note that the RFP this year went through an extensive review by the CDBG and Home Task Force.

Today's discussion will be focusing on the following areas that the CDBG and Home Task Force reviewed as a result of the competitive RFP process.

So the three umbrellas that the task force looked at was public services, economic development and housing.

Last year in September 2021, City Council approved funding and projects for the Ridge Street Parity Neighborhood.

It is recommended that funds be awarded again for Ridge Street so that these activities, sidewalks, sidewalk improvements for the Sixth Street Southeast and Ridge Street can continue in those areas.

Council also approved the administrative and planning portion of the budget

during that same time period to be set at the 20% of the entitlement grant.

That portion of that budget pays for all the CDBG and home citizen participation, environmental reviews, staffing, studies like the HRNA housing review and design to be carried out under the grant.

Under the competitive RFP process, all applicants were required to undergo a technical assistance meeting with me prior to submitting an application to the city.

During these sessions, applicants were able to meet with the grants coordinator, walk through the grant requirements, and talk about their potential CDBG and home programs.

Under the home portion of the grant, I met with a total of six applicants, or six potential applicants, and for the CDBG, I met with a total of 11 interested applicants.

For the home side, we ended up receiving two applications, and for the CDBG side, we ended up receiving six applications.

This year we did impose some new restrictions for the RFP process with regards to timeliness and having shovel ready projects.

So anyone who did not have a shovel ready activity or had outstanding balances with CDBG and home funds was considered ineligible to apply.

And these two new restrictions was shared with the CDBG and home task force during the deliberation process.

We the reason why we impose these restrictions was in the past, we had some several difficulties with sub recipients having problems finishing their activities with their contractual obligations.

So in order to maintain compliance with HUD regulations, new contractual and compliance standards have been put in place under HUD guidance to bring the city and sub recipients up to standards with other Virginia entitlement agencies.

During the deliberation process, the CDBG and the task force recommended the following activities for funding.

Under the CDBG grants for the economic development umbrella, two sub-recipients were recommended for funding, community investment collaborative and the local energy alliance program for workforce development and the micro enterprise scholarship program.

Under the public service umbrella for CDBG,

The literacy volunteers of Charlottesville and Albemarle and Public Housing Association of Residents were recommended for funding and under the housing umbrella local energy alliance program was also recommended for funding for their solar home energy maintenance program.

And then for the home grants LEAP local energy alliance program was also recommended for funding for the assisted home performance program.

and I'd be happy to talk about those programs further in depth.

Once the city receives the actual entitlement award towards May, all funding recommendations will be adjusted accordingly at a prorated percentage of the actual award.

No agency will increase within their initial funding request.

Additionally, because several sub-recipients are in the process of completing their 2021 contracts,

If they have trouble completing their 2021 contracts by the end of June 30, 2022, their 2022 contract awards may be subject to reprogramming if they're not able to fulfill their HUD obligation by the end of this year.

So if there's a chance to just net this thing out and just move this forward, I've served on this board that these guys are representing.

I've walked through all the applications as they have.

It's a pretty thorough process.

I think it would be a mistake for us to second guess anything they recommended.

Thank you.

I just had a question on the funding.

Is there a risk that some organizations won't be able to receive the funding?

Right now, everyone's on track.

As far as the 2021 contracts right now, everyone did meet their 65% spend goal.

So everyone's on track for spending right now.

So I'm not worried for this year.

We did a good job of making sure everyone's meeting their timeliness spending.

I just have one question.

What is the LEAP Solar Roof Program?

The other is I can figure out what they were.

What is that?

Leap.

So they are going to benefit approximately seven beneficiaries in the CDBG priority neighborhoods.

Very cool.

Any more questions for the city?

Oh, I'm sorry.

Do we have a public comment on this one?

I would entertain.

I'm sorry.

Too many things going on in my head.

Any questions from council, please?

I see a head shaking.

I see a head shaking.

I see a third head shaking.

Each speaker will be given three minutes to speak.

Mr. Chair, I see no hands raised at this time.

Thank you.

I heard a second from Mr. Alejandro.

door.

Ms.

Russell?

Aye.

Aye.

I would like to direct our attention to 209 Maury.

This is a request for, I believe, a special use permit.

Yes, thank you, Chair.

I'm Matt Offaly, City Planner, Neighborhood Development Services.

Making sure my volume was on.

Chair, commissioners, tonight you will be holding a public hearing and making a recommendation on a special use permit for a project at 209 Maury Avenue.

The applicant, owned by FMC Investments, LLC, and represented tonight by Charlie Armstrong, is requesting a special use permit pursuant to code section 34420 and 34162, which allows residential density up to 43 dwelling units per acre.

The subject properties have street frontage on Maury Avenue, Stadium Road, and a by-right density of 21 dwelling units per acre.

In addition to requesting increased density, the applicant is also requesting modification to yard requirements to match the layout proffered in ZM 1900002 and approved by City Council on December 2, 2019 and a reduction of on-site parking by half the spaces required under Section 34984.

The applicant is proposing to modify a site plan currently under review

to allow more residential units without altering the footprint or layout of the development.

The subject properties were rezoned from R2U, Residential Two Family University, to R3 with proffers in December 2019.

The original plan called for residential development with 33 units.

The new proposal calls for the same configuration but removes the parking under Building 2 to accommodate additional units.

The total units on site would not exceed 64 units.

Staff recommends approvals with conditions.

These conditions can be found on page 16 of the staff report.

I believe the applicant is here tonight and is prepared to give an oral presentation.

This concludes staff's report.

Questions for staff on this?

From the Planning Commission?

A good question.

Please.

I can kind of answer that if Planning Commission would like.

Please.

Thank you.

Yes.

So on Stadium Avenue, there is no sidewalk.

So under the original site plan that's under review, the applicant is being required to put in a sidewalk.

And the sidewalk typology for Stadium at that location is a seven-foot sidewalk with a three-foot plant.

And so as the original development was a by-right development, even though it was rezoned, no sidewalks were being

But there was a section of sidewalk basically being proposed to be replaced in Lua or replaced on Maury to match existing.

They weren't replacing all the sidewalks.

And so status condition for the SUP stems from the planning document streets that work.

There's a typology for Maury Avenue there.

And that typology makes sheltered sidewalks with a buffer, seven foot wide sidewalks.

And is it fair to say that the pedestrian traffic on Maury Avenue is greater than that on a stadium?

Yes, I think that's a fair statement.

I have one question.

I was not on council back in December of 2019.

In fact, none of us was.

So I'm curious.

is what is being proposed here or requested here any significant deviation from what was approved in December of 2019?

And if so, is it in some way, I guess, are we getting suckered by having had the first approval one time and then you come back two years later and you change the deal on us?

No, so the original rezoning, one of the proffers was to proffer the layout.

So the layout is not changing.

The only thing changing is they're under building to, there was going to be parking.

The applicant now is turning that parking into residential units.

So the density is increasing, but the location of the buildings, all the proffered language, which includes keeping the existing manor house, which is being renovated,

the landscaping, the affordable dwelling unit proper, all that staying in place.

The only change is parking is now changing to residential units.

And the density probably would not be as high as the 68 units for the mere fact that the bedroom count will probably change a little bit.

You're probably going to have closer to the same units you were, but now maybe less bedrooms.

And the amount of parking is reduced as well, right?

Correct.

Parking in this area of the city is an issue.

And that is one of staff's recommendation is that a

detailed parking plan, which would include the condition here is the applicant will work with the city traffic engineer to develop a master parking plan for the site.

This plan will be kept on file with the city and may be updated or altered from time to time with the authority of the city traffic engineer.

The plan shall indicate how the developer will distribute available parking spots on site, how potential residents are informed of their parking opportunities, and any possible offset parking agreement.

for residents.

Correct.

If I recall, this proffer also said they didn't have to be on this site.

I remember this meeting back in 2019.

As I recall, they could provide those units in other places.

We should, Alex, he's trying to make a point here.

Yeah, that's correct.

They are proffering six units.

for up to 80% AMI, the habitat units will be at 60% AMI or below, that's proposed.

And they are looking at accomplishing this offsite, you know, at Flint Hill, if you recall Flint Hill development is a PUD.

So they are looking at providing this six units,

So Mr. Chair, if I can ask, these offsite units are going to be inside the city, right?

Yes, that's correct.

But they will not be inside UVA's complex.

So what's always worried me about this project is that these kids don't need the full units.

We need more full units in the city.

That's correct.

Yeah, and so are we happy with that?

Yeah, that works.

Okay, cool.

Thanks.

Thank you.

I have Mr. Hrabab, then Mr. Stolzenberg.

Wow.

Along the same line, I wanted to ask the Office of Community Solutions and Alex if they had anything to share with us.

I read their concerns in the packet and follow-up questions to that I had were, what is the status of the Flint Hill PUD and is there any information from Habitat that we have regarding an agreement?

And the last question is, one of the options that they could

exercises that cash in lieu for the affordable units in the proper and it said $2 per square foot based on the buildable the habitable area of the development and I was wondering how many units does that get us if they decide to go that route and I guess the general

The thing I'm considering is we can't really adjust the proffer at this point, and it is what it is.

Is that correct?

Once it's approved, acted upon, they can't come back and adjust it.

So I would ask Ms.

Creasy and Ms.

Affley, we still have some power here.

when it comes to, like, the site plan, right?

Working through making the site plan work for what the city wants.

Give a little more detail, Commissioner, on that.

I'm talking about both.

But yeah.

Your interest is, your power is the SUP point.

So right now there is, I mean, before you deny it, it's the SUP for density.

So if city council were to approve the SUP, the applicant would need to amend the site plan under review.

There's currently the by right site plan

that is very close to final approval.

So I guess I'm just getting a little more clarity on kind of when you say make it work, I mean, they would need to meet all regulations under site plan regulations.

Yes.

Well, I'm not 100%, but we'll move forward with whatever is approved, the outcome of this, and we'll move forward with the site plan review, and we'll have to adhere to the guidelines and the requirements that come forth as part of this, as well as those that are already in place for the rezoning.

Diplomatic answers say no, you have not framed the question properly.

Matt, I'll try to frame it better.

I'll get back to you.

Michael Koch- Mr about was your question answered correct yeah the only the last time to question I don't think it's we can't adjust anything about it, but it's still i'd still like to know what the cash how many units would that yield and Rory seems like yes.

Rory Stolzenberg, yeah.

Rory Stolzenberg, Let me of.

Rory Stolzenberg, Rory.

Rory Stolzenberg, yeah.

you want to say something and I'm just going to provide comments on that.

Yeah, so I was just going to, I think I might have some information that would be helpful to Counselor McGill and Commissioner Habab's questions.

So, well, to the most direct question, I guess, it's $2 per square foot with no inflation adjustment like the code since it's a proper that's modeled on the code, but isn't the code.

The documents say 65,000 square feet

currently estimated, so that would be $130,000.

We received some information from Habitat as part of the Housing Advisory Committee allocation subcommittee review of the CAF NOFA mentioned earlier.

They indicated that they are planning on 16 units at Flint Hill.

And, you know, I should mention, I think it's relevant, that

They are asking for CAF funds to purchase those lots to build those units that they would then build with other funds.

And I guess, what is a discounted rate?

But here the developer has three choices.

They can either do on-site affordable units for 15% of floor area at 80% AMI.

They can do off-site for-sale ADUs

also at 80% AMI rather than the, you know, 35 that Habitat gets to, or they can give to Habitat or they can give us $130,000.

So those are the choices here.

Yeah, just to add to that, Commissioner Karim, the cash in lieu of actual units, it's never enough.

to build the actual units.

The amount of money is never enough to build the actual units.

When the state granted the city,

the authority to enact this proper policy.

The state was very rigid in terms of giving the city the flexibility to actually prefer actual units in lieu of

Al-Cash payment.

So the cash payment is never enough to develop the conventional units.

On a related note, I just want to point this out for the Planning Commission and the City Council.

Al- Based on the Morrie Avenue proffer, you know, the project could actually be completed before the proffered units are developed.

So you need to know that because

The proffer was designed such that once the developer gives habitat the units, they have fulfilled their proffer, you know, which it's a little bit too hard for staff to swallow.

So the planning commission, the city council, I want you guys to understand that this project can actually be completed

Excellent.

I'm not quite sure on the stand.

This application can be developed

before any of the proffers are delivered?

Is that what you say?

Yes, yes.

Yeah, the proffers will be developed eventually.

But because it's not being developed on site,

on Murray Avenue.

The question I'm asking is the one that Commissioner Stolzenberg asked earlier.

Is there a proper route there?

And they said they're going to develop in Charlottesville affordable housing.

where we have to monitor the development to make sure the development of the profit to make sure it's developed.

You've been whispering in my ear about this for a while now.

Please help me.

Am I missing something?

They have to fulfill the profit.

I think we're talking about different things, right?

Because they have to fulfill the profit.

The only way they can finish without building the units is to fulfill the profit by selling the lots of habitat, right?

Or transferring the lots of habitat.

So by the time it's done, Habitat still has to own the lots.

Yeah, they will build the profit, but that profit unit may not be completed when the Morrie Avenue development is completed.

Rory Stolzenberg, Yeah, then please correct me if I'm wrong, just to clarify is that the building permit is tied to the proffer and the proffer could be considered complete once they sell them once they give habitat land.

Rory Stolzenberg, So again, Rory, you're my conscience.

Rory Stolzenberg, I mean, to me, I think, you know, lots are transferred to habitat.

I mean that that's pretty good.

I think the worry would be the habitat deal falls through.

They have to provide either onsite units or build their own 80% off AMI offsite units or give us cash.

Rory, the question is, are you worried about this?

If you're not, then I'm not.

I mean, I think the wording of the proffer is not ideal.

I think we've learned a lot since 2019 on how to frame these proffers correctly.

But I mean, I think we got to yes in 2019 because

you know the lots getting transferred to Habitat and fructing the Habitat will build them because Habitat's you know full like charitable mission is to build houses is pretty good and to me I think nothing really changes in it based on whether we get a few more affordable units because the percentage stays the same and they're where footage goes up so

I'm not any more worried about it than I was in 2019.

I am worried that we're wandering into discussion and we're out of questions for staff and applicants.

Let's focus on the staff and get to the applicant.

Any more questions for staff at this time?

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm Charlie Armstrong with Southern Development and I appreciate hearing the questions and some of this discussion before my presentation because I actually didn't prepare much of a presentation for you tonight because the issue before you I think is pretty straightforward.

We're going back into the zoning issue that was debated at length over several meetings in 2019 and

of the Commission and City Council at that time decided the proffer was good and approved the rezoning.

So the answer to some of the specific questions is yes, it would create more units by approving this SUP if we have more density on this site, it does create more affordable units.

Those would either be offsite and we like the idea of doing them with habitat at Flint Hill.

We need to get Flint Hill through the approval process and built, but that is something that's in process now.

That I think is the way to create the most impact with these affordable units.

And so we're going to do as many of those as we can.

The math earlier was correct that Flint Hill has eight required affordable units.

And so we are doing 16 with habitat there.

And so these would fulfill partially that depending on how many units we end up with at this site, it may be we need to find more sites for more units than the additional eight that we have available at Flint Hill.

But that's a possibility.

What we're really asking about here for this SUP is not changing any of the zoning that we talked about and decided in 2019, but really just the ability to put more units in the same buildings that we proposed with our plan in 2019.

Removing that parking structures creates more space for those units.

Students don't drive as much and don't have as much of a demand for parking, though some do.

So we are in agreement with staff's suggested condition about making sure there's a defined parking plan for that.

I'll reiterate, it does not change any of the layouts that were approved with the zoning.

It is the same mass, just creating more opportunity for residential space and less opportunity for car storage in those exact same buildings.

We're also in agreement with staff's recommendation for the seven-foot sidewalk and buffer strip along Murray Avenue that is heavily pedestrian traveled certainly for six days a year at least during football season, but at other times too.

and also with the conditions about the max density there and the yard requirements, which I think are in keeping with what was proposed with the rezoning.

I have just one question.

I'm assuming, you know, you have to have more bedrooms means more sort of like studios or two bedrooms.

We do.

I think it would be an increase in the number of one bedroom and two bedroom.

and probably fewer of the larger units, but that's not fully resolved yet.

And I guess fully answer that question a little bit more.

I don't think it, overall, I don't think it changes the better it would count, but I think staff mentioned that.

Please.

Sorry, to follow up on that, I'm a bit confused why it doesn't increase the bedroom count.

You know, what is the extra square footage being used for as just like extra kitchens and stuff because the units are smaller.

Can it increase the bedroom count?

Yeah, it can.

And we'll look at what we can fit in there.

The only additional residential square footage that we're adding is what was that parking structure.

The rest of the residential

Sqrt footage is staying pretty much the same.

So that's really the only opportunity to increase occupiable space.

And that's, that's what it'll be.

So I guess my question is like, you know, at its core, I see this changes, you're filling in what was the parking garage with more units or more palatable space, right?

So, you know, is it reasonable to say that like that will all be new and added

and then separately with the rest of the space you're already in build, you might make them smaller units.

And so the unit count will go up.

The bamboo is on this property, and so our intent is to fully eradicate that as much as we can on our property.

It's badly invasive, as I'm sure you all know.

But there will be a lot of new landscaping per the requirements of the zoning and anything else we can fit.

There will be a lot of buildings occupying the space.

So it won't be woods by any means, but certainly meet and exceed the landscape requirements of the site plan or the zoning ordinance.

And wherever we can fit stuff that provides shaded sidewalks, we will.

Bareem, looking at the landscape plan in the submittal package, they're calling for maples and scarlet oaks along the sidewalk.

Thank you.

Mr. Palmer, you are the neighbor.

No, I don't have a whole lot of thought on this.

Yeah, we have, and I'm happy to answer your curiosity.

We're actually under construction renovating that house right now.

One of the proffers that we made with the zoning in 2019 was that that house be preserved, that it not be demolished.

And so it needed some TLC.

It had seen a lot of years of partial occupancy and then vacancy.

And so it is getting renovated right now.

It will be at least one

Charlie, back in 19, I think you were

proposing or thinking about doing this as an investment tax credit project with the Department of Historic Resources.

Is that still the case?

We haven't ruled anything out completely, but it looks really hard to do.

We've gotten it

nominated or qualified at least to be one of those projects, but the requirements about some of the interior spaces are very stringent, and I don't know that we can fully accommodate those.

Yeah, I was very optimistic.

I was on the State Review Board when you got it deemed eligible for the National Register and for the purpose of doing a tax credit project.

So I was delighted to see that and hopeful that that was going to go through because there's some good safeguards to protecting the interiors of the house with those tax credits and the program.

Now I'm a little worried about the interior of the house.

Please.

Sorry, I got one more for staff I was going to ask earlier before we went on the tangent.

A follow-up to Commissioner Habab's question about the crosswalk at Price.

Mr. Alpley, I think you mentioned it was a mid-block crosswalk, I guess because the property doesn't actually go all the way to Price, but is it feasible to get a crosswalk drawn at Price, or is that like an off-site improvement that we couldn't do as part of this?

Okay.

Council, questions for the applicant.

All right, if you'd like to speak at this time, please click the raise hand icon, or if you're joining us on telephone, please press star nine.

Each speaker will be given three minutes.

All right, first speaker is Brent Lee.

Great.

Hi, yes, Brent Lee.

I am the owner of 2307 Price Avenue, which is on the south side Jason property.

And I just wanted to publicly express, you know, I have met with the developers.

My concern is about the privacy issue and security because we are right adjacent to this property.

The building will be elevated looking directly into our backyard.

I understand from what I just heard that this request does not actually increase necessarily the bed count.

So it's really not going to change from what I understand that even though the density of the apartments, it won't change.

But again,

My concern is about the privacy we have met because I would like to request of the developer that and the city that we put in some sort of natural evergreen sort of screening.

We have proactively put in 12 trees in our backyard to hopefully evergreens to hopefully build that up over time.

But I do want to publicly express I am concerned about the privacy issue and potentially noise with increasing density of in fact

Thank you.

All right.

Yep.

You are on.

Can you hear us?

Yes.

Good evening, everyone.

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

I'm also the chair of FAR.

I want to just express about the proffers and where the affordable housing may be built.

Again, defining affordable needs to happen.

because even with Habitat, and Habitat works very well with our public housing residents to make them homeowners, we still have a lot of residents who will not be able to even live in the units that you all build by that proffer.

Even with a Section 8 voucher, they would not be able to do that.

I won't name the developments that have been built that was supposed to provide affordable housing.

And even with trying to relocate some of our residents from the flood, they weren't even eligible to be able to even use the vouchers to rent those units.

So again, thank you, Sina, for asking.

But again, there is a population of people who even when you build those units,

in the city, they will not be able to afford it.

And we do need to define affordable so that we can have people from zero to 50%.

Thank you for listening.

And one more thing, Charlie Armstrong and I have spoken about affordability several times.

And he told, basically, he said, you know, it doesn't work.

There's no way that it can make it work to be deeply affordable.

So again, just wanna sing my song.

No hands raised right now.

Seeing no hands, I would like to close this public meeting or public hearing session.

Yes, I think I got all the words right.

At this point, I would like to move towards deliberation on this item.

Oh, if you don't mind, what I'd like to do is put a motion on the table that we can deliberate around.

Please.

I totally appreciate Mrs. Johnson's concern, and as she and my friends afar know I'm deeply concerned as well.

Recognizing that, I think that this is something that would be of value to move forward with.

So my motion is that, let me find the, one second.

My motion is that the application SP22-00002 be recommended for approval to counsel with the conditions articulated by staff on page 16 of the staff report.

And I'd be open to friendly amendments regarding

I'm looking for a second on that.

I hear a second.

Can I ask one more question of staff?

Yes.

To Mr. Lee's question about a landscaping buffer.

Am I correct in understanding that according to the dimensional required or the screening section of code 34-871 and S3 buffer would be required here, which is, oh sorry, it's actually the dimensional requirements 353, which is like the most, the thickest buffer because it's on the border of, because we rezoned to R3

That is correct.

I have to say that landscaping plan, I can see there's much trees there.

Thank you.

I guess I would say, you know, given that

The only thing we're really considering here is replacing some of the parking with more units, which, you know, proportionally increases the property to, you know, it's, I think it's kind of a no-brainer that it has to be done.

I mean, right across the street, we've got student housing, Cooke-Chillard, Hereford, with absolutely no parking.

I don't think the parking reduction is at all concerning and, in fact, that's desirable to limit the number of cars that kids can have and

The traffic on our streets.

I would just say, though, you know, I would rather see there be more bedrooms here so that more students can fit here than for space to be filled with the extra kitchen because they don't have to share units anymore or whatever it is that would have filled up space.

seems to me that we're ready for the vote.

I can accept that as well.

All right.

Ms.

Sure.

Ms.

Russell?

Aye.

Aye.

I believe that resolves this issue.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I would like to move for consideration of 207 14th Street Northwest.

This is a request for a special use permit for a hotel use.

Absolutely.

Good evening.

So this request is for William Chattanoff, who is the applicant and content purchaser, contract purchaser, who is requesting a special use permit pursuant to city code to allow for a hotel use on the subject property, which is 207 14th Street.

Subject property is currently developed with a 21 unit multifamily condominium use and the applicant wishes to renovate the existing building to accommodate a 19 unit hotel with one residential apartment.

Subject property is currently zoned B1 business under the B1 zoning classification hotel uses with 100 or fewer rooms are allowed with an approved special use permit, while multifamily residential units are allowed by right with the density up to 21 dwelling units per acre.

The current condominium apartment use is legal non-conforming with a DUA of 84 and the conversion from apartments to hotel would reduce this DUA to four units per acre.

The surrounding area is a mix of residential apartments, single-family detached dwelling units and hotel uses predominantly serving as student housing and lodging from the nearby University of Virginia along with commercial retail and restaurant uses.

with staff does find that the proposed use is harmonious with the existing patterns of use within the neighborhood.

The recently adopted 2021 future land use map designates 207 14th Street for higher intensity residential.

Higher intensity residential is described as multi-unit housing with 13 or more units per lot, along with limited ground floor commercial uses with building form and height determined by historic and neighborhood context.

affordability and increased intensity in this district are emphasized to meet affordable housing plan goals.

Their proposed redevelopment does meet some of the 2021 comprehensive plan's goals regarding sustainable reuse of existing buildings, protecting the existing identity of city neighborhoods, and retaining successful businesses and jobs.

The proposed new residential density does not easily fit within the future land use category of higher intensity residential,

which is geared towards multifamily apartments and mixed use.

The proposed change of use would also result in a reduction of available rental housing within the city in this area.

However, the existing apartment use is non-conforming in nature and located in an area of dense residential apartments geared towards short-term student housing.

For parking and traffic, the subject property currently has 15 off-street parking spaces which does not meet the current zoning requirement of 21 paces

for the 21 condominium uses currently there.

The applicant is proposing to remove six off-street parking spaces fronting 14th Street, replacing them with a drop-off and loading area for hotel use.

Valet parking would be provided via the nearby 14th Street parking garage for the hotel guests.

City code requires one off-street parking space for guest room for commercial hotel users, and the code does allow for off-strike parking to be used to meet this requirement.

Given the requirements of our ordinance, the existing site can provide the required 20 parking spaces for the hotel use and one residential unit via the existing nine off-street parking spaces combined with off-site valet parking.

Although formal trip generation figures were not provided, the change of use is not expected to generate significantly more traffic than the existing residential use.

Overall staff believes this change of use to hotel would be appropriate for a transitional district that is B1 business and would eliminate an existing nonconformity for the established apartment use.

We recommend that a request for a hotel use could be approved with the following conditions.

Number one, that the applicant shall submit an amended site plan depicting parking, landscaping, and utility line changes.

Number two, that automatic fire sprinklers, alarms, and appropriate means of egress shall be provided within the building in accordance with the applicable requirements of the Virginia Uniform Statewide Building Code.

And number three, that the applicant shall submit a fine lease permit verifying offsite parking to neighborhood development services prior to site plan approval.

That concludes my presentation.

I'd be happy to take any questions.

Thank you.

Mr. Bob, I saw your hand up.

No worries.

So it pains me to pontificate for a second, but I will pontificate just for a second because I try not to.

But losing housing units is hard for me.

So I'd like to understand, one, from the staff, why, if staff understands what happened a few years back, why we approved this downsizing housing and approved a hotel.

Also, I'd like to understand, remind me why this is a legal non-conforming use as it is today.

And then I'd like maybe the applicant to kind of walk us through what

because I don't want to get involved in a takings issue.

I mean, if they've got a right to do this, let's help them do this.

Sure.

I cannot comment on the last SUP that was passed over 10 years ago.

Although I believe there was some concern about losing housing units downtown at the time that was approved.

There was, I believe, at least one been sending commissioner to the approval of that SUP.

However, it is a matter of 21 units total.

though it's relatively small amount of dwelling units given the size and density of the area.

The applicant can probably speak more to the context of the building, but the property is a historic structure that was originally built as a motel use in the 1950s.

And then at some time in the past, it was converted to condominiums.

And so the applicant is kind of proposing to change that use back to a hotel use.

So it's kind of a challenge because the zoning and the future land use map are not exactly in concert with this, and that was kind of brought up in the staff report.

This is an area of high density housing, but it's also an area of a number of hotel uses, including one directly adjacent to it, and it is located in a transactional commercial district.

Yeah, I have a question in this about the SAP report and specifically the standard review for SUP number four in particular.

The staff report says the item is reduction in the availability of affordable housing in the neighborhood that's for us to consider

And the report says no affordable dwelling units currently exist within the subject property.

And, you know, I'm looking at the assessments for these condos, which I think are all one bedrooms.

They range for $136,000 for pretty much all of them.

And then one of them is $250,000 and one of them is $155,000.

And then, you know, I'm looking at the owner, the current owner's website, Alcova, and it says the rent for one of these, these one bedrooms are truly a studio.

The studio rents for $770 a month.

And that includes utilities.

You know, then I go look, you know, what that is in terms of AMI.

and it's right around like the 45% AMI range for a one-person household.

And now I recognize maybe that website's a little out of date.

The Daily Progress article back in 2010 said 650 to 795 a month.

They could be based on a definition of AMI.

That line was put in after consulting with the applicants who said that there were no affordable units.

And I believe the intent was there were no units participating in any kind of affordable housing program within that structure.

They were all being offered at whatever rate rent was being offered in the markets.

But of course, that does not capture the actual what that market rate is.

And if they were being offered

Thank you.

Additional questions?

I'm sorry, I didn't understand the question.

What do you mean naturally occurring affordable housing unit?

So, you know, they're not in a formal program that regulates, you know, income of people who can live there or, you know, requires the rent to be that low, but they are just by virtue of the rent that they're able to charge these units affordable to people at even very low income, you know, below 50% AMI levels.

Ms.

Yeah, I just want to echo that.

Thank you.

Mr. O'Connell, you said that this is a historic building.

What is that based on?

Yes, it is part of the architectural control district.

I believe the BAR did review this SUP and agreed to use permits that it would not substantially impact the neighborhood.

However, the applicant does propose to remodel the facade, although not changing the structure of the building.

Okay.

Again, this was all 12 years ago.

No, that was part of a separate request.

No, I meant the prior BAR approval.

Mr. Mitchell.

I just wanted to ask Mr. Landra, how does that question factor into our adjudication of this SUP?

Well, it doesn't impact me.

It will once it comes to the VAR, but it doesn't have anything to do with my evaluation and I think our evaluation at this point right now.

I just wasn't aware that this was a historic district.

I missed that.

News to me too.

Thank you.

Ms.

I just want to make sure there wasn't a misunderstanding between what Jody was asking.

This was reviewed at the February 15, 2022 meeting, says in the staff report, right?

Yes.

I had to miss miss party that meeting.

Back back to the same part of the quick reason I was like, okay, thanks.

Additional questions for staff on this item?

Mr. Palmer, you're not so far from this.

I really don't.

I guess my one thought is, you know, in talking about losing the housing, which I agree is not ideal.

If this were converted to hotel, how hard would it be to potentially someday convert that back to housing?

Well, it originally was constructed as a hotel and then it was converted to condominiums and now it's going back to hotels.

But now it's illegal by zoning, right?

Correct.

Any additional questions for staff?

I'm looking at council.

In case you couldn't tell, I was looking at you.

Welcome.

Yeah, it's Bill Chapman.

Thanks for having me.

I am in the business of historic preservation and hospitality, I guess.

I guess to start to explain why I want to do this.

I've used historic preservation as sort of a tool to help

Well, let me, let me back up.

I've used conversion to hotel as a tool to fund historic preservation.

So we own, or my partners and I own nine buildings over here on the south side of UVA in the Oakhurst-Gildersleeve Historic District and some of them are apartments and some are private homes and some are hotel rooms.

but they all took very extensive renovation and we've sort of transformed one or two streets over here from the way they looked 10 years ago and I would plan to do that at this new location.

The block just down the hill from this property on 14th Street is one of the dirtiest

blocks in the whole city in terms of trash and sort of transform that a little bit because it'd be in the hospitality business and needs to look good.

When I first learned about the units, they did look affordable because the rents were kind of low, but I later did the math and they're kind of the same price on a per square foot basis as some new apartments here in town.

I own a building

on JPA that I built seven years ago and rents for about $2.30 per square foot per month or something like that.

And that's actually the same price as the rents here on 14th Street.

So they are affordable.

They're cheap, but they're also very small.

It's basically people living in rundown hotel rooms.

They're not really appropriate apartments in many people's eyes.

It was definitely built as a hotel and operated that way for a few years.

So I think that's worth noting.

I think it's gonna be a great example of sort of mid-century modern architecture preservation that doesn't really happen in Charlottesville that often.

So I'm excited about that aspect.

And again, I just see the conversion as a tool to renovate.

You could renovate this property

and try to operate it as an apartment building, but I'm not sure what the financial feasibility that would be, which is probably why the current owner who's had it for 35 years hasn't done it because it's not feasible.

By the time you shut it down, renovate it for a year and bring it back, the rents for a 300-foot apartment would only be slightly above where they are now.

So I don't think you could ever get that

Philip dOronzio, Rory Stolzenberg, Financed, even if you wanted to do it.

So I think there's some economic problems to this building Philip dOronzio, Rory Stolzenberg, Continuing as an apartment building because it's kind of terminal.

It goes downhill forever until someone renovates it.

Philip dOronzio, Rory Stolzenberg, I do think it can be converted back to housing one day.

I'm not

not even changing like the layouts just freshening up everything adding new plumbing electrical sprinkler system that kind of thing.

I think they could make apartments in the future and I'm open to that.

I'm in the apartment business as well.

Thank you.

I'd like to hear questions for the applicant from the Commission at this time.

Bill, I think what you're trying to do is admirable, frankly, and I think I'll try to find a way to get behind you.

But I chuckle when you say that they're not appropriate apartments when you think of the rooms that the kids live on the lawn and on the range and the size of those apartments and the fact that they have to get in their bathrobes and walk to the shower and say,

Take a shower.

I also think that kids at that age don't need what Lyle and I need in apartments.

I can see how there'd be an argument for them serving as apartments.

I guess I was just sort of echoing what I've heard about why can't we turn the landmark hotel into an affordable apartment building.

I often hear those aren't good apartments, but I guess I don't know the detail behind that.

They could make good apartments, but my statement about the economics of doing that kind of stands.

I think

Most or all of what I'm planning to do would be necessary to bring them back as renovated, safe, modern apartments.

And you'd still be trying to pay for that by renting out a 300-foot apartment.

Yeah, again, I think I can get behind this.

My only concern is losing 21 units.

to hotels.

Ms.

I wouldn't bet that this is all students living in these apartments.

What I noticed

walking around and spending some time on site is there seem to be a lot of people that work.

We have to remember that not just students live in the area around the university, but it seems like a pretty great proximity to the UVA health system, to UVA.

I mean, so many people can't live in this community, let alone proximate to UVA.

So I caution in being cavalier about, you know, just serving students because,

I don't think that's the case.

I hear you on the economics, and I wish that this was a conversation about what could we do to make this a viable apartment.

Well, I agree that there's a mix of people living there.

I think 20...

30 years ago, it was a student apartment building.

That was probably business they wanted to get into when they converted it away from hotel use.

But there's just, I would say it's a mix of people now.

I don't really have a lot of demographic information, but just visually, it doesn't look like the student, every other building I see on the streets, student apartment building, and this one looks just a little different.

But I

I don't like the future of this building because it just gets older and older and there's no money being put into it and it kind of needs it.

And so I think it takes an event like this to make it happen.

I feel bad about these apartment leases coming to an end, but it's a terminal situation.

Yeah, Mr. Trevin, are you suggesting that this building is, you know, in imminent need of condemnation or that there are, you know, egregious building code violations that make it unlivable?

Or are you saying that, you know, it's the aren't appropriate apartments because they're small and outdated?

Probably the last thing you said is most what I was thinking.

I don't know anything about condemnation standards, but, you know, extremely inefficient, like one big antique boiler in the basement just cranking away, blasting out heat, very little control within the apartment, so open windows, things like that.

I've run into all this before with old buildings on ochre circle and I would say there's much safer now that I've added sprinkler systems and modern wiring and plumbing in some cases that came with a change of use in some cases it didn't this property was built as a motel I think it's

best operated as a hotel, especially since it needs this new life brought to it for renovation.

Now, could it go for a few more years as an apartment building?

Yeah.

Could it go for 20 more years with an apartment building?

No, Mr. Stolzenberg's question was mine, and the answer was on target.

Additional questions for the applicant?

I don't.

I was just looking at the Google Maps Street View, and it just hit me that

There's a hospitality house.

The health system runs right next door.

It's kind of a hoteling function.

So in some ways, this is kind of complementary to that.

And if people were going to the hospital or something, they might be able to utilize the shuttle that I know they run between that facility and the hospital.

There was a shuttle.

I'm in touch with the management of the hospitality house.

told them about my plans.

And at least the woman I talked to who answered the phone seemed excited because I think they have a two week limit there.

That's a subsidized hotel stay paid for by the hospital, but there's a limit on it.

She says, you know, people often want to stay longer and maybe they could stay at your place.

I do have one residential apartment that I'm going to have furnished there.

Yeah.

I'm seeing shaking heads.

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All right.

I would like to move to discussion.

Who would like to start us off?

And I'm looking at you, Mr. Mitchell.

Sorry.

But I'd like to make a motion.

You guys cool with that motion?

Any objections?

I'm not going to support a motion at this point.

My take on it is that even if that if the use intensified perhaps and it was redeveloped, perhaps mixed to use in addition, I just can't

really support a hotel here when what we really need is affordable housing.

I don't think it's a great street for a hotel.

Additional discussion.

It occurs thinking about it occurs to me that I would rather have this building be used as a hotel and

take some of the pressure, the temptation away of making residences close to the university, turning them into Airbnbs.

That's a legal question.

I want to kind of echo in Commissioner Russell's

thoughts.

I want to appreciate the applicant, Mr. Chapman's dedication to historic preservation and to modernizing the building systems.

But this is currently exactly the missing metal housing that we're trying to develop in the city.

I would argue that

Totally appreciate Ms.

Russell and Ms.

Habib's sentiments.

I respect them.

But is this where we want to fight our battle?

This is UVA.

These UVA kids, they're going to live there.

Yeah, so ordinarily for a hotel project, I really go along with Commissioner Alejandro's point

because it is beneficial to have purpose-built hotels to take off pressure on the Airbnb stock.

And, you know, for a hotel that's coming to us, something like a gallery court, if they want to come and say, we want five extra stories on top of what we got and we'll have even more rooms, I think that is great.

I think, and if they want to come back once we change, they're already maxed out.

I think 19 units, 19 rooms in a hotel is not going to appreciably affect the overall hotel market in the area.

Certainly there are many large new hotels going up all over the urban ring.

And to me, the difference between this property and the landmark is that the landmark is an empty husk that will take $20 million to complete, whereas 207 14th Street Northwest

is the home to 21 people who have a place to live and it's affordable.

And Commissioner Russell mentioned earlier that it's affordable because it's old.

And I almost jumped in to say, I mean, that's true, but it's also affordable because these units are small.

As Mr. Chapman said, even if you were to renovate it, you're not going to be able to get that much more rent out of it.

And there's a long tradition in American society and history of housing of hotels as they age and become less fashionable, being converted into SROs or into efficiencies and becoming that lowest tier of housing stock that can't charge that much in rent.

and in many cases becoming even the housing of last resort.

And we've outlawed that over time and that has perhaps most directly, if anything, created our homelessness crisis.

In this case, I think it would be a mistake to approve the removal of these 21 homes.

You know, I commend Mr. Chapman on his work elsewhere.

But I just don't think that this is an appropriate place to do it.

I'd also call out, you know, to the extent that this is, you know, approaching unlimited ability or, you know, deteriorating over time, even though it's, you know, clearly 21 people are happy to live there now.

We do have programs for rehabilitation of structures like this in our last cap allocation.

There was a large allocation to LEAP for renter-occupied units to get energy retrofits, do things like replacing that boiler and weatherizing those windows at no cost to the landlord, with the only condition that there would be a several-year period where the rents don't increase as a result of it.

And so that's why we have programs like that, to keep housing stock like this.

in livable shape.

So I've swept this battle and I put this battle in data

or hills.

This is a hill I'm not willing to die on.

We do need more hospitality space in Charlottesville.

You know who and understanding how hard it is to get who's in town and who's coming to town.

And this space is not going to negatively impact affordable housing in Charlottesville because the folks who live here are not

the folks who live in Prince of Court or not the folks who live in prison halls, these different kinds of folks.

Is that a mission in our comp plan?

I'm not aware of it.

I don't think it is, but... Yes, I think it absolutely is.

Sure.

Again, I'm totally willing to lose a vote, but

I'd like to make a motion.

Please.

Second.

Discussion on this item.

Counsel, you've been very quiet.

I would just say I would concur with the points people have made.

My thought is this would be putting the 21 people who live there, if they're UVA students, into other neighborhoods.

If they're not UVA students, probably out of the community entirely.

and I know that our future land use map calls for higher intensity residential and it would just seem to me to be counter to the goals of our future land use map comprehensive plan and our affordable housing strategy.

And the final point I would make is I would just raise a question.

I don't know the answer to it, but I would just raise a question of whether building new hotel units would actually reduce the number of Airbnbs in the community because at least from my perspective,

I think a lot of people, especially younger people who go to Airbnbs, almost see that as a different thing than a hotel.

And they want an Airbnb for a specific reason beyond just it being a lodging unit.

But just raise that, you know, I don't know, you know, how the numbers would work out, but I would question what impact it would have on Airbnbs generally, but particularly with the number of units or number of

For whatever it's worth, I did send you all an email clarification from Jeff Werner, the Secretary for the City Board of Architectural Review.

This building is not a contributing member to the historic district.

So it can be torn down.

It can be demolished without BAR's approval.

But the only reason it came in front of the BAR because there is improvements being proposed and those are reviewable by BAR within a historic district.

So thank you.

I guess last thing I'd say, I think Commissioner Mitchell's point is valid.

And I, you know, I don't entirely agree with Councillor Payne's point.

I think Airbnbs and hotels are substitutes, even if they're not, they aren't perfect substitutes for sure.

But, you know, we're not exactly flooding the zone with tons of hotel rooms with this marginal project, right?

Like if Ochre wanted to be

six, nine stories tall and add a ton of rooms where we were going to have a hotel anyway, I would have voted it for those reasons, but they're not particularly compelling to me here.

And to bring it back to, you know, our standards of review for special use permits, C, displacement of existing residents or businesses, proposed renovations would displace any tenants, replace 21 multi-family units,

and F, reduction in the availability of affordable housing in the neighborhood.

To me, I think those are probably the most important even standards of review if I'm allowed to rank them.

Hearing this silence, Ms.

So this is a recommendation for denial.

I was looking at something wrong.

Yes.

Mr. Hibab?

Ms.

No.

I believe the motion to deny passes.

I believe we are done with our public hearings on the big three.

Council, I believe you are free.

Am I correct about this?

Live your lives.

Be free.

Thank you all very much.

Lyle, you might want to... You lost him.

Encourage him to save it.

Understandable.

Let's talk about Jefferson Park Avenue.

The elevator speech, please.

Commissioners, there is a proposal in under review tonight.

You're going to hold a public hearing for a special use permit at 2005 Jefferson Park Avenue for increased density, reduction of rear setback, and reduction of parking.

The applicant

has reviewed staff's report, both the SUP report and the entrance corridor report, and has requested to defer so they can address some of the issues in those reports.

This was passed along to Planning Commission, so you were made aware since the advertisement had already gone out.

And I know there's probably many members of the public here who are expecting that public hearing tonight.

Excellent.

Thank you.

We threw the party.

Thank you for coming.

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If you're joining us via telephone, each speaker will be given three minutes to speak.

Seeing no hands, I closed this public hearing.

I thought we would have so many people.

I'm shocked.

All right, perhaps our communications are more efficient than I thought.

So the only question I've got is like, when was the last time Georgia has won the national championship?

Can't happen.

Can't happen.

Matt?

No, I have a lag on my computer.

When's the last time you guys won a national championship?

Commissioner, that would be just a few months ago they won the national championship.

I know.

Do we have any other matters we want to discuss before closing?

Peace out.

I autocorrected it in my brain.

It was amazing.

Yeah, it's completely appropriate.

Well, I think we are all done.

Good night.