City Council Meeting   6/21/2022

1. OPENING SESSION

2. Call to Order/Roll Call

• • Lloyd Snook
  • 00:00:01
    Why don't we call the meeting back to order.
  • 00:00:05
    We have been in closed session.
• • Juandiego Wade
  • 00:00:08
    Yes, I move that the City Council members certified by a recorded vote that to the best of each member's knowledge only public business matters lawfully exempted from the open meeting requirements of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act and identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard, discussed, or considered in the closed meeting.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 00:00:35
    Is there a second to that motion?
• • Brian Pinkston
  • 00:00:37
    Second.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 00:00:39
    Ms.
  • 00:00:39
    Robinson would you take the roll please?
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 00:00:43
    Councilor McGill?
  • 00:00:44
    Yes.
  • 00:00:44
    Councilor Payne?
  • 00:00:45
    Yes.
  • 00:00:46
    Councilor Pinkston?
  • 00:00:47
    Yes.
  • 00:00:48
    Mayor Snook?
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 00:00:48
    Yes.
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 00:00:49
    Vice Mayor Wade?
• • SPEAKER_27
  • 00:00:50
    Yes.

3. Agenda Approval

• • Lloyd Snook
  • 00:00:51
    Okay so that motion passes we are now back in open session the first item of the agenda should be the approval of the agenda is there a motion to approve or amend the agenda I think the
  • 00:01:04
    The agenda as originally produced has to be amended in one respect in that we're deleting what had been item number 10, reconstituting the Charlottesville Planning Commission and appointing and reappointing its members for staggered terms.
  • 00:01:19
    That's something we'll have to do but we're just not going to do it tonight.
• • Brian Pinkston
  • 00:01:24
    So I would move that we approve the agenda with the amendment that item 10 be deleted from our agenda tonight.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 00:01:35
    Is there a second?
• • Brian Pinkston
  • 00:01:37
    Second.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 00:01:39
    All in favor?
  • 00:01:41
    Aye.
  • 00:01:41
    Any opposed?
  • 00:01:42
    Motion passes.
  • 00:01:44
    So as I said before, the meeting will be divided into a number of different sections.
  • 00:01:48
    The 4 o'clock session right now
  • 00:01:51
    is to hear and discuss presentations that do not require a council vote.
  • 00:01:55
    We will go back into a closed meeting between about 5.30 and about 6.30, then the council business meeting, which will begin around 6.30.
  • 00:02:04
    A reminder that there is seating available in council chambers for up to 23 preregistered attendees and media.
  • 00:02:13
    Other than that, you can tune in by Zoom.

4. Reports

• • Lloyd Snook
  • 00:02:16
    So the reports for the 4 o'clock

5. 1. City-owned properties

• • Lloyd Snook
  • 00:02:19
    agenda.
  • 00:02:19
    The first one is on city owned properties and Ms.
  • 00:02:23
    Kelly, Brenda Kelly to present to us.
• • SPEAKER_14
  • 00:02:27
    Good afternoon.
  • 00:02:29
    I need to share my screen.
  • 00:02:31
    So I am going to do that.
  • 00:02:42
    And can you all see that?
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 00:02:44
    Yes.
• • SPEAKER_14
  • 00:02:51
    Okay, so for the record, I'm Brenda Kelly, Redevelopment Manager with the Office of Community Solutions.
  • 00:02:58
    And today we are going to talk about city properties.
  • 00:03:02
    As you may recall, a couple of meetings ago, we had a discussion on city leases.
  • 00:03:10
    and some of this discussion will be a duplicate of that but this will also be more information specifically on city-owned properties so when we're talking about city-owned properties we're talking about city-owned properties within city limits
  • 00:03:25
    and those city owned properties located in the county.
  • 00:03:28
    And also we're talking about jointly owned properties, which are typically properties owned jointly by the city and the county.
  • 00:03:36
    So those properties in the city limits and those properties located in the county.
  • 00:03:41
    This discussion will not include a discussion on streets, alleys,
  • 00:03:48
    paper streets and paper alleys, which are basically unimproved streets and alleys and those properties owned by the city of Charlottesville school board.
  • 00:03:57
    So we will not be talking about those properties.
  • 00:04:01
    So here's some facts about our discussion today.
  • 00:04:04
    So the total number of parcels that the city owns in the county and the city is 170.
  • 00:04:11
    Total number of jointly owned properties, 18.
  • 00:04:15
    The approximate acreage of city owned properties within the city, 789 acres and over 2,800 acres of city owned properties located in the county.
  • 00:04:31
    So as we break this down a little bit more, here's the number of parcels specifically broken down by city owned properties and jointly owned properties.
  • 00:04:42
    And then we can talk a little bit more about the city owned properties and how we have tried to classify them just so we have some idea of what we're looking at.
  • 00:04:56
    So this identifies how we've had classified the properties and roughly the number of parcels.
  • 00:05:06
    So as you go through this, we've tried to generalize the description.
  • 00:05:12
    And for example, the ones at the bottom, the vacant lots, right of ways and utilities, those are typically city owned properties that don't fall under those other classifications.
  • 00:05:24
    And for example, in this category of those 32 properties, two of those parcels are over half an acre, six of those parcels are between a quarter of a half an acre, and all the rest of those 32 then are less than a quarter of an acre.
  • 00:05:41
    So we thought that information might be kind of useful to all of you.
  • 00:05:47
    So let's give you some examples of some city owned properties.
  • 00:05:52
    I'm sure you're all aware of the fire stations, the schools, the city facilities, the parks, properties like that.
  • 00:06:03
    So we thought we'd give you some examples of ones that you may not be as aware of.
  • 00:06:09
    So this is an example of a surface parking lot the city owns on West Main Street and also adjacent to this property is the Star Hill Park.
  • 00:06:21
    So the picture on the left is the view of the city-owned parking lot from West Main Street.
  • 00:06:28
    And the view on the right is where that L-sheet piece of property wraps around the back of those properties running West Main.
  • 00:06:36
    And in the picture on the right, you can also see off to the right, the Star Hill Park, which is adjacent to that.
  • 00:06:45
    Here's another parking lot.
  • 00:06:48
    This is one of the only instances in the city where there is a permit only parking lot in a residential neighborhood.
  • 00:06:56
    And this parking lot is located on Estee Street.
  • 00:07:01
    And in case you don't know where Estee Street is, this is south of West Main and the railroad tracks.
  • 00:07:09
    UVA has a daycare center right across the street.
  • 00:07:18
    Another property, and this would fall under that category or description of other parks and trails type properties.
  • 00:07:31
    This is a property the city owns over by Free Bridge that is actually an entrance to a trail.
  • 00:07:37
    So just to give you some idea of these smaller parcels that are located throughout the city, this is a good example of that.
  • 00:07:49
    In 2019, the city approved a purchase of property by the Parks and Rec Department.
  • 00:07:56
    I don't think any of you were on the city council at that time, but it was most of this property adjacent to Jordan Park.
  • 00:08:06
    And the previous property owners had already planted these six lots.
  • 00:08:12
    So this is another city owned property that, you know, at some point we probably need to look at possible development of affordable housing.
  • 00:08:20
    That's one of the discussions we had early on when the city first approved the approval of the purchase of this property.
  • 00:08:29
    and the picture on the right is what you see of that property this is at the corner of Roy's Place and Hartman's Mill Road so just give you an idea where that is in the very south end of the city so city-owned properties located in the county this is how we basically developed a description of those properties and the number of parcels associated with those descriptions
  • 00:08:59
    And here's an example of some of these properties.
  • 00:09:03
    So Avon Street Extended, many of you may be familiar with the public works yard and the cat location and the school bus storage areas.
  • 00:09:13
    All these parcels in yellow are located in the county and they are owned by the city.
  • 00:09:23
    and here's over a thousand acres that the city owns on the very very western end of Albemarle County this is the Sugar Hollow Reservoir and also I'm not sure how many people know this the city owns about 10 acres at the Lake Albemarle and this is again in the western part of Albemarle County
  • 00:09:52
    So jointly owned properties within city limits we did have a discussion during the lease discussions about a lot of these properties and jointly owned properties located in Albemarle County and these are typically the open space related properties throughout the county
  • 00:10:14
    So while we're doing a lot of this research and we've known for some time, we do have some challenges when we talk about city-owned properties.
  • 00:10:23
    We need to develop a better consistent process when we have requests to dispose of the properties or acquire the properties.
  • 00:10:33
    Maintaining these properties, are there departments currently maintaining these properties?
  • 00:10:39
    We think a lot of them aren't being maintained.
  • 00:10:43
    and are any of these properties developable?
  • 00:10:47
    So we've looked at this a little bit more specifically and have some recommendations.
  • 00:10:53
    First of all, we need to develop a standard process when we get requests for acquisition or disposition of properties.
  • 00:11:03
    Some examples, how do we go about valuing the property?
  • 00:11:06
    Do we treat not-for-profits differently than for-profits?
  • 00:11:12
    different and various and all the departments maybe need to have some input on what's currently on those properties or is it needed for utilities or future right-of-way purposes maybe there's a history on the property that there's some restrictions about future uses of those properties so we need to develop some type of standard process that addresses all these concerns
  • 00:11:39
    When we're talking about maintaining properties, we need to identify a departmental staff point of contact.
  • 00:11:47
    What department should be responsible for maintaining these properties and in the case of some of our lease properties, is it appropriate to have the lessee actually maintain the property and have that put in the leases specifically?
  • 00:12:04
    and are any of these properties developable?
  • 00:12:07
    The city staff will be looking at most of these properties in a department-wide process and looking at if any of them are viable for development and most likely we will be back in front of you to discuss this in more detail.
  • 00:12:26
    So at this time our recommendation is to implement these recommendations and move forward with those recommendations and be back with you in the future.
  • 00:12:36
    So with that I'm happy to answer any questions.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 00:12:42
    I have a couple of questions about some of the specific properties.
  • 00:12:45
    I, for one, had not realized that we own 10 acres out by Albemarle Lake.
  • 00:12:51
    I did a little research and found at least some information about the accident of history that led to that.
  • 00:13:00
    going back to 1938 with Albemarle Lake being the product of the Civilian Conservation Corps and so on.
  • 00:13:08
    But I did not I guess the answer is that Charlottesville wound up buying some of that land as part of its effort to secure a water supply.
  • 00:13:20
    Is that is that right?
• • SPEAKER_14
  • 00:13:23
    That is what we have found with especially a lot of those county properties is that's exactly what a lot of those properties are having to do with the water supply.
  • 00:13:33
    I'm sure Public Utilities Department has a lot more information on the specific history, but that is primarily my understanding of a lot of those county properties.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 00:13:45
    Has there ever been any effort for Charlottesville to use that 10 acres out there?
• • SPEAKER_14
  • 00:13:53
    So a couple of years ago, I had a conversation with the parks and rec director and there was some discussion about there may be a use in the future to use that as a summer camp or something like that.
  • 00:14:09
    But I think that's what we'll get into more discussion with all the departments about is there an intended use or what is the current use?
  • 00:14:18
    Are there any restrictions, those type of concerns with each of the specific properties?
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 00:14:23
    Yeah, okay.
  • 00:14:25
    I mean, the other ones that had jumped immediately out were when you showed the graphic with those six lots around Charlie Close.
  • 00:14:34
    I was thinking, you know, it looks like they're ready to go.
  • 00:14:40
    What's the story?
  • 00:14:41
    You say the city actually bought them in 2019?
• • SPEAKER_14
  • 00:14:45
    Yes, that is when we closed.
  • 00:14:47
    The city purchased them.
  • 00:14:50
    Most of the properties that we probably will be looking at if they are developable or not, that we've had some kind of preliminary looks at, they do all have challenges with development.
  • 00:15:05
    Sure.
  • 00:15:06
    Those particular properties have some topographical challenges.
  • 00:15:11
    So we're already aware of that, but that is something we will be looking at.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 00:15:15
    Yeah.
  • 00:15:17
    Okay.
• • SPEAKER_18
  • 00:15:20
    The 67 acres on Avon Street, that's the transit, right?
• • SPEAKER_14
  • 00:15:27
    That is, yes.
  • 00:15:29
    The cats there, the school bus storage, public works, and quite a bit of vacant land.
  • 00:15:36
    And part of that is divided by a stream.
  • 00:15:39
    I think it's a portion maybe of Moore's Creek.
  • 00:15:42
    That might be not correct.
• • SPEAKER_18
  • 00:15:44
    And it looks like we own a quarter down the stream.
  • 00:15:49
    to another section kind of over there by Quarry Park?
• • SPEAKER_14
  • 00:15:53
    Yes, over off Monticello.
  • 00:15:55
    So those are all kind of interconnected.
  • 00:15:58
    And also you'll see along Avon extended at the south end, there's a vacant lot there also.
  • 00:16:03
    Uh-huh.
• • SPEAKER_18
  • 00:16:06
    Oh, right there.
  • 00:16:06
    77E2-1?
  • 00:16:07
    Yes.
  • 00:16:08
    Okay.
  • 00:16:08
    I mean, my questions are,
  • 00:16:18
    In working through all of this, what are we finding out about our leases?
  • 00:16:25
    I mean, I know it just kind of brings more questions, too, that are we applying leases the same to everybody?
  • 00:16:48
    and what consistency do we have?
  • 00:16:50
    What is our, what is our policy around this?
  • 00:16:53
    Um, and I think that's something council we're going to have to be working on is overall with the city manager's office.
  • 00:17:02
    What is, what is our going to be our land use ownership policy?
• • Brian Pinkston
  • 00:17:09
    And so there would be a component having to do with leased or rented spaces, which we heard, we got a report on it two meetings ago, I think?
  • 00:17:18
    Does that sound right?
  • 00:17:21
    And then we've got the lands that we own, the land that we own.
  • 00:17:26
    Yeah, I just thank you, Ms.
  • 00:17:28
    Kelly.
  • 00:17:28
    I really appreciate this.
  • 00:17:29
    It's very helpful.
  • 00:17:32
    Just as a person new to all this myself, just wondering, I mean, has the city kept these logs over the years?
  • 00:17:42
    I mean, was this a large effort on your part to have to go and document it, or is this something that was already sort of
  • 00:17:51
    Fairly readily available and we just haven't been thinking about like newer policies or is it just kind of been sort of sitting in the background in terms of our knowing all the properties we own and sort of actively managing them which I think is what Councilor McGill is really getting at and has been trying to get at.
• • SPEAKER_14
  • 00:18:13
    So I guess the answer to your question is this has kind of been sitting there.
  • 00:18:18
    There hasn't been one person that's been primarily responsible for addressing this.
  • 00:18:24
    And as Mr. Sanders said at the last meeting, we've realized this is one of the challenges with staff.
  • 00:18:31
    and so we need to identify like one person looking at that so we did have some of this information so it took a little bit to update all this there's been some changes since you know five years ago when we started looking at a lot of this properties that maybe we've gotten rid of or properties that we've acquired since then so there was a little bit of updating but a lot of this
  • 00:18:56
    We are aware of some of the sites and there's a lot of properties that are adjacent to right-of-ways and is that something the city council wants to look at?
  • 00:19:07
    Do we want to approach adjacent property owners and see if there's an interest in putting those on the tax rolls?
  • 00:19:15
    So I think as we work together with the city attorney's office and city manager's office and all the various departments
  • 00:19:23
    Those are the kinds of things we'll be looking at and putting recommendations together on how to move forward with a consistent policy.
• • Brian Pinkston
  • 00:19:32
    Great.
  • 00:19:32
    Thank you very much.
  • 00:19:33
    And will that be integrated and connected with the lease piece or these two separate initiatives?
• • SPEAKER_14
  • 00:19:40
    They're all kind of working together and also in a month or two months or so we're also going to be coming back to you with another kind of summary of this process with all those other types of agreements that are out there that the city's a party to that was not a lease.
  • 00:20:02
    So we're doing additional research, look at all those other types of agreements and we'll be back with you with the same type of recommendation.
  • 00:20:10
    We need to have point people and we need to have, you know, kind of consistent policies on what these agreements look like and what they say and just put together a history that typically has not been located in one central location.
• • Brian Pinkston
  • 00:20:28
    And will the central location be OCS?
• • SPEAKER_14
  • 00:20:32
    So far as we know, yes.
• • Brian Pinkston
  • 00:20:34
    OK, thank you.
• • Juandiego Wade
  • 00:20:37
    So my only question is, you said that, you know, it's a lot of things you said that y'all are working on.
  • 00:20:44
    And you just said something, we're getting another report in maybe a couple of months, but that's not what y'all are working on as far as following up to those things like the Lake Albemarle and those other things.
  • 00:20:57
    That's more so in the future.
  • 00:21:02
    I just kind of want to know I just want to make sure that this doesn't slip through our you know fingers again I just kind of want to make sure that Mr. Rogers something that's kind of on the radar that we you know even if it's November or December that we have a date that we can we know that we're getting this back so you know we can have a regular time to update leases or agreements or whatever.
• • SPEAKER_25
  • 00:21:28
    With the two pieces, the lease report several weeks back and this city-owned property report, we have a tremendous amount of information about where we stand.
  • 00:21:42
    And thanks to Ms.
  • 00:21:44
    Kelly and her staff and those working with her and Mr.
  • 00:21:48
    Sanders.
  • 00:21:49
    We have now the information we need to start addressing the concept even of consistent policies and a consistent point person to work all of this out.
  • 00:22:02
    So we will be coming back to you with a way forward in this area so that we can straighten it out and keep it straight going forward.
  • 00:22:14
    And there will be a lot of decisions to be made, too, in terms of, you know, what do you do with all this property, you know, and how does it play into our long-term development plan as well.
• • Brian Pinkston
  • 00:22:28
    Yeah, I appreciate Counselor McGill really making this an issue for us to focus on.
• • SPEAKER_18
  • 00:22:33
    Just, you know, bring it all together, set up a policy.
• • Michael Payne
  • 00:22:39
    Can I...
  • 00:22:41
    I have a comment and a question.
  • 00:22:43
    First, echo what others have said.
  • 00:22:47
    I think this is quietly one of the most important things happening in the city.
  • 00:22:53
    Because from my vantage point, we're landlocked 10 and a half square miles.
  • 00:22:57
    Our single most valuable asset is the land we own.
  • 00:23:00
    And I think land acquisition in particular is the single most important action the city can take, both for economic development and affordable housing.
  • 00:23:11
    The question is, I know several years ago when it comes to land acquisition piece, there was discussion of the city creating a land bank because that would, one, create an easier avenue for the city to acquire new land, and two, would also eliminate property taxes for a property, thus making the development of affordable housing easier.
  • 00:23:37
    And I would also note that a land bank is part of our adopted affordable housing strategy as well.
  • 00:23:42
    Has there been any discussion about restarting that conversation or actually implementing a land bank as part of this bigger strategy for how the city could engage in land acquisition?
• • SPEAKER_14
  • 00:24:03
    I think the answer to that is the discussion may have been revived a little bit with the affordable housing plan come forward, but I think I would have to defer to the city manager's office about where we're at in those discussions and if that's going to be brought up again.
• • SPEAKER_25
  • 00:24:20
    Mr. Sanders, do you have a comment on that?
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 00:24:27
    Yes, sir.
  • 00:24:28
    So we haven't pursued the idea of a land bank within the city as much as we have made outreach to the existing land trust to see about them being a partner with us.
  • 00:24:42
    But we would have to figure that out with the city attorney's office and how to develop the instrument that we would need to be able to establish a land bank and then fund it.
  • 00:24:51
    I think that's one of the other big issues that
  • 00:24:54
    We can create the entity, but we have to have dollars available to then use it for deployment and the acquisition of properties.
• • Michael Payne
  • 00:25:02
    But yeah, I would just underline, I think the most important thing to me is if that exists as a tool for acquiring land in the community.
  • 00:25:11
    But I do think that's vital.
  • 00:25:14
    And if we can acquire land, even if we can't immediately develop it, we're opening up the opportunity for transformative, either affordable housing projects or economic development projects for that matter.
  • 00:25:30
    I just don't think we can overemphasize the importance about that enough, but thank you.
• • Brian Pinkston
  • 00:25:36
    And I have a question, Mr. Sanders.
  • 00:25:38
    So is this land trust that you mentioned, is this the same thing as the Piedmont Land Trust?
  • 00:25:44
    Okay.
  • 00:25:45
    Yes.
  • 00:25:45
    All right.
  • 00:25:47
    Is there scope for us to sort of work together on that in terms of rather than us setting up our own land bank, perhaps we work with them in their efforts?
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 00:25:56
    Well, I mean, it's a funding mechanism, but there's also the ability to establish yet another entity that the city would then control how it operates.
  • 00:26:06
    One of the key aspects of a land bank would be that we'd have to determine who's in control of it.
  • 00:26:12
    So we would have to determine a structure, a governance structure for it so that when the decisions come on which properties are available, who votes to say, yes, we take that action to buy that for that price.
• • Brian Pinkston
  • 00:26:24
    Okay, thank you.
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 00:26:25
    And then what do we do with the property once we have control over it?
  • 00:26:28
    So those are things that all need to be worked out.
  • 00:26:31
    I guess that's part of why, just to kind of go back to some of the questions, some of the comments that initially came from Mayor Snook and Councilor McGill, this all is a centralizing effort at this moment so that we can get our arms around what we have, but really it's this conversation that is going to
  • 00:26:48
    to feed us on what next steps we want to take.
  • 00:26:50
    So we're looking for council to help us with prioritizing what follow-up actions that Brenda is anxiously awaiting more details on what she's going to get to do next.
• • SPEAKER_25
  • 00:26:59
    And all of this information feeds into a more strategic discussion when we start to talk about the strategic plan.
  • 00:27:07
    We have all of this background information and we can pose to you a number of very difficult questions that you will have to grapple with as you consider the future of the city and how these properties play into that.
• • Juandiego Wade
  • 00:27:23
    Thank you.
  • 00:27:23
    Yeah, I mean it's one thing that I've learned since I've been on council is that as far as affordable housing that land is the most expensive part of housing and if we could, you know,
  • 00:27:37
    Any way that we could get properties work with existing organizations that's doing it.
  • 00:27:41
    I know that we have one out there in particular that's doing some great work.
  • 00:27:46
    I just think it should be a bigger part of our affordable housing strategy.
  • 00:27:51
    And I know this is not the purpose of this right now, but I just wanted to share that.
• • SPEAKER_18
  • 00:27:56
    It's part of the whole picture of it, though.
  • 00:27:59
    I mean, it's where are we going from here?
  • 00:28:01
    How are we utilizing the spaces we own and create?
  • 00:28:05
    Are we utilizing those spaces in ways that are growing with our vision of the city?
  • 00:28:13
    And land use is a big part of that.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 00:28:16
    Are there other questions for Ms.
  • 00:28:24
    Kelly or Mr. Sanders or anybody?
• • SPEAKER_18
  • 00:28:26
    No, we're good.
  • 00:28:29
    Thanks for the work.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 00:28:30
    Thank you.
  • 00:28:31
    It's a lot of this also seems to fit into the category of archaeology or paleontology or digging up the old history.
  • 00:28:40
    I appreciate the effort.

6. 2. Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority Central Water Line Project update

• • Lloyd Snook
  • 00:28:43
    So thank you.

7. CLOSED SESSION pursuant to Sections 2.2-3711 and 2.2-3712 of the Virginia Code (Boards and Commissions; legal consultation)

• • Lloyd Snook
  • 00:28:46
    We have now another presentation, Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority Central Waterline Project Update from Bill Moyer, the Executive Director.
  • 00:28:55
    Mr. Moyer, we see you.
  • 00:28:58
    right there on the screen, so you must be ready to roll.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 00:29:01
    Thank you, Mayor Snook and members of council.
  • 00:29:03
    It's always a pleasure to speak with you.
  • 00:29:06
    Yes, I've had the privilege of being executive director at Rivanna for about six years and appreciate the opportunity to tell you today more about an essential regional drinking water supply project.
  • 00:29:19
    So I know you talk about land being important and we would say that water supply is an important aspect too.
  • 00:29:27
    So let me try to share my screen.
  • 00:29:33
    It worked I think.
  • 00:29:35
    So I have with me today Jennifer Whitaker, our Director of Engineering and Maintenance, as well Michelle Simpson, who's done all the heavy lifting on this project to date and for the last several years.
  • 00:29:47
    So we call it the Central Waterline Project because it was recommended to be located in the central portion of the city to provide the greatest water benefit to our regional water supply system.
  • 00:30:01
    Before I jump into the alignment and the streets and such, I wanted to give you a little historical context on why this is a critical project.
  • 00:30:11
    In 2002, many of you may recall, there was the historic drought of record in the state of Virginia, including Charlottesville.
  • 00:30:20
    and there was talk about sending the students home because the South Ravana reservoir was about dry and the urban area was running out of water and so the council with the Board of Supervisors and Ravana and the Albemarle County Service Authority and we came up with what was called the Community Water Supply Plan
  • 00:30:40
    and basically that included building a new dam at the Ragged Mountain Reservoir and increasing the capacity of that facility from about 500 million gallons to 1.4
  • 00:30:53
    Billion Gallons as it is today and also to upgrade our two major water treatment plants the Observatory Water Treatment Plant located on Observatory Mountain on University property as well the South of Urbana Water Treatment Plant located at the Hilton Heights area off of Woodburn Road
  • 00:31:15
    and that gets its water from the South Ravana Reservoir and further we would build this purple line water water transfer pipe a large 36 inch pipe that we could pump water from the ragged from the South Ravana Reservoir to the Ragged Mountain Reservoir because it will not fill itself
  • 00:31:37
    and further we can pump backwards from the Raggin Mountain Reservoir to the South Rivanna treatment plant.
  • 00:31:44
    So the community water supply plan improved the quantity of water we had in our supply and when we finish in the next year or so, the renovations at our two large water treatment plants, it will have improved our ability to produce more water.
  • 00:32:03
    So that covers projects one and two here on this list.
  • 00:32:07
    Thank you.
  • 00:32:08
    Next, we need to build a new line between the Ragged Mountain Reservoir and the observatory treatment plant.
  • 00:32:15
    The existing line has reached the end of its service life, and we think it's recommended to put in a new pipe.
  • 00:32:22
    So that will get us the production of additional water along with the treatment plant improvements.
  • 00:32:28
    And then thirdly, and somewhat lastly, we realized later it was not part of the original community water supply plan.
  • 00:32:37
    that we need to have a large pipe coming away from the observatory treatment plant so that we can distribute that water through all parts of the city and the county, the urban water area as we call it.
  • 00:32:52
    So this total plan is estimated to cost about $195 million over the next 10 years.
  • 00:32:59
    And the city's share of that through various agreements is about $69 million.
  • 00:33:05
    The Albemarle County Service Authority would be paying the balance.
  • 00:33:15
    Okay, so this central water line project, as we call it, is going to be about five miles of large water transmission piping.
  • 00:33:25
    You can see in this center picture here, this gentleman on his knee, but you can tell how large.
  • 00:33:31
    That's about a 42-inch pipe, so not quite that large, but in the similar neighborhood, it's going to be a large water transmission pipe.
  • 00:33:39
    It would be installed under the streets of the city.
  • 00:33:43
    in a segmented process and what we mean there is we don't come in and allow the contractor to excavate five miles.
  • 00:33:49
    We give him several hundred feet at a time and he excavates and puts in the new pipe and then he has to cover up, cover it up and put it back into service to traffic.
  • 00:34:00
    We expect the schedule to be from 2024 through 2028 and the agreement we have between the service authority and the city is the city which would share 48% of the debt service costs that we pay for this project.
  • 00:34:17
    Some of the history is that in 1987
  • 00:34:22
    The city and the Alvaro Service Authority created what was called the Southern Loop Agreement and that agreement, I'll slide forward here, was on the same vein as what we're talking about that water pipes, these large blue lines are water transmission pipes.
  • 00:34:45
    This is the observatory treatment plant area and this is the observatory
  • 00:34:50
    treatment storage tank.
  • 00:34:52
    And the Southern Loop agreement was going to build what was called the western branch of the Southern Loop, which was completed in 1989.
  • 00:35:00
    And that was going to connect the observatory treatment plant with the Avon Street water storage tank.
  • 00:35:08
    And then in the future, we were going to build the eastern branch of the Southern Loop, which was going to go from the Avon tank to the Green Star here.
  • 00:35:17
    which is at Free Bridge area of East High and Long Street and that loop was going to be called the Southern Loop and the purpose was to have a connected system so that we could distribute water of large quantities of water throughout the urban area.
  • 00:35:40
    So the Eastern Branch was never constructed, but in around 2019, actually 2017, we started on a project designed to build what we called the Avon to Pantops Pipeline.
  • 00:35:56
    It was going to be the Eastern Branch.
  • 00:36:00
    immediately our team which included your public utilities director and also your city traffic engineer and we realized that out at the perimeter of the eastern area was not the not a good place for that pipe it would not serve the demand area of the city or the adjacent county in a very effective way
  • 00:36:23
    and so we began in 2019 what we call the urban finished water master plan and that was completed late last year early this year and it recommended that the best place for this pipe was through the central corridor of the city hence the name the central water line in 2020
  • 00:36:44
    the City and the Service Authority in Rivanna came to an agreement that the renovations to build again this brown line the water transfer line from the Ragged Mountain Reservoir to Observatory this pump station that was going to be here as well the renovations to this observatory treatment plan and expanding the treatment capacity
  • 00:37:11
    and further the construction of the central water line and we came to an agreement that it was important on the allocation of the cost that basically the city is going to pay 48% of those costs and there was a commitment in the agreement that the central water line would be built
  • 00:37:31
    near the central corridor of the city because if we expand the water treatment plant and we replace the raw water line to get it to the treatment plant, it has no benefit if we can't really get that water out into the system.
  • 00:37:45
    So this was going to, again, be a larger pipe to help us get water into the urban drinking water system.
  • 00:37:54
    further than we did a central water line routing study to be more specific about where the pipe should go and we finished our water master plan so again these large blue lines are major water transmission mains coming in from the South Ravanna water treatment plant this one terminates around West Main Street and Rosie Brown this one is up it terminates up at
  • 00:38:22
    hydraulic roads when I say terminate the large pipe stops and a smaller distribution pipe takes over the ones that the city went on and our again our goal of all this was to get connected the observatory treatment plant to the pantops tank at free bridge is where the water line would connect because our purpose
  • 00:38:50
    is that the way we operate the system to some degree, we make water a lot at night and we fill all the tanks that are in our system at Observatory, at Avon and over at Pantoms and we fill those tanks at night and then during the day they provide the flow and the pressure to the customers within the area and we refill the tanks at night.
  • 00:39:14
    So part of our challenge was we had poor connectivity
  • 00:39:18
    between the observatory treatment plant, we still have it, and the Pantops tank.
  • 00:39:24
    We can get water from observatory to Avon and we can get it from South Ravana treatment plant to Pantops but it's difficult to get water through all the small pipes across the city from west to east to the Pantops tank and that was the problem and the issue we're trying to solve with this piping project.
  • 00:39:46
    Another point to understand is when the South Ravanna Reservoir is overflowing.
  • 00:39:54
    So when you drive up 29 North, you pass Walmart and cross the Ravanna Bridge there, you look to the left, you can see the South Ravanna Reservoir Dam.
  • 00:40:04
    If water is overflowing there, it's going through the Ravanna River on its way to the James River.
  • 00:40:10
    and we maximize the use of the water from the South Rivanna Reservoir whenever and as long as the South Rivanna Reservoir is overflowing which is most of the time however when we have hot dry summers particularly the flow across the dam might stop
  • 00:40:29
    and that's when we transfer our major production from the South Verbena Water Treatment Plant to the Observatory Treatment Plant and try to use our largest reservoir supply water from the Ragged Mountain Reservoir to provide water to the urban system so now instead of like in the winter we're we're pumping water from the South Verbena plant southward into the city
  • 00:40:55
    in a hot dry summer we could be producing an observatory and trying to get it through the city and pumping it northward to the county on all directions east west south and trying to keep the Pantops tank along with the Avon tank and the observatory tanks full of water
  • 00:41:16
    So we operate our system differently depending on the demands and where we have the greatest water.
  • 00:41:24
    When water is overflowing, the South Ravana Reservoir, it's gone from our system and it provides us no value.
  • 00:41:32
    And that's why we try to maximize use of that.
  • 00:41:35
    as long as the South Ravana Reservoir is overflowing but when we have really dry weather we have to switch to use the Ragged Mountain Reservoir and the observatory treatment plant and again our challenge at the moment is to be able to get that water out of the observatory treatment plant in large pipes and into our system
  • 00:41:58
    And this provides consistent supply and pressure to all the customers in the city and the county.
  • 00:42:04
    It supports our firefighting requirements.
  • 00:42:07
    It improves the flexibility of our system to be able to adjust if we would have a water break somewhere.
  • 00:42:13
    We can backfeed our piping with the water.
  • 00:42:16
    And it helps us utilize the investment that's been made in the observatory water treatment plant.
  • 00:42:25
    So we talked with council, I did with council and our board of directors about our plan in January and received positive feedback.
  • 00:42:36
    And so since then, we've been working on our public outreach program.
  • 00:42:41
    to tell the neighborhoods about what we plan to do with this project and our primary alignment is what we call the Southern Cherry Avenue Alignment and we presented information to six neighborhoods along that route
  • 00:42:57
    We mailed a flyer, the flyer you see here to my right on the Central Waterline Project.
  • 00:43:03
    We mailed that out to 480 property owners and businesses along the route.
  • 00:43:08
    We have a web page with this information.
  • 00:43:12
    We got several good comments from our neighborhood meetings where we appreciate their participation.
  • 00:43:18
    And so since then, we've gone back and reevaluated five primary routes as well as five alternate routes of where this waterline could be located.
  • 00:43:30
    So with our team of the city utility director, Lauren Hildebrand and Brandon Duncan, your traffic engineer, along with the service authority staff, our staff and our engineering consultants, we looked in the field, we visited the sites and surveyed and analyzed the different routes.
  • 00:43:53
    We looked at the VDOT traffic
  • 00:43:56
    estimates that they provide.
  • 00:43:58
    We've looked at GIS data, aerial photography, and we've done an extensive hydraulic modeling to let the computer tell us how the water flows best in these various piping alternatives.
  • 00:44:13
    We looked at the water distribution benefits, as I mentioned, from the water modeling, the traffic counts, the impact of neighborhoods, businesses, the UVA academic side, the UVA medical area, district and hospital area.
  • 00:44:29
    We looked at the street widths to see where we could work reasonably within streets.
  • 00:44:35
    and overall construction cost was an important factor.
  • 00:44:38
    We looked at pipe lengths.
  • 00:44:40
    We looked at opportunities to coordinate with city projects or other projects and tree clearing and even underground to a degree so far about, you know, it's easy to say put a pipe in the street, but if they're already a bunch of communication cables and other pipes in the way, we can't do that as easily.
  • 00:45:01
    So we've looked at a number of different factors.
  • 00:45:05
    when we come up with the recommended alternatives and so we've evaluated five primary routes and you can see on this slide the five routes starting from the north to south and so I'll run through each one of them and give you a few details
  • 00:45:23
    The first route that we looked at was a recommendation we got from a resident at a neighborhood meetings of, well, why didn't we put the pipe around the Route 250 bypass?
  • 00:45:35
    And that would be half the length as some of the other alternatives.
  • 00:45:40
    And that would be true, and that could be a viable alternative.
  • 00:45:45
    But what we determined in our review is that
  • 00:45:50
    Our finished water master plan talked about an Emmett Street project that is planned and the comment from the resident was that that project from
  • 00:46:03
    JPA Stadium Road all the way to hydraulic was already planned and funded and all we needed to do was to build the eastern half of it to save money but the real plan is that there are only two projects that the city has funded and we have definite plans for along this Emmett Street route and those are shown with these blue lines these are two projects that are pretty definite that will be built and
  • 00:46:33
    would not have to be advanced because they are under plans and designed to be done now in the future.
  • 00:46:43
    What we really had to look at, we realized, is that along this route, we had to plan for more than just half of the route.
  • 00:46:51
    We also had to fill in the gaps between the blue lines all the way back to the observatory treatment plant.
  • 00:46:58
    Because again, our goal is to get water from the Green Star treatment plant over to Free Bridge.
  • 00:47:05
    and ultimately we realized and in talking to Brennan your traffic engineer that work on the bypass was going to be quite a challenge that likely would be would have to be completed at night due to the impacts on traffic that does have one of the higher traffic counts in our area and
  • 00:47:28
    potentially we would have to close two lanes of the bypass each day during the night and rebuild them early in the morning that our work time would be 8 p.m.
  • 00:47:38
    to 5 a.m.
  • 00:47:40
    and then we'd have to be out of the street and so that was about a 45 million dollar alternative was to to get from a free bridge up to hydraulic just for that section we also looked at if we could get out of the street along McIntyre Park
  • 00:47:58
    It would save about seven and a half million dollars, but it would require clearing of a number of trees in that area, which we don't think the city's going to be too interested in.
  • 00:48:09
    We've also looked at doing a bore and actually boring under trees, which would probably reduce this savings.
  • 00:48:17
    So collectively in order to have a comprehensive connected water system we can't just build from free bridge to hydraulic and stop because the industry projects are not planned to be finished before at least 2035 and our our project is planned to be finished in 2028
  • 00:48:39
    and that's why again these black dotted sections here we feel like have to be funded by the Central Waterline Project and completed in conjunction with that work to have a comprehensive system and the total cost of that project is about $60 million.
• • Brian Pinkston
  • 00:48:57
    Mr. Maury, if I could ask a quick question, could you explain the piece here about upsizing pipe diameter and how that impacts cost?
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 00:49:07
    Right.
  • 00:49:08
    Well, again, the Emmett Street project is a planned project in our finished water master plan, but its purpose is to provide redundancy to some of the pipes we already have, these large blue pipes we already have.
  • 00:49:24
    This section of the Emmett Street was to help provide redundancy so not only would we have one and two major pipes, we'd have three major pipes coming into the city.
  • 00:49:37
    as well that we could get water from green star to green star if we went all the way to rio road and then we had to come back around rio road to get to um to free bridge area it's so while it's a long route it is redundant to other central waterline routes and helps us get water that way
  • 00:50:05
    Let's see, Mr. Pinkston, what was your question again?
• • Brian Pinkston
  • 00:50:08
    Yeah, so to go this alternate route, if we were hypothetically to do it, the proposed pipe diameter would have to go up due to more flow going across that route and also more distance in terms of friction losses.
  • 00:50:27
    That's right.
  • 00:50:27
    So I think understanding it's not just enough to say, well, there's already a pipe up there.
  • 00:50:31
    The pipe that's being planned is six inches smaller than what you all need and six inch, you know, a significant more piping area that would be required.
  • 00:50:44
    So.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 00:50:44
    Correct.
  • 00:50:45
    We did not plan on this Emmett Street pipe, which is intended to be built when it's convenient, when we can have what we call a betterment project.
  • 00:50:54
    That is, when UVA is doing a project along Emmett Street, maybe at Emmett and Ivy, we're doing a betterment project with them right now.
  • 00:51:03
    Or VDOT, when they're going to make improvements to the hydraulic interchange.
  • 00:51:09
    that whenever we can partner with the city or UVA or BDOT and they were already going to rip the road open to do some utility work we would join with them and that would be the time we would put in our new pipe to create this redundancy with the other pipes
  • 00:51:26
    in bringing water in and out of the city.
  • 00:51:28
    So it was not a definitely planned project and we envisioned by 2035.
  • 00:51:35
    But again, as you mentioned, Mr. Pinkston, the purpose was to transmit water from South Ravana plant into the city and connect it with the observatory treatment plant.
  • 00:51:46
    and the pipe size required to do that is not the same as a pipe size trying to get water over to Free Bridge along a longer route and we would have to upsize the pipe and incur additional expense and that is included in the $60 million for us to do that.
• • Michael Payne
  • 00:52:06
    And would that be, is that separate from the Emmett water line that's in the master plan for 2035?
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 00:52:17
    No, no, sir.
  • 00:52:18
    That's pretty much the same.
  • 00:52:19
    There is an extension of the Emmett Street that goes to the further north that would need to be built, but the $60 million is intended.
  • 00:52:28
    It will represent all of what you see of constructing from a free bridge to hydraulic
  • 00:52:39
    and then down to down JPA or stadium there's an opportunity maybe we could cut across stadium road right here to get close to the observatory treatment plan that full length is included in the 60 million although the two blue sections are funded separately and they are not included in the 60 million that is separate funding that's been allocated as we understand it by the city for your two projects
• • Michael Payne
  • 00:53:08
    So just to understand from understanding correctly.
  • 00:53:11
    So in the master plan for 2035, there's an Emmett Seminole waterline for 18 million.
  • 00:53:16
    Does this 60 million include that 18 million?
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 00:53:21
    It includes part of it.
  • 00:53:23
    I think it's five or six million planned for these two blue sections.
  • 00:53:30
    Actually, we've estimated 15 million of the 60 is for the black dotted areas, the three segments along Emmett Street.
• • Michael Payne
  • 00:53:40
    And is that going to be built anyway, regardless of, you know, already within the master plan?
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 00:53:48
    We expect it to be built, although it may not be built before 2035.
• • Michael Payne
  • 00:53:54
    What creates the uncertainty around that compared to the projects you don't have that level of uncertainty about?
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 00:54:03
    Well, we don't have our sections programmed in our capital improvement plan yet.
  • 00:54:08
    We haven't included in our rates and charges to the city or the service authority yet.
  • 00:54:15
    So as we got closer to the time frame for when we would start including it in our budget, then we have to see the impact it has to the budgets.
  • 00:54:24
    And again, it's a redundancy project.
  • 00:54:26
    It's not quite as essential project as a central waterline.
  • 00:54:31
    And so other priorities could change the schedule.
  • 00:54:36
    Another example is if the university or the city or VDOT would delay a project where we were going to do a betterment, a partnership, then that would delay the project also.
• • Michael Payne
  • 00:54:48
    So in other words, it's in the adopted master plan for completion by 2035, but not your CIP budget.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 00:54:59
    That's correct.
• • Michael Payne
  • 00:55:01
    Okay.
  • 00:55:01
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 00:55:02
    So it's planned, but it's not definite.
  • 00:55:11
    So we did, I mentioned we looked at the alternative of cutting through the park that might save some money.
  • 00:55:18
    if you're ready to go on to the second alternative that's what we call the Northern Preston alternative again we go from from Stadium up JPA or or up Stadium Road up Emmett Street it would turn to the east through the Lambeth the University Lambeth area
  • 00:55:42
    where we connect into a city pumping station.
  • 00:55:46
    Then it would go up Rugby Road, down Grady, down Preston,
  • 00:55:52
    It would then go up the hill to West High Street and find its way to East High Street.
  • 00:55:59
    That is an area where the city has a project planned along East High Street.
  • 00:56:04
    And some of our strategy is to try to connect and do our pipe at the same time the city does your pipe.
  • 00:56:13
    And that's why you see the blue dotted line here.
  • 00:56:15
    This is where we are partnering with the city to do a waterline
  • 00:56:20
    Project along with your project.
• • SPEAKER_18
  • 00:56:23
    There's also a project at an earlier section of that, too.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 00:56:28
    I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you.
• • SPEAKER_18
  • 00:56:31
    There's another project at an earlier section.
  • 00:56:35
    Right here?
  • 00:56:36
    Rugby to Preston.
  • 00:56:40
    That section of Barracks Emmett right there, up Barracks, up Preston.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 00:56:49
    The city has this project from Ivy Road to Arlington Boulevard.
  • 00:56:54
    That's planned.
  • 00:56:58
    And we would be partnering with the city there also.
• • SPEAKER_18
  • 00:57:03
    The bike streetscape, the bikes up the Barracks Road Hill up there by Rugby.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 00:57:12
    Barracks Road.
  • 00:57:13
    This turns to Rugby.
  • 00:57:16
    Right.
  • 00:57:17
    before you get to Barrett Road at Lambeth Housing.
  • 00:57:23
    It goes right beside the railroad tracks at Lambeth over to Rugby Road.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 00:57:28
    And then across Grady.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 00:57:32
    Grady and down Grady to Preston.
  • 00:57:36
    And then it would go up the hill at the county office building area onto West High Street and make its way to East High Street.
  • 00:57:46
    and connect to our object target area at East High and Longstreet.
• • SPEAKER_18
  • 00:57:53
    Okay, never mind.
  • 00:57:54
    I see.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 00:57:56
    We did look at an alternate route of coming down Preston and going over McIntyre Road and then coming down that section of the bypass.
  • 00:58:05
    But we estimate that would be about $3 million more expensive and would reintroduce us into night work along the bypass.
  • 00:58:17
    So this route was a pretty good route, but we were not real interested in going through the Rugby housing area and the Grady-Preston housing area, as well the business district on West High Street.
• • Michael Payne
  • 00:58:39
    What made a greater concern about disrupting those neighborhoods versus the neighborhoods that would be disrupted in the current plan for the central water line?
  • 00:58:48
    Is that based on traffic analysis or study or?
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 00:58:53
    Yes, and road width, street widths, which we could work in.
  • 00:58:58
    I mean, the reality is we're going to have a certain level of disruption on every route.
  • 00:59:05
    and it's a good question I don't know if there's any more disruption along this area of Rugby Grady and Preston but it is seem to be more dense than than the Cherry Avenue route at least along the main Cherry Avenue area and JPA Cleveland so it's a little bit subjective there but this this was not our recommended route but it is a viable route
  • 00:59:35
    The third route we looked at was we called the middle route of West Main Street.
  • 00:59:41
    And I think this was really born from initially with an objective of coordinating with the city on your West Main project.
  • 00:59:51
    and of course that's not happening anymore but the route was to go up JPA then it would turn further on JPA through the academic area of the university and the medical district by the hospital and go down Main Street go down at Vinegar Hill down Ridge to
  • 01:00:18
    Preston, and then again back up that hill there to West High Street to make its way to East High Street.
  • 01:00:28
    The concerns with this route were the congestion of traffic and pedestrians and business impacts through the UVA academic area, the hospital medical district, as well the business area on
  • 01:00:44
    West Main Street, West High Street rather, West High Street.
  • 01:00:50
    But this one also had a cost estimate has of 30 million, $39 million.
  • 01:00:57
    But the fourth route we considered and reconsidered was going down Jefferson Park Avenue, extended I would call it, we could go down Cleveland, then we follow Cherry
  • 01:01:12
    across Ridge Street on Elliott Avenue.
  • 01:01:18
    It turns to the north on 6th Street.
  • 01:01:23
    And then before it crosses the railroad track, it goes across Avon and would come under the railroad track around 10th Street and then go to the east on Jefferson and over to East High Street on 11th Street.
  • 01:01:41
    and that is our recommended route now when we had our neighborhood meetings they said well what about going down to down Harris all the way to Fifth Street and come up Fifth Street so we took a careful look at that we found that there were two disadvantages one it was going to be about eight million dollars more expensive because it's a longer route much longer route
  • 01:02:05
    And further, as you know, 5th Street is a major street for emergency services that come in 5th and then turn on Cherry to get to the hospital area.
  • 01:02:17
    So working in 5th Street with this high traffic count seemed to be an impediment to that route.
  • 01:02:26
    And that's the reason we were not recommending it.
  • 01:02:29
    That estimate for the Harris Fifth Street alternative, we estimate about $49 million.
  • 01:02:36
    We also heard from our neighborhood meetings, but actually we had thought about going down Shamrock Avenue.
  • 01:02:44
    And we've talked to Brennan Duncan pretty extensively about that because we think it would save about $3 million.
  • 01:02:50
    It's a shorter route.
  • 01:02:51
    But Shamrock is such a narrow street, no shoulder on one side with on street parking, very congested.
  • 01:02:59
    You have the railroad track and the vertical curve leading up to that.
  • 01:03:04
    below the railroad track.
  • 01:03:06
    We thought this was, even though it would save some money, it would be a major impediment on the Shamrock Road neighborhood, and that's why we're not recommending that route, but it is possible.
• • Juandiego Wade
  • 01:03:22
    And further, we heard from residents about instead of coming across- I'm sorry, Bill, quickly, just with that one, the Shamrock alternative,
  • 01:03:33
    It's significantly shorter.
  • 01:03:35
    I'm just wondering that if it's shorter, it'll take less time.
  • 01:03:40
    If you do it in the summertime, I don't know if that impact, it'll be harder and more difficult, but it'll be quicker and cheaper.
  • 01:03:52
    Kind of thinking out loud.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 01:03:53
    Potentially, the challenge, Mr. Wade, is with that restricted curb-to-curb width of getting traffic in and out of there, it could slow down work.
  • 01:04:05
    While it's shorter, we think it will save some money and probably time, but it's going to be a real headache for the people who live over there, either us trying to get them through
  • 01:04:19
    or make asking them the detour to come back to their house so again this is a viable route but it was our our judgment and again Brendan seemed to concur he did concur that this was not a recommended alternative thank you to the to the JPA extended and Cleveland and Cherry on the other end of this route
  • 01:04:46
    A neighborhood asked, well, why don't, again, why don't we, instead of going down 10th and 11th, why don't we go down, what is it, East Water or East Market to Meade, and what the blocks, the bullets here tell you that the East Market option was a million dollars more expensive and the East Water was 2.6 million dollars more expensive, plus they negate
  • 01:05:11
    our cooperative effort right here with the city project we would miss at least half of the city project and that contributes to the cost addition so so it's a it's a valid suggestion to use these other routes and we could do it but there seem to be disadvantages with the longer route more expense and we're not coordinating with an ongoing city project there
  • 01:05:37
    So in summary, we put together this chart.
  • 01:05:42
    We looked at, again, the Route 250 bypass chart.
  • 01:05:45
    Bill?
• • Brian Pinkston
  • 01:05:47
    Yes, sir.
  • 01:05:47
    Mr. Moore, could you increase the zoom on that slightly?
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 01:05:51
    Oh, I'm sorry.
  • 01:05:52
    Okay.
  • 01:05:53
    That help?
  • 01:05:55
    Yes.
  • 01:05:57
    All right.
  • 01:05:59
    So we've got the overall pipe length.
  • 01:06:02
    The CWL is what we would call the central waterline section.
  • 01:06:06
    The EWL is the Emmett Street waterline section or the black dotted, black and orange sections that we detailed.
  • 01:06:15
    Collectively, it's almost 31,000
  • 01:06:17
    Lineal feet.
  • 01:06:20
    It has a traffic, maximum traffic count of 39 vehicles per day, but significant is that 85% of the route has more than 10,000 vehicles per day on it.
  • 01:06:32
    Because these routes, there are different traffic counts in different sections.
  • 01:06:36
    And so while I was anxious just to pick one number, our team said, no, we needed to look at the full route and deal with the maximums.
  • 01:06:46
    and the percentage greater than 10,000.
  • 01:06:47
    So that's what we've done here.
  • 01:06:52
    So as you might expect, the Route 250 bypass had the highest maximum traffic and a very high average of 85%, more than 10,000 cars along the full length.
  • 01:07:10
    Route with the least maximum traffic was the Southern Cherry Avenue Route, and it also had the least traffic of only 32% of the length was there more than 10,000 vehicles per day.
  • 01:07:26
    We looked at the construction time.
  • 01:07:29
    We felt like with the night work and the length and the challenges of Route 250 bypass,
  • 01:07:37
    in theory it would take almost eight years to do it in practice we're only planning to allocate four years to the contractor so he would have to double up on his crews and the city and the vehicles would have to withstand more construction areas along the route in order for us to finish within the four years
  • 01:08:04
    The estimated cost for the central waterline section and that section only on the 250 bypass was $45 million.
  • 01:08:13
    Again, Preston was pretty competitive at $28 million.
  • 01:08:19
    The Main Street was $39 million, Cherry 41, and the Harris Street at $49 million.
  • 01:08:27
    but again to get the full cost of adding in the Emmett Street section of 15 million that pushed the Route 250 bypass to 60 million.
  • 01:08:38
    The Preston Avenue route that also goes down Emmett to 39 million.
  • 01:08:44
    The Main Street is 39.
  • 01:08:45
    The Cherry Avenue at 41 million and the Harris Street at 49 million.
  • 01:08:53
    So while we're recommending the Cherry Avenue route, it is not the estimated least expensive route, again, but we felt like the Main Street conflicts to the business district and the medical district, as well as some of the impacts in the business district from the northern route, that the $2 million was not a significant reason to choose those routes.
  • 01:09:20
    and further when we looked at really our primary criteria is water system benefits that the Cherry Avenue route and the Main Street route as well as the Fifth Street route had the highest water benefits
  • 01:09:34
    to our system now and in the future and also the Cherry provided the greatest ease of future operations and maintenance that if we have a water break in the future to get out in Cherry Avenue and work is to fix it is a lot easier and less expensive than trying to work in the bypass or in Main Street or in the business district areas of the Preston Avenue alternative or Fifth Street
  • 01:10:02
    So this is kind of the ranking criteria that we used.
  • 01:10:07
    We have reams and reams of data back behind these numbers, but we tried to roll them up to something that hopefully is reasonably understandable to everyone.
  • 01:10:19
    And let's see, in summary, Mr. Moyer, I would say that all the alignments have challenges.
  • 01:10:28
    Not all of them work equally as well for us in
  • 01:10:32
    and providing hydraulic connectivity and allowing us to get water across the city and into the county.
  • 01:10:40
    We think the Southern Cherry Avenue, when all things are considered, provides the greatest benefit and opportunity for us.
  • 01:10:49
    We recognize that there will be impacts along the way.
  • 01:10:53
    We know there's Beaufort School over there.
  • 01:10:56
    that we would likely try to work with in that area maybe during the summer.
  • 01:11:00
    That would be our plan when we can at least impact the businesses or residents along the way.
  • 01:11:07
    It would be all day work.
  • 01:11:10
    and it does have the lowest impacts to traffic.
  • 01:11:13
    It's got a wide curb to curb street section and we could keep traffic going around our construction area during the construction period.
  • 01:11:21
    It's got a reasonably low project cost and it gives us an ease of operations and maintenance.
  • 01:11:28
    and when we do get the Emmett Street project completed in the future it will provide the greatest hydraulic piping water flow benefits when paired with the Emmett Street improvements compared to any of the other alternatives so that is what we're recommending is that we proceed with the Southern or Cherry Avenue alignment number four
  • 01:11:57
    I don't know if I allowed you to ask your questions, but I would be glad to try to answer them.
• • Juandiego Wade
  • 01:12:02
    Yeah, I thought that you said that the Cherry Avenue is that is high on emergency vehicles and things.
  • 01:12:16
    I know you said they take Fifth Street and then to Cherry.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 01:12:22
    Fifth Street would be the most high.
  • 01:12:25
    Cherry does have the section from Fifth Street.
  • 01:12:31
    Where am I looking?
  • 01:12:34
    Fifth Street over to... Roosevelt?
  • 01:12:38
    Yeah, right there at Roosevelt Road.
  • 01:12:41
    Okay.
  • 01:12:45
    Yeah, this is what I was looking for.
  • 01:12:46
    Yeah, so Fifth Street coming into Ridge and Cherry, and this section right here would be a high traffic as traffic, emergency traffic, particularly is trying to make its way to the University Hospital.
  • 01:13:00
    Mr. Moore, can you go back to- But otherwise, Cherry is the lowest.
  • 01:13:04
    So that's reflected, Cherry, that only 32% of the length
  • 01:13:09
    of the route has more than 10,000 vehicles per day, which was the lowest percentage of any of the routes.
  • 01:13:19
    I think, Juan, that over here on Cherry Avenue to the west of Rosie Brown Boulevard, the traffic there count is like 5,000 vehicles per day.
• • Juandiego Wade
  • 01:13:35
    Thank you.
• • Brian Pinkston
  • 01:13:37
    Mr. Maurer, could you go back up to the Preston, the northern route, Preston route?
  • 01:13:46
    Yes, sir.
  • 01:13:52
    So the dotted black lines that you have there, that would be cost borne by RWSA at some point.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 01:14:00
    That's correct.
  • 01:14:02
    And shared, of course, with the city and service authority, like all of our costs.
  • 01:14:07
    Sure.
• • Brian Pinkston
  • 01:14:08
    But that's the extra piece added in to your figures on the final.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 01:14:14
    Yes, sir.
  • 01:14:15
    We would have to build this section of the Emmett Street waterline project.
  • 01:14:21
    And we have included those costs in the $39 million estimate.
• • Brian Pinkston
  • 01:14:26
    And then in terms of the, if you could go back to the summary, please.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 01:14:31
    Yes, sir.
• • Brian Pinkston
  • 01:14:36
    So I'm assuming that the, one of the things that's really important to me is the duration of this.
  • 01:14:44
    We can't, that does connect to cost, but it also connects very closely to aggravation and frustration for people.
  • 01:14:53
    And so
  • 01:14:57
    The ones that are four years, which are the northern and the southern cherry, is that partly reflecting the fact that those roads are wider and you've got more room to work in them?
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 01:15:13
    Yes, sir.
  • 01:15:15
    We would say more constructible.
  • 01:15:16
    They're wider.
  • 01:15:17
    We have more room to work and to detour traffic around us.
  • 01:15:23
    again the bypass would be required night work which typically is slower and we'd have to deal with all the traffic out there it's a possibility we would close two lanes and have to build a temporary lane over to the the second two lanes and create
  • 01:15:44
    one-way traffic on each of those lanes in order to work during the night and then restore the two-way traffic by 5 a.m.
  • 01:15:57
    the next morning so
• • Brian Pinkston
  • 01:16:00
    Yeah, and my guess is that you're not going to be able to cut the eight months or the eight years in half by that kind of work.
  • 01:16:08
    But by those kinds of efforts, you might cut it maybe by a third or 40% or something.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 01:16:14
    Right.
  • 01:16:15
    Again, unless we require multiple crews from the contractor that he's got to maybe start on the east side and the west side at the same time.
  • 01:16:25
    in order to expedite and stay within a lesser time frame.
  • 01:16:29
    But then that doubles the number of work sites and doubles the congestion and traffic congestion.
  • 01:16:38
    So the city would have to bear through twice as many sites in theory.
  • 01:16:43
    Right.
  • 01:16:43
    Thank you.
• • Michael Payne
  • 01:16:50
    Turn to the
  • 01:16:53
    alignment number two, I think, Northern Preston.
  • 01:16:58
    I guess I'm still not understanding two points.
  • 01:17:01
    One, you mentioned that like the neighborhood disruption there would be too great to make that, in your opinion, a route you'd recommend.
  • 01:17:13
    I'll just ask again, is that evaluation, the route that is recommended obviously includes in part going through residential neighborhoods including public housing and other low income communities.
  • 01:17:26
    Is that evaluation that the disruption in that alignment number two, the Northern Preston route for neighborhoods is too great?
  • 01:17:34
    compared to what is recommended in the disruption there.
  • 01:17:36
    Is that based on specific traffic data, specific data about density, or was that a subjective evaluation that was made?
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 01:17:46
    I think we have data, Mr. Payne, but we did have some subjective view of it, but like in the public housing area on 6th Street, that's a very wide curb to curb section and the houses are pretty far away from the street, whereas on Grady and
  • 01:18:06
    and Rugby and Preston those houses were much closer to the curb and and that's where the subjective came part came in that we had little room to to maneuver within the curb to curb area and the impact was going to be right on our noise and disruption was going to be right on top of the houses compared to the cherry route where yes maybe in some places would it would be but not as much as the
  • 01:18:35
    Rugby, Grady, Preston area.
• • Michael Payne
  • 01:18:39
    And then another question in your chart outlining the pros and cons of each in the Northern Preston route, the water system benefits are listed as lower, whereas the route you recommended that's listed as higher.
  • 01:18:54
    Could you quantify what that means specifically?
  • 01:18:57
    And is that based on specific data?
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 01:19:03
    Yes, we ran dozens and dozens of water modeling scenarios about how water could flow through the system under different conditions.
  • 01:19:15
    And when we collectively looked at all of those water modeling runs, we somewhat subjectively had a decision about which routes had the
  • 01:19:31
    Lowest impact or the best impact on the water benefits that we were looking for.
  • 01:19:38
    Jennifer, do you have any data that you could offer Mr. Payne or Michelle?
• • SPEAKER_10
  • 01:19:43
    Sure.
  • 01:19:46
    So as Bill indicated, we looked at probably well over 20
  • 01:19:52
    plus runs.
  • 01:19:53
    And we looked at the water modeling.
  • 01:19:55
    We looked at how the tanks operated, whether they worked well together, whether there was a significant separation.
  • 01:20:00
    We looked at fire flow.
  • 01:20:01
    We looked at each water treatment plant running under different demand scenarios.
  • 01:20:07
    We looked at if we had a break or we had a major maintenance event, if we were operating under drought.
  • 01:20:11
    And then for each of those scenarios, we looked at how the system was operating.
  • 01:20:18
    And in some cases, one was slightly better than the other.
  • 01:20:21
    and we looked down that list of the 20 or 30 runs and assessed which set of conditions pose the greatest benefit to us and when we when we did that you can see the outcome here is that the the connectivity that we get from the southern loop that ties excuse me the central water line that ties in all of these mains and and prevent provides this main corridor that goes east west
  • 01:20:52
    through the city in a relatively straight line really did provide the greatest hydraulic benefits overall to the system under the most number of conditions.
• • Michael Payne
  • 01:21:05
    Thank you.
  • 01:21:05
    And I'll just final comment, you know, with the caveat that obviously I'm not an engineer and have not served RWSA, so certainly haven't followed all the details the entire time.
  • 01:21:19
    But I will say just from my vantage point with that caveat, I do continue to have some concern in terms of is the route that's being recommended, is that really the best route
  • 01:21:33
    in terms of objective criteria and how much that decision has been influenced by subjective criteria.
  • 01:21:42
    Particularly when I look at the Northern Preston route, granted it's not in the CIP, but it is in the adopted master plan.
  • 01:21:48
    The efficiencies that could come there with the already planned Emmett Street water line, the fact that that is the cheapest option,
  • 01:21:57
    And again, the efficiencies with the already planned Emmett Street water line.
  • 01:22:01
    And again, from an outsider perspective, it raises my eyebrow that a project that, at least on my understanding, while adding some redundancy to the whole system is primarily benefiting the Pantop's
  • 01:22:14
    area in the northern area of the city and county is being routed through the southern part of the city, particularly public housing and low-income communities.
  • 01:22:22
    And I just, again, I haven't been on the RWSA, but based on what I've seen, I don't have confidence, full confidence that that's being based entirely on objective criteria and isn't also being influenced unduly by some other subjective criteria.
  • 01:22:39
    But thank you.
• • Brian Pinkston
  • 01:22:40
    Yeah, and I'd like to follow up on that point.
  • 01:22:42
    If you could go back to the southern loop, please, the one that you're proposing.
  • 01:22:48
    Okay, just stop there for a second.
  • 01:22:54
    Right.
  • 01:22:54
    So the other thing that I think Counselor Payne is really being lost in this whole conversation is there's a desire or there's a concern that more of this water, well, first of all, this is working as a network, right, like the capillaries in your body.
  • 01:23:12
    And so even if you do the Preston option,
  • 01:23:19
    or any other option.
  • 01:23:20
    The goal is to increase the connections all throughout the whole system.
  • 01:23:25
    And many of these are small lines that you can't see.
  • 01:23:30
    But the point raised by a number of people that all of this water is going to go to the north or whatever, which again, I think is fallacious for a number of reasons.
  • 01:23:39
    But regardless, with this route that's being proposed here, one of the great values of it, because it is running through the southern part of the city, particularly if you look at Avon Street there,
  • 01:23:52
    What this will let RWSA do is connect a much larger line down there to feed the lower side of the city.
  • 01:24:00
    So one of the extra benefits of doing it this way is that you get larger transmission lines on the southern side of the city.
  • 01:24:10
    So, you know, that's not something that's been brought up tonight, but it's an important reason that I think this is the most reasonable route, because beyond all the things on the chart, which, you know, all such rankings are subjective to some degree, but I'm convinced that they've been as objective as you can, you know, as engineers, and engineers to have blind spots.
  • 01:24:35
    but the other piece about this is to the concern that's been raised over and over that this is somehow just all going to help the people in the county which I don't know why it's a problem that we'd want to help people in the county but particularly when they're paying 52 percent of it regardless what this does is it
  • 01:24:54
    It finishes that lower southeast corner of the city that people have complained was not done earlier with the Southern Loop Agreement, particularly in that it connects to these larger lines that are not shown here that feed the southern part of the city.
  • 01:25:10
    So that's all I'll say as an engineer and as someone on RWSA.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 01:25:19
    Well said.
  • 01:25:20
    Thank you.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 01:25:22
    Other questions or comments for Mr. Moyer?
  • 01:25:27
    I wanted to note, I suppose I'm not an engineer either, and I am a lawyer, and one of the things that I look for is what the law tells us council's role is.
  • 01:25:42
    We were getting a lot of emails today saying vote no on the central water line.
  • 01:25:48
    We don't actually get a vote.
  • 01:25:52
    This is, you know, RWSA can operate on its own and has the authority to choose its own route.
  • 01:26:01
    And of course, we have members of our administration, the city manager, Mr. Pinkston from the council.
  • 01:26:08
    who serve on the RWSA board who have a vote, but council as a whole does not have a vote.
  • 01:26:16
    And so I want folks to understand the limited role that we have and our role is at this point to try to make sure that the RWSA board is considering all of the factors
  • 01:26:34
    including some of the factors that Mr. Payne mentioned and that they make then their best choice given all of those circumstances.
  • 01:26:48
    Anyway, the picky legal point is we don't get a vote.
  • 01:26:56
    Let's see, that is about the end.
  • 01:27:00
    Mr. Moyer I think we're done with you thank you so much for your presentation and appreciate you being here and I know there will be a lot more questions going forward and I know that what happened tonight isn't going to answer everybody's questions but I thought I thought it was very helpful thank you thank you so the next item for us that's all on our four o'clock agenda
  • 01:27:26
    and so it would be time at this point for us to adjourn the four o'clock portion and then we would need to go back into closed session so that we can do the same kinds of things we were doing earlier.
  • 01:27:42
    Mr. Wade, do you want to read the motion?
• • Juandiego Wade
  • 01:27:45
    Thank you.
  • 01:27:46
    Thank you, Mr. Chair, Mr. Mayor.
  • 01:27:48
    Pursuing to Section 2.2-3712 of the Virginia Code, I hereby move that the Charlottesville City Council close
  • 01:27:57
    this open meeting and convene within a closed meeting as authorized by the Virginia Code Section 2.2, 3711, Subsection A, Subsection 1, Subsection A, Subsection 7 and 8 for consideration of appointment to Council and the City Plan Commission and other Boards and Commission
  • 01:28:24
    legal consideration regarding compliance with requirements of Virginia Code 15.2-2212 and related ordinance and resolution to discuss various pending legislation matters.
  • 01:28:39
    Litigation matters.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 01:28:40
    Litigation, I'm sorry.
  • 01:28:41
    Okay, is there a second to that motion?
• • Michael Payne
  • 01:28:44
    Second.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 01:28:45
    Again, we can just do this by voice vote.
  • 01:28:47
    All in favor say aye.
  • 01:28:49
    Aye.
  • 01:28:50
    Any opposed?
  • 01:28:52
    Okay, the motion passes.
  • 01:28:53
    Council will now go back into closed session.
  • 01:28:56
    We will return at 6.30.
  • 01:28:59
    And for those who are doing things by Zoom, I think it will be in a different Zoom link at 6.30.
  • 01:29:07
    So good luck finding it.
  • 01:29:13
    See you back in 55 minutes.
  • 01:29:27
    Okay, so it's 631 and let's call a meeting back to order.
  • 01:29:35
    We previously established that we have a quorum.

8. BUSINESS SESSION

• • Lloyd Snook
  • 01:29:40
    So the first thing we've got to do, I guess, is to read us out of closed session.

9. Moment of Silence

• • Juandiego Wade
  • 01:29:47
    I move that the city council members certify by recorded vote that to the best of each member's knowledge only public business manner lawfully exempted from the open meeting requirements of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act and identified in a motion convening the closed meeting were heard, discussed, or considered in the closed meeting.

10. Announcements

• • Juandiego Wade
  • 01:30:12
    Thank you.

11. Recognitions/Proclamations

• • Lloyd Snook
  • 01:30:12
    Is there a second?

12. Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at UVA 20 year milestone

• • SPEAKER_17
  • 01:30:13
    Second.

13. Pride Month

• • Lloyd Snook
  • 01:30:15
    Ms.
  • 01:30:15
    Robinson, would you take the vote, please?
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 01:30:17
    Councillor McGill?
  • 01:30:18
    Yes.
  • 01:30:19
    Councillor Payne?
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 01:30:20
    Yes.
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 01:30:20
    Councillor Pinkston?
  • 01:30:21
    Yes.
  • 01:30:22
    Mayor Snook?
  • 01:30:23
    Yes.
  • 01:30:23
    And Vice Mayor Waite?
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 01:30:24
    Yes.
  • 01:30:25
    Motion passes.
  • 01:30:26
    So now we can call the business session back to order.
  • 01:30:30
    Having established the quorum, we can begin the business meeting with a moment of silence, please.
  • 01:30:50
    Thank you.
  • 01:30:52
    Counselors, any announcements?
  • 01:30:57
    One announcement that I would like to make.
  • 01:31:00
    I serve on the board of the Charlottesville Scholarship Program, as Vice Mayor Wade did for a number of years.
  • 01:31:09
    And they are searching for money again.
  • 01:31:13
    They're doing their fundraising appeal.
  • 01:31:16
    are inspired.
  • 01:31:18
    What inspired me to make this comment was that I got a mailing from them
  • 01:31:25
    was just showing how, it was identifying the scholars that they have provided college scholarships to.
  • 01:31:33
    I was just impressed, again, just how talented our CHS students are.
  • 01:31:40
    And also, I was interested to see how they come from so many different places.
  • 01:31:47
    We have somebody from Nepal who is getting a scholarship to go on to college, a couple of people from Africa, a couple of people from the Middle East.
  • 01:32:00
    a real melting pot and a real sense of this is a scholarship that helps people advance.
  • 01:32:06
    It was just really very pleasant.
• • Juandiego Wade
  • 01:32:07
    Yeah, I see Justin, who's someone I've known since he was in fifth or sixth grade, that he's graduating, young man, and he's going on to art school in Seattle.
  • 01:32:17
    So, you know, it's amazing.
  • 01:32:18
    He's going to just grow up.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 01:32:21
    So, recognitions and proclamations, we have two.
  • 01:32:27
    The first is a recognition of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, otherwise known as OLLI at UVA.
  • 01:32:37
    They've been in existence for 20 years and doing good things for 20 years in Charlottesville.
  • 01:32:44
    They even were willing to have me teach a course for them at one point.
  • 01:32:49
    They must be at least somewhat tolerant.
  • 01:32:52
    I'll just read the proclamation briefly.
  • 01:32:55
    Whereas an active mind is as necessary to a full life as are social relationships and physical exercise, and whereas the Jefferson Institute for Lifelong Learning, or JIL, began in 2001 to bring educational opportunities and intellectual enrichment to active adults in the Charlottesville Albemarle community.
  • 01:33:14
    and whereas in 2005 Jill became affiliated with the University of Virginia and changed its name to the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Virginia or OLLI at UVA and whereas OLLI at UVA draws on the resources of its members as well as other academic and community resources to organize courses and other educational activities so that members can acquire new knowledge, explore ideas, exercise creativity,
  • 01:33:42
    and share their interests and expertise with others.
  • 01:33:47
    And whereas OLLI at UVA has offered and continues to offer courses and educational activities on a wide range of topics from Jeffersonian architecture to African American culture,
  • 01:33:58
    from the history of the Habsburg dynasty to pirates through history, from financial planning to an insider's look at Virginia wines, whereas Ollie started with 17 instructors and 98 student participants in 2001 and has grown so that in recent years Ollie has offered hundreds of courses with thousands of student participants.
  • 01:34:20
    and whereas during the COVID pandemic, Ali at UVA kept operating, moving its programming online, offering social opportunities to enrich community connectedness and creating special presentations available to the public.
  • 01:34:34
    and whereas our diversity of enrichment opportunities of which Ollie is a prime example is an important part of why Charlottesville and Albemarle are consistently named on lists of the best places for retirees and whereas Ollie at UVA has for 20 years been a community benefit offering robust course offerings, exciting trips and a community of friendly faces.
  • 01:34:58
    Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Charlottesville City Council encourages our residents to participate in OLLI at UVA's offerings and hereby proclaim July as OLLI at UVA Month, recognizing it as a valuable resource for our community as it celebrates its 20th anniversary.
  • 01:35:16
    Signed and sealed this 21st day of June 2022, Lloyd Snook, Mayor.
  • 01:35:20
    Is there somebody from OLLI here?
• • SPEAKER_24
  • 01:35:21
    Yeah.
• • Juandiego Wade
  • 01:35:23
    As they're coming up, Lloyd, I just want to add, you know, I had the opportunity to teach a couple of classes, not whole class, but specific classes, and it's just a wonderful opportunity for individuals in the community just to get involved and learn more, to continue their learning.
  • 01:35:40
    They ask tough questions, and they really want to make a difference in the community, so thank you all so much for your work.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 01:35:46
    Thank you.
  • 01:35:49
    I'll hand this down to you.
  • 01:35:54
    Thank you.
  • 01:35:54
    Anything you want to say to us?
• • SPEAKER_26
  • 01:35:56
    Sure.
  • 01:35:59
    Briefly.
  • 01:36:00
    If I have a microphone.
  • 01:36:01
    I just want to say thank you to you all for the proclamation and recognizing all these hard work and the dedicated volunteers from instructors to class moderators to office help.
  • 01:36:16
    We are a teeny tiny nonprofit doing really big things here in Charlottesville and we're honored.
  • 01:36:20
    Thank you very much.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 01:36:21
    Thank you for coming.
  • 01:36:23
    Thank you for all you do.
  • 01:36:26
    Then our second proclamation is to celebrate June as Pride Month.
• • SPEAKER_18
  • 01:36:34
    Thank you, Mayor.
  • 01:36:36
    LGBTQIA plus Pride Month, June 2022.
  • 01:36:41
    Whereas all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights, and whereas lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer,
  • 01:36:51
    intersex asexual plus LGBTQIA plus individuals have had immeasurable impacts on the cultural, civic and economic success of our country, state and city
  • 01:37:04
    and whereas the city of Charlottesville is committed to supporting visibility, dignity and equality for the LGBTQIA plus people in our diverse community and whereas the LGBTQIA plus community continues to be a target of violence, harassment and discrimination and yet continues to thrive
  • 01:37:27
    through the efforts of the community itself and through the support of LGBTQIA plus affirming agencies and individual allies and whereas support for LGBTQIA plus equality continues to grow education and awareness remain vital to ending discrimination and prejudice against LGBTQIA plus people and whereas because of the acts of courage of the millions of people who have come out and who have demanded justice
  • 01:37:57
    Our Commonwealth and community have made great strides in recognizing that love is love and that no person should be judged by anything but the content of their character.
  • 01:38:07
    And whereas celebrating Pride Month influences awareness and provides support and advocacy for Charlottesville's LGBTQIA plus community and is an opportunity to act and engage in dialogue to strengthen alliances, build acceptance and advance equal rights.
  • 01:38:24
    and whereas there remains much work to do to extend equality throughout the Commonwealth and the nation.
  • 01:38:31
    Now, therefore, be it resolved that we proclaim June 2022 Pride Month in support of the LGBTQIA plus community and to call upon all Charlottesville residents to embrace the principle of gender equality and to work to eliminate prejudice everywhere it exists.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 01:38:50
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_18
  • 01:38:51
    Thank you.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 01:38:52
    Are there any additional items for recognition?
  • 01:38:57
    Okay.
  • 01:38:58
    So the next item on our agenda is appointments to boards and commissions.

14. Board/Commission Appointments

• • Lloyd Snook
  • 01:39:03
    Is there a motion to approve appointments?
• • Michael Payne
  • 01:39:08
    Yes, I would move to approve Laura Knott and Sally Duncan to the Historic Resources Committee, Lisa Woolfork to the Jefferson Madison Regional Library Board, Richard Alex Stott to the Region 10 Board, Deshaad Cooper to the Police Civilian Oversight Board, Al Elias, Scott Hendricks, Ben Cullup, and Lindsay Ideson to the Retirement Commission,
  • 01:39:32
    Allison Brown, Claire Denton Spaulding, Michael Grinnell, Edward Herring and Sylvia Neustron to the Sister Cities Commission and Josephine Fishman to the Youth Council.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 01:39:46
    Thank you.
  • 01:39:46
    Is there a second to the motion?
• • SPEAKER_18
  • 01:39:48
    Second.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 01:39:49
    Any discussion?
  • 01:39:53
    Ms.
  • 01:39:54
    Robinson will you take the vote?
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 01:39:56
    Councillor Payne?
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 01:39:57
    Yes.
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 01:39:58
    Councillor McGill?
  • 01:39:59
    Yes.
  • 01:40:00
    Councillor Pinkston?
• • Brian Pinkston
  • 01:40:02
    Yes.
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 01:40:03
    Mayor Snook?
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 01:40:03
    Yes.
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 01:40:04
    Vice Mayor Wade?
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 01:40:05
    Yes.
  • 01:40:06
    And so the motion passes 5-0.
  • 01:40:09
    I should also announce that appointments to the Planning Commission have been postponed to the July 18th Council meeting.
  • 01:40:17
    There were a few people we needed to interview.
  • 01:40:19
    We just didn't have time to do it today, and at least one person was not available.
  • 01:40:23
    So we'll do it at our next meeting,
  • 01:40:25
    because we don't meet the first week in July, it'll be the third week in July, so July 18th.
  • 01:40:33
    Ms.
  • 01:40:34
    Robinson, you read the consent agenda please.

15. Consent Agenda*

• • SPEAKER_17
  • 01:40:42
    Consent agenda.

16. 3. April 4 Council meeting, April 7 budget work session, April 12 special meeting, corrected minutes from February 1, 2021

• • SPEAKER_17
  • 01:40:45
    Minutes, April 4th, Council Meeting, April 7th, Budget Work Session, April 12th, Special Meeting, Corrected Minutes from February 1st, 2021.

17. 4. Appropriating the amount of $15,000 to be expended for the Local Emergency Management Performance Grant (2nd reading)

• • SPEAKER_17
  • 01:40:55
    Appropriating the amount resolution, appropriating the amount of $15,000 to be expended for the Local Emergency Management Performance Grant, second reading.

18. 5. Amending and reordaining Chapter 31 (Utilities) of the Code of the City of Charlottesville, 1990, as amended, to establish new utility rates and service fees for City gas, water and sanitary sewer (2nd reading)

• • SPEAKER_17
  • 01:41:04
    ordinance amending and reordining chapter 31 utilities of the code of the city of Charlottesville 1990 as amended to establish new utility rates and service fees for city gas water and sanitary sewer second reading resolution approving Community Development Block Grant 2021 reprogramming of the Ridge Street Priority Neighborhood Fund first reading

19. 6. Approving Community Development Block Grant 2020-2021 reprogramming of the Ridge Street Priority Neighborhood fund (1 reading)

• • SPEAKER_17
  • 01:41:34
    Resolution approving community development block grant home program 2022 through 2023 minor budget amendments.

20. 7. Approving Community Development Block Grant - HOME Program 2022-2023 minor budget amendments

• • SPEAKER_17
  • 01:41:44
    Resolution amending home investment partnership accounts fiscal year 2022 through 2023 first reading.

21. 7.a. Amending HOME Investment Partnership accounts FY 2022-2023 (1 reading)

• • SPEAKER_17
  • 01:41:52
    Resolution amending community development block grant accounts fiscal year 2022 through 2023 first reading.

22. 7.b. Amending Community Development Block Grant accounts FY 2022-2023 (1 reading)

• • SPEAKER_17
  • 01:42:01
    Ordinance authorizing encroachment of a building constructed on property at 1622 East Market Street, first reading.

23. 8. Authorizing encroachment of a building constructed on property at 1622 East Market Street (1 reading)

• • SPEAKER_17
  • 01:42:09
    Ordinance authorizing encroachment of a building constructed on property identified on tax map 30 as partial 24 at the corner of Delavan Street and an unnamed 12-foot alley, together referred to as 3017th Street Southwest, first reading.

24. 9. Authorizing encroachment of a building constructed on property identified on tax map 30 as parcel 24 at the corner of Delevan Street and an unnamed 12-foot alley, together referred to as 301 7th Street SW (1 reading)

• • SPEAKER_17
  • 01:42:28
    Reconstituting the Charlottesville Planning Commission and appropriating or reappointing its members for staggered terms.

25. 10. Reconstituting the Charlottesville Planning Commission and appointing or reappointing its members for staggered terms (1 reading)

• • SPEAKER_17
  • 01:42:36
    First reading.

26. 11. Establishing a pool of funds in the amount of $50,000, to be used for payment of refunds to licensed City businesses engaged in the same business activity as that considered by the Virginia Supreme Court on June 9, 2022 in Record Number 210414 (1 reading)

• • Lloyd Snook
  • 01:42:38
    That one was removed from the consent agenda.
  • 01:42:40
    Yes.
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 01:42:42
    establishing a pool of funds in the amount of $50,000 to be used for payment of refunds to licensed city businesses engaged in the same business activity as that considered by the Virginia Supreme Court on June 9, 2022 in record number 210414, first reading.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 01:43:00
    Okay, so we will now take public comment regarding items on the consent agenda, those items that were just read by the clerk.
  • 01:43:08
    Each speaker will have up to three minutes.
  • 01:43:10
    In the Zoom webinar you may select the raise hand option to be placed in the speaker queue or if you're joining by phone and wish to speak on the consent agenda you can press star nine.
  • 01:43:21
    We'll alternate in person and virtual speakers.
  • 01:43:24
    Is there anyone in council chambers who would like to speak on any consent agenda item, the ones that were just read off?
• • SPEAKER_30
  • 01:43:35
    Yeah, I reckon that's me.
  • 01:43:36
    Can you tell us your name, please?
  • 01:43:39
    Last name's Winter, first name's Tony.
  • 01:43:43
    I am the one for the 1622 East Market Street.
  • 01:43:49
    Yeah, I just wanted to say that when I bought the property, I was not aware that there was a six-inch encroachment on the
  • 01:44:00
    in front of the building.
  • 01:44:01
    I'm now trying to sell it.
  • 01:44:03
    This is a major part of my retirement fund.
  • 01:44:08
    We've never totally renovated because we tried to keep it affordable for lower income families, typically single moms.
  • 01:44:22
    But now the time has come where I've got to let it go.
  • 01:44:26
    This has sort of been a stumbling block, and I'm hoping that, you know, we can move forward from here.
  • 01:44:31
    All right.
  • 01:44:33
    I guess that's you all have any questions?
  • 01:44:37
    Nope.
  • 01:44:38
    Thank you so much.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 01:44:39
    Thank you, Mr. Winter.
  • 01:44:41
    Anybody, anybody else?
  • 01:44:42
    Actually, I guess we would next go to anybody online wanting to speak on any matter on the consent agenda.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:44:49
    Mayor Snook, I see no hands raised at this moment.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 01:44:52
    Anybody else in person wanting to speak on the consent agenda?
  • 01:44:57
    Okay.
  • 01:44:59
    Hearing nobody else, is there a motion to adopt the consent agenda with the exception of item number 10?
• • Brian Pinkston
  • 01:45:08
    I move that we adopt the consent agenda with the exception of item number 10.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 01:45:13
    Is there a second?
• • Brian Pinkston
  • 01:45:14
    Second.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 01:45:15
    Any further questions or comments from Council?
  • 01:45:20
    Ms.
  • 01:45:20
    Robinson?
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 01:45:21
    Councillor McGill?
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 01:45:22
    yes Councillor Payne yes Councillor Pinkston yes Mayor Snook yes Vice Mayor Wade yes motion passes 5-0 to adopt the consent agenda so Mr. Winter you're in good shape aye does that mean we're good?
  • 01:45:35
    yep just passed
  • 01:45:43
    No, we're moving on, but I know you want to say thank you, so Okay, we're good.
  • 01:45:49
    Nope.
  • 01:45:51
    You can leave.
• • SPEAKER_18
  • 01:45:53
    Unless you want to stay for the rest of it.
  • 01:45:56
    You don't have to.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 01:45:58
    I saw that look.
  • 01:46:00
    I saw that look.
  • 01:46:03
    So, city manager's report.
  • 01:46:04
    Mr. Rogers, would you like to present a report from the city manager's office?
• • SPEAKER_25
  • 01:46:08
    Yes, sir.

27. City Manager Report

• • SPEAKER_25
  • 01:46:10
    Mayor and Council, in your packet is the financial report for this quarter.

28. Financial Report

• • SPEAKER_25
  • 01:46:17
    We want to highlight a couple of things.
  • 01:46:20
    One, the information provided is as of May 31.
  • 01:46:25
    And we see that there's a projected $14 million surplus for revenue.
  • 01:46:34
    And we've been talking about that.
  • 01:46:36
    We are clearly recovering from COVID.
  • 01:46:39
    COVID situation and taxes are increasing.
  • 01:46:44
    On the expenditure side, COVID has also affected us there as well because expenditures are at a slower rate than projected.
  • 01:46:57
    That's because we have a lot of vacancies in our budget.
  • 01:47:04
    The market has had an impact on our ability to hire as rapidly as we need to.
  • 01:47:10
    So while 92% of the budget year has passed, we've only spent about 85% of our budget expenditures.
  • 01:47:20
    That's going to result in a surplus because of
  • 01:47:25
    the delicacy of year-end and agencies still needing to spend some money.
  • 01:47:29
    We are not projecting exactly what that number will be yet.
  • 01:47:33
    But Ms.
  • 01:47:34
    Hamill, would you like to comment on that?
• • Krisy Hammill
  • 01:47:38
    Yes, sir.
  • 01:47:38
    Thank you.
  • 01:47:39
    So just a couple items.
  • 01:47:41
    When we last met about quarterly reports in April, we were looking at about a $13 million surplus.
  • 01:47:49
    As Mr. Rogers noted, that's just a little, we're at about $14.8 now, as noted on the page in your memo.
  • 01:47:59
    The largest increase of that is basically the personal property tax projection before we were projecting
  • 01:48:06
    at a reduced rate and since we kept the rate the same that revenue did increase for the first half of 22 collections so that's that's the biggest increase on the revenue side again meals lodging and sales are continuing to
  • 01:48:25
    in press as they're coming in so we did bump those up a little bit as well one decrease I do want to note that was fairly material is on the recreation side we did drop that down to roughly a million dollars that is largely because during the budget process we budgeted for the idea that we thought we would be fully operational and as you know we're not and so therefore we are not going to make those marks
  • 01:48:54
    Again, all of this by line item detail and department is available on the charlottesville.gov slash budget under the budget explorer on the quarterly reports.
  • 01:49:08
    Just a small note there is that those reports are set up to run quarterly.
  • 01:49:15
    and so Brian did go in and adjust them so that you can view them but you do need to look at the fourth quarter and that's actually a snapshot I believe as of about last week around the 16th because that's when the month closes so there are a couple days in June but we'll be updating that once the audit is finished so the fourth quarter report will be a little bit delayed and we'll be updating that in conjunction with the
  • 01:49:43
    Mr. Cullinan's year-end audit report to you which comes sometime in November December and then finally one other note I wanted to mention is that during our budget work sessions with the CIP we talked with the school board about their offer to give some cares and federal dollars for school projects that are in the CIP to offset city funding that was allocated to those
  • 01:50:10
    We have been working with school staff and I'm happy to report that we actually have billed the schools and have received about $163,000 for some HVAC projects that have taken place.
  • 01:50:25
    So that is in the works and we are continuing to look at those on a regular basis and build schools.
• • SPEAKER_25
  • 01:50:32
    Okay.
  • 01:50:33
    And our Treasurer, Jason Vandiver, has included a cash flow report as a part of this financial report.
  • 01:50:42
    Jason, you want to highlight some items in your report?
• • SPEAKER_31
  • 01:50:48
    Sure.
  • 01:50:48
    Thank you.
  • 01:50:49
    Just a brief update for you.
  • 01:50:51
    If you look at the report, you'll notice that we added one more month of data and made some formatting updates, but no significant changes there to report.
  • 01:51:00
    Obviously, the cash position is
  • 01:51:02
    is pretty strong right now as we just went through a tax deadline and collected a significant portion of revenue for the general fund.
  • 01:51:10
    You know, obviously we're keeping an eye on the markets in regards to investments.
  • 01:51:14
    The equity market doesn't have any bearing on the city's general fund portfolio because we're not permitted to make investments there with general fund money, but we are keeping an eye on the bond market and making sure that we have enough cash available to take advantage of rising interest rates over the next
  • 01:51:30
    a few months and then to the next fiscal year.
  • 01:51:32
    So other than that, no big updates to report.
  • 01:51:36
    Thank you, Jason.
• • Krisy Hammill
  • 01:51:37
    And just one...
  • 01:51:40
    footnote to Jason's report we did close on the bond sale today which was a big bump to our cash flow we closed with about 28 million dollars and at a rate of about 3.07 which is a little bit about double what we got last year but it is indicative of the market and still a very good rate
  • 01:52:04
    Actually, the next week, the rates went up about 25 basis points.
  • 01:52:10
    So we were able to gauge our sale at a very good time.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 01:52:14
    Absolutely.
  • 01:52:15
    And still working with the AAA bond rating.
• • SPEAKER_12
  • 01:52:18
    Yes, sir.
• • SPEAKER_25
  • 01:52:20
    Absolutely.
  • 01:52:20
    A couple more items.
  • 01:52:22
    In our last council meeting I reported on the efforts to address the challenges facing neighborhood development services as it relates to permit processing and plan review.
  • 01:52:35
    Staff continues to work through re-advertising the multiple vacancies in the department.
  • 01:52:43
    I have executed
  • 01:52:45
    an agreement with the University of Virginia's building official to provide staff capacity to assist us in the permitting and inspections process.
  • 01:52:57
    They began last week.
  • 01:53:00
    This agreement
  • 01:53:02
    will continue into the fall as needed as we continue to recruit to fill these positions.
  • 01:53:10
    Also, there's been a lot of discussion around the downtown mall.
  • 01:53:16
    I have convened a staff group to discuss the maintenance of the downtown mall as there have been multiple requests.
  • 01:53:25
    We will be pulling all departments together to compile a comprehensive list
  • 01:53:31
    of issues and potential solutions that need to be... That's interesting.
  • 01:53:50
    We're working to compile a list of...
• • SPEAKER_12
  • 01:53:55
    We're still here.
  • 01:53:56
    Yeah.
• • SPEAKER_25
  • 01:53:57
    A list of issues that need to be addressed and we'll be reporting back to you on any developments.
  • 01:54:04
    We'll be also reaching out to various stakeholders like the Friends of Downtown Mall to get their input on some of the ideas we may have and addressing some of the issues that they brought to our attention.
  • 01:54:21
    That's it.
  • 01:54:22
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_18
  • 01:54:22
    Thank you.
  • 01:54:22
    So is it just council chambers that's out of light?
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 01:54:28
    Here we are.
  • 01:54:29
    All you had to do was say something.
• • SPEAKER_18
  • 01:54:30
    Yeah, no.
  • 01:54:31
    I mean, my tablet keeps going off, so.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 01:54:33
    Uh-huh.
• • Brian Pinkston
  • 01:54:35
    Okay, well.
  • 01:54:36
    Mr. Rogers, yeah, I'd just like to say thank you for that very complete report.
  • 01:54:39
    I'm excited to hear the collaboration that was present within it.
  • 01:54:46
    I was...
  • 01:54:47
    It's good to see that and I'm glad as well that you all are working with the downtown mall folks to really make some, there have been issues for years and I'm happy to hear that it sounds like there will be some concrete steps to move forward with that.
  • 01:55:04
    Thank you.
  • 01:55:05
    Thank you.
• • Michael Payne
  • 01:55:07
    Yeah, and just echo that and would just say probably will be anyway, but for the downtown mall, just underline the importance of seating in public bathrooms as a critical part of that conversation.
  • 01:55:17
    Yes, absolutely.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 01:55:18
    Yep.
  • 01:55:19
    Yes, I hear you.
  • 01:55:21
    Okay.
  • 01:55:23
    Any other comments, counselors?
  • 01:55:26
    All right, so Community Matters is next up.
  • 01:55:30
    There are three pre-registered speakers.
  • 01:55:32
    leaving 13 slots for additional speakers on Community Matters.
  • 01:55:36
    Each speaker will have up to three minutes to speak.
  • 01:55:39
    There will be an additional public comment section at the end of the meeting.
  • 01:55:43
    So we'll now open the floor to pre-registered speakers.
  • 01:55:48
    Others wishing to speak may select the raise hand option in the Zoom webinar to be placed in the speaker queue.
  • 01:55:53
    If you have joined by phone and wish to speak during Community Matters, you may press star nine.
  • 01:56:00
    in-person attendees.
  • 01:56:01
    Please just raise your hands to be recognized and we'll alternate you with virtual speakers.

29. Community Matters

• • Lloyd Snook
  • 01:56:07
    Is our first speaker available?

30. Action Items

• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:56:11
    Yes, Mayor Snook.
  • 01:56:12
    John Hall will be our first speaker.
  • 01:56:16
    John, you are on with council.
• • SPEAKER_25
  • 01:56:19
    I can hear him speaking here.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:56:22
    John Hall is our first speaker.
  • 01:56:23
    He is on with council.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 01:56:25
    All right.
  • 01:56:25
    You have three minutes, Mr. Hall.
• • SPEAKER_19
  • 01:56:28
    I wish to begin by reminding city councilors of the three contracts I wrote by benefiting Johnny Angels to better maintain currently neglected city assets such as Ridge Street Fire Station Liberty Fire Bill that needs paying.
  • 01:56:46
    Actually, I could work with Michael Rogers on this, you know, to some of these things.
  • 01:56:51
    It sounds like that's just what he would like to do.
  • 01:56:56
    Well, for the remainder of my three minutes, I wish to comment on public transit.
  • 01:57:02
    Both the city of Charlottesville and Albemarle County are interested in bus transit, serving more people with more sheltered stops as service continues to approach the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Airport.
  • 01:57:18
    worked on bus and train shelters that feed electric power back to the grid, which would then be viewed as city and county assets.
  • 01:57:32
    Chairman Ned Galloway of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors recently summarized the Board of Supervisors hope of having Fashion Square Mall as a transit station serving the War of Albemarle County.
  • 01:57:45
    My interest is to work to prevent climate change with solar and wind power generated shelters, total electric cars, buses and trains,
  • 01:57:55
    that are climate kind.
  • 01:57:58
    Having streets and sidewalks with multimedia phone and electric power, aerial lines and other amenities would, in my hope, free, you know, using
  • 01:58:20
    the underground program at Dominion Electric a free easement given to Dominion Electric with a small fee paid them for each street so that engineers can do engineering studies on each street for an expanded strategic underground program is needed I wish to be paid to participate with them as a city and county employee
  • 01:58:50
    in Frye Spring neighborhood to Stribling Avenue extended could be a great pilot project for cooperation to occur so that these above objectives can be realized.
  • 01:59:07
    I appreciate the time you spent listening and I hope that we might be able to go forth on some of these initiatives and work together
  • 01:59:20
    in a very proactive way so that we can preserve our clean environment and have a green city as well.
  • 01:59:30
    Thank you very much.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 01:59:32
    Thank you, Mr. Hall.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:59:41
    Mayor Snook, our next speaker on the list.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 01:59:43
    Is our next speaker available?
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 01:59:45
    Our next speaker on the list, Mayor Snook, is Kate Fraley.
  • 01:59:48
    I do not see her on Zoom.
  • 01:59:51
    Is she in the room by chance?
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 01:59:53
    Nope.
  • 01:59:56
    Actually, I think I saw an email or something coming through.
  • 01:59:59
    I'll check that.
  • 02:00:00
    How about Andrew Shelton?
  • 02:00:01
    Okay.
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 02:00:12
    Good evening, councilors and staff.
  • 02:00:14
    I wanted to come and talk to you about the city employee that was recently revealed to have been inside the Capitol on January 6th.
  • 02:00:22
    I'm not going to be using names, but at this point, their identity is pretty widely known in the community because shortly after the former chief of police's press conference, they were identified.
  • 02:00:33
    by a respected local journalist with extensive documentary evidence about their time inside the Capitol and many of the things that they had to say on social media prior to going in there.
  • 02:00:45
    They apparently presented themselves as a photojournalist, but I believe that that is simply not accurate as represented by their own words and videotaped actions.
  • 02:00:56
    I would like to read to you some of the posts that this individual made under his own name on an account that he
  • 02:01:03
    confirmed to a second local reporter recently was his only one answer for treason.
  • 02:01:09
    If they were complacent and worked the polls or at the top of government, it is time treason equals death.
  • 02:01:18
    I believe blood will be shed if there is a plan we might want to get into it because the patriots are getting ready for an uprising.
  • 02:01:26
    If you have not chosen your side, then you might want to do so soon.
  • 02:01:29
    Left, Antifa and BLM versus right, conservatives, patriots, and crowdboys.
  • 02:01:35
    If you don't want to choose a side, be armed to defend yourself.
  • 02:01:39
    Now obviously we all have free speech in this country as we should but I do not believe this is fit behavior for a public employee in the city of Charlottesville.
  • 02:01:49
    I believe that this is something that needs to be reopened and investigated properly.
  • 02:01:53
    I understand that CPD did some form of investigation.
  • 02:01:57
    I wouldn't have any way to comment on that but I believe that there is very firm evidence that this was not sufficient.
  • 02:02:05
    The video on which he was located was used in the indictment for seditious conspiracy by a proud boy who entered the building of the Capitol about nine seconds ahead of him.
  • 02:02:18
    It is just implausible to me, especially as there is audible on the video police within the Capitol telling people to exit.
  • 02:02:29
    and this door, the idea that they were allowed in, you can see on the video again in the indictment and in the January 6 hearing that this was there were two officers guarding that door who were forced away and then the crowd streams in.
  • 02:02:44
    I think that this really is something that needs attention.
  • 02:02:49
    We all know that we're coming up on the fifth anniversary of Unite the Right and it is
  • 02:02:57
    I can't process how it makes me feel that we have an actual violent rhetoric at a minimum using fascist working within city government at this point.
  • 02:03:11
    I don't use that word lightly.
  • 02:03:13
    I believe that his own words and actions demonstrate that that's what it is.
  • 02:03:17
    Thank you for your time.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 02:03:18
    Thank you, Mr. Shelton.
  • 02:03:22
    Is there anybody else here who would like to speak?
  • 02:03:27
    and Community Matters.
  • 02:03:29
    Is there anybody else online who would like to speak, Mr. Dillhunt?
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 02:03:34
    Yes, Mayor Snook, Matthew Gillikin.
  • 02:03:37
    You have three minutes.
  • 02:03:38
    You're on with Council.
• • SPEAKER_06
  • 02:03:41
    Good evening, councilors.
  • 02:03:43
    I'm thrilled to hear that there's forward progress on improvements to the downtown mall.
  • 02:03:48
    Thank you, Mr. Rogers for moving that forward.
  • 02:03:53
    I'm mainly here to talk about one of my favorite topics, parking.
  • 02:03:59
    I was not thrilled to find out that city staff is proposing spending $1.65 million to buy
  • 02:04:09
    4 tenths of an acre, a quarter of a mile or so from the downtown mall for 60% over the assessment value to provide 39 parking spaces.
  • 02:04:25
    I suspect that the information provided in your report does not provide a full picture of the parking situation in downtown Charlottesville.
  • 02:04:36
    It claims that existing parking capacity is diminishing.
  • 02:04:41
    And I think that it'd be helpful to put a few numbers in front of you.
  • 02:04:45
    In May, the Market Street garage at its peak was 60% full on average.
  • 02:04:55
    So that leaves a few hundred empty parking spots.
  • 02:04:58
    The Water Street garage, which is a much larger garage, was 40% full at its peak.
  • 02:05:08
    And furthermore, the Water Street garage, according to Rick Siebert, is 200 regular monthly parkers short.
  • 02:05:17
    So the sort of narrative within the report you received that suggests that there are significant parking constraints right now within downtown is not accurate to say the least.
  • 02:05:30
    and is certainly also ignoring how much private parking has been built downtown over the last couple of years.
  • 02:05:36
    So my suggestion would be at the least to hold off on making this purchase.
  • 02:05:41
    Doesn't seem like people are jumping up and down to buy this property.
  • 02:05:45
    It's been on for sale for quite a while.
  • 02:05:48
    Take some time, gather some more information because I honestly feel like there are a multitude of ways in which the city could spend $1.65 million
  • 02:05:57
    better, whether it be to create more money for the school reconfiguration, for the improvements that need to happen around the downtown mall, affordable housing, pick anything.
  • 02:06:11
    Anything will be better than what's being suggested here.
  • 02:06:14
    Thank you for your time.
  • 02:06:16
    Thank you, Mr. Gilligan.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 02:06:20
    Mayor Snook, I see Nancy Carpenter is next on the list.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 02:06:24
    All right.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 02:06:25
    Nancy, you are on with council.
• • SPEAKER_29
  • 02:06:28
    Thank you very much.
  • 02:06:28
    My name is Nancy Carpenter and I'm a city resident.
  • 02:06:31
    And as always, I appreciate the opportunity to speak tonight regarding the resolution on your agenda of which Mr. Gilligan just spoke.
  • 02:06:38
    You must make a decision tonight about the expenditure of that $1.6 million for a parking lot at 921 East High Street.
  • 02:06:48
    Hello, but excuse me, like where are your priorities at?
  • 02:06:53
    We have an existing housing and shelter crisis.
  • 02:06:56
    Three of you on this council certainly advocate for one, good housing, affordable housing policies, or two, have had knowledge
  • 02:07:05
    due to the deep work with community members that have struggled with homelessness and three, have been on the board of our CSB and know the challenges to housing from that perspective.
  • 02:07:19
    I come at this response from the mindset of making homelessness rare, brief, and non-recurring.
  • 02:07:26
    We need a year-round low-barrier emergency shelter for men, women, and families.
  • 02:07:33
    The data from the past two years has certainly demonstrated that non-congregate shelter is a public health strategy that is beneficial to the community on so many levels.
  • 02:07:46
    Think about it.
  • 02:07:46
    You would be spending as much per parking space as the costs involved in someone being homeless in this community for a full year.
  • 02:07:56
    However, how does that make sense?
  • 02:07:58
    How does it really make sense?
  • 02:07:59
    These parking spaces will not be utilized 24 hours per day, but someone who is not housed and needs shelter is homeless all 24 of those hours.
  • 02:08:11
    And how can you tell us that you're being of service if you ignore being of service to the most marginalized in our community when you have an ability to do something?
  • 02:08:22
    The action steps I would suggest.
  • 02:08:25
    One, direct the interim city manager, Mr. Rogers, to investigate the use of four-wheel e-bikes, enclosed e-bikes, to move people from the Market Street or Water Street garages due to age or mobility status.
  • 02:08:38
    that's in my forefront as UPS is talking about that strategy for deliveries.
  • 02:08:43
    Ask the TJPDC to work with other counties who are getting a share of that $2.6 million grant the TJPDC will receive and have them remit a small portion of their share back to the TJPDC to work in conjunction with establishing an emergency shelter.
  • 02:09:03
    and my third ask is do not purchase that lot at this time thank you for your time this evening thank you Ms.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 02:09:11
    Carpenter Mayor Snook our next speaker on zoom is Katrina Turner Katrina you are on with council good evening Katrina Turner
• • SPEAKER_00
  • 02:09:31
    I'm also calling about the employee who attended the insurrection.
  • 02:09:41
    I want to deal with everything Mr. Shelton said, but I also want to know if everyone on the dais knew about this gentleman because Mayor Snook, you spoke about him
  • 02:10:00
    and said he was cleared of whatever because of personal.
  • 02:10:08
    But I'd like to know how somebody can go to an insurrection, take pictures with proud boys, patriot boys, talk about wanting to see bloodshed and nothing happened.
  • 02:10:27
    Did you all know about this?
  • 02:10:31
    before this man was allowed to keep his job.
  • 02:10:36
    On top of this, I don't know if it's true or not, but we have heard that this gentleman, the same one that attended the insurrection, followed a woman down 29 and at a stoplight brandished a firearm at her.
  • 02:11:00
    and I just like to know this was 16 days after the insurrection.
  • 02:11:09
    So I need to know that part was also true that this gentleman brandish a firearm at someone.
  • 02:11:23
    Another question I need to ask because all this came up when we found out about this insurrectionist and I need to know if this is true that 21 police officers took a leave from January 5th to January 7th of 2021 and if so I would like to know
  • 02:11:52
    how 21 officers were let on leave at the same time when the police department has been complaining that we have a shortage of police officers.
  • 02:12:07
    So I would love to know,
  • 02:12:12
    about those 21 police officers and if that is true, and also please let us know if this is the gentleman that chased the woman down 29 and brandished the firearm.
  • 02:12:25
    Thank you.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 02:12:28
    Thank you, Ms.
  • 02:12:28
    Turner.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 02:12:32
    Mayor Snook, I see no additional hands.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 02:12:35
    Okay.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 02:12:38
    I'm sorry, Dee Dee Smith actually just raised her hand.
  • 02:12:40
    Okay.
  • 02:12:42
    Didi, you are on with counsel.
• • SPEAKER_13
  • 02:12:44
    Good evening.
  • 02:12:45
    I'm sorry, I thought I registered to speak.
  • 02:12:49
    One of the most fascinating things I learned tonight during your 4 p.m.
  • 02:12:54
    report about the plan to dig up five miles of streets on the south side of Charlottesville, past Johnson Elementary and Beaufort Middle, past four churches, three public housing sites, along the emergency route to the hospital,
  • 02:13:10
    was when Mayor Snook, after several good questions from your fellow city councilors, decided this would be a good time to tell the constituents who have been contacting him for months that council has nothing to say about what Rivanna water and sewer authority does in our city.
  • 02:13:31
    Nothing, not a thing.
  • 02:13:32
    We're helpless.
  • 02:13:34
    Other councilors, did you know this?
  • 02:13:36
    Is this what was redacted in your emails from Lisa Robertson?
  • 02:13:41
    Surely citing law is eligible for FOIA.
  • 02:13:45
    So we are to understand that Rivanna can rip up our streets, can disrupt thousands of people's lives for years, including thousands of school children whose routes to school will be blocked for years, and they can do
  • 02:14:05
    whatever they choose.
  • 02:14:08
    The real irony here is that Rivanna's board has long been driven by special interests.
  • 02:14:13
    That's no secret.
  • 02:14:15
    The chair, who has served for a decade, nice guy, is the founder of Gaffney Homes.
  • 02:14:19
    County development is his job.
  • 02:14:21
    Even their lawyers are now development lawyers.
  • 02:14:25
    I mean, do you all remember how many times Valerie Long has come before city council representing developers?
  • 02:14:30
    She's now a lawyer for Rivanna.
  • 02:14:33
    The elected representative from the county for the past decade has been someone from Western Albemarle who doesn't pay for either water or sewer.
  • 02:14:41
    I mean, but just when you thought this could not get any more dystopian, Mayor Snook, you decide now is a good time to tell us too bad our southern neighbors.
  • 02:14:56
    They will build that pipeline and you will pay for it.
  • 02:15:03
    Wow, you trumped Donald J. Trump in the wall.
  • 02:15:08
    I mean, good job, City Council.
  • 02:15:10
    This will be one for the history books.
  • 02:15:14
    Hope you have a good evening.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 02:15:17
    Thank you, Ms.
  • 02:15:18
    Smith.
  • 02:15:22
    Anybody else?
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 02:15:24
    Mayor Snook, I see no additional hands.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 02:15:26
    Okay.
  • 02:15:30
    Let me make just a couple of comments because we were asked a couple of very direct questions.
  • 02:15:35
    I will tell Ms.
  • 02:15:36
    Turner I did not know anything about the fellow who had apparently been in the Capitol on January 6th until the most recent spate of stories came out a couple of weeks ago.
  • 02:15:53
    And I believe from having talked with others that
  • 02:15:58
    There was certainly nobody knew in real time.
  • 02:16:00
    There may have been some folks who were aware of rumors and discussions weeks later, but not at the time.
  • 02:16:08
    There was also an issue raised by Ms.
  • 02:16:11
    Turner about whether the person involved had a brandishing of firearm charge.
  • 02:16:17
    What I understand, piecing things together, there was a charge that had occurred about five months earlier
  • 02:16:25
    It was a brandishing of firearm charge that was brought, but it was dropped.
  • 02:16:30
    I don't know the circumstances.
  • 02:16:32
    I was not involved in the case.
  • 02:16:33
    All I know is it was dropped.
  • 02:16:35
    It was not a few days later.
  • 02:16:37
    It was actually five months earlier.
  • 02:16:38
    And I didn't know anything about police officers taking leave either.
  • 02:16:44
    So just to answer her questions very directly.
  • 02:16:51
    Anybody else wish to say anything?
• • Michael Payne
  • 02:16:54
    I would just echo, you know, the recent stories and posting about on social media is the first time I've heard anything about this.
  • 02:17:03
    With that said, I guess a question for the city manager's office either now or at some point is, is there any kind of process through our HR department to have some kind of reinvestigation or formal investigation of the conduct and if it violates the city's own policy and procedures?
• • SPEAKER_25
  • 02:17:23
    We are engaged in evaluating these recent facts, this information that's come out, and we will make an assessment when we gather all of the information.
  • 02:17:37
    But we are looking into it.
• • SPEAKER_18
  • 02:17:39
    And also that I understand.
  • 02:17:41
    I mean, we have only recently had an HR director for the first time in a year and a half.
  • 02:17:51
    I am hoping and
  • 02:17:54
    I know from conversations with you, Mr. Rogers, I know that you and Deputy City Manager Marshall and Deputy City Manager Sanders are looking at policies that we might not have had in place and to make sure that the city has social media policies and other types of policies that might not have existed until this time.
• • SPEAKER_25
  • 02:18:19
    That's correct.
• • SPEAKER_18
  • 02:18:20
    Thank you, sir.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 02:18:22
    So that concludes the community matters section.
  • 02:18:27
    There will be another opportunity for public comment at the end of the meeting.
  • 02:18:30
    And we'll now move on to the action items portion of the agenda.
  • 02:18:34
    And the first item, I believe, is what you were saying, Councilor McGill, needs to be withdrawn from the agenda, dealing with 321 6th Street.
  • 02:18:47
    Is that what you're saying?
• • SPEAKER_18
  • 02:18:47
    Attorney Robertson said that we could go ahead and she would clarify that we could go ahead with the public comment portion.
  • 02:18:57
    There is an issue that has to be rectified before it gets voted on.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 02:19:06
    All right.
  • 02:19:06
    Ms.
  • 02:19:07
    Robertson, do you want to introduce the item for the public hearing?
• • SPEAKER_15
  • 02:19:11
    Yes.
  • 02:19:15
    Just, yeah.

31. 12. Considering a request for vacation and purchase of the adjacent unaccepted Right-of-Way for Oak Street at 321 6th Street (1 reading)

• • SPEAKER_15
  • 02:19:17
    All right, so in the City Council's agenda materials, there is a request that has been brought forward by the owners of a lot identified by the address of 321-60 Southwest.
  • 02:19:38
    They are asking and have been requesting
  • 02:19:43
    for some time that the city consider conveying to them a strip of property located adjacent to their block.
  • 02:19:52
    And the strip of property is a platted 20-foot right-of-way that is labeled Oak Street, but it has never been improved.
  • 02:20:03
    It was originally platted in the late 1800s, so it has been what we call a paper street for quite some period of time.
  • 02:20:15
    Previously, back in 2010, City Council closed a 77-foot section of that same old cladded street beginning at the next street over, 6 1⁄2 Street Southwest and continuing up to what is actually the eastern property line of the lots in question tonight.
  • 02:20:42
    At that time, City Council did not ask the landowners to pay extra square footage of any property that was acquired.
  • 02:20:53
    For those of you who haven't done this before, what happens when an alley is
  • 02:21:00
    vacated or abandoned by the city is that one half of the property to the center line of the alley will go to each adjacent property owner.
  • 02:21:16
    So in this case, a portion of the property will go to 321 6th Street Southwest and the other half of the alley will go to the person directly across the alley
  • 02:21:30
    from them.
  • 02:21:32
    The issue that has come to light thanks to a citizen is that so as you'll note in the agenda the director of utilities did in her comments prior to the preparation of this item point out that there's a portion of the household super lateral for
  • 02:21:56
    313 6th Street Southwest that extends into the alley and where wires got crossed was that normally so the sewer lateral I had thought
  • 02:22:21
    connected to a sewer main that was in the alley, but that is not the case.
  • 02:22:27
    The connection runs from 313 6th Street, which is again across the alley from the persons who are asking for the alley to be closed.
  • 02:22:38
    And it runs sort of
  • 02:22:40
    Diagonally across just the corner of the alley out to connect to the city super main that is in 6th Street Southwest.
  • 02:22:52
    And so in this case, the standard language for reserving a utility easement that we have included in ordinances vacating paper streets and alley numerous times before does not
  • 02:23:10
    to fit the current situation.
  • 02:23:13
    So what you have is a situation where if City Council votes to close or vacate a platted right-of-way known as Oak Street, what could potentially happen is that if that diagonal sewer lateral
  • 02:23:36
    isn't entirely on the half of the alley that will go to the owner of 313.
  • 02:23:41
    That person could be left with a portion of the lateral that is located in the half of the alley that would be going to the owners of 321 6th Street Southwest.
  • 02:23:59
    And so what I would suggest, I have heard from the owners of 321 and I know that they have been in discussions with the owner of 313 6th Street Southwest about to talk about disposition of the property when City Council were to vacate it.
  • 02:24:23
    What I would recommend is that you go ahead and hold the public hearing on this.
  • 02:24:31
    If the requesters are able to speak to you they can talk to you during the public hearing about why they've made this request.
  • 02:24:40
    and then I'd like to ask you to do a second reading of a corrected ordinance at your July meeting and in that ordinance if you are inclined to grant the request what I would suggest is that you simply make it a condition of the request
  • 02:24:57
    that the owner of 313 6th Street Southwest have a perpetual right to access any portion of their sewer lateral that might wind up on the other side of the new property line between those two properties and that way we won't be creating a situation where private property owners would be arguing over
  • 02:25:23
    access to a super lateral that one of the property owners would have had continuing access to were it in this platted street.
  • 02:25:37
    So I hope that, I know that's a little bit convoluted, but the issue is that the ordinance that's before you tonight references
  • 02:25:46
    retaining an easement in favor of the city.
  • 02:25:50
    And that is not necessary because there is not a city main that extends up the middle of that alley.
  • 02:25:59
    The city main is actually in six streets.
  • 02:26:02
    So that does need to be correct.
  • 02:26:05
    But as I said, this can go forward for a public hearing and council can
  • 02:26:13
    Give it consideration and if Council is inclined to grant the request, we can bring back a corrected ordinance for your next meeting.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 02:26:23
    So if we have the public hearing and decide, okay, we're interested in seeing this go forward, we could simply continue it until the July 18th meeting and hopefully it'll get figured out between now and then.
• • SPEAKER_15
  • 02:26:37
    That is correct.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 02:26:37
    And we don't need to obsess over the details of exactly what the agreement would end up saying because that's what you're for.
• • Juandiego Wade
  • 02:26:46
    That's correct.
  • 02:26:47
    Was it advertised for tonight as a public hearing?
  • 02:26:50
    It was, okay.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 02:26:51
    Yes, yes.
  • 02:26:52
    All right.
  • 02:26:53
    Any clarifying questions before we proceed to see if there is any public that wishes to comment?
• • SPEAKER_18
  • 02:27:02
    Yeah, I don't think this is as much of a question, so I'll wait.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 02:27:05
    Okay, so let's open the public hearing.
  • 02:27:08
    First of all, is there anybody in the room here who wishes to speak on the question?
  • 02:27:13
    I see nobody.
  • 02:27:14
    Okay, Mr. Dillahunt, do we have anybody?
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 02:27:17
    Mayor Snook, I see no hands raised.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 02:27:20
    All right.
  • 02:27:22
    So with no speakers on the matter, the public hearing is now closed.
  • 02:27:29
    We should, I guess, not make a motion at this point, but is there any discussion that we want to be having between us?
  • 02:27:40
    Go for it.
• • SPEAKER_18
  • 02:27:41
    No, I just, so I have an issue right now until we figure out holistically what we're going to do with the paper streets, the piecemealing of people who know to be able to come to city council,
  • 02:27:57
    or to come to get the street closed.
  • 02:28:02
    I don't feel it's a fair overall process and I because I've known so many people who've tried to deal with these paper streets over the years until we decide if we are going to either put out a public notice and allow anybody and make sure it's very clear to the public that they can do this.
  • 02:28:24
    Um,
  • 02:28:25
    I just I think I am personally not okay with granting them just because I think it's been a very murky thing over the years and I think we need to do it all together all at once across the city versus piecemealing it so
• • Juandiego Wade
  • 02:28:54
    I did tons of these when I was doing transportation planning for the county that no one knew that they had this easement or whatever on their property until they tried to sell it or it came up in some type of
  • 02:29:10
    and the way I approached it is that we used to do it on a case-by-case basis because it may be a case where the county or the city might need that at some point in the future or it was providing access to an old cemetery or something like that which I think was excluded.
  • 02:29:25
    But anyway, I think it may be hard to come up with an overall city policy because each one might be different.
  • 02:29:33
    That's the way I might see it.
  • 02:29:34
    So, I mean, with this, you know, we didn't have any public comment on it, but if I don't, if there's no issue with it, I think this is, we had several of these at this one that the staff didn't have an issue with.
  • 02:29:47
    I'll take another quick look at it.
  • 02:29:49
    I wouldn't have a problem with it.
  • 02:29:50
    But for me, it probably would be on a case-by-case basis.
  • 02:29:53
    I'm not sure if I'm prepared.
  • 02:29:55
    to do a whole city of YWO, not unless there's some type of disclaimers in there by staff to note certain things.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 02:30:04
    Do we know how this came to our attention?
  • 02:30:08
    I see who asked, but do we know why?
• • SPEAKER_15
  • 02:30:10
    I don't know why.
  • 02:30:13
    I just know that the email was received.
  • 02:30:17
    I will also say that, as I mentioned in the staff report, in 2010,
  • 02:30:25
    Other half of the alley was closed and so it may be the case that one of these two property owners just doesn't like the idea that there's a remaining public street right-of-way even one that's merely on paper that
  • 02:30:46
    that is adjacent to their property, but, you know, stops right at the end of their property.
  • 02:30:51
    So it's not clear, you know, what use there could potentially be now that the other half of the alley has been closed since 2010.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 02:31:02
    If I recall, it was probably about, I don't know, maybe 15 or 20 years ago, the General Assembly passed the statute that basically said if the city is going to vacate a road like this, it gets split down the middle.
  • 02:31:16
    whereas before one party or the other could say, hey, I want it attached to the back of my lot or I want it attached to the back of my lot.
• • SPEAKER_15
  • 02:31:25
    Yeah, there are several different ways that issue can turn out depending on a number of different factors such as how a particular area got
  • 02:31:39
    established in the first place and then for example if this were an improved public street you all may remember that you had
  • 02:31:50
    a street closing on Brandon Avenue years ago.
  • 02:31:54
    And once the city improves the street and actually sort of claims ownership and public use through that action of improving it and accepting it into the street system, then the city can transfer that property to one particular property owner versus having title to the center line be divided.
  • 02:32:20
    Sometimes it can depend on the circumstances but by far the general rule applicable to most of these types of requests is that the title goes to the center line and if the platted area is abandoned that's where the new boundary line will be.
• • SPEAKER_18
  • 02:32:38
    I just also want to clarify I'm not saying that we we decide each property right now saying that we have a policy because
  • 02:32:47
    I a couple of years ago wanted to go get the alley closed beside my property and I couldn't because the city was no longer doing that.
  • 02:32:57
    So I just think we should have an overall process ironed out that we can put out to property owners saying this is how you go about it and make sure it's just well given out to people so that they know how things have changed again.
  • 02:33:15
    I know from a homeowner who had one of these behind my house and beside my house for 15 years trying to figure out if I could have that bit of property there and my neighbor and I could share it.
  • 02:33:29
    It's been very confusing.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 02:33:33
    Yeah, certainly in my private practice I get calls all the time from people wanting to know
  • 02:33:39
    What's the policy?
  • 02:33:40
    Do I own this?
  • 02:33:41
    Does the city get to tell me what to do with it?
  • 02:33:43
    Can I plant tomatoes in this right-of-way?
  • 02:33:47
    Things like that.
  • 02:33:50
    There are, in fact, answers, but anyway.
• • Michael Payne
  • 02:33:56
    I'd note David Dillhunt wrote in the chat that someone had raised their hand.
  • 02:33:59
    They missed the public hearing time, but just letting everyone know if you wanted them to speak.
  • 02:34:05
    I don't know if they're raising their hand related to this item or what.
• • SPEAKER_15
  • 02:34:10
    She is the requester.
  • 02:34:13
    Her name is Portia Boggs, and she is one of the two owners of the property who is asking you to take this action.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 02:34:24
    I don't mind hearing briefly from the property owner if that's what's going on.
  • 02:34:30
    Mr. Dillahunt, do you know who it is?
  • 02:34:31
    Does this person want to speak on this topic?
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 02:34:36
    Yes, Portia Boggs, you are now on with counsel.
• • SPEAKER_33
  • 02:34:40
    Hi, I'm here and my husband also property owner is here.
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 02:34:43
    Hi, yeah, thank you guys so much for your time and considering this ordinance.
  • 02:34:49
    I guess I think there was the question about how this came up and how this came on our radar to add some context.
  • 02:34:55
    I want to say we bought the property in October of 2020.
  • 02:34:58
    A few months after that, we were contacted by the city about the specific alley in question here.
  • 02:35:05
    I guess
  • 02:35:07
    Either the previous homeowner or some previous owner.
• • SPEAKER_33
  • 02:35:11
    I think the previous homeowner and the resident at 313.
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 02:35:15
    Yeah, they had put some yard waste in the area and we were notified that it was a fire hazard and that we needed to clean the premises.
  • 02:35:22
    So we went ahead and, you know, rented a truck, cleaned that out and kind of going through this process, we realized, you know, this is Oak Street.
  • 02:35:29
    It's a street that never really was used.
  • 02:35:31
    We talked to our neighbors on 6 1⁄2 Street, found out that they had been granted the land by the city, and we wanted to pursue it as well.
  • 02:35:38
    Currently, the actual alley isn't in great condition.
  • 02:35:42
    There's a tree that fell over a recent storm that's dead and kind of rotting there.
  • 02:35:46
    So we were also thinking that if we were to do this and be granted the land together with the owners of 313, we could kind of clean the area up and make it look nicer.
  • 02:35:58
    But again, thank you guys so much for considering this ordinance.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 02:36:01
    Do you know what the owners at 313, what their position on this is?
• • SPEAKER_33
  • 02:36:06
    They, we don't know.
  • 02:36:08
    We've been trying to get in contact with them.
  • 02:36:11
    I do know that the owner is homebound and seems to mostly use his yard for trash disposal.
  • 02:36:21
    So I don't think that he's particularly interested in the problem.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 02:36:25
    Okay.
  • 02:36:25
    Well, thank you for providing a little context for us.
• • SPEAKER_24
  • 02:36:29
    Yep.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 02:36:29
    Yeah.
  • 02:36:29
    Thank you guys so much.
  • 02:36:30
    Okay.
  • 02:36:32
    So, Councilors, what's your preference?
  • 02:36:37
    We don't have to decide anything for sure this evening.
  • 02:36:40
    Do we want to carry it forward for the next month and see what the next month brings us?
  • 02:36:47
    Or do we want to take Ms.
  • 02:36:49
    McGill's approach and say no, put a stop.
• • Michael Payne
  • 02:36:52
    Go ahead.
• • Juandiego Wade
  • 02:36:53
    No, I was going to say, you know, I'm certainly comfortable moving forward, but I also, you know, support Ms.
  • 02:37:00
    McGill's proposal that, you know, if there is a policy that can be generated that has some flexibility for circumstances like this, you know, for example, then I think it's worthwhile.
  • 02:37:14
    But I know the staff has a lot
  • 02:37:16
    on their plate right now, and this probably is not a priority for them.
  • 02:37:20
    I wouldn't want it to be a priority for them, but I'm comfortable with moving something like this.
  • 02:37:26
    Yeah, I am as well.
• • Michael Payne
  • 02:37:31
    Likewise, I can see the benefit to having a more clearly defined overall process.
  • 02:37:37
    And to be honest, I haven't thought about it too much, but my initial reaction is that that shouldn't necessarily hold us up from doing some on a case-by-case basis as they come to us.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 02:37:49
    So I think why don't we agree that we will take this back up again on July 18th.
  • 02:37:56
    and Ms.
  • 02:37:57
    Robertson, whatever needs to be done in the meantime, feel free to try to figure it out.
  • 02:38:04
    Okay?
  • 02:38:07
    All right, so that takes care of that motion.

32. 13. Considering a request to purchase an adjacent City Right-of-Way at 819 East Jefferson Street (1 reading)

• • Lloyd Snook
  • 02:38:10
    We're deferring it.
  • 02:38:12
    Next item is a request to purchase an adjacent city right-of-way at 819 East Jefferson Street.
  • 02:38:19
    Ms.
  • 02:38:19
    Robertson, that's also you, I see.
• • SPEAKER_15
  • 02:38:22
    Yes, let me
  • 02:38:24
    Let me get to it here.
  • 02:38:27
    When the blackout happened, apparently it wiped out some of what I had up on my screen.
  • 02:38:36
    I'm having trouble opening the agenda materials here.
  • 02:38:53
    I have lost them.
  • 02:38:55
    I'm sorry, I'm going to need to open them on the internet.
• • SPEAKER_16
  • 02:39:07
    So
• • SPEAKER_15
  • 02:39:17
    I've lost complete access to the council agenda materials.
  • 02:39:23
    Can I help you?
  • 02:39:24
    I apologize.
  • 02:39:26
    This new one is 819 East Jefferson Street.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 02:39:30
    Correct.
• • SPEAKER_15
  • 02:39:31
    If recollection serves, we have been contacted by the owner of a lot adjacent to parcel of land that is
  • 02:39:47
    along 9th Street at the corner of East Jefferson and 9th Street.
  • 02:39:56
    And basically, this particular area of land is the remnant of a prior lot that was acquired by the city, presumably when it was either widening or establishing the public streets in this area.
  • 02:40:16
    Interestingly enough, it's considered a lot as opposed to a piece of right-of-way, so it has a parcel identification number in the city assessor's records, and it has an assessed value assigned to it, which is not the case for most
  • 02:40:37
    City Right of Way areas.
  • 02:40:39
    The value assigned to this particular lot by the assessor is, or lot remnant is a better word for it, is $31,000.
  • 02:40:51
    The person who is asking you to convey this portion of land to them has not offered
  • 02:41:04
    Payment to the city of any particular dollar amount, but feels that relieving the city of the obligation to maintain the property
  • 02:41:18
    is of benefit to the city and the public generally.
  • 02:41:24
    It is not the case, none of the department heads who reviewed this particular matter had any recommendation as to what city council should or shouldn't do, but they also didn't necessarily have any objection to the conveyance.
  • 02:41:44
    A number of people suggested that
  • 02:41:46
    City Council should go ahead and agree to the conveyance but to reserve the right reserve some sort of easement or something in case the city should need a
  • 02:42:00
    to do work on the right of way or put in a sidewalk or something in the future.
  • 02:42:06
    But if you can think of potential uses you may have for the parcel, it's a lot easier to manage it if you own it than to try and reserve rights for uses that you can't conceive of yet.
  • 02:42:26
    again I apologize I don't have the materials up but this is a little bit different than a platted street it is it is actually a parcel of property that was acquired as a lot by the city at some point previously in time and a portion of it has been used for public street purposes but this remnant remains and there's a similar remnant adjacent to it
  • 02:42:56
    and although the city hasn't received a request for a conveyance of that similar remnant that's adjacent to it, if you do convey this particular remnant, you'll have a situation where you'll own half of the block face but not the other half.
  • 02:43:22
    So it is a
  • 02:43:26
    somewhat a difficult proposal to consider.
• • Brian Pinkston
  • 02:43:31
    Ms.
  • 02:43:31
    Robertson, I emailed you the agenda, the packet.
  • 02:43:34
    Hopefully you can open it.
  • 02:43:37
    Okay, thank you.
  • 02:43:37
    Sure.
  • 02:43:38
    I guess we're talking.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 02:43:41
    We're at page 129 of the packet, if you care.
• • Brian Pinkston
  • 02:43:43
    129 or 93?
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 02:43:47
    I think you may be using an old packet.
• • Brian Pinkston
  • 02:43:49
    Okay.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 02:43:52
    Okay.
  • 02:43:52
    Okay, so 93 on the old packet.
• • Brian Pinkston
  • 02:43:54
    Sorry about that.
  • 02:43:55
    So it's essentially a trapezoidal shape.
  • 02:44:00
    I think that's the word.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 02:44:00
    Yes.
• • Brian Pinkston
  • 02:44:02
    On the corner of East Jefferson and something.
  • 02:44:08
    And it sounds like, Ms.
  • 02:44:09
    Robertson, you're saying that this piece of land is adjacent to what is connected currently with a larger trapezoid, which is beside 814?
  • 02:44:20
    Just north.
  • 02:44:20
    Yes.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 02:44:22
    Yes.
• • Michael Payne
  • 02:44:26
    And I would just note in the agenda packet that that gives the city control of the entire block facing 9th Street Northeast.
  • 02:44:33
    So it aligns with the street.
  • 02:44:37
    Correct.
• • Brian Pinkston
  • 02:44:37
    Yeah.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 02:44:39
    And I was out there today and noticed a couple things.
  • 02:44:43
    One is that
  • 02:44:45
    In this rather slim area, there are two very large either chestnut or chestnut oaks, probably chestnut oaks given everything else, that we would basically be giving up Title II.
  • 02:45:02
    It's an area that the trees are huge and they're beautiful and they are worth more to the city, I suspect, than they would be to the neighbor.
  • 02:45:12
    The other thing I would note is that I think the neighbor's heat pump is on the city's property.
  • 02:45:19
    This map may be a little bit too rough to be precise about it, but certainly it's also true for the people at 814 East High Street.
  • 02:45:31
    They've got a structure that's on the city property as well, plus some trees there.
  • 02:45:37
    My own feeling about it is that we basically should not be in the habit of giving away real estate, particularly if it's on a road that we may decide we want to have a bike lane or a wider sidewalk or
  • 02:45:53
    and even a bus stop, for example.
• • Brian Pinkston
  • 02:45:56
    And so the proposal that's before us would be that this individual would have to pay us $37,100 for this piece of land.
  • 02:46:03
    Is that right?
• • SPEAKER_18
  • 02:46:04
    No, he doesn't want to pay anything.
• • Brian Pinkston
  • 02:46:06
    Right.
  • 02:46:06
    But the ordinance is saying that if we're going to do it, he will be required to pay.
  • 02:46:10
    Is that right?
  • 02:46:12
    Does that read the ordinance?
• • SPEAKER_15
  • 02:46:14
    Well, the ordinance has been written to
  • 02:46:22
    to match up with the request where that dollar figure is referenced.
  • 02:46:27
    Mr. Pinkston is in a condition that basically says if this ordinance is approved, the city does not want to have to pay any fees or taxes related to recording a deed.
  • 02:46:42
    And usually those fees are calculated based on the land value.
• • Brian Pinkston
  • 02:46:47
    I see.
  • 02:46:47
    Yeah, I misunderstood.
  • 02:46:48
    I'm sorry.
• • SPEAKER_15
  • 02:46:49
    No, that's fine.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 02:46:51
    Yeah.
  • 02:46:51
    Anyway, this is set for public hearing, so our first step here was to ask any clarifying questions.
  • 02:47:00
    Are there any other clarifying questions?
• • Michael Payne
  • 02:47:02
    Nope, no clarifying questions.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 02:47:03
    We're ready to hear if there's anybody, is there anybody in the room who wishes to speak about it?
• • SPEAKER_28
  • 02:47:11
    Yes, hello.
  • 02:47:12
    My name is Tom Guerin.
  • 02:47:13
    I'm the property owner as of about 10 months ago at 815 East Jefferson and wanted to appear before you this evening to just characterize some of the requests that I made.
  • 02:47:26
    I think very excited to be I'm converting the property from a small office into my own personal primary residence.
  • 02:47:33
    in the process of doing that.
  • 02:47:34
    I'm a little embarrassed that Mayor Snook walked by today to see some of the landscaping on my property needs some work.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 02:47:43
    I wasn't noticing that.
• • SPEAKER_28
  • 02:47:44
    I was only noticing the City's property.
  • 02:47:46
    That's all right.
  • 02:47:48
    I want to present to the Council that I think there's an opportunity at that corner for things to be considerably
  • 02:47:56
    more beautiful for the sake of the city than they are.
  • 02:47:59
    If the city were going to put a bench or a bike lane or a bus stop on that corner, I would be the first to stand up and support it.
  • 02:48:07
    But as of right now, the two lovely chestnut trees that Mary Snook refers to, I have at my own expense killed the ivy that is destroying one of those trees.
  • 02:48:17
    The other tree is going to require
  • 02:48:19
    considerably more expense in order to get all of the ivy off it that I believe will eventually kill it and bring it down on Ninth Street.
  • 02:48:29
    I have worked with the city arborist's office to have them come out and perform maintenance as the time I made the request.
  • 02:48:35
    It had been a couple months and they hadn't come.
  • 02:48:38
    they did come I believe in February to do some maintenance but they I spoke with them about doing the things it would take to really make those trees healthy and thriving and they said you know we're just here to get the branches away from the street which I completely understand but I mean I just I think there's an opportunity to take
  • 02:48:57
    significantly better care of that piece of land.
  • 02:49:00
    And while I would welcome the city to do that, I would also be delighted to do it as part of my property where I intend to be proud to live for many years.
  • 02:49:10
    I just want to amend maybe what Councilor McGill said about that I don't want to pay for the property or that I'm unwilling to convey anything of value in exchange for this property.
  • 02:49:23
    I am new to the process here.
  • 02:49:25
    I'm new to the city.
  • 02:49:26
    And so I do believe it is a significant and valuable consideration that I would maintain the property on its perpetuity and pay taxes on its assessed value.
  • 02:49:34
    I just wrote Jason Van Dever my check a couple weeks ago.
  • 02:49:38
    So, you know, that I believe does constitute a benefit
  • 02:49:42
    to the city.
  • 02:49:43
    But as my requesting letter says, I am delighted to work with the city to figure out how we can best dispose of that property in a way that benefits everyone in the city.
  • 02:49:57
    It's quite a busy corner.
  • 02:49:58
    As you all know, I'm proud to say my employer has a bank branch on the opposing corner.
  • 02:50:04
    And so I'm very interested in seeing that property disposed for the benefit of the city.
  • 02:50:09
    And if I can come
  • 02:50:10
    contribute to that by being the caretaker of it.
  • 02:50:12
    I would be delighted to serve in that capacity.
  • 02:50:15
    Thank you for your time.
  • 02:50:16
    And I'm happy to answer any questions that you have.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 02:50:18
    Thank you, Mr. Guerin.
  • 02:50:19
    Yes, sir.
  • 02:50:20
    Anybody got questions for him?
• • Michael Payne
  • 02:50:24
    One question.
  • 02:50:25
    Sure.
  • 02:50:26
    You know, at this time, do you have any plan for what you would do with that property?
  • 02:50:32
    Should you own it rather than the city?
  • 02:50:34
    What would materially change?
• • SPEAKER_28
  • 02:50:36
    Yeah, so it's about the parcel that you refer to on the north half of the block is considerably larger than mine.
  • 02:50:42
    Mine's only about 435 square feet, and there's an elevation change of maybe five or eight feet between where my house is and where the sidewalk is, so there's just really not much you can do with it.
  • 02:50:54
    I have had a landscape designer put together a concept of a wall that I need in front of my property facing
  • 02:51:01
    facing Jefferson Street, but I've looked at running the wall if I were to own that land around the corner.
  • 02:51:07
    There was actually incorporation of a bench that would allow the passing public to sit down.
  • 02:51:12
    I made an intentional decision to live in north downtown.
  • 02:51:15
    I know that I'm in a pedestrian area, so I'm not trying to keep people from traversing my property.
  • 02:51:22
    I don't want to make any promises about what I would do, but I definitely personally prioritize those trees.
  • 02:51:29
    every bit as much as Mayor Snook does.
  • 02:51:33
    And it is also true that my heat pump is on that land.
  • 02:51:37
    I probably shouldn't admit that in a public hearing, but that is true.
  • 02:51:40
    It's been there for more than 11 years or more.
  • 02:51:44
    so I mean that would be I'm looking to replace that heat pump because it's pretty hot in my house right now but yeah the plan would be to answer your question succinctly the plan would be to at a minimum leave it as is I've already removed there was probably
  • 02:52:00
    six inches of dirt that had accumulated from sliding down the slope onto the sidewalk and where it was restricting the width of the sidewalk and again at my own expense I had that dirt dug out and removed so again material use not change at all but I do think there's an opportunity to just clean that area up and make it look nicer again for the benefit of everyone traversing that area.
• • Juandiego Wade
  • 02:52:25
    I don't have any other questions.
  • 02:52:27
    Sir, would you be opposed to some type of maintenance easement or anything being placed on it?
• • SPEAKER_28
  • 02:52:35
    It would depend on the terms and conditions of that easement.
  • 02:52:37
    I would obviously have it reviewed by a lawyer, but no.
  • 02:52:41
    If the city were to decide at a later time that
  • 02:52:44
    you know it did want to put a bike lane in or something of that nature that would again benefit all the citizens of the city.
  • 02:52:53
    I would welcome the city frankly to have the right to you know to do that provided that you know the compensation any compensation that I might offer the city at this time would be you know reversed at the point when when the city decided it needed that land for some reason or as a right-of-way for the city to I mean it becomes my burden to maintain as I understand it
  • 02:53:13
    if I own it, but it comes with all the city standards for sidewalks and all that stuff, I would assume.
• • Brian Pinkston
  • 02:53:22
    Could I ask a question for Ms.
  • 02:53:23
    Robertson?
  • 02:53:25
    Is there a way to use the notion of encroachment to help here somehow?
• • SPEAKER_15
  • 02:53:33
    Yes.
  • 02:53:34
    If the city retained ownership of the area, the city council could approve an encroachment that would allow the
  • 02:53:41
    the heat pump or porch associated with the building.
  • 02:53:48
    And you had earlier this evening on the consent agenda, a couple of encroachment agreements that do similar things.
  • 02:53:57
    So yes, the city could approve the encroachment of the heat pump unit if it wanted to do that and still retain ownership of this parcel.
• • Brian Pinkston
  • 02:54:12
    That wouldn't really be applicable to like the whole slice of land that we're talking about.
• • SPEAKER_15
  • 02:54:16
    Normally you would approve an encroachment either for an existing intrusion or for something that a property owner was bringing and requesting you to allow.
  • 02:54:35
    Things might include, I don't know,
  • 02:54:40
    Awnings that might overhang a property line or something to that effect.
• • Brian Pinkston
  • 02:54:44
    Okay, thank you.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 02:54:47
    Yeah, I was just while you were talking I was doing a little bit of internet research and one of the things that I was frankly surprised because the value of $37,000 was being placed on this 432 foot square foot strip and it turns out that that's not actually out of whack for the land values right around there so
  • 02:55:11
    For example, the house you're in is listed as .06 acres, six times as large roughly, at $270,000 for the land value.
  • 02:55:19
    Or the property on the other side of you, .08 acres at $330,000.
  • 02:55:20
    So one of the consequences of tacking this onto your property is that your .06 goes up to .07, your taxable value then
  • 02:55:38
    say goes up to $300,000.
  • 02:55:39
    And while that doesn't, you know, the extra $30,000 may only be roughly $30 a year.
  • 02:55:43
    It's better than nothing.
  • 02:55:44
    So.
  • 02:55:44
    I mean, I have, my thing is,
• • SPEAKER_18
  • 02:55:56
    One of the most expensive things about doing sidewalks and doing everything else is getting the right of ways and by giving up land that we have the right of way to we limit ourselves and potentially cost us significantly more in the future.
  • 02:56:12
    This little chunk of area here it's big enough to make I mean in Europe they have little pocket parks that are bigger than that are smaller than this.
  • 02:56:22
    and if we give up the land then we give up that opportunity and we have 10 square miles.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 02:56:29
    So the width of the piece you're talking about can't be more than about 10 feet tops.
• • SPEAKER_28
  • 02:56:36
    I don't know the exact dimension, but yeah, my property is about 40 feet deep and it's 430 square feet in total.
  • 02:56:41
    So yeah, it is trapezoidal, but it would be in my house is built right up to the lot line.
  • 02:56:49
    And so with respect, it would be very difficult to make.
  • 02:56:53
    And with the slope, it would be very difficult to make anything out of this land at any point, unless you wanted to build a retaining wall and widen 9th Street in some meaningful way, which
• • Brian Pinkston
  • 02:57:03
    I think the other point though is that if we're not, the city's not maintaining the trees that are there, then we need to be doing that.
• • Michael Payne
  • 02:57:13
    Well, I guess my thoughts are similar to something the mayor had said earlier.
  • 02:57:25
    I guess, you know, how I look at it is
  • 02:57:29
    Land is the single most valuable asset we own.
  • 02:57:32
    And if we're going to get rid of it, in my mind, there has to be a compelling public interest in our reasoning for having done so.
  • 02:57:40
    And I just don't see it here.
  • 02:57:43
    There's the adjacent property we own.
  • 02:57:45
    I do think, particularly in the context of that adjacent property, that there is potentially down the road some possibility of a pocket park
  • 02:57:55
    used to the city and sidewalk improvements, bus shelter.
  • 02:58:00
    And I would need to know that those things could never happen and that we're getting a public benefit before, to me, it would make sense to just give away our land for free.
  • 02:58:10
    And when it comes
  • 02:58:12
    to maintenance.
  • 02:58:14
    Assuming the city is doing any maintenance, if we give up this but we still own the adjacent parcel, the city will still be at that location doing maintenance.
  • 02:58:22
    And the final thing I would say is I do believe and trust that it's the applicant's intention to maintain the trees there.
  • 02:58:32
    But obviously, unexpected things happen.
  • 02:58:36
    And if we give it away and there's a new owner, we completely lose the ability to know that that
  • 02:58:42
    tree canopy and that site as is would be maintained.
  • 02:58:44
    So as is, I would be inclined to not support it just because I am not seeing what the public benefit of doing so is.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 02:58:56
    My own feeling is that I think that there is probably
  • 02:58:59
    a combination of things that might be worked out that might be mutually beneficial and I would not rule out the possibility that we could figure out something that is most of that land will not likely be of any benefit to the city.
  • 02:59:18
    There will be some pieces of it that we may wish 10 years from now that we had the right to to do something with and whether that's a
  • 02:59:27
    you know a bus stop and a bench or whether it's a I don't know what a bike lane or a signage or something we want to put up there I would I'm certainly not prepared to say yes but I'm also not prepared to say no never
  • 02:59:45
    if that is of any help to you.
• • Michael Payne
  • 02:59:48
    And I would also say that Councillor Pinkston's idea that he brought up earlier of having some kind of like encroachment for the heat pump that's there, that to me makes perfect immediate sense.
  • 02:59:57
    I'll just say that.
• • SPEAKER_24
  • 02:59:58
    Yeah.
• • Brian Pinkston
  • 02:59:59
    And I do think we have a larger issue.
  • 03:00:01
    Well, maybe not larger, but we do have an issue if there's maintenance that needs to be done on our land and it's not getting done.
  • 03:00:08
    So I know that's not directly germane to this.
  • 03:00:13
    resolution, but it's not right that that's not happening, so hopefully someone will take note.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:00:25
    Vice Mayor Wade, any thoughts?
• • Juandiego Wade
  • 03:00:27
    No, I mean, everyone makes great, great points.
  • 03:00:29
    I mean, I guess I'd still be inclined to support it, but I think we have made a lot of points tonight that we're 10 square miles and we don't have a lot of this.
  • 03:00:40
    We
  • 03:00:42
    going to purchase a little bit tonight or it's a proposal to do that, but we don't get a lot of opportunities like this.
• • Brian Pinkston
  • 03:00:49
    Mr. Knight, just the hearing or vote as well?
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:00:54
    Well, I mean, we will have had the hearing, I guess.
  • 03:00:57
    I guess I should ask, is there anybody else in the public who wishes to be heard on the issue since we never actually closed the public hearing?
  • 03:01:07
    Any hands online?
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 03:01:11
    Mayor Snook, I see no hands raised.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:01:14
    Okay, so we can basically close the public hearing.
  • 03:01:19
    Thank you, Councilors.
  • 03:01:21
    And Mr. Guerin, thank you for your contributions.
  • 03:01:25
    And then the question is, now what?
  • 03:01:28
    So we can either have a motion to deny, a motion to approve, a thought that maybe
  • 03:01:36
    We ought to deny for now and maybe we can keep talking and see if there's some way.
  • 03:01:42
    I really do think that this is a place where at some point the city would recognize that Mr. Guerin has a stronger interest in it's looking lovely than we do.
  • 03:01:57
    And that doesn't translate into complete we give you the property.
  • 03:02:05
    I'd like to think about what that would look like.
• • SPEAKER_18
  • 03:02:07
    That's the same thing with these easements, right?
  • 03:02:10
    The easements, the paper streets.
  • 03:02:12
    So I had one behind my property and beside my property.
  • 03:02:16
    I had to maintain it even though the city kind of owned it, but they didn't own it and it wasn't my property.
  • 03:02:23
    And I mean, I got benefit out of maintaining it too by having, I understood it wasn't my property, but that's also
  • 03:02:33
    is a part of being in a community too.
  • 03:02:36
    And where do we, if this, no one's stopping Mr. Guerin from utilizing the property and being on the property and enjoying the property.
• • Michael Payne
  • 03:02:49
    Well, in the context of
  • 03:02:56
    denying it now but not saying you know hell no never and that some arrangement for some whether it be an encroachment or maybe something is an idea comes up for some conveyance of the land that does have a clear public benefit in that context I would but based on what's in front of us I would move to deny the conveyance of city-owned land at 819 East Jefferson Street.
• • Brian Pinkston
  • 03:03:20
    I would second that motion.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:03:22
    Is there any discussion any other discussion?
• • Brian Pinkston
  • 03:03:25
    The only other piece that I would like entered at some point is if there is a maintenance issue, the city needs to resolve the maintenance issue and be clear with the applicant that that's going to be resolved.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:03:41
    Okay.
• • SPEAKER_18
  • 03:03:45
    So you made a motion, you seconded the motion.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:03:47
    Got a motion and a second.
  • 03:03:48
    Any other discussion?
  • 03:03:49
    Okay.
  • 03:03:52
    Ms.
  • 03:03:52
    Robinson, will you call the vote?
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 03:03:54
    Yes.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:03:56
    Councilor Payne yes Councilor McGill this is for denial yes yes Councilor Pinkston yes Mayor Snook yes for now Vice Mayor Wade no okay so the motion passes four to one I hope that there will continue to be some more conversations thank you and thank you for your time

33. 14. Considering a request for the City to quitclaim its interest in a property line "gap" area at 1110 Preston Avenue (1 reading)

• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:04:23
    So next item, considering a request for the city to quit claim its interest in a property line gap area at 1110 Preston Avenue, David Jordan representing Thomas and Tanya Fisher.
  • 03:04:38
    Is Mr. Jordan with us?
• • SPEAKER_20
  • 03:04:40
    Yes, you hear me.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:04:42
    Yes.
• • SPEAKER_20
  • 03:04:44
    Yes, I'm the surveyor who did the closing for the clients.
  • 03:04:52
    I did the survey.
  • 03:04:53
    In the course of my survey, I found, in my opinion, the gap of land that the city owns, you cannot adversely possess against the municipality or railroad.
  • 03:05:07
    I agree with this counselor that there is no vested interest in it and just to vacate those lines.
  • 03:05:15
    It happened when there was a couple subdivisions and then a parcel was consolidated back in but when it was consolidated there was a gap of about 284 square feet that I feel the city on paper has a vested interest in.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:05:38
    So any clarifying questions before we look at the public hearing?
• • Brian Pinkston
  • 03:05:46
    Yes, perhaps I have the wrong packet, but on mine it's page 100.
  • 03:05:52
    So the yellow, again, trapezoid that's between these lots is what's relevant.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:06:00
    Right, there's a small yellow strip between them, and then it comes down the side, it looks like, just a little bit.
• • SPEAKER_20
  • 03:06:09
    Looks like a boomerang, actually.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:06:12
    Yeah.
• • Brian Pinkston
  • 03:06:12
    Right, and so the notion is that this was sort of leftover or an error in the past in the cleaning up.
• • SPEAKER_20
  • 03:06:18
    Well, the intent was that the parcel that Draper Aiden did in their plats from the city to Mr. LeBeau was to be consolidated and come one.
  • 03:06:30
    The problem is that that's an old subdivision and things have been moved and shifted around and in the course of recombining it, the monuments we found in the Platts of Rec are finding a gap.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:06:48
    And I'll tell you, I used to do real estate transactions.
  • 03:06:52
    I haven't for the last 20 years or so.
  • 03:06:54
    But in this area of town in particular, I found that surveying methods, when a lot of these lots were laid out, surveying methods were nowhere near as precise.
  • 03:07:07
    And particularly, you could see where somebody had gone sort of clockwise around
  • 03:07:14
    a square and they wound up by the time they got to the end they were off by a couple of feet and it's a fairly common problem particularly in places that were planted 100 years or so ago so it doesn't surprise me particularly but it's clear that the city doesn't have any particular interest in it and if it would benefit somebody else that's fine.
  • 03:07:36
    Clearly we never had the intent to have that property be ours.
  • 03:07:42
    So, okay, let's first of all, is there anybody in the, I'll now open the public hearing on the issue.
  • 03:07:49
    Is there anybody in the room who wishes to speak on it?
  • 03:07:54
    Anybody online who wishes to speak on the issue?
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 03:07:57
    Mayor, I see no raised hands.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:07:59
    Okay.
  • 03:08:01
    With no further speakers, the public hearing is closed.
  • 03:08:05
    What's your pleasure?
• • Brian Pinkston
  • 03:08:08
    Yeah, I'm happy to make a motion.
• • SPEAKER_18
  • 03:08:10
    Wait, can I just ask one quick question?
• • Brian Pinkston
  • 03:08:12
    Sure.
• • SPEAKER_18
  • 03:08:13
    So will the property be split evenly between the two properties?
  • 03:08:16
    The map has confused me a little bit on this.
• • SPEAKER_20
  • 03:08:18
    No, no, there's not going to be a split between the two properties.
  • 03:08:23
    The parcel land that was part of the cities was combined into that lot.
  • 03:08:33
    and it was meant to become one.
  • 03:08:35
    There's not going to be a split.
  • 03:08:37
    The intent was to make that lot bigger.
• • SPEAKER_18
  • 03:08:41
    So does the same person own both grantees?
• • SPEAKER_15
  • 03:08:44
    What I have noted within the ordinance that's in front of you is that the city will assume no responsibility for identifying the grantees who will be listed in the quick claim deed and so either everybody will need to join in a deed or all of the people who
  • 03:09:04
    owned property adjacent to the gap area will have to present the city attorney's office with a signed affirmation that they agreed to whoever is the named grantee in the quick claim deed.
  • 03:09:20
    But
  • 03:09:21
    I don't recommend that the city undertake any responsibility for determining who should receive the conveyance, but as long as they can all work this out among themselves and provide evidence of that collective agreement, we'll identify whoever they all agree to as being the person who should receive the conveyance.
• • SPEAKER_18
  • 03:09:44
    I just wanted to make sure it was being done fairly.
  • 03:09:46
    That's all.
• • SPEAKER_15
  • 03:09:47
    So thank you for that.
  • 03:09:48
    They'll need to agree before we'll sign off, you know, before we'll provide the deed.
  • 03:09:53
    Good.
  • 03:09:53
    That's all.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:09:54
    I did want to ask one other question.
  • 03:09:56
    This plat also shows at the top, it says possible gap between adjoining properties.
  • 03:10:03
    Is that a gap that would implicate any city issue?
• • SPEAKER_20
  • 03:10:07
    That is not city property.
  • 03:10:09
    Okay.
  • 03:10:10
    But that is another issue I found.
  • 03:10:14
    That's for another time.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:10:17
    Sure.
  • 03:10:18
    Okay.
• • SPEAKER_15
  • 03:10:19
    And as you all will note, the city park property doesn't touch any of these yellow shaded areas.
  • 03:10:26
    Right.
  • 03:10:26
    So, you know, there's just nothing in this collection of documents that establishes, you know, any city rights in the area.
• • Brian Pinkston
  • 03:10:41
    Okay.
  • 03:10:42
    Okay.
  • 03:10:43
    I move the ordinance approving a quick claim of all of the City's right, title, and interest in and to land situated between or among the boundaries of 1106 Preston Avenue, 1108 Preston Avenue, and 1110 Preston Avenue upon satisfaction of specified conditions.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:11:01
    Is there a second?
  • 03:11:02
    Second.
  • 03:11:04
    Any discussion?
  • 03:11:09
    If not, Ms.
  • 03:11:10
    Robinson?
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 03:11:11
    Councilor McGill?
  • 03:11:12
    Yes.
  • 03:11:12
    Councilor Payne?
  • 03:11:13
    Yes.
  • 03:11:14
    Councilor Pinkston?
  • 03:11:15
    Yes.
  • 03:11:16
    Mayor Snook?
  • 03:11:16
    Yes.
  • 03:11:17
    Vice Mayor Wade?
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:11:18
    Yes.
  • 03:11:20
    Motion passes, 5-0.
  • 03:11:21
    Thank you, Mr. Jordan.
• • SPEAKER_20
  • 03:11:26
    Thank you.

34. 15. Acquisition of property at 921 East Jefferson Street (1 reading)

• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:11:27
    Next is property at 921 East Jefferson Street.
  • 03:11:31
    Mr. Engel, take it away.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 03:11:34
    Yes.
  • 03:11:35
    Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
  • 03:11:36
    Good evening, Council.
  • 03:11:37
    Item 15 on your agenda is a resolution seeking formal approval to sign a purchase agreement for a parcel of land at 921 East Jefferson Street.
  • 03:11:47
    This parcel is 4 tenths of an acre and is currently in use as a 39 space surface parking lot.
  • 03:11:54
    Staff recommends purchase as it puts the city in control of an asset that will help with current and future parking capacity issues.
  • 03:12:04
    There are two primary drivers for this recommendation to acquire the property.
  • 03:12:09
    The first is the city-county court memorandum of agreements that was executed in 2018.
  • 03:12:15
    As you all are aware, most of that agreement spoke to the creation of a new parking structure that the city was to undertake as part of its agreement with the county.
  • 03:12:30
    That ultimately, that project was canceled, as you know, last year about this time.
  • 03:12:35
    The agreement has embedded in it two options for the county to pursue should the facility not be built.
  • 03:12:42
    And both of those involve existing facilities, the 7th Street lot and or the Market Street parking garage.
  • 03:12:52
    So being as they involve existing facilities, there's no additional
  • 03:12:56
    Parking capacity added, yet there's imposed demand from the court use that is required.
  • 03:13:03
    So to satisfy that agreement, the city just put in a bit of a pickle of displacing current parkers at the 7th Street lot.
  • 03:13:14
    if that option is chosen or potentially limiting the number of available parking spaces for either monthly or transient users at Market Street Parking Garage.
  • 03:13:27
    An earlier caller referenced the fact that Market Street Parking Garage is not currently at 100% usage and that is correct.
  • 03:13:38
    60% is the number for May.
  • 03:13:42
    So we're certainly not back to pre-pandemic levels at this moment.
  • 03:13:47
    However, we don't have any monthlies available at market.
  • 03:13:50
    We're at capacity for monthlies, meaning the remainder is held for transient usage, which has been our history to allow that much space to be reserved for transient.
  • 03:14:04
    So mall use
  • 03:14:09
    as opposed to allocated to a monthly user.
  • 03:14:14
    So even at those levels, if you were to add 100 spaces per the agreement should the county choose, Market Street, you would be pushing your occupancy level well above 85%, just adding the 60% we're at now plus 100 spaces.
  • 03:14:32
    leaving just 73 for transient use, which would be less than the traditional amount.
  • 03:14:40
    So you would in some way be jeopardizing the health of the surrounding business community that relies on those spaces for activity.
  • 03:14:49
    If you just assume the monthly users plus 100 spaces, you would push it over 93% occupancy.
  • 03:15:00
    which would reduce the transient use even further.
  • 03:15:04
    So even though we're not at pre-pandemic levels, there are concerns as we continue to come back from the pandemic and we are doing that.
  • 03:15:14
    We are seeing increases every month, small increases every month.
  • 03:15:20
    There's a potential that pretty soon if you were to add under spaces to the facility that you would be at a situation
  • 03:15:29
    where it could be a problem.
  • 03:15:30
    So that could easily happen.
  • 03:15:32
    The flip side of that is if they choose the 7th Street lot, then we have 63 parkers that are automatically need to find a new home and purchase of this lot does provide some remedy for at least a portion of that.
  • 03:15:46
    The other primary driver is the loss of other parking spaces, other public spaces, either on street
  • 03:15:54
    or Off Street in the area of City Hall.
  • 03:15:58
    And the primary driver here is the Belmont Bridge, which is clearly under construction now.
  • 03:16:02
    50 spaces will not come back as a result of the new method of construction that's happening there.
  • 03:16:10
    These were free, publicly available eight-hour spaces that were essentially under the current bridge.
  • 03:16:16
    Those are not coming back once the project is complete.
  • 03:16:20
    But when we were doing the research about a year ago, we identified 94 existing spaces in the area of City Hall.
  • 03:16:29
    50 of those, as I said, are associated with the bridge.
  • 03:16:33
    The others, there are several others, Water Street, Court Square, East High Street project that
  • 03:16:43
    So, in essence, we are already losing some spaces, whether we add some now or not, and dealing with that is going to be something that the city needs to plan for.
  • 03:16:54
    In addition, the only current freely available public lot for city employees is known as the Levy Lot, which is currently owned by the Housing Authority and is part of their redevelopment plan.
  • 03:17:07
    So we will lose the ability to use some or all of that lot in the future.
  • 03:17:13
    We don't know exactly when.
  • 03:17:15
    This is one of those properties that is, as Ms.
  • 03:17:19
    Kelly referenced in her previous conversation with you all, there was a lease, but there isn't a current lease.
  • 03:17:25
    So we are a
  • 03:17:26
    essentially using that just by agreement with the Housing Authority.
  • 03:17:31
    So we have technically no rights to that.
  • 03:17:34
    That's 61 spaces that is destined to be affected or impacted at some point.
  • 03:17:40
    In essence, if we were to add 39 spots, we would still have a net loss of parking spaces in and around the downtown area, you know, assuming the 94 go away and then the 61 also eventually go away.
  • 03:17:54
    You're still looking at a considerable net loss of parking.
  • 03:17:58
    So in essence, we're not adding.
  • 03:18:00
    We're simply trying to keep pace and not lose but so many.
  • 03:18:06
    Other additional factors, this property is within a five-minute walk or a quarter mile of City Hall.
  • 03:18:13
    The city owns a number of properties in that vicinity in addition to City Hall, as well as there are a number of other demand generators in the general area, businesses, entertainment, attractions, things of that nature.
  • 03:18:30
    The proposed price is $1.65 million with an expected closing within 30 days of approval.
  • 03:18:38
    The city attorney has reviewed the proposed agreement and both parties are in agreement on that should you all move forward with the item tonight.
  • 03:18:47
    The funding source is the CIP account that was previously associated with the 7th Street Deck project.
  • 03:18:53
    So an account was created upon
  • 03:18:56
    the signing of the agreement in 2018 and some funds were put into that ultimately not all those funds were used so there are funds remaining there so we would suggest that would be the appropriate source for funding this purchase so I think that concludes what I wanted to go over and be happy to answer any questions you have at this time
• • SPEAKER_18
  • 03:19:23
    So I just wanted to clarify.
  • 03:19:25
    I know one of the issues we were facing at one point of having to meet the court's agreement was the potential of tearing down the Lucky Seven and Guadalajara building.
  • 03:19:35
    And in purchasing this parking lot, is that going to make it so that we do not have to do that?
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 03:19:45
    Yes, certainly in the short term.
  • 03:19:47
    Ultimately, you know, the long-term use
  • 03:19:51
    of that property is up to the city.
  • 03:19:53
    We do own it.
  • 03:19:54
    We did purchase it in 2016.
  • 03:19:55
    It had been looked at for many, many years as a potential site for development and parking going back to a 2001 study.
  • 03:20:09
    So it was purchased for that reason.
  • 03:20:11
    That was the site that the proposed deck was to be built on.
  • 03:20:15
    That's been canceled.
  • 03:20:17
    The tenants are paying rent and are doing good business, so there's no reason to upset that if there's no need to.
  • 03:20:27
    This certainly provides some relief in terms of the law spaces and also helps with the accommodation of the county agreement as well.
• • Michael Payne
  • 03:20:39
    I guess to piggyback off that, to me there's really one central question.
  • 03:20:44
    To me, purchasing this for the use of parking could potentially make sense in one context, which is the court's agreement, which I think
  • 03:20:54
    is a bad deal and we gave away the farm, but nonetheless we are in that agreement.
  • 03:21:00
    One resolution to that agreement is to provide 100 or so spaces in the Market Street garage reserved for use for the courts during the day.
  • 03:21:11
    Quite frankly, depending on how that's implemented, I don't think that's the end of the world.
  • 03:21:15
    But my understanding is the majority of counsel does not agree with that sentiment.
  • 03:21:18
    Correct me if I'm wrong.
  • 03:21:20
    So in that context, if purchasing this resolved the court's agreement in place of building a $10-plus million garage and or tearing down Lucky 7 in Guadalajara to build a surface lot,
  • 03:21:35
    it potentially makes sense to me.
  • 03:21:37
    But if we're going to purchase this and then at some point down the road still demolish Lucky 7 in Guadalajara or build a new parking deck there then it doesn't make sense to me.
  • 03:21:50
    And so I guess I'll just ask Sena's question is would purchasing this in the long term guarantee that it would not be pursued to tear down the Lucky 7 in Guadalajara and or build a new parking deck in that area?
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 03:22:07
    Well, I don't know that I'm in a position to give a guarantee on behalf of the city.
  • 03:22:11
    But like I said, I think it certainly limits the need to do that in the short term.
  • 03:22:18
    Once again, it's only 39 spaces.
  • 03:22:19
    The proposed deck was to be about 300 spaces, along with some commercial space on the ground level.
  • 03:22:27
    The other element that I didn't really raise in this conversation, but Council's been briefed on it prior, is that the Marcus Street garage is nearly 50 years old, and it's fine, but it will ultimately, it's getting some renovations this year, but it will ultimately likely outlive its usefulness and need to be replaced.
  • 03:22:52
    So something that
  • 03:22:53
    Don't know when that will happen and what the situation with transportation will look like at the time.
  • 03:22:58
    But difficult to offer, I guarantee.
  • 03:23:01
    But I think as we sit here today, there's no reason to consider the raising of those businesses for parking purposes.
  • 03:23:11
    Okay.
• • Michael Payne
  • 03:23:12
    And one final question.
  • 03:23:13
    It's coming out of the CIP account where some money had been allocated for 7th Street deck project.
  • 03:23:20
    Is that correct?
  • 03:23:21
    Yes.
  • 03:23:22
    So is that money that's going to be from this pool?
  • 03:23:26
    I thought that my understanding was that it was bondable, but is it cash?
  • 03:23:31
    Just clarify that point.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 03:23:34
    Probably have to have Ms.
  • 03:23:35
    Hamill jump in on that piece of it, but this is a CIP account that was funded, I think, $2 million one year and then $1 million
  • 03:23:48
    Maybe two and two.
  • 03:23:49
    I can't recall exactly, but it has funds available in it.
  • 03:23:53
    It's the funds that we use to purchase the county's ownership portion of the lot that we owned together.
  • 03:24:02
    So I see Ms.
  • 03:24:04
    Hamill's on.
  • 03:24:05
    Maybe she can answer the bonding question.
• • Krisy Hammill
  • 03:24:07
    Yeah, that's correct.
  • 03:24:09
    We had planned to sell bonds for the parking garage, and so those dollars do still sit in the CIP as bondable and would still be eligible to be bonded for the purchase of this lot as well.
• • Michael Payne
  • 03:24:20
    Okay, thank you.
  • 03:24:21
    Those are all the questions I have.
• • Brian Pinkston
  • 03:24:23
    From my perspective, I think that everything having to do with parking downtown is always controversial.
  • 03:24:31
    If you talk with folks at the downtown mall, they're like, we absolutely need more parking.
  • 03:24:35
    You talk with another constituency, and they're like, no, you've got plenty of parking.
  • 03:24:41
    And I do rely on the sort of
  • 03:24:45
    in-house expertise of people like yourself, Mr. Engle, in terms of what you think is a reasonable occupancy rate or utilization rate of
  • 03:24:56
    particularly the Market Street deck and the things that you've told me in the past are I think reasonable and I think what this what grabbing these 39 spaces for like a better taking advantage of this opportunity to acquire these 39 spaces basically is insurance against future possibilities and
  • 03:25:22
    So I'm supportive of it.
  • 03:25:23
    I think it's an asset that will increase in value, not that that's the reason that we're buying it, but it's not like a parking deck which is immediately going to start depreciating.
  • 03:25:32
    So I support it.
• • Juandiego Wade
  • 03:25:37
    Yes, I'm in support of it as well.
  • 03:25:39
    I see it as a need, you know, to keep with the agreement and it's not having to build the parking garage.
  • 03:25:47
    I do see maybe at some point in the future that it might be a higher use of those two buildings other than a parking garage, you know, down the road.
  • 03:25:57
    Certainly can't, you know,
  • 03:26:00
    Anticipate what that will be now, but I don't want to have any type of agreement said that those two businesses would stay lucky seven in the quad, you know, so.
• • Brian Pinkston
  • 03:26:11
    Forever.
• • Juandiego Wade
  • 03:26:11
    Yeah.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:26:11
    Yeah.
  • 03:26:13
    And one thought that I had.
  • 03:26:17
    First of all, Mr. Engel, would it be fair to say that that lot is basically pretty much ready to go?
  • 03:26:25
    It doesn't require a lot of renovation, reworking, rebuilding in order to be able to be used for our purposes?
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 03:26:33
    That's correct.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:26:35
    So we don't have to invest anything in a structure there, for example, that would ultimately be torn down, wasted if we didn't end up using that in perpetuity as a parking lot.
  • 03:26:52
    Correct.
  • 03:26:53
    So if five years and I want to think about this because we're thinking about it in terms of the courts agreement
  • 03:27:03
    I think the current hope is that the courts will be ready for occupancy in about 2026.
  • 03:27:08
    Is that about right?
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 03:27:11
    I haven't received an update recently, but I know they're actively pursuing the planning and probably, you know, two years of construction.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:27:18
    So that seems 2025.
  • 03:27:21
    Okay.
  • 03:27:21
    So in a couple of years from now, it is fair.
  • 03:27:26
    I think it is reasonable to think that we will have continued to rebound from the COVID depression of the parking.
  • 03:27:36
    We don't know how complete that recovery will be.
  • 03:27:39
    We don't know whether
  • 03:27:40
    People will have switched over to so much working from home that all of the patterns have changed.
  • 03:27:48
    But in order to buy a property that we don't have to spend half a million dollars or a million dollars to convert
  • 03:27:57
    into the use we want.
  • 03:27:59
    It's basically ready to go.
  • 03:28:01
    I mean, if five years from now we decide we don't, in fact, need those parking places, we will not have, I mean, I think we will probably have profited from the wait.
  • 03:28:15
    Again, that's not the reason to do it, but it's not an economic loss that we're looking at as a consequence.
  • 03:28:21
    So it's different from saying, hey, let's go spend $10 million to build a parking garage.
  • 03:28:29
    I think on balance as we look at how are we going to comply with our obligations to the county.
  • 03:28:37
    Part of a lot of the criticism of this comes down to a criticism basically of the county for why do you want all these parking spaces anyway?
  • 03:28:48
    That's not our call at this point.
  • 03:28:50
    The decision was made.
  • 03:28:51
    The deal was done.
  • 03:28:53
    As Mike pointed out, maybe it wasn't the best deal for the city, but it's done and we have to live with it.
  • 03:28:58
    So I think we just have to go ahead and do it.
  • 03:29:02
    So anyway, any other discussion?
  • 03:29:05
    Are we ready for a motion?
• • Michael Payne
  • 03:29:07
    Well, I'll just before you introduce motion, I'll just say to me,
  • 03:29:13
    I think this makes sense from the perspective of reducing the probability of needing to build a parking deck but to me it does not make sense from the perspective I don't think we really need more parking and because it's not being guaranteed that the city is not going to be pursuing a deck in addition to this you know I'm not planning to vote in support of it although I do see the logic of
  • 03:29:39
    this reducing the need for the parking deck and quite frankly I hope and would almost expect that 10 years from now this will this could be explored for uses other than parking and my final comment would just be the other concern I have is just it's obviously 1.6 million dollars it's not going to be spent in another priority that could have and
  • 03:30:01
    If we have the creativity to spend $1.6 million to acquire land for housing, I hope we can expand that creativity for acquiring land for housing as well as public spaces.
• • Brian Pinkston
  • 03:30:15
    Very well stated.
  • 03:30:16
    Want to make a motion?
  • 03:30:17
    Somebody?
  • 03:30:18
    Sure.
  • 03:30:18
    I move the resolution approving terms for the acquisition of property at 921 East Jefferson Street by the City of Charlottesville.
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:30:31
    Is there a second?
  • 03:30:32
    Second.
  • 03:30:33
    Any discussion other than what we've already had?
  • 03:30:35
    Ms.
  • 03:30:38
    Robinson?
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 03:30:39
    Councillor McGill?
  • 03:30:41
    Yes.
  • 03:30:42
    Councillor Payne?
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:30:43
    No.
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 03:30:44
    Councillor Pinkston?
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:30:45
    Yes.
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 03:30:46
    Mayor Snook?
  • 03:30:46
    Yes.
  • 03:30:47
    Vice Mayor Wade?
• • Lloyd Snook
  • 03:30:48
    Yes.
  • 03:30:49
    The motion passes four to one.