Planning Commission Meeting   9/11/2018

I don't have the annual report yet.

OK. And no more meetings.

Is that wood?

I'll pop you a sweat.

Yeah, no, it's better.

Call to order the planning commission meeting for Tuesday September 11th.

And tonight we have several things to go over before we start into our joint meeting, our public hearings.

So first we would like to ask for reports.

I have nothing to report.

I haven't been able to go to any of my committee meetings because of the special comp plan meetings that have been conflicting with them.

I actually do have a report.

Fantastic.

And I'm going to do what I've never done.

I have a handout, because I didn't want this to pass without sharing something with you.

And this is from the Planning District Commission, which gave a

presentation on their Rivanna work at their last meeting.

So because I want to advocate for the Rivanna and that you keep it a strong part of your comprehensive planning process, I wanted to familiarize you with the phases.

So they really have done a mapping phase and they'll be moving on to other phases in the future.

And I encourage you to stay in touch with Will Cockrell and Nick Morrison at the Planning District as they continue in their work.

And I know the 2013 Comprehensive Plan is much-belined, but one of the really positive outcomes of that Comprehensive Plan was the city and county

working together.

And one of the big initiatives was a joint effort for the Rivanna River for conservation, recreation, economic development, visitation, all of those things.

And respective members took it back to their commissions and to the supervisors and to the council to fund and support this first phase of work.

for which I'm very grateful and we haven't done as much as our colleague Bill Emery would like, but it's a start and I hope you'll continue in that direction.

And I don't think place met.

If they did, I don't think I was there.

There is an upcoming meeting on the Rivanna coming up, gosh, next week.

I think we got a doodle poll, so I'll fill you guys in after that meeting.

Good evening and I do not have anything to report at this time.

Yes.

The Housing Advisory Committee met many times.

I'll just give you the highlights.

The meetings were well covered.

The Planning Subcommittee, which I chair, there was a little bit of a lack of clarity on what exactly we do, so I got this back.

It is meant to house matters where zoning, land use, and planning intersect with housing policy, essentially to coordinate between the two bodies.

Other members are Dan Rosenzweig and Frank Stoner in the county.

The essential points there.

Second, that body created a couple of items that were discussed with council at the joint meeting there.

I wanted to highlight those.

Working with the Planning Commission to update the land use map to reflect established needs, address legacy of segregation, and promote equity and opportunity.

Thank you so much.

Could I ask a question?

Please.

About the frontage requirements in the small lot and would that be

It's a citywide issue.

This body didn't have any specific ideas on how to do it.

Thank you.

Yes.

Let's see.

On July 18th, I did make my first Parks and Rec Advisory Board meeting.

The couple of things they walked us through is the first thing is the comp plan.

Their input into the comp plan was about to be submitted.

I'm not sure if they submitted it yet, but they were getting close to being ready to do that.

And their input is going to be informed by a very comprehensive survey that they did.

And the take home, at least for us, is the importance, again, feedback on the survey, is the importance of open spaces.

And that was like something that they spoke to over and over again.

And they also walked us through the tool that they used for that survey.

And the tool is an unbelievably powerful tool.

And Matt and Missy have also taken a look at the tool.

I think they like the tool.

The issue is we don't have the resources to actually support a tool like that just yet, but it's something that we can put on the back burner for the future.

The Meadow Creek Valley Master Plan, part of that is like a three-quarter of a mile

Park ending up at John Warner.

And I think that it was supposed to be finished very soon, but this again was again back in July 18th.

It's close.

Close.

I heard that was being set in place on Tuesday, which is today?

Yeah, they set it and then they were making connections.

Yes.

It was on there.

For those of you who don't know me, I'm Bill Palmer.

was on this commission a couple years ago for two or three years and now I'm back, so good to be back and looking forward to it.

Anyway, what I wanted to mention, only a few things.

to this week, Thursday and Friday, weather permitting, I guess, is building our BOV meeting at UVA with the Buildings and Ground Committee meeting.

And some of the things they're going to be

Taking on our, of interest to the city would be concept site and design guidelines for Brandon Avenue Upper Class Residence Hall phase two.

Phase one is under construction, so this would be the second housing building there.

Schematic design approvals for a major renovation of Alderman Library.

A student and health and wellness center, also on Brandon Avenue.

and then a softball stadium which is going to be located up by Klockner Stadium in the track on that practice field that sits on the corner right now.

Alice, my supervisor, the architect for UVA is going to be discussing the athletics master plan that the athletics department and our office has been doing.

as well as the Fontaine Research Park Master Plan, which we've just completed and will be reporting to the board on.

So I just wanted to let everybody know that was going on.

Also, we are in the midst of working on a transportation and parking plan at UVA.

It's been about 10 years since we did our last one, and so we're kind of looking at it again with fresh eyes.

Looking for solutions to our ever-growing parking issues as well as bike and pedestrian things that we can do.

Last week we had a number of focus groups that were pretty well attended by UVA.

population as well as the city and some county people.

So that was great.

We have a website where people can give feedback.

I just wanted to mention that because comments close on the 14th, so on Friday, and as of now we have like 400 or 500 comments, which is really impressive, but that website is

UVA-Transportation.com, so it's really easy to remember.

Oh, great.

And then, yeah, Alex came to a few of the sessions, so it was good to see him.

And then just real quick, kind of pertinent to some of the items tonight is it was just in our UVA Today, there was an article about the Emmett Ivey Corridor, which we've been talking about a lot.

There's been a, President Ryan has formed a commission to look at what ultimately, what uses would be the best fit for that site.

So that's exciting.

And then also along those lines with the smart scale project the city is doing on Emmett Street, we are just continuing to coordinate with the city on that.

meetings next week and we are also doing an outreach meeting with students for that project to get their input because

The one meeting that was done this summer was not well attended by our student population, so I'm just trying to get a little more feedback from them on what they're looking for and the amenities of the school project.

That's all I got.

All one word, UVA dash transportation, no spaces.

Okay, great.

And I want to remind us all to speak in our microphones so that we can get this recorded and the public can hear us.

Okay.

You're welcome.

We'll have to do it again before it's over.

So, my report is a couple different things.

I did not get to attend any meetings like Mr. Leandro, but I do have one thing that, two things we're going to do tonight.

I have something I want to announce in a minute, but the second thing is it is our annual meeting tonight, so we'll be having a report from the nominating committee in elections.

But before we do that,

Back in about 2005, I sat in the audience where you all are sitting.

and I watched this commission and I was taken aback by several commissioners but one in particular who I have been forever learning and being mentored by and that commissioner made me decide to come in and

Take a stand and have a voice so that we can have a better city.

And I am forever grateful for her mentorship and her friendship and the phone calls when I said, am I crazy?

And so at this time I wanted to recognize

Someone who's been with us and made a great contribution to the city through comp plans and through helping to understand why historic preservation is so important.

And Miss Keller, if you would, I have something, come on.

I'm going to read this and then pass it on.

If you don't know that, this is Ms. Keller's last meeting after a decade of service.

And we are going to be very sad to see her go, but I have a proclamation this evening.

Genevieve Keller, whereas Ms. Genevieve Keller served on the Planning Commission from October 2007 to August 2018, serving as chairperson from September 2011 to September 2013, and whereas Ms. Keller served as the Planning Commission representative to the Thomas Jefferson Planning District, the Board of Zoning Appeals, the Federation of Neighborhoods, the UVA Master Planning Council,

the CDBG Task Force, Place Design Task Force, and the West Main Streetscape Steering Committee, and whereas Ms. Keller provided many years of service to the Planning Commission in thoughtful consideration of the items presented to the Commission for review, as well as a supporter for detailed development proposals, and whereas Ms. Keller

has ably served the city as the planning commission representative on numerous boards and commissions and whereas Ms. Keller has continuously been mindful of the impact of development decisions on underserved populations within the Charlottesville community and whereas Ms. Keller has been a tireless advocate for preservation of historic resources throughout the city

and whereas Ms. Keller has been an advocate for existing neighborhoods within the city and has consistently encouraged her fellow commissioners to consider the impact on areas adjacent to new development, now therefore we the City Council of the City of Charlottesville do hereby thank Ms. Genevieve Keller for her years of dedicated service on the Charlottesville Planning Commission and wish her success in her future endeavors.

Oh my goodness.

Yes, well thank you so much.

Your comments meant so much to me.

It's been a pleasure to serve with you and with everyone else and those in preceding commissions and I say thank you to all of you and to the community and I think you'll hear from me again from time to time and I think

I hope that the Commission's in good hands and you'll have a fresh start and I think everyone will have, soon everyone will have been appointed or reappointed by this Council and hopefully that will usher in a new era of paying attention to the Planning Commission.

I certainly hope so.

Thank you again.

I wish you all the best.

I knew it was coming.

The nominating committee is pleased to present the slate of officers for consideration.

We recommend and present for chair Lisa Green.

Thank you.

So we have a recommendation for Chair and a recommendation for Vice Chair.

Are there any other nominations?

Seeing that there is none.

Yeah, I will.

I will reluctantly accept the nomination.

And I do it reluctantly because there are at least a couple of other members on the commission that I think are a little more qualified than I am.

And in fact, I lobbied to get Jody and Tania to step up and do this, but Jody just absolutely wouldn't.

And to me, I push really hard to get her to do it because I think her day job brings a perspective that would be very valuable to our group.

Her role as a single mother would be of incredible value as we began thinking about things like affordable housing and public transportation.

But it is that role that finally made me back off and say, okay, I'll leave you alone.

Because I raised a kid by myself as well.

And when my son was the age of her daughter, I knew what the priorities were.

Teamwork.

I also am very honored to accept the nomination.

I've also been on a nominating committee where I was trying to encourage Mr. Leandro to take a leadership role as well.

So I know the struggle that you must have gone through there.

But I do accept the nomination.

Thank you.

So, now.

Call for a motion.

So we have a motion and a second.

Any further discussion?

Sure.

Motion passes.

And at this time, thank you for saying yes.

Thank you all for serving on the nominating committee.

Greatly appreciate it.

Our pleasure.

The next meetings that we have, we have a meeting scheduled for September 25th.

adjusting as need be.

We're hopeful that council will appoint Jenny's replacement next week and then we'll be able to continue forth with that meeting.

But otherwise, we think we're going to do that anyway and have invited members of PLACE to come and talk about the community engagement chapter for the Conference of Plan.

We also have a meeting scheduled for October 2nd and these are meetings to continue work on the comprehensive plan.

Council's provided us with a clear schedule to get materials to them by December and so we are on path to do that.

One of the deliverables of that was to work on getting a survey out to the public.

And that time period was open today and we were able to get the survey out today.

We'll be doing some additional outreach to widespread the survey much further than we have today.

tomorrow, but that will be open until October 4th.

And it just is a number of questions that commission wants to gather data from those in the community to help move forward with the comprehensive plan aspects that the group's been working on for a while now.

So the survey's out.

We will be getting the survey posted more widespread as the week continues.

And do keep an eye out for continued work sessions on the comprehensive plan, the next being the 25th and then October 2nd and then our regular meeting on the 9th.

I will have a link very soon.

Let me see if it went out while we were in our pre-meeting.

Okay.

And so, let's see.

Well, it's a Survey Monkey link, so it's a little complicated to read.

But if you go to the city of Charlottesville's website and put in Conference of Plan 2018, we will have that link there in the morning.

And we've sent out a notice to the folks who are on the city's email list.

A little bit later.

Fantastic.

Thank you so much.

At this time, the next thing on our agenda is matters to be presented by the public, not on the formal agenda.

So tonight we have three items that are on the agenda for a public comment.

which is the Gallery Court Hotel, SUP, Temporary Construction Laydown, a text amendment, and Temporary Parking Facilities text amendment.

It's my understanding from our pre-meeting that we are going to be removing the entrance corridor, which we'll vote on in a minute, an SUP recommendation.

So that will also be a part of the public comment when we get to that portion of our agenda.

But for now, the comments are just anything by the public, not on this agenda, which would also include entrance corridor items or the request for code interpretation of Bellevue.

And I have four people signed up, so at the end of this, if you would like to

We'll ask for others at the end of this list.

I'd like to remind you that it's a three-minute comment period.

I'll be using the timer so it's green until it turns yellow and you have 30 seconds left and then red when your time is up.

And I would ask that you please speak into the microphone clearly so everyone can hear you.

And when you're speaking to us, the audience can't necessarily hear you, so if you could speak in the microphone.

Good evening.

My name is Liz Christian and I'm speaking today representing a group of roughly 30 households in the area directly adjacent to the proposed development in the wooded area between Azalea Drive and Monte Vista Avenue.

I would like to take a moment and thank all my Fry Springs neighbors for attending tonight's meeting and ask that they stand up briefly.

Thank you.

Our group formed earlier this year to further understand the process as it relates to this proposed project.

From the start, a primary focus of our group was to scrutinize the assertion by the developer that this proposal would qualify as a boundary line adjustment, a central topic of the meeting today.

An astute member of our group took it upon himself to perform his own analysis of the code related to this issue.

His firm conclusion is that it does not qualify for a boundary line adjustment, and he shared his findings and supporting analysis with the city attorney.

Out of concern that we may be missing something, and to allow for a more broad analysis, we retained an experienced and reputable development attorney based here in Charlottesville to review this point and other concerns we had.

Again, our attorney's firm conclusion was that the proposed project may not be reviewed as a boundary line adjustment exception.

A copy of this letter containing his assertion and support

has been previously provided to the commissioners and city attorney's office, and we are providing it here again tonight.

Quite simply, we see no foundational basis for this project to be considered a boundary line adjustment.

In addition to the topic discussed tonight, we have many broad and specific concerns related to this proposal that we can discuss with the commission at the appropriate time.

We wish to assert tonight

that we are a reasonable group that shares your goals of reasonable and sustainable development.

The proposed project does not meet the standard.

The most recent round of review by city staff yielded 14 pages of required changes to conform to code.

Our group would like to recognize the diligent efforts of city staff for their careful consideration of the proposal.

Hello, good evening.

Sean Tubbs, 1029 Forest Hills Avenue, here representing the Piedmont Environmental Council.

Like the last speaker, PEC urges the Charlottesville Planning Commission to support staff and their interpretation for Azalea Cottages or Bellevue as a major subdivision and not a boundary line adjustment.

While there does appear to be language in the subdivision ordinance that would allow the latter mechanism, a reading of the rest of the ordinance indicates that the major subdivision process would ensure a higher level of scrutiny.

The section of the city's subdivision ordinance that deals with boundary line adjustments specifically states that, quote,

The action shall not involve the relocation or alteration of streets, alleys, easements for public passage, or other public areas.

In this case, the project for which the adjustment has been requested appears to depend on such a relocation in order to make it function.

The plans appear to depict a future street where the existed platted alleyway is located, transforming it into the future Bellevue Street.

One of those comments, of course, is that it can't be called Bellevue Street because we already have one.

The Planning Commission should have the ability to review this.

both to provide your input as well as to bring this process into the light of transparency in the light of day.

At a time when there is much public attention devoted to infill development, it is crucial to get this right.

We are not opposed to this development per se to being developed as infill projects support many of the goals of the comprehensive plan.

But the land use process must unfold in a way that provides mechanisms for the concerns of neighbors and other stakeholders to be heard.

This development needs to occur in such a way that respects the topography

of this land and to ensure that downstream water quality is not compromised.

We look forward to hearing more details of the project later tonight, including the stormwater management plan and whether development on the critical slopes is enough to trigger the need for a waiver or a...

I think you know what I mean.

Still new at this.

We look forward to the deliberations later on this evening and thank you for your service and also thanks to Jenny for your service as well.

Thank you, Mr. Tubbs.

Yes, ma'am.

Yeah, it's Anne Brenner.

and I live at 306 Monte Vista Avenue.

So I live between the proposed Bellevue development and Azalea Park.

And I just wanted to address one of the specific concerns that the Fry Springs group holds.

There's a stream that goes through my backyard so I'm downhill from the proposed development and the stream is an important piece of my enjoyment of my property and I'm very concerned that if the water

Processing in the development isn't handled properly, that that would affect my stream as well as the wetlands at the bottom of the hill in Azalea Park.

So just bringing up that one specific concern.

Thank you.

Another one.

The fourth.

This is, okay.

And the fourth.

There's another one.

Susan

Gwen, Susan Gwen.

Good evening.

My name is Susan Gwen.

I live at 119 Raymond Avenue, and I'm a member of the Fry Springs Neighborhood Association Board, and I'm here to read a statement from that board.

The Fry Springs Neighborhood Association, FSNA,

supports the City Attorney's interpretation that the changes proposed by the Bellevue developer to the existing lot and road lines exceeds the intent of a simple boundary line adjustment.

The FSNA welcomes appropriately designed infill and the new neighbors that it brings.

We respect the right of property owners to pursue all legal activity on their private property.

We also recognize some activities can result in negative impacts elsewhere in our community.

Over time, city codes have been developed to mitigate such off-site impacts.

Instead of redrawing a few boundaries of a subdivision platted in the 1890s, the Bellevue developer is proposing to draw a new roadway, utility rights-of-way, and housing lots based on the needs of a modern subdivision.

As such, the Fry Springs Neighborhood Association's position is that the development must adhere to current subdivision standards and city code.

The Fry Springs Neighborhood Association and the community we represent has concerns about the proposed development, reinforced by recent experience with ongoing development activities in our neighborhood.

Specifically, the concerns are, one, the new development setbacks will not be sufficient to allow cars to park in driveways without blocking sidewalks.

Two, the lots are not wide enough to allow for sufficient on-street parking for the anticipated number of residents and their visitors.

Three, runoff from the increased impervious surface will have a negative impact on Azalea Park.

Four, there is potential for significant risk of failure of the proposed HOA-maintained sewer pumping station, which would be located directly upstream from the Azalea Park wetland.

And five,

The anticipated number of new residents will exacerbate the traffic impacts on the already dangerous Azalea Drive and Jefferson Park Avenue intersection.

In summary, the Fry Springs Neighborhood Association welcomes appropriately designed infill and the new neighbors it brings.

However, the proposed Bellevue development has raised many points of concern that the Fry Springs Neighborhood Association believes would be better taken into consideration

if the project is considered a major subdivision.

I've left a written copy of the statement with your clerk.

Thank you.

And we got that copy as well.

Okay, that is all that's on the list to speak to matters not on the formal agenda.

Is there anyone else that would like to speak to something that's not on the formal agenda?

I will close this portion of the matters by the public and then we'll move to the next item on the agenda which is the consent agenda and Mr. Mitchell you were going to motion that we move entrance corridor SUP recommendation off of that consent agenda?

Anything else on this consent agenda?

So what sort of motion do you like?

Okay.

And a second.

We have a motion and a second.

To that motion, all in favor by voice acclamation?

Aye.

Opposed?

No.

So, that motion passes.

So we are a little bit past six, but at this time

um no you can just note that okay the statement the east

What the Chair's noting is that the Commission is going to review both the entrance quarters special use permit recommendation as well as the special use permit at the same time.

They're going to gather all of the information at the same time and then later they will take different votes in the proper

Mr. Patel of Income Hotels LLC has submitted an application seeking approval of a special use permit, SUP, for the property located at 140 Emmett Street North.

The property is further identified on City Real Property Tax Map 8 as Parcel 4, Subject Property.

The subject property is zoned URB and EC, so Urban Corridor Mixed Use Development with Entrance Corridor Overlay.

The owner is seeking to redevelop this property as a hotel to replace an existing hotel that was lost by casualty fire on May 4, 2017.

The proposed use, hotels slash motels, is allowed by right within the URB zoning district classification.

However, an SUP is required for the project because the proposed building height, seven stories up to 80 feet, exceeds the 60-foot maximum building height allowed in the URB district.

This site is approximately 0.585 acres or 25,482.6 square feet.

The comprehensive plan designates the land use of this subject property as public or semi-public.

So I'm going to give a short report and then I actually have Bob, our GIS analyst, and he has a presentation, a little

Presentation on the viewshed analysis he gave as part of the reports.

I don't know if you all wanted to move down and see the presentation.

You can move now or afterwards.

It doesn't matter.

Move now?

Yes?

Okay.

Maybe that's easier.

Okay.

So you just gave a great overview, but the proposed hotel is allowed by right in the zoning district, so really the SUP is just regarding the additional height.

This property also falls within the entrance quarters, so should the SUP be approved, this would come back to you eventually for a certificate of appropriateness.

I gave Missy a stack of the code section, section 34157 that kind of outlines the factors that you all discussed to make your recommendation, just kind of as a cheat sheet as we go through this.

The report's pretty lengthy.

It goes through each factor and discusses staff's analysis, but the

I included some topics for you all to focus on tonight based off the SUP being a request for height.

So those are whether there's an impact to the surrounding area with the increased height, whether the character and scale is respectful to neighborhoods and the university uses as noted in the intent of the subject property zoning district, the massing and scale, the pedestrian environment, street activation, and then rooftop lighting and business hours.

So the property, as you are very aware, falls in a unique location.

It borders the city and university line.

It's also of importance because of the city's smart scale Emmett Street project that's coming down the line, and then across the street from that sits the 14-acre site that will hold the future university's IV corridor redevelopment.

Included in your packet, there's a picture of their overall framework plan.

Nothing is set in stone, but that shows you the types of developments that will be housed at the university site.

which is an important piece of the discussion just knowing that that's going to be a future redevelopment that would mirror on Emmett Street what this building would, where the building is located.

So ultimately this redevelopment will play a larger role in the redevelopment of this area.

It's a city entrance corridor and all the moving parts should kind of talk to each other.

So before I delve into the height discussion, there are a few other elements of the plan that do either comply or don't comply with the comprehensive plan, which is one of the factors you are to base your recommendation off of.

So as Lisa mentioned, the comp plan does identify this property as public or semi-public.

That's defined as including publicly owned lands and buildings such as government center, police and fire stations, libraries, post offices.

schools and university facilities.

Staff does note that the proposed use does not necessarily meet the intent but also wanted to note that the city has no control over the property being privately owned and that this site has been a hotel since the 1950s.

The project has included a street cafe in response to Planning Commission's discussion back in March at their preliminary discussion.

So that provides street activation.

They also include improvements in the pedestrian realm that comply with streets that work and also would not prohibit the future improvements for the Image Streetscape project, which is a big deal.

Staff did point out a couple concerns with noise and lighting, given that there is going to be a rooftop bar located at the top that faces towards the car's hill field.

Just wanted to let you know that the hours of the rooftop bar from 4 p.m. to 12 a.m., but Planning Commission does reserve the right to add a condition if they feel like that might be inappropriate.

And then there's another condition proposed if you do recommend approval to make sure that the lighting follows the most stringent lighting regulations in the code based off of if they were to be located in low-density residential neighborhood, which they're not, but that would be more strict and mitigate any negative impact there.

So in response to a lot of the community feedback we heard at their community meeting and then also through email, the applicant has provided additional elevations and cross sections to kind of show you better how the building is going to relate to its different contexts and that's found in your attachment too.

But the building is proposed as an L-shape and its intent, according to the applicant, is to break the scale of the façade depending on where it's facing.

So the highest portions are going to be at the Emmett-Ivy intersection where the cafe breaks up

the building a little bit but then facing north and east where it's UVA or towards Lambeth Apartments there's some pretty significant recesses given in the building as shown 61 feet and 102 feet.

So that's going to be part of your discussion if that is still appropriate in keeping with the context.

One of the other questions that staff asked when going over this application was how it would affect the adjacent neighborhood.

And so at this point, I'm going to have Bob come up and give you a short presentation on his viewshed analysis.

And I wanted to bring him tonight because I think this is a really interesting tool that we as a staff and commission can use in future SUP requests.

This is a viewshed analysis.

I'm going to explain what it is and how it's done and then the results will be in the latter half.

So it identifies which observer points on the map are going to be able to view the item of interest, in this case 140 Elm Street North.

Currently, the elevation of the parcel is between 194 and 501.3, so I went with a ground elevation of 502.

I rounded up so that it would be more of a robust.

You get more viewpoints this way.

under Shell, who might actually be able to see it.

And then the same analysis was run twice, once on 562 feet for the 60 foot by right height and 582 feet for the extended height.

What you can see in pink, or I'm sorry, what you can see in green is every, this map is a one by one foot resolution.

So every pixel is one foot, square foot.

Every green pixel you see is a one square foot square on the ground, on the highest point on the ground.

So if you're standing on like the top of a two foot story building, you're looking at it from that point, not from ground level.

Green is what you can see at Bi-Rite and then the pink pieces you can see mostly in the top right-hand corner.

That's the way you could see if the building was at the 80-foot height.

This map shows the Bi-Rite analysis and parcels shown in black.

will not be able to see the building at all.

Partials shown in green will be able to see the building, but the amount of square feet that you can see the building from on your property is under 1% of the total property.

So if you have a 100 square foot lot, you would only be able to see it from one square foot of your property is what this is saying.

and then the gold is between one and five percent and red is greater than five percent.

The building in the pink over there right at the edge of the screen is 140 Emma Street North and then the blue outline is your Lewis Mountain neighborhood.

This is the extended analysis.

And what this is, this is different than the one before because this is highlighting the increase, not who's going to be able to see it in general.

So in black, parcels in black will have no increase.

These people, you won't be able to see the difference at all between the buy right height and the extended height.

With green, the increase is under 1%.

In yellow it's between a 5% increase and then red it's greater than a 5% increase.

Out of the 251 total parcels, only 18 of them are more than a 1% increase and the majority of them are in that top right corner where there's already a parking deck and the western half of Emmett Street essentially north.

In summary, increasing from 60 to 80 feet will be largely imperceptible to the Lewis Mountain neighborhood.

74 and a half percent of all parcels in the neighborhood will be able to see it at the Bi-Rite height.

7% will have an increase greater than 1%, which is

233 of the 251 parcels are only able to see 1% increase or greater.

And then of those that have the more than 1% increase, 61% of them are commercial properties.

Any questions?

Actually, I do have a question.

That's what I was asked to do initially.

And then this kind of grew from what I was initially asked to do to this full-blown visibility analysis.

And I just didn't know at the beginning that people would want more.

I was only asked in context to do just Lewis Mellon.

I mean, it's very interesting and I'm glad the city is starting to use this tool.

I wish we could have used it on West Main Street for the effects on the 10th and Page neighborhood because when you're on Albemarle Street or any number of streets, it's looming above you in ways I don't think any of us really thought it would be.

So I'm very happy the city is using this tool, but I'm a little puzzled about why it's being used.

here and why it's being used for the Lewis Mountain neighborhood because that was not really the intent of the entrance corridor.

But thanks for doing it.

I can help answer a little bit because we were the ones that asked Bob.

So that's part of what we used to analyze the massing and scale.

That's just a piece of the question that we asked.

And the reason that we did choose that R1 neighborhood is because it was the closest to

And one of the factors that you're supposed to weigh on is how it affects residential and close by neighborhoods.

But like Bob said, we could absolutely go back and run it in the closer area.

And I will also note that part of the Lewis neighborhood is also a lot of commercial properties which fall into the entrance corridor as well.

So yeah.

OK.

So I really don't have much else to add other than

The next, so the first question we asked was how it would affect the adjacent neighborhoods.

The last two questions we asked were, is the Masseyan scale in line with future redevelopment, and is the Masseyan scale appropriate given its proximity to the university?

I already mentioned the additional cross-sections the applicant provided.

I think they do a really nice job in showing the context and the existing topography.

And then as far as the public input we received, we received quite a bit the neighborhoods

The residents are very concerned about the height and its impact and a lot of that has been included in your staff report to review and I'm sure a lot of them are here tonight to speak on this matter.

We also have had a few residents come back after reviewing the additional information that was provided and having seen how the building is articulated have said that it does fit the context and they think this is an ideal location given its proximity to the university.

I know the applicant is here to give a presentation so I don't know if

Okay.

So do you want to go applicant or Mr. Warner first?

It's up to you.

Good evening, how are you?

I know Bob's talked about some of the visibility.

Heather addressed why we're talking about it tonight relative to the entrance corridor and ERB review, so I'll jump into this.

As you know, the parcels zoning allows for the additional height by a special use permit.

Unfortunately, the entrance corridor guidelines, they refer only to by right conditions, and they recommend that new buildings in this corridor be two to four stories.

So using that guidance alone, you'd obviously, the recommendation would be to deny this request.

However, the City Council has deemed that under the zoning, the additional height here may be considered.

So I've put this together to offer some pros and cons for you to consider in your deliberations.

First, in support of the higher increase, contributing to the need for the additional height are three factors that are consistent with the entrance corridor goals.

The first is mixed use, and at the request of the ERB, you all requested and the applicant

incorporated a street-level commercial space.

Another goal is on-site shared structured parking.

The structured parking here will provide adequate parking and be integrated into the building.

And another goal is limited setbacks.

And on a parcel of this size, it's less than six-tenths of an acre, the proposed construction using the minimal setbacks still achieves a commendable 2.9 FAR.

In evaluating the requested height increase and the subsequent massing, the impact is somewhat mitigated by the site's location and surrounding topography.

Again, as Bob pointed out with the graphics, but unlike other sections of Emma Street and 29 North, this segment runs through a rather, it's a low area that's bounded on either side by a gently rising grade.

In an east-west cross-section through the hotel site, the west side of Emmett Street rises approximately 10 feet to the foot of the UVA's five-story Emmett Ivey parking garage.

To the east, across Cars Hill Field, the grade quickly rises in excess of 20 feet to the foot of UVA's five-story Culbreath Road parking garage.

Immediately north, there's an elevated railroad grade and bridge that are approximately 20 feet above the level of the site.

And all of these, I felt, contributed to mitigating the impact of the proposed hotel.

And that would be whether at the buy-write height or the proposed increase.

Ultimately, with a combination of the topography, the impact of additional height can be addressed and mitigated with using the design standards in the Entrance Corridor Guidelines.

And we'll get to that when we get into the design review.

So those, again, contribute to how to mitigate the impact.

The entrance corridor guidelines do express concern for height relative to impacts on nearby low-density residential areas.

Immediately adjacent to the site, within 500 feet, and impacted by this site or impacted by this building's height and massing would be to the east you have Cars Hills Athletic Field and Cars Hill.

Granted, that's not a residential area.

To the north, the elevated railroad bed.

And north of the railroad bed is the parking lot for the Lambeth Field dorms.

This is in this 500-foot circle.

To the south, there's open space to the corner of Emmett Street and University Ave.

On the west side of Emmett Street, the streetscape, there are UVA buildings which are to be determined.

And beyond that is the Emmett Street IV parking garage.

And as Bob pointed out, the distance to the closest low density residential area is about 500 feet.

And so we said the required site plan relative to

The ERB review will get into the pedestrian and circulation issues, and the design review will evaluate and address the visually important elements, including the architecture, lighting and landscape plans.

So we'll get into that later.

Now, in opposition to the height increase, fronting on Emmett Street from Ivy Road intersection to the 29-250 bypass, it's about 1.3 miles.

There's approximately 120 acres that are zoned URB, as this parcel is.

If this SUP is approved, similar requests in this corridor must be anticipated.

There is a short segment on the east side of Emmett Street, opposite Barracks Road Shopping Center, that is zoned ZS.

The maximum height there is three stories, so there's no additional height by SUP.

But my point being is that one and a half miles, roughly, to the 29 bypass,

What you agree to here has the potential to be requested in that entire area.

We don't know what UVA is planning across the street.

I mean, we have some idea, but as far as height, we have no specifics.

And from what I understand, the VREF's going to be giving that to the universities.

They probably end up doing what they wish anyway.

So given all that I just said, we're generally supportive of this request and we do recommend its approval.

As I said, through the SUP process, the city has the ability to apply some more rigid standards relative to mitigating the visual impacts of the increased height.

So that's what I have to offer.

Are there any questions?

It's an awful lot, sorry.

If I had a chalkboard, it would be

So you go north and in the staff report I attached a map to the portion that I wrote.

So you can see there on the west side going up towards, I think just a portion across Emmett

That is and most of that owned by UVA.

No, I understand that, but I'm saying as far as that whole corridor and the zoning, as you go up towards 29-250 Barracks Road Shopping Center,

Crothers Hall is that section on the east side that is not zoned with that URB, but again university property.

But that's all privately owned when you go across Barracks Road.

Unless we've got a map that's...

And of course, each of the folks could choose or property owners could choose to bring forward applications and those would be considered in much the same manner that this will be.

That's right.

Thank you.

So saying yes here I think has merits.

So they're meeting the maximum for the sidewalk that's proposed with the curbside buffer, and they're also meeting the highest requirements.

So in this area you want the curbside buffer and the widened sidewalk, but they have those dimensions they suggest.

the highest you could have is seven feet so they're providing seven foot sidewalk with the curbside buffer it's a range of four to six feet they're proposing a four foot and so there's a proposed condition in the staff report because it's a limited curbside buffer and we're limited with space as well because we want

The long and the short of it is we still want room for a bicycle lane that'll be part of the Emmett streetscape.

So with that four feet, either we're conditioning them to include silva cells or something to show that they're still going to give adequate soil volume for a large tree because we want that large tree to succeed even in a smaller width.

Right.

And so I talked actually with our urban forester to talk through options there because depending on

just were limited in that space.

That is a good question.

For existing or future?

Existing and future.

So existing, I think they're probably four and a half or five feet currently.

Yeah.

I could be wrong.

That's on the schematic.

Ms. Neumeier, we received an email from Scott Bruckner supporting the project and he actually gave a suggestion to mitigate the height change, a green screen, a vertical green screen.

So I think in his email he talked more so providing a green screen on the parking garage and so right now the cafe space

Looks like, again, the applicant's looking to buy nutrient credits, but you're recommending an alternative.

What are the issues?

Yeah, so we run into this a lot where whenever you redevelop a site, there are certain stormwater requirements, whether it's water quantity, you're addressing water quantity, how much is being run off or the water quality.

Locally, we want those benefits of having a treatment of some sort on-site, and a lot of times, private developers end up just purchasing credits, which still meets the letter of the law, but it's not as beneficial.

So what I talk about here is, given that they're so close to the creek way behind, it would be better to have something on-site.

The creek is at the base of the slope?

So it will emit then?

OK. Any further questions?

I had one quick question for Bob.

It's not just for this specific project.

That wouldn't surprise me, so anyway.

After the public hearing?

Yes.

Well, we'll have the applicant, questions for the applicant, public hearing, then discussion.

Okay.

Okay, I guess it's my time.

To begin, I just want to welcome the new commissioners and wish you the best.

Thank you.

I wish to begin this presentation with the project overview, and what I'd like to point out are a few things where we are and what we heard.

In March, we had the working session with the Planning Commission, the community meeting, the neighborhood meeting, and the Emmett Streetscape Project, which I'm a Steering Committee member on that.

So that is the outline that we're going to proceed with.

It's going to give us a lot more information as we proceed through our program.

Next I want to introduce my team here.

I've got Jake with Water Street Studios, Landscape Architects, Daniel with Civil Engineering, and Neil with NBJ Architecture.

To begin, I extend my sincere gratitude to my team, my former staff.

and local guests of the XLN Suites, and most importantly, my family and friends who believe in me.

Respected citizens in the audience, planning commissioners, Heather Newmar, and the city staff, thank you.

On a mere chance opportunity in 1981, my parents met the owners of the University Lodge Motel, which led to my family acquiring the establishment.

After 36 years of proud ownership, our beloved Excel and Suites was shattered in mere hours on May 4th, 2017.

With outpouring support, we remain true not to give in nor give up, thus I'm here in front of you representing the Gallery Court Hotel.

The Gallery Court Hotel represents an absolute unique opportunity for many, including my family,

the city, the university, and the community.

A family-owned boutique hotel that will forever retain its glory and for being at the most dynamic location in the city.

Additionally, our personal support to nonprofit organizations speaks for itself and for which, with the new project, shall further solidify the goodwill to many more, including Spicma Cate UVA, Indian Association of Charlotte School, and the American Cancer Society.

Today's travelers seek out relevance when choosing hotels, and we hope soon Charlottesville's annual 3.3 million overnight guests can benefit by having a brand new upscale option that pays tribute to Charlottesville's celebrated culture and history when they visit our city and the university.

With a purposeful intent, the hotel is aptly named in respect to the 1951 established Gallery Court Motor Hotel, which you saw on the first page.

To date, one of the most productive outcomes in this process has been the March 14th workshop before the planning commission along with the community meetings.

The valuable guidance which we have achieved has been incorporated and fully represents our project.

Respectfully, my team and I are here before you to gain your approval to the special use permit.

Thank you.

I'm Neil Bhatt.

I'm the architect with NBJ Architecture.

And we had been designing a building in this town for the last about 20 years.

So we are very sensitive to the architecture of Charlottesville.

So our goal in designing this building was to pay homage to the traditional architecture which we see in Charlottesville in the university building.

So we're using the traditional material on this project

And when we came to the planning board in March, the feedback which we got was very valuable, so we lost the image.

So what we took from that meeting, that workshop was very valuable.

The three takeaways was to activate the street by adding a mixed use element to it, break up the massing and step back the building from the street.

So what we are presenting today is the response to those three comments.

retail portion to the building, which will be possibly will be a cafe, but it also add the two story portion of the building, which will relate to the pedestrian scale.

So from the pedestrian scale, the building will only look two story tall.

and he steps back the main facade away from the pedestrian.

So we achieved basically three things by adding the retail portion, we broke the mass up, we introduced the street activation by adding a cafe type of function at the retail and now the main building is stepping back away from the pedestrian mass.

and with that I'll let Jake talk about, we can talk about the other four, other facades as we heard before that we have provided a lot of setbacks on the two sides of the building so any facade on any side is

not a big mass of wall but we have its unique and articulated facade.

On the railway side about two stories of the garage will be hidden by the railway and other side obviously facing a creek.

and upper levels are only visible which is articulated with glazing and windows.

Thank you.

So one of the requests that we received from the public was to do a more expanded study of the context and just understanding topography and as was mentioned before,

About kind of the grades around in the context of the buildings and most of the buildings around here as you can see There's a mix of large parking garages.

There's a very tall UVA drama building with a flyout it sits pretty high up on the hill and then existing Cavalier Inn and some low-scale buildings too with a restaurant and the old service center and

and so the green and yellow lines kind of cut through the sections and those are reflected above the image so you can kind of see relatively what those heights might look like and some of these what another person asked us to look at you know what what is it going to look like in the future and they showed us this the UVA planning study for the ivy corridor buildings and

wanted us to extrapolate.

We can't really see what will happen for sure in this area, but we looked at some materials that were provided to the public from a January meeting that showed some massing and conceptual studies that

We sort of did our best to extrapolate what that potentially could look like.

Again, it's highly speculative.

We just wanted to show that this building, the neighborhood now is a mix of high and low, but it seems like things are moving in a really exciting direction and a lot is happening in this area and there's a potential for things going a lot more vertical.

So going down to the pedestrian level and the streetscape, we're really trying to make this the best possible streetscape we can, following on the streets of the work guidelines like was mentioned before, going with a wider sidewalk than is the minimum required by code.

Adding Planting Buffer to really create a better walking environment along a busy street.

Incorporating a really nice outdoor patio too that will create a social space for the neighborhood and create a nice place that you'll get eyes on the street and a community amenity that doesn't exist right now where people who are walking back and forth to Lambeth dorms can stop and grab a bite to eat or meet friends.

So it really puts a lot of the life up in the street as we are asked to do.

And the next slide shows, too, just a little bit of a zoomed out view of that.

We really want to incorporate some convenient bike parking to help encourage multimodal transportation.

And we're incorporating the five-foot bike lane as well on the left side of the image.

And we're really concerned about safety, too.

And a public comment was to actually add a visual alert system for drivers as they're exiting the parking garage.

And so we'll incorporate that, too, so that everything's thought about and really considered for the pedestrian.

And then swinging to the south side, we also are activating this with another outdoor amenity space with seating, more additional bike parking that potentially could be a bike share system if UVA is interested in expanding their network.

It'd be a great partnership that we could have potentially with them.

or just creating a nice space too where you can watch the playing fields are just adjacent to this view and you can listen to the marching band.

Okay.

I'm going to try to talk about traffic a little bit and some engineering background elements as a part of the site plan.

So traffic has been a topic that's come up in a number of meetings.

People are concerned about traffic generation and just traffic in general in the corridor.

And lucky for us, there's this adjacent project called the Amherst Street Scape.

We have some great data from which to pull on the existing traffic volumes and what's happening in that corridor.

And so the current hotel, or the hotel that was there, was 40 rooms, and the proposed hotel is 72 rooms, and that does indicate a not two-fold increase, but it goes from, I think there's about 25 extra trips per peak hour.

But when you look in that in the broader context, oh, I'll be real fast.

Basically, there's so much traffic in the corridor already that the 25 extra trips from the hotel are a drop in the bucket.

1.21% increase in trips in the peak hour.

Can we just...

I'll stop quickly.

Great.

That was really annoying.

That's probably supposed to be really annoying.

Okay.

Stormwater has also been a concern.

Now, we can go really deep into that.

That can be a thing unto itself.

Obviously, there's some major stormwater conditions already, challenges already in the area.

You can drive a boat down Emmet Street in a big rainstorm.

So that's going to be solved by the Emmet Street streetscape and UVA's work, hopefully.

But the watershed is huge to this area, 161 acres.

Our site is 0.57 acres, 0.3% of the watershed.

That said, we are reducing our runoff in the post-developed condition.

We will no longer be discharging any water into the right-of-way, so that's an improved condition.

Furthermore, the parking will be internal to the parking garage, so a lot of that pollutant load that can wash off of a surface parking lot will not be washing off because it won't be getting rained on.

We don't get credit for that, but that is a benefit.

and then the tree canopy, canopy interception.

We can spend time on that, but that's something that will help.

Small rain, okay, I'm almost done.

We'll go on.

V-pools on the steering committee for the Emma Street, so we're coordinating there.

We've had a number of meetings with the EVA.

We're coordinating there.

Everything seems to be on the up and up.

We've broken up the massing.

We stepped the building back from the street.

If you want to hear more about the concerns, we can just quickly read through these.

We feel like the topography works to our advantage with the 80 feet.

Traffic increase is hardly measurable, kind of like the view shed.

Pedestrian conflicts at the sidewalk, we're going to mitigate that with a rapid flashing beacon.

Stormwater runoff, that's its own thing, but it's better.

Public benefit, vibrant street, hydrologic patterns that are better, shade trees, so on and so forth, you can read it for yourself.

Largely, it's a family-owned business.

It's been in operation for a long time and will continue to be that way, so we think it's a good candidate for approval.

Thank you.

I have one question.

The issue of a possible vertical green screen to mitigate what visual impact there is?

Possible?

I guess what I understand is a green screen was suggested as the lower level and instead of a green screen, what we are proposing is actually a different material which is

This material allows basically metal panels with slots in it.

It also allows the ventilation to the garage.

And purposely we have used very contemporary material versus the brick and cast stone which we have proposed on the rest of the building.

That is to usually break the mass down so that the scale of the building gets cut down into literally in half.

And because the mass projects out,

You're actually only viewing the two-story building while walking on the street.

Just a follow-up.

I believe you were successful with that.

I don't see any issue from the pedestrian perspective.

I think it's great.

If you look at the top portion, our concern was the top portion.

That's where we are using our classical model of a base in the middle and the top.

In the top floor, we purposely change the material at the top.

So it's kind of a lighter material which mitigates the impact of the height.

Thank you.

So I just have one question.

Where are you guys on your position as far as the stormwater management?

Are you gonna...

Speak in the mic.

Sorry.

I was just curious as to what were your thoughts on the stormwater management?

So right now this project is fully in compliance with the stormwater criteria by virtue of two things.

One, it actually reduced its impervious surface, believe it or not, because right now it's a massive paved asphalt parking lot throughout.

So we met our stormwater quantity goals simply by the reduction in impervious surface.

Water quality

is not being specifically addressed on site with a structural BMP as was recommended in the staff report.

It could be incorporated probably most likely with permeable pavers under the outdoor cafe areas and you can run the roof drains into the permeable paver field.

Similar to what they did on the hotel at the corner of

Cherry and Ridge McIntyre.

They have some similar detail there.

So my question to you is, where are you leaning to?

Well, clearly the preliminary site plan we developed had us purchasing nutrient credits.

It was a really small nutrient load.

Is that exactly what the staff recommended?

The staff recommendation, if I recall, just said to refer to the state's accepted structural BMPs.

There's a number of them to pick from.

I don't think it's a question for Dan as much as the owner or someone else.

Talk to me about the cafe and the operation of the cafe, the clientele that is being attracted, what kind of food service is going to be provided.

That is correct, no.

Roughly I believe it's 700 square feet.

The cafe is really envisioned to meet.

The initial conversations we shared, ideally speaking, it's meant as a gathering space, so we're not interested in a full kitchen.

We would actually love to partner with a local entrepreneur to come in there and provide a cafe shop, and that would be available.

It will become a public space.

So it's not meant as a breakfast place for hotel occupants?

Thank you.

What is your vision for the deck on the top floor?

Okay, so there are two decks, correct.

The south side deck, if we have – can we flip?

Yeah, let's go to – or is there another visual – yeah, the south side is right here.

That is where the breakfast area is on the third floor, the third set of windows up.

And the deck really is an extension of the breakfast room area for folks to just enjoy the moment or the area which overlooks the university and the tennis courts, if you could see that.

The other deck on facing the Emmett Street is a result of the cafe space.

And as Neil pointed out, that material that we're using looks like black or brown material is really behind it as the parking garage.

But it does create a deck on top of it.

I thought I read... Are you referring to the... Oh, I'm sorry.

Okay, I call it roof... And I want to be clear, we're not in the business of a bar or operating a bar in a sense, so we're going to refer to it as a rooftop snack bar and that's where we're going to operate.

That is one of the components.

in obtaining a brand for this project.

And it is an upscale brand.

No bones about it.

But that is a component.

So the rooftop snack bar is, again, serving and will be to the benefit of the guest only.

There won't be any kitchen there.

No kitchen.

Yes, that is correct.

No kitchen.

And we mentioned snack bars, so you might ask, where's the food going to come from?

Yes, we do.

The event space is right above the cafe, that third floor right there.

So that would be conferences, weddings, receptions?

It could be conferences.

Well, everything's going to hinge.

That sort of thing?

I'm sorry?

It is.

Well it is a purpose for outside groups, weddings,

And the intent really is that space was created due to the parking garage.

And Neil can explain it better why we created that space.

As the parking garage was designed, that space became available and we could not put guest rooms in that area.

And he can better explain that.

But the community meeting space will be open to anyone who wants to rent it or will make it available.

But one of the criterias will be parking.

I have a quick question.

At the present we show 72 rooms in this design and that meets the one-to-one ratio.

Having operated there for 30 plus years, over the years we've come to realize that

There are many guests who come by other methods besides cars.

So we see that as a benefit and we believe the program that we put out, ensuring that assuming everyone brings a car, we'll have every guest occupied.

We will also control the meeting space that we're talking about if we do have parking issues.

I mean, we'll mitigate

I see.

So I couldn't decide that I was going to pay to park there and attend a sporting event, for example?

I have a question for Ms. Neumayer.

We have seen, and I'm trying to right my brain, we have seen some concepts of what is across the street.

55.

Yeah.

But what we've seen is a new arts

And what did we see?

They don't designate a height.

So we don't know that height?

We don't know.

Sure.

I have a few.

Related to bikes, so we'll talk about bikes.

So for the U-bike potential, you know, working with the university on that, has that been discussed at all at this point with anybody at the university or?

No, we've not discussed the portion yet.

Okay, yeah, that was my thought.

Understood, yeah, but you know it's one of those things we'd have to really study the feasibility of and that has not been done yet.

And then finally along, so I wanted to understand your thoughts on the five-foot bike lane and possibly increasing the planting strip to five or six feet if for the large canopy recommendation and then maintaining the seven-foot sidewalk.

Would you be able to do that within the existing site constraints?

Yeah, we can speak to that.

So there's a couple ways you can get that.

Basically what you're looking for with the trees, large canopy trees, is soil volume.

And so you can either create that by making the buffer wider or you're going deeper and going under the sidewalk and creating volume basically through soil treatments like silva cells or structural soils.

Definitely something that we would look into and make it happen if it was something that we felt strongly about.

But yeah, there's a little bit of space that we could wiggle against the building to maintain the 7-foot sidewalk and get the tree, but not much, but we'll look at going underground to expand that soil volume number.

I'll just briefly add to that.

The current four-foot buffer with the seven-foot sidewalk.

A couple things of note.

As currently shown, there is a two-foot wide permanent easement Mr. Patel will be donating to the sidewalk because the two feet of it are on his property.

So he's going to still meet the Streets That Work guidance by providing the permanent pedestrian easement through that corridor.

What we've looked at is that we could accommodate a five-foot planting strip.

and shift everything one more foot, but that's as far as we could go before you get into the door swing for the cafe.

So we wouldn't want the door swing basically being in conflict with the pedestrian.

So there's a little bit of wiggle room there.

Great.

Thank you.

We've had some public comment expressing consternation that there's no public benefit to this project, which is not the rule that we are using.

That is not how we measure to make this decision.

It's a good point, because it's not a criteria.

But I think if we had to boil it down, the public benefit could be described in a couple of ways.

This is just from my perspective as a civil engineer, so I'm sure there's others.

I think one public benefit would be that we are no longer contributing our runoff to the Emma Street right-of-way which has runoff problems already.

So we are helping doing our part to mitigate the flooding along Emma Street.

I think secondly, I think activating the street edge in general is a public benefit and creating a space that townspeople, pedestrians, students, neighbors can use as a public benefit in general.

I think the incorporation of the street trees is a public benefit and an environmental benefit.

So I think if you really start to read between the lines, there is things that could be considered a public benefit.

This is a public domain.

This is something, a space that we all share.

So those things

are in the public realm.

And I think there's a benefit to two sides on this.

The curb line is not moving between our site now and the Emmet Streetscape project in general.

So that's a benefit to the city's project and our project in that they know that they have the space for the bike lane.

We know that we have the space to meet the streets that work guidance.

So I think that just being able to accomplish both those projects in a successful manner in front of the hotel is a good thing.

Thank you.

Ms. Newmark, could you answer one more question for me, please?

I've read all of this and I feel like I'm kind of the third party to a story that I don't know the information to.

We're dancing around a topic.

I don't know the last time we ever looked at private property and said, what's the public benefit?

So we don't look at the public benefit in the SUP recommendation.

That's something that is separate.

And I think there's been misinformation in general.

And the code is confusing.

So I think a lot of times, so let me back up.

Critical slope waivers, you do base your vote off of the public benefit, right?

With the SUP, there's a list in section 34.157 that goes through, is it harmonious with existing land uses?

Does it comply with the existing zoning?

Does it comply with the comp plan?

So just for the public's benefit,

General knowledge, that's what you're basing recommendation off of.

Then in some of the letters we got, it seemed there's a disappointment that Mr. Patel did not sell to UVA.

And then I feel like I'm not sure this letter from the architect of the university not supporting their sidewalk.

Can you fill us in a little bit?

So that was something that was actually addressed at the city council meeting on August 6th, I believe, but that was included just because I try to include every public comment we get from anyone.

That was received and then our staff who's on the Image Project Manager for the Image Streetscape Project, Tim Lodge, provided a really great city response just going through some of the pros and cons on both sides of west and east and what I'm talking about so everyone knows.

One of the elements of the Image Streetscape Project is to include a 10-foot shared use path and from the beginning of the Image Streetscape process,

It was up for discussion whether it's better on the east or the west side.

I won't go into significant detail, but I provided a link to the August 6 report, which did a really good job on saying the city's consultant and the city after weighing equally east and west side, they prefer the city is taking the stance we prefer the west side for the shared use path.

So I think the comment there was more leaning towards the east side, which would significantly affect

the current project, but also there's a lot more to it.

So I'm gonna ask the question a different way.

That probably wasn't helpful.

If you all know me, then you're just gonna know I'm gonna cut to the chase.

Okay, I'm ready.

Let's cut to the chase.

Okay.

University doesn't wanna build this wide path, because that's gonna limit theirs, and these guys are tight on space as well.

Yes, and then reality hits, too, that there's also engineering construction cost concerns, which is why when there was analysis done, the west side was chosen, despite all of that noise.

Does that make sense?

Absolutely.

I feel much more invited to the party now.

Okay.

Thank you.

I should say there was a pre-meeting on this that I attended with Counselor Hill to discuss this issue and many other issues.

Okay.

So that was included to just

People wanted to, and I sent an email out offering it up to any councilors or planning commissioners, just wanted to update them on the changes made based off of March 14th.

And you were the only one attending?

Lyle and Bill.

Okay.

Fantastic.

You can't go to every meeting.

Anyway, any more questions before we have public comment?

Because I feel like we've got some public that would like to speak.

You have something?

I can tell.

It's a statement.

Okay, we're going to get to that because I feel like there's a lot of statements.

So, thank you.

Thank you for the rapid-fire questions.

At this time, I would like to open the public comment period for

Ms.

Good evening.

My name is Bitzie Waters.

I live at 1935 Thompson Road.

I'm speaking tonight for myself and over 90 other residents of the Lewis Mountain neighborhood to ask you to deny the special use permit request for the gallery court replacement on Emmett Street, gallery court hotel replacement on Emmett Street.

The future development of the Gateway Area at Emmett-Ivy intersection is of critical importance to the future of our neighborhood as well as to the university and the city as a whole.

The names of the people supporting this statement are listed at the end.

I will keep it short, but I am speaking for 90 people, so you'll give me like one extra minute.

We oppose the Emmett Street Gallery Court Special Use Permit for the following reasons.

An 80-foot tall building would be significantly out of scale for this quadrant of M.I.V.

intersection, which has been designated public or semi-public in the city's comprehensive plan.

Although privately owned, visually this small half-acre site is an integral part of the new gateway the university is creating at this intersection, which on the hotel side of the street is a low-scale green space area and is part of the city's $12 million smart scale

funded improvements to the Emmett Street entrance corridor.

It's our understanding that the university purposely kept the large parking garage they built across the street below 60 feet, the city's height limit for the corridor even though they were not required to do so.

We also have reason to believe from recent presentations and architectural renderings that their future development along Ivy Road and Emmett Street across the street from the hotel site will be set back from the road and not exceed 60 feet.

We're a small-scale neighborhood next to this gateway area.

We don't want you to set a precedent for supporting even greater height increases than the current 60 feet by granting this special use permit.

Special use permits, which provide extra benefits to developers, should also provide clear benefits to the community.

In this case, we see none.

Recently, along West Main Street and elsewhere, special use permits have brought developments out of scale with surrounding communities.

They've pushed up land prices, sped up gentrification, and made preserving and adding affordable housing more difficult without any clear benefits beyond the additional tax dollars.

Many in the larger Charlottesville community expressed strong opposition to these height and density permits for some time.

This special use permit is being requested so the applicant can build additional upscale hotel rooms.

The proposal calls for a building that covers the entire site

with three floors of structured parking starting at ground level, leaving little space for outdoor seating, trees or other amenities and no pervious surfaces to handle stormwater.

All aspects of this proposal are contrary to current city policies related to community character, street level uses and environmental sustainability.

Traffic wise, this is one of the busiest intersections in the city.

We don't need a larger mid-block hotel

complicating what is already a very congested place.

On busy UVA weekends, this intersection is close to gridlocked.

These are the very times a hotel like this would be busiest, adding substantial new in and out traffic and an overloaded location.

Many of us assumed when the fire occurred at the hotel that the university would move to acquire the site to complete their planned gateway development.

To date, that hasn't occurred, although the semi-public use designation in the city's comprehensive plan suggests it's been contemplated, and from a community and urban design standpoint, it's what makes sense.

We believe incorporating this site into the gateway would be the best outcome.

We realize the Patel family, or anyone they may sell this land to, can use by-right zoning to build to a height of 60 feet.

However, to maximize return from the site, they want to cover the entire site with a building that incorporates structured parking and is 80 feet tall.

We believe this is an inappropriate height and density for this small half-acre site at this particular location.

If the land can't be incorporated into the gateway, a rebuilding of the existing hotel with adequately scaled pedestrian sidewalks and trees would have many fewer negative impacts than the 80-foot structure that's being proposed.

For all these reasons, we respectfully request you deny the special use permit.

Warren?

Beshinstein?

Thank you for your patience on that one.

Thank you for your assistance.

My name is Warren Bechtenstein.

I live on Fendle in the Venable neighborhood.

And I think this proposal is trying to pack too much on a critical and awkward site.

It's on the Emmett Street corridor, of course, which arguably is the most important entrance corridor in the city.

First arrivals, new arrivals coming into the city were passed down into the university area.

And once you pass under the bridge, you are in the university area for all intents and purposes.

And with the ongoing demolition, that will be all university buildings.

The first building though, which you would see under this proposal is this hotel and the virtually solid brick wall of the north elevation.

which is a most unwelcoming and forbidding elevation.

And then once in the university area, this would be the dominant building.

It would in effect be the landmark building in a highly symbolic area and would be I think most inappropriate and misunderstood by the first time visitors.

I think there's another sort of operational concern and that is service, servicing of the building.

There's no on-grade servicing for trucks, for trash removal, for laundry delivery, for mechanical delivery.

Right now, as I read the plans, it will require those trucks to stop on Emmett Street about where the bus is in the perspective

where there is a access room on the far southwest corner or else pull up on the sidewalk compromising to say the least the pedestrian experience intended for this area.

So I would wish you would carefully consider the symbolic role that this building would play in our larger community and more specifically the operational problems

Thank you.

That is all that's on the list signed up for this public hearing.

If there's anyone else that would like to speak, if you can come up one by one, please state your name clearly.

My name is Roy Van Dorn.

My firm, City Select, provides guest information to area lodging in the form of brochures, guides, maps in hotel rooms since 2000.

I'm kind of the one person that sees all of lodging from bed and breakfasts to cabins to hotels.

Our role in providing these items is unique that we work with all areas of lodging.

We also work with restaurant shopping, craft beverage, and historic attractions.

So we get to see the entirety of the hospitality industry.

I'm also on the board of DBAC and a board member of the Virginia Restaurant Lodging and Travel Association.

So I see it not only from the downtown, but also from the statewide perspective.

In this role I play on the board, I collect and disseminate information about area lodging.

In the last five years, area lodging guest numbers have increased an average of 6%.

This growth has several impacts.

First, Charlottesville has the highest occupancy rate of any community in the state.

It also

because of supply and demand has one of the highest rates in the state.

You would think that with a couple of hotels that have opened up recently that that would have mitigated the demand, but in fact it has not.

We are severely under-hoteled in this community.

Twenty weekends a year we are effectively sold out.

We find that the growth in the hotel and lodging industry is flat.

And why is that?

There's just no room in the inn.

You can't grow when you're full.

And that is a significant problem for the hospitality industry because we're kind of stymied.

Besides the lack of capacity in the area, there are several common sense reasons why this project should be favorably considered by the community.

First is local ownership.

I look back at the last five hotels that have been opened in the area and all are operated by out of town operators, owners and operators.

We lack local ownership in our lodging industry.

We also lack walkable hotels.

The strategy is to put the hotels and these big properties in the county and then make people get in cars and go visit where they want to go.

We should be looking at places where people can safely park their cars and enjoy walking.

Am I done?

Yes sir.

Lastly, just lastly, not everybody wants a 200 room hotel.

I'll be a lot less than three minutes high.

I'm Tommy Brannock.

I'm a native, lived here all but nine months of my life.

UVA alum.

and when I was young I always wanted to live in the Lewis Mountain area and finally I did after six years ago.

Roy stole three things that I was going to say.

Admittedly I do know the Patel family.

I'm a big believer in locally owned businesses, locally operated, locally run.

I worry when I see a lot of things that are run by outages.

They're a great family.

Their kids went to UVA.

They are served on boards as have I.

There will be space in this building where I served on the Virginia Institute of Autism board for 12 years.

We used to meet across the street in the Cavalier Inn, and now we can do something like that here since that's been taken from us.

The point that Roy made about guests being able to walk I think is a good one.

I live not too far from here, and I have a lot of friends who visit it.

We don't have room for them all in our house, and I would love for them to have this place, for lots of reasons.

But I do think when you come to the University of Virginia, it's nice to be able to park your car and walk.

And I just thought I would say, just in a nutshell, I think it's important to support people who support Charlottesville.

And I just feel that this family is one of those families.

And I have lots of reasons to say that,

Thank you.

Hi, I'm Bill Rockwell.

I'm a resident of Lewis Mountain Neighborhood Association, or the neighborhood 119 Cameron Lane, and I am a co-chair on the Lewis Mountain Neighborhood Board of Directors

I am representing the board and the association tonight to support opposition of the approval of the SUP.

In particular, we support and we endorse Ms.

Waters' position statement opposing the SUP request and for all the reasons that she provided therein.

And again, that was a document that was acknowledged by 90 plus people, 90 plus residents in the

We're not a large neighborhood, so when 90 plus people voice their concerns for their supporting an issue, that's a fairly compelling voice for us.

We do well to get that many people at a community meeting or elections.

So I'll keep this short and sweet because Ms.

Waters has already done a superb job in expressing our concerns in her statement.

But I did want to just go over the major points quickly.

Again, an 80-foot building is out of scale for that area, and it's out of context for the entrance corridor, regardless of what the university does or does not do across the street.

This approval of the SUP sets a bad precedent for supporting other out-of-scale building heights and densities.

SUP provides benefits only to the developer.

And not to the community, and it should.

It seems kind of common sense.

I mean, direct benefits to the community other than stretching for stormwater credits and things, which are all a part of the equation.

But again, we see really no clear benefits for the community, for the SUP.

Special use permit provides an opportunity for increased traffic in an already congested section of road and intersection, especially in light of some of the proposed uses.

It's like the magic garage.

I don't know how it's going to support all the residents and weddings and conferences and that cafe.

I mean, they're all nice ideas, but it doesn't seem like it's

Those are afterthoughts for trying to get the 72 rooms first.

And finally, it supports a plan that maxes out the site coverage, leaving very little room for site amenities, even for the project's own purported amenities.

Approving or showing some interest in having the walkway on the west side, but to my knowledge, I don't think we ever really had any kind of a neighborhood input formalized for that.

So I'm not sure where that, I mean, there's no, I can't represent that the association is in favor of that.

I don't know.

My name's George Snyder.

I live at 1941 Lewis Mountain Road.

And I came tonight because I live near this proposed hotel.

And I'm not on the list of the 90 people in the neighborhood who oppose it, but I should be.

So I do oppose it.

I just wanted to add my name to the list.

It's too big.

You know, I'm not personally opposed to having a hotel there.

This is just too big.

And you have a 60-foot limit, I think you should stick to that.

I don't understand why you're going to get a fee.

It's just too big.

Thank you.

Good evening.

My name is David Waters.

I live at 1935 Thompson Road, and I've been involved in the neighborhood discussions.

But I want to speak to a slightly different point, which is that I think there's a confusion happening here, which is that the worthiness and community value of the family, of the Patel family, is unquestionable.

but should not be confused to the question of a special use permit.

Yes, he has a site, a very small site there that he wants to build on, and a hotel there is a good idea.

But the idea that it has to then, that we can't honor his membership in the community or the value of a hotel there without giving a special use permit seems to me to be erroneous, as Mr. Bechtenstein pointed out so well.

This will be a landmark building.

This will be the first thing you see as you come towards the university.

The Rotunda is in the distance.

Mem Jim is in your eye line.

There are fields and courts everywhere, and there is a large, to your right, a large green space and entrance corridor that will be very carefully designed to be beautiful

and welcoming and to have this be this very large building be what you first take in and first respond to visually and what you look past to see the university or see as you come out of the university is ill-fitted to the site.

The hotel has a lot of value there and is worthwhile.

We do not owe anyone a special use permit for their use only.

It is a much larger consideration.

Thank you.

Is there anyone else that would like to speak to this?

Gretchen Paris Day, I live at 309 Kent Road in the Lewis Mountain neighborhood and I support everything our neighborhood representative said and I just want to respond to a couple things.

Definitely it shocks me Main Street and I don't want to

have that shock every time I come and go by this neighborhood.

It's such a beautiful vista now with his decent size hotel.

And the family thing, I agree.

Great family.

Nothing says they don't sell the hotel as soon as they have the right to make it 80 feet tall.

There's no commitment.

So that should be an

A non-consideration.

I attended the city meeting about the walkways.

And one thing we all agreed on, I agreed I liked it better on the hotel side just because the steep hills and stuff on the other side.

But there's another player in this, and that's the railroad people.

And my understanding was

We don't know what they're going to do, how the bridge is going to get wider, which side they'll make it wider on, where the walkway will go.

That's a bottleneck, huge bottleneck, and this hotel, you know, if it proceeds might

Proceed solving that bottleneck by I don't know how long and just make it worse.

Anyway, it makes no sense to me.

Hey, my name is Rory Stolzenberg.

I live on Water Street between first and second.

As you guys know, we have a housing shortage in the city.

Many new hotels have popped up in places where they could, in theory, build housing.

The more hotel rooms that we can fit into this building, the less demand there is elsewhere for more hotels and the more availability for more housing.

Therefore, I support the special ease permit.

and any effort to make buildings like this larger and have more capacity.

And I think given the low elevation and the lack of change in visibility from the extra 20 feet, it both makes sense to have this hotel of this size and is in many ways a shame that we can't build it larger.

Thank you.

Is there anyone else that would like to speak?

Okay, then I'm going to close the public hearing and open the meeting for discussion.

Commissioner discussion.

While we have this rendering on the screen,

I'm visualizing myself at the southwest corner, the corner closest to us, looking straight up at 80 feet soaring overhead.

And we've heard a lot about visibility of the hotel from the neighborhood.

I dare say that there are more people that walk down this sidewalk in a day than live in the neighborhood and are affected by the height of this building.

And so it's them that I think of when I come to the conclusion that I think this is too tall.

We've got some questions that we could go through, the staff recommendation.

You want to talk about the entrance corridor first?

That's fine.

If it's okay.

Sure.

Fine with me.

Okay.

Well, I'm going to start by saying that I'm sort of disappointed that staff really didn't address this as the entrance corridor, which to me does have certain gateway aspects to it, particularly this one, because the only reason we have entrance corridors in Virginia is the only reason they're enabled is because they

allow an attractive approach to designated historic landmarks.

And in this case, it's actually an approach to a World Heritage site.

And that is not a designation that comes easily, particularly in the United States of America, because it's an international designation because of our black eyes in the

in the world arena, it's really hard for one to come to the United States.

And we have two in our community and one of them on University Avenue.

So that's why we have an entrance corridor.

It's the only reason the Commonwealth of Virginia lets us have one.

And it's the only piece of legislation really that lets Virginians look at aesthetics and that sort of thing, because it's

Aesthetics should not be part of Board of Architectural Review.

So I feel like the public, and I really want to compliment the people from Lewis Mountain because I don't feel like they came as NIMBYs.

None of them were talking about the view from their house or any of that.

I really think they were approaching this as residents of our greater community and what the experience is coming in on Emmett Street or departing from Emmett Street and the congestion

and the fact that this is out of scale and is not really adhering to the guidelines that we have for our entrance corridor.

And that doesn't mean that there can't be

some height on that entrance corridor and I would dare say that we will be going in that direction.

But I believe that the vision was probably for it to be a graduated height, that there would be lower scale buildings at the edge of Emmett Street or 29 North and they might get increasingly taller as they move back and then step back down as they approach a neighborhood.

And I don't think that staff really looked at it that way as the sequential experience

of an entrance corridor and what that visual experience would be.

I'm also very concerned about the three floors of parking, that very valuable university area real estate is devoted to onsite parking.

Also concerned about the environmental sustainability that the credits would be off-site and not addressed on-site.

And while we don't have to have a public benefit for an SUP, we should be looking, what is the advantage of granting an SUP?

And so something like taking care of the stormwater on site would be, in my mind, an advantage to our community and perhaps a reason, in some instances, to grant an SUP.

So I have a number of concerns just about it, about the small site.

The fact that it will be a signature building because of its location and its adjacent ownerships.

And I do feel very strongly we should not take any ownership into account in this or any other SUP because, as we all know, the SUP goes with the land.

It does not go with the ownership or that particular use.

We shouldn't go into this lightly.

We should really think about it in terms of the ramifications for the rest of that corridor.

I have to say when I looked at Seminole the first time, it really made me look at that area more holistically that we have three kinds of zoning going on in the 29 corridor, and I would encourage you

As you approach future land use, again, to think about what are the distinctions between HW and URB and ES and what is your vision for 29 as you approach the city, the university, and as you depart.

And I think that this proposal now is not in keeping with the vision that we have in our documents.

Can I ask which vision that is?

I highlighted several places in the entrance corridor.

No, I'm not talking about the university's vision, because that could change, and they aren't subject to our zoning.

But I do think that if this is granted, we would, as the staff report says, anticipate other

applications for increased height on that corridor.

And as one of our public commenters said, there are people in the community who would support that.

But I think we should do that as a community-wide decision, not on the basis of one application.

At least I have a question.

Is the hotel on Cherry Avenue, was that part of our entrance corridor?

Okay.

And I say that and it's kind of like apples and oranges, but they're all still fruit, right?

So I get it from that neighborhood that maybe this may not seem like the best fit.

for an entrance quarter, entrance, one of the entrances to our city, but I also feel like the hotel that's on Cherry Avenue was not the greatest fit either, and it's there.

We're talking about Shadows, we're talking about Hite, Derry Central, and then that other hideous building on Main Street, Shadows, the 10th and Page neighborhood, so I'm on the fence because I feel like why is this neighborhood any different other than we're looking at the fact that we're looking at the university?

We're not looking at this from a city of Charlottesville standpoint, it seems like.

We're looking at it from that prestigious University of Virginia standpoint.

And we're talking about city property.

So for me, if it's okay to overshadow any other neighborhood, what makes this one any different?

It was already a hotel there.

It already had the traffic coming in and out.

I just think that it seems like we're putting special emphasis on this because of the location and the demographics of that neighborhood.

I mean, let's just call it spade to spade.

No, you kind of said what I was thinking.

Uncomfortable truth.

Yeah.

The scale of the building really doesn't bother me that much because I think the topology mitigates that a bit.

But the thing that worries me the most being

business line that I am are the operational issues that that building creates.

That's, I mean, from an entrance corridor perspective, a very busy street, lot of activity coming in and going out of Charlottesville and getting laundry trucks and restaurant trucks and food trucks, getting trash trucks in and out of that spot.

is going to be disruptive to a very busy part of our city.

That's a really good point.

I think that's something that we talked about back in March.

Those were parts of questions that we had back in March.

We did talk about that.

Well, maybe the applicant can speak to that.

I can see, you know, the trucks parked on the sidewalk there like I'm thinking Belmont.

I'm thinking at least something in Belmont.

In Belmont?

Let me bring up Belmont.

I can see the trucks parked there and, you know, traffic getting backed up.

I don't have a problem with them answering the question.

I just have a problem when answering a question turns into rebuttal.

So we did actually, when we came for the workshop in March, we did address these issues.

So most of the deliveries in a hotel, and we designed about 200 hotels in 10 years last, most of the city hotels, we were also designer of the infamous Landmark Hotel in town.

and that has not even as much land.

So it didn't get built for very different reasons than why there's no trash available, trash picker available.

But in this case, the garage allows all the deliveries.

So most of the deliveries in the hotel comes in smaller trucks.

They will be able to go inside the garage and we have designed the garage in a way so the lower level will address

all the people who are checking in parking, deliveries, all that will be happening within the garage.

The only thing, you don't really have a control over the trash pickup, which is not picked up by the hotel, but whatever the city trash collecting companies are.

Private companies.

Now they probably will not come inside because of the way they operate.

We will be storing all the super cans within the property.

inside the garage.

There won't be a super can lying outside.

There will be inside the garage.

Now how the private trash collectors collect that super cans will be up to them and up to whoever is controlling their business.

But if they come in a smaller truck and pick up, they can come inside the garage and pick it up, or they can do, as we see all over the city, they will super can

will be rolled out during that designated time, they'll pick it up from outside.

I'm sorry, I just wanted to add the private trash collection, you know, it's something that we can gear.

I wanted to point out to Nia that the Planning Commission did not recommend approval of the hotel on Ridge Street.

That was a council decision, and I really feel like this project has minimal effect on the Lewis Mountain neighborhood.

My response to this is totally as a motorist and a pedestrian on Emmett Street.

So I'd just like to clarify my personal thinking on that.

And let me not say that I'm just, oh, because it happened in my neighborhood, I'm supporting it happening in somebody else's neighborhood.

I just wanted to make that point very clear, because it seems like for this project, we're like, oh, but it's the university.

Oh, oh, well, sorry.

Well, and I think part of the staff's comments, too, addresses the opening of the door, so to speak, for, you know,

I know the screen doesn't like to generate a vacuum in a room.

Sorry.

We need to get a clip on one of the shirt.

So, I mean, if we looked at it in a vacuum, I think it makes a lot of sense, but since we can't and we don't.

It being the first of several things that will likely come to us in the area, looking for additional height, I think also speaks to the more practical element of where it is and from an entrance corridor perspective that not really having anything to do with UVA, but just that existing landscape.

I was just going to state that my, you know, you're right, I don't like to zone in a vacuum for sure and I also like to know that, you know, our special use permits are not for the person in front of us.

So my only thing is that

In reference to the university, whatever happens on that property across the street will not come to us.

It will come to us as a courtesy.

Well I think Heather summed it up and we don't, we know there's gonna, we've created building sites across the street which were in the packet.

We don't know how high those are gonna be.

When we looked at it, we were looking at lower towards the street, stepping up towards the existing parking garage in the back, but that was playing off of Ivy Road, probably more than Emmett Street, so Emmett Street has the one key site that is where

the Italian Villa used to be and yeah sorry and there's no determination how high that would be it's going to be more than one story I can probably guarantee that but beyond that you know the use that goes in there will have a lot to say with how high it needs to be and right now we just don't know but what we did do with that site was to leave that corner at Emmett and Ivy open

and it has evolved into a stormwater kind of mitigation facility as well but it has always been in our planning seen as an open space to kind of complement what is on the other side with Cars Hills Field and the properties that we do control.

That is correct, but I will say we have kind of talked about

It's staying as much as we can within the existing zoning at the 60 feet.

I could see it going a little higher against the parking garage potentially, but again it depends whatever goes there.

So right now we don't know.

The only thing we do know is that you have the option to go higher if you want to, right?

Yes.

Absolutely.

So I'm just trying to think of it from a

from a very limited scope perspective of if the intention of the SUP vehicle is to sort of supersede the existing zoning to more accurately match what we envision is deploying the SUP, like what's the benefit?

To approving.

To approving.

Okay, I'll just tell you where I'm thinking about this because I also have a smaller, I have less heartburn about the height.

I do have a little bit of heartburn about there not being the step back, which is what we look at a lot.

But to be honest with you, after council approved that thing on West Main, it feels like all bets are off.

And that thing is so close.

But we need to try to do a better job and see where that goes once it moves on the track.

In my mind, for this hotel to have more rooms, we're already losing the Cavalier Inn right there.

If you think about it as far as where it's located, people drive in, park their car, they can walk to the cold breath, they can walk to this whatever new arts, they can walk to the football game, they can walk to the basketball game, and they can walk downtown to the corner.

They don't really ever have to get back in their car.

So from that aspect, it's very, to me, it seems like it makes sense to have the increased hotel rooms for that.

And so for me too, I mean, Rory made a good point is,

We look at this and we think, and we talk about this all the time about how, you know, at some point, you know, this does need to happen closer to the university as opposed to taking up some of the properties that we do have in our city that we do need housing for.

And so I'm struggling because I'm not the biggest fan.

I mean, the cafe part did add some, I don't mind the parking in the back.

It doesn't bother me.

It's three stories.

I think they need the three stories again.

You know, fly in, have a hotel shuttle, whatever, bring to the, you know, but you don't really need a car.

Based off of probably who's going to stay there.

I do hate that wall.

Right, right, right.

We are developing a smart street plan for Emmett and based upon our streets at work it will be a six foot wide planning bed for large canopy trees and a ten foot wide

Sidewalk.

So I'm just looking at this also as how it connects in that pedestrian path, that pedestrian experience going up and down Emmett and also the viewscape from Emmett.

Is that consistency that uniformity?

Somebody could come in in three years and say, we need to build dormitories right here, 10 stories tall.

The university's working with the city on the smart street plan going up and down there.

And I understand they're working well together.

We have no guarantee, but we do have some plans that have been shared with us, so I think that saying it will change in three years is probably not likely.

It's certainly possible in 30 years it could change.

Again, what concerns me is that we are diverging from entrance corridor issues, and we're dealing with very valid issues about housing and the local economy, but we're not really approaching this as the Entrance Corridor Review Board.

We've sort of diverged into being the Planning Commission, and one of the things that I don't think we do very well

is when we're reviewing something for the entrance corridor, we're not looking at it as part of the corridor, we're still looking at it as an individual design for an individual site.

And I think if you look at this with the sequence of the entire corridor, it doesn't work and it doesn't follow the guidelines.

And I agree with you wholeheartedly.

And so I'm ready to make a motion.

You need to let me do the entrance corridor review.

I have a question.

Oh, right.

We didn't do that.

Okay, sorry.

And this one's fun, but some of the others get real complicated.

I would like to make a comment before we proceed.

Yes.

Just from the design perspective, there's a design principle called like facing like.

Basically the idea that it is visually pleasing to see two things that are about the same size facing each other.

Humans like it.

I can't explain it.

Which is difficult because we have a pretty good idea of what this proposal is.

And the other is sort of a question mark, but we have a vague sense of kind of what height it could be.

If we are smaller than that, it will look weird.

If we are bigger than that, it will look weird.

If we match that question mark, that's a win.

Say that again, Lyle.

I'm sorry I lost you.

Design principle, like facing like.

This will be facing something that the university will build at some point of a massing size scale we have an idea of.

The 80-foot?

No.

No.

Everybody wrong?

No setback.

An 80-foot in the garage is 60 across the street.

And I mean, everything I've seen doesn't go any higher than the garage between the garage and the street.

We're talking about the site that's across the street from here.

It's shown on the plan that was in the packet.

And I have seen nothing that would indicate that that would be higher than 60 feet.

And that's all I can say because there's been nothing programmed, nothing designed for that site.

I don't want to be seen as like we're gonna just like bust out a huge building there because we can.

Oh, okay.

Maybe not for this site, but I thought you was about to say that's never been our intentions at the university.

But it's okay.

Okay, let's start here.

Here was my question that I had before we gaveled in.

And I'm sorry I've scrolled back out of it, but the problem that I had, not so much with the height, and I like that they added the cafe to give the street a little bit more vibrancy, but it does not fit according to even our staff first and in our comprehensive plan.

And for me, we have spent so many meetings talking about this comprehensive plan, and once again, we're about to, if we approve this SUP, we're going against what's in our comprehensive plan.

That's where I have the heartburn.

The height, I can deal with that.

I like the fact that it could, you know, leave some other areas for affordable housing instead of another boutique hotel or cheap hotel.

I just have a problem with if we have something in writing, why are we not following it?

I have to agree with you.

It doesn't go with the comp plan.

It doesn't go with the entrance corridor guidelines.

If you don't like them and you want to reform it,

I don't like it when y'all use my words against me as I fight against stuff all the time, and tonight you guys want to go with the comp plan and with all the other plans.

I mean, I'm as guilty as anybody.

And I think that that was a case of the domino effect that once there's one, then that's where you go.

But we've also consistently been told by our outside consultants, our economic consultants, that special use permits increase the value of land in our city.

So I want to bring us back for a second.

We've got the section 34-157 and that's for the special use permit.

But we are now talking about the entrance corridor and they did provide us on page two.

The EC guidelines do express concerns for increased height relative to its impact on nearby low density residential areas.

However, immediate adjacent to the site within 500 feet and thus impacted the height, there's several things here.

There is a recommendation

and there's suggested motions.

So I want us to focus back on that and if you guys are okay, I'm going to gavel us out of the Planning Commission and into the EC corridor entrance corridor review board so that that is where we can focus now.

We can't focus on the SP.

We're not the Planning Commission.

Good luck.

Yes, there's a recommendation.

Page 2.

For reasons stated above, design staff is general supportive of this request and recommends approval, additionally through the SUP process

The city may apply a more rigid standard relative to mitigating the impacts, including visual impacts of this new hotel.

No, I think I was making the wrong motion.

Just like I got confused on the weekend between the two.

Right.

So we are now in entrance corridor review and page

You'd be looking on page 2.

Page 2.

You're going to need to go, if you're on your computer, you're going to need to go all the way back up to the top because it's in the, I'm sorry Carolyn, it's in the consent agenda.

You go ahead.

It's not the motion I want.

You're going to have to make up your own motion.

Yeah, I did find that strange that there was only one, there wasn't the alternative.

Okay.

I move to find that as related to the city's entrance corridor design guidelines, proposed special use permit to allow an increase in height for the proposed Gallery Court Hotel at 140 Emmett Street North will have an adverse impact on the Route 29 North Emmett Street entrance corridor because of the height being too

too tall at 80.

It should be reduced to 60.

Just for discussion.

But don't I need a second if we've got a motion on the table?

Aren't we supposed to just be making a motion about whether it would have an adverse impact or not?

Yes, but you also want to clarify why.

Second for the sake of discussion.

Wow.

So what were your three points?

Can I ask why 7 when I thought it was a 10 foot for the... Well, I prefer 10 but... Oh, okay.

But you're gonna give a little.

Yes.

It's flexibility.

It's between the 5 and the application of 10 on the street.

And I would agree with you on the... With the sidewalk and the planting bed, I totally agree with that.

Again, scale just doesn't bother me there.

But I agree with him on the width of the sidewalk and the planting bed.

Totally great.

I'm just not bothered by it.

So let me back up.

The motion stands that it does have an adverse impact

And these are the reasons why, because the building needs to only be 60 feet, 6 foot planting, and 7 foot sidewalk.

I mean, I will vote with the motion because of the sidewalk and the planting bed.