City Council Meeting   1/3/2023

Well, then Mike will plug it in.

I'm trying.

Not a problem.

Wow.

I'm pretty sure I went over it.

Okay, so it's called the January 3rd, 2023, Charlottesville City Council meeting to order.

Councilor Magill?

Present.

Here.

Mayor Snook?

Yeah, I'd like to amend the agenda.

Help me out here.

So number 8 on the consent agenda goes to the action items.

Yeah.

OK. All right.

So move number five and number eight, and we will put them after what is currently number 14.

Okay, so we have a motion.

Michael, you second?

Yes, I second.

All in favor of amending the agenda, say aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

Okay, that is approved.

We've amended the agenda, now we have to pass the amended agenda.

That's the common sense approach, but every now and then, you know how us lawyers get.

So let's let's figure that we have now accomplished that objective.

So this meeting will be divided into three sections.

First is a work session to hear and discuss presentations that do not require a council vote.

Then there will be a closed meeting and then the city council business meeting, which will begin around six thirty, with seating available in council chambers for up to twenty three preregistered attendees and media.

Others are able to join electronically by Zoom.

So on the 4 o'clock agenda, we have moved to health equity.

Counselors, this evening you all have a presentation.

I'm just gonna simply turn it over to Peter Krebs.

We had heard about this briefly during one of the planning commission meetings towards the end of last year.

And Peter reached out about being able to bring the survey results from the 2021 move to health equity community mobility survey to you all.

This fits within our ongoing conversation to staff as it relates to transportation planning across our city.

And there's definitely more work that we need to do.

Bicycle PED specifically is one of our focus areas at the moment.

And you even have an item later today with your new transportation planner.

So it's all fitting that we kick off the year talking about transportation.

There's a lot more to come.

Thank you, Sam.

Hi, thank you, Peter.

I'm Jackie Martin.

I'm one of the co-chairs of the Move to Health Equity Coalition, and I'm also a UVA Health employee in the Office of Diversity.

and community engagement.

So first I'd like to really quickly tell you a little bit about the Move to Health Equity Coalition.

We started as a community action on obesity well over 20 years ago before people were really talking about obesity as a chronic disease.

We've transformed over the years to not just look at obesity or any chronic disease in general,

but to go more upstream to look and focus on some of the root causes of some of the inequities in our communities.

So tonight you're going to hear a project that Peter Krebs worked on.

He is a member of our

Active Community Action Team.

We have four action teams, Access to Health Care, Active Communities, Healthy Food Systems, and Healthy Spaces.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Good evening.

Thank you, and thank you for the opportunity to share with you the work that the coalition has been doing over the past year.

It's been a tremendous effort with COVID and trying to get this survey done, but through sheer tenacity and persistence, Peter and his team worked through that.

and the report that they have produced is I think something that will be useful as we talk about how do we address these things as we go forward.

So I'd like to introduce Peter Graff-Krafs who will present the report.

Thank you both and thank you both especially for coming out on that afternoon.

I know that

You're busy and have a lot going on and I appreciate it and I think the community will benefit from what we have to share tonight.

So my name is Peter Krebs, I work for the Piedmont Environmental Council.

PUC is part of the MOVE Health Equity Coalition which Jackie or Greg could chime in but there must be something like 40 organizations that are part of this group

and you know there's some some pretty major organizations that are part of this coalition so like both hospitals, the health department, YMCA, Boys and Girls Club, a lot of household names but also some passionate individuals and neighborhood groups so I'm just really

It's easy for me to show up to do my work with all these super inspiring people around me.

If it's okay with you all, I will share my screen and we'll do a quick presentation of the results of the mobility survey.

As you can probably see, there's a lot to this

to this report.

And I'm not going to go into every detail.

In fact, I'm going to move very quickly, but there'll be time for questions and also the report itself is available.

Awesome.

Okay, so

First, a quick summary of what we're going to talk about.

We'll give background on why we're doing this survey.

We'll talk a little bit about the methods, although that could talk all night.

I'm going to fly through the methods section.

And part of that is a little bit about who responded, which is really important.

We'll talk about what they said and some quick recommendations.

And so here we go.

But first I have to start by saying that although I'm the one that's presenting here, it's not the case that this is solely my work or even mostly my work.

This is the product of many, many people who have worked hard for more than a year and so

So this belongs to all of them and to the whole community as well.

Also, I think it's important to mention that the survey itself was made possible with a grant from Sentara Martha Jefferson Hospital.

So thank you Sentara and for all the teammates who made this happen.

So as Jackie and Greg both talked about, we're

about getting ahead of the social determinants of health and in my case, I'm ahead of the active communities team.

And the way MOVE to Health Equity basically works is we're independent organizations that share a lot of overlapping goals.

And we work together in those areas of overlap where we can accomplish more by working together rather than working alone.

We employ a collective impact model, which is a very structured way for groups to share their resources.

And we, as far as implementation of our work, we use a strategic doing approach where if we can't solve the big problems, we chop off small problems and knock them out one by one and build momentum going forward.

During the peak of COVID-19, which was when the survey happened, we couldn't do a lot of our usual tabling and getting out in the public.

So we did some sort of little bit behind the scenes research and took the opportunity to

just to do research and to learn more to make sure we're on the right track.

You'll hear a theme throughout that listening and learning is not something we do every five years.

It's something that we're constantly doing and constantly growing.

These data that I'm going to present tonight are just one look.

Sam mentioned the ongoing efforts to improve transportation in the city of Charlottesville.

This is one piece of that.

It's not the answer, but it has some interesting good answers.

They already talked about our work group and

that we were not able to actually be in communities during COVID.

So we did this research study.

And why are we doing this?

Well, first of all, it's always good to check our work and to make sure that we're on the right track.

But it's not happening now by accident.

So Charlottesville's Conference of Plan talks a lot about walking and biking and transit and getting around, but it doesn't provide precise answers about how to do that.

So the purpose of this survey is to provide some answers and some ideas about what a better connecting community might look like.

The survey itself happened in the spring and summer of 2021.

For almost the entire duration of that timeframe, COVID restrictions were in place and at the time we had no idea when or if they would be lifted.

So we worked primarily digitally.

The survey has 15 questions.

It's a very tactile survey that's designed to be used on a phone or a mobile device.

It was in English and Spanish.

and we received just under 430 responses.

Our primary means of distribution for the survey was the city's network of neighborhood associations combined with the move to health equities

Very large, rich and numerous organizations.

And also the network of neighborhood leaders that exist throughout the city.

So there are many types of neighborhood leaders in Charlottesville, not just the neighborhood associations.

We had flyers all over town.

We had posters on every CAT bus.

and happily, toward the end of the survey, we were able to get to two in-person events and those were very fruitful and productive.

Just a, you know, a partial list of the groups that assisted with distribution.

So, although the sample size is in the hundreds, we worked with numerous groups and

probably if we did it now the network would be even larger.

We were able to hear back from every neighborhood except for one and that one that we didn't hear back from is Barracks Road and Barracks Road is a bit unique as a neighborhood in the sense that it's not heavily residential.

But I'm going to talk about some of the other characteristics that were interesting.

I noticed that not all the neighborhoods responded equally and this is no surprise and I'll talk more about the implications of that in a minute and recommended next steps that result from that.

One thing that was interesting that we encountered is some of the neighborhoods that

responded the most were those that were very active in discussions about the future land use map, which was also happening at the time.

And so we've seen this pattern in all kinds of work where neighborhoods that have something to be upset about are

more likely to chime in about the city's plan.

And so if we did the survey now instead of in 2021, I think a different group of neighborhoods would be responding back.

For example, we might be hearing from Woollen Mills a lot more than we did because there's that controversial development project there.

So by going forward, this grapple, this grid also shows us where the future work and more intensive community outreach needs to happen.

As far as

Age, there is a broad distribution.

It's a normal looking bell curve.

However, Charlottesville doesn't have a normal looking distribution of ages because of the large student population.

Interesting that we did not hear from UVA students as much as we might have liked.

And that signal also came through with that Barracks Road low response rate, for example.

A good response from women, which is great because women are a priority community.

Systems and solutions that work for women very often work for men.

That's why, at least in my own approach, I try to find solutions that work for women.

As far as racial distribution,

This is, again, not a huge surprise.

It's something we see across our planning effort.

And I think that

It's clear where the future work and future conversations have to happen.

And again, this is why I'm so excited about getting out of a virtual world into a more on the ground community type approach for our future work.

A similar story for education.

Again, the respondents have a higher degree of education than the typical Charlottesville resident.

That could be better if

You allow for the fact that we have a lot of students in Charlottesville that have not yet attained their college degree or it might be considered worse because, oh my gosh, we have an over-educated survey response and this doesn't even include the students.

So, again, clear where we need to do better in the future.

and you know I'm sorry if it seems like I'm being highly critical or whatever throughout this process but I think folks that are familiar with my work and with the move to health equity we're very about accountability and about keeping things very real with our work but what we

I think the takeaway from the limitations that we do have is that we do have to get back on the ground.

And now that COVID is over, that's a much more possible thing.

These results might be a little bit different than normal because of COVID.

We need to take that with a grain of salt.

We need to be very focused on follow up and focus on priority communities.

And I also think that there's good opportunities to focus in the future on collaborating with Albemarle County and UVA.

This work product, however, is only about Charlottesville, which is why I'm here tonight.

So here's what respondents said.

Again, we're all about multiple ways of learning and listening, so I don't think anything you're going to hear tonight is going to come as a huge surprise.

But it's pretty interesting to see it starkly in graph.

First of all, most residents drive to get around.

A decent number also walk regularly.

Bicycle usage is interesting because looking at this graph, it seems like it's about halfway, but it's not the case that half of Charlottesville residents use the bicycle for transportation.

When we look deeper at the data, it turns out that there are a small number of cyclists who use their bikes a lot for transportation and then a large number of people who use them seldom for transportation.

Transit taxis and third mobility were all not very much used.

And again, remember this is during COVID.

Contrast how people get around to what they said when we asked how they would like to get around.

When we asked people how they would like to get around, the answer was overwhelmingly by bicycle walking or by transportation.

When we asked them what's the easiest destination to reach, interestingly, or rather the question was how easy is it to get to each of these destinations on a scale from one at the low end to five at the top.

Work was the easiest place for people to get, and healthcare, tools, food, and

and stopping were significantly more difficult for people to reach, which I think gets to that question of what are we planning for?

What kind of transportation system are we working towards?

When we took another different type of look at the data, instead of looking at the mean, looking at the spread of the responses, we found that not only was work relatively easy to get to, it was relatively easy to get to for almost everybody with a low standard deviation.

But where you see disparities is with these higher numbers, healthcare, food, school,

I wouldn't worry about this church and worship number because I think a lot of people simply said they don't go to church and put that as a zero.

But it is very concerning for the Move to Health Equity Coalition to see that it's difficult and there are disparities when it comes to reaching food and healthcare.

Access to jobs was decent when we looked at all the different neighborhoods.

One of the strengths of the survey is we broke it out by neighborhood.

But some of the more core neighborhoods, historically black neighborhoods, specifically, reported that it's more difficult for them to get to food resources as well as health care.

This is a concern.

We asked people similar questions in a multitude of ways.

And so, for example, we gave them the opportunity to just tell us in their own words what they would like to be better for transportation.

And out of 400 respondents, 92 of them talked about getting to groceries and shopping areas.

I don't think I've ever seen anything like that in any of my research where I'm provoked

Also note that 18 of them, again, unsolicited, said that getting to healthcare resources is a problem.

That's a problem for all of us.

When we ask them what's keeping them from having the type of connected community they would like to have, again, no huge surprise there.

People talked about lack of sidewalks, lack of bike lanes, buses not running frequently enough.

and concerns about being injured by cars or crosswalks, not feeling safe.

And, you know, an unexpected number also talked about traffic and parking.

We'll get more into parking in a little bit.

So broken out by neighborhoods, we saw, again, some disparities that were interesting and not necessarily the same.

So broken out by neighborhood, some of the neighborhoods that are sort of inner suburbs that have been absorbed into this city.

So that would include like Belmont or Martha Jefferson or I don't know.

JPA, neighborhoods like that.

They are from an era when cities were meant to be walkable, but the infrastructure was never there to make it happen.

Similar case in Fifeville.

You really want to walk around there, but the sidewalks are very discontinuous.

They sort of stop at one property line

resume maybe across the street somewhere else.

So getting a continuity in these older neighborhoods is going to be really important.

Again, given the chance to elaborate, people's concerns were very familiar.

They talked about safety.

They talked about lack of proper infrastructure.

Some folks talked about parking becoming a problem for them.

and especially for older folks and folks with disabilities.

When we ask people to identify spatially where the problems existed and then we map it, it looks like, well, it's a map of the whole city, right?

Like problems everywhere.

Remember, this is a neighborhood survey, so it's quite understandable that people would talk about problems in their neighborhood.

And this is what we wanted.

We got good data.

When we normalized the number of responses about a given location,

against the number of people who lived near that location.

We did actually see some patterns that were rather interesting.

So these are the top 10 areas where people expressed concern.

And then we divided it by the number of people who lived close to that.

So for example, US 29 was our highest

For the complaints, no surprise there.

But not many people, at least within the context of the city of Charlottesville, live on 29.

Yet lots of people are talking about it.

We can see from this that 29 and hydraulic is a real problem that transcends

just neighborhood concern and also affects everybody.

Looking at the commonality between these sort of hot areas of concern, what they have in common is the third commuter route and that again sort of jibes with what we were hearing from

people and their free responses.

They're afraid to cross the street.

I was a bit surprised to see the Avon corridor be on that list because Avon is a little street.

But then thinking back, you know, last year when the schools were talking about extending the lock zones and what it's

what it would take to make it be safer.

Avon Street came up a lot and so I think what we can infer from this is that commuter routes are a problem for commuters.

Transportation planners have known this for half a century but these commuter routes are also a problem for the neighborhoods they cross and that they

create the perception or the reality of being unsafe places to be or to cross.

The survey did happen during COVID-19, so we took the opportunity to ask a few questions about COVID.

But I think we kind of asked the wrong question, so I'm not going to go into it too much.

We asked whether they thought COVID would change their transportation choices.

and it turns out that no, they didn't think it had changed or would change their mode choice.

What I wish we had asked is if the way they use transportation had changed, like are people commuting more or less?

We'll be plenty hindsight, but

The story is very different for transit users.

There was a big impact of COVID-19 on transit users.

I think everybody in the room can

You know, a test to how dramatically transportation was affected by COVID.

And at the time the users were concerned that it would stay disrupted.

And so this is something I think that we have to pay close attention to in the next couple of years.

Again, we also asked about hours worked outside the home, but we kind of asked the question in the wrong way, just being honest.

We asked how many hours they work outside of home.

And if you think about it in the COVID world, what does it mean to work outside of home?

Does that mean working from home?

You know, we allowed people to include hobbies and volunteer work and other things like necessitate transportation.

So this question frankly didn't work that well.

But one thing that I think was very interesting and worth paying attention to is that the story is different between women and men.

And remember, we had that nice representation from women, so I think we

We can start to draw some conclusions.

Notice that a lot more women than men were working outside of the home at that time.

And I think this is something that we need to be watching closely going forward.

We saved this data and we can digest it in a lot of different ways if that's of interest.

And finally, we closed the survey with open-ended suggestions.

And boy, did people respond with their open-ended suggestions.

We summarized them for you in a couple of different categories.

First of all, the residents overwhelmingly would like to be able to walk and bike more easily with emphasis on consistency and the removal of obstruction.

Better crosswalks, better maintenance, better signage.

I think it's worth noting, you know, thanks to Sam for this good introduction, that the city is indeed working on crosswalks and signage and those things, thanks in part to

the school district and I think this validates that they're on the right track.

You've got to slow down the vehicles and especially over and over people talked about there being obstructions and sidewalks that render the sidewalks that we have difficult or impassable.

For transit to be effective and practical it needs to be more frequent with fewer transfers

Right now, riding the bus just takes too long, I think across the board.

And also improving the bus waiting experience and a large number of people also asked for an electrified bus fleet.

People also talked about driving and several people were very adamant but not everybody ever wants to walk and bike and I think that that needs to be always

taken into consideration and factored.

There were quite a few people asking for more parking and quite a few people asking for less parking.

But I think there was unanimity in having more parking for elders and folks with disabilities, support for e-bikes and electric vehicles.

and then also just a lot of good responses talking about how it's important to focus on historically black and historically excluded communities, systems that work for elders and the young work for everybody and also while we're doing this work we really need to be cognizant of what's happening across the line in Albemarle County.

Our recommendations to you are to a fairly comp plan with a mobility plan that focuses on safe routes to school, food, and health care.

Neighborhood focus, being connected, overcomes disconnectivities and discontinuities, and is cognizant of Albemarle County and timely and measurable.

We need to get the basics right.

correct sidewalks, correct curb ramps, removing obstructions and continuous safe routes and then a more practical transit system.

A number of you are very focused on the regional transit vision plan.

Move to Health Equity supports the unconstrained transit vision plan and

That unconstrained vision isn't going to happen tomorrow and in between now and then we should do what we can to improve frequency of service to food, retail and healthcare.

Our next steps as a group are to report back to decision makers.

I guess I can cross that off the list.

Follow up with many neighborhood partners that helped us learn this excellent information.

No surprise to you advocating for more funding, staffing and quick builds to get these crosswalks and sidewalks fixed.

Getting back into the field, we're super excited about that.

The community health plan process, the periodic update happens again in just a few weeks, so we're gearing up for that.

And also PEC is sponsoring our third annual Piedmont Mobility Summit in February at City Space.

So that's all I have.

Thank you, Mr. Krebs.

Well, if anybody else, whether or not you're scheduled to make a report, if either of you all would like to make a comment, I'm happy to hear from you at this point.

No, thank you.

I think that, you know, we stand behind the work that our action team has done.

Peter and his team did an amazing job of digging in and getting into stuff.

And I think it's provided us with information we can work on for the next couple of years.

And we wanted to solicit the support of the Charlottesville City Council to be partners with us

Okay.

Oh, okay.

That's right.

Okay.

Well, I appreciate it.

Yes, this is a great report.

Thank you is very helpful.

I think it resonates with what we've been hearing from others in the community.

I'm interested, I think one of your recommendations was to have a mobility plan connected with the comprehensive plan.

Is the notion there something similar to what we're doing with the climate plan?

Can you say a little more about that?

So what I can say, I'm sorry, this is something that will be a city-led initiative, so I'll absolutely defer to Sam, but the whole thing is built to work together, so the Climate Action Plan does also mention a mobility plan.

and that's something that has changed in process.

Some people talk about a transportation plan.

Okay.

Yeah, good afternoon.

Good afternoon.

So I know that you and your staff have reams and reams of, you know, lists and lists of sidewalks that need to be fixed and prior to prioritizing, you know, in a process of doing prioritization and assigning the correct funds to meet those needs.

What I would say to that right now is that we are in the very very early stages of the transportation plan and really wrapping his arms around all the various plans that we have.

Peter's shaking his head that they're a very disparate set of plans because we've done them at different times with different motivations and they're not connected.

Part of the work that Ben will undertake is actually to try to digest and organize some of that material

putting it together and what we hope will then become a set of strategies for going forward.

Whether it turns out to be a mobility plan or something similar to what I imagined.

In my mind, I'm imagining what Peter is suggesting.

I think we're headed there.

We're not there at this time because Ben has just started.

So he has a little bit of catch up work to do in trying to figure out

What are the various plans that we have?

We do have a lot of federal funds that are driving a lot of interests and actions.

So some of that is important for us to settle on rather quickly so that we'll know how to pursue some of these additional opportunities.

If I might add, Councillor Pinkston, you didn't ask directly, but I kind of inferred in the question.

So we've heard, for example, about Jack Dalton's prioritization, like an algorithmic approach, and we definitely support that.

That would be integrated and I know it's not something that will stand the line.

Thank you.

I think this is great, and I support your recommendations.

I just had a few kind of follow-up questions or comments, and one is particularly about the walking and the sidewalks.

I love walking, and the Mrs. and I just kind of went walking yesterday.

the 10th and Page neighborhood and it is one of those neighborhoods particularly with a lot of uneven sidewalks and I've been over the years walking with different people and took some pretty bad spills because of the uneven sidewalks you know with the trees buckling them up and they'll come in and sand them down but it's still kind of uneven and there's some pretty bad

spots and I think that one way that we can get input is just have the planners or staff to actually go out when people are walking and ask them and not necessarily rely 100% on surveys and things because a lot of times they may not walk or ride the bus or

or what have you, but just, you know, just ask people that are actually doing the various things.

I think that you'll get some real good nuggets of information then.

And also, a part that I didn't see there, but I know that a lot of people are using,

complaints about it, and I know a lot of people using that, and that's these scooters.

And you'll see me walking, and I'm picking them up.

that they're falling down, that they're leaving them in the middle of the sidewalks, but I know a lot of people use them as their transportation.

So it's something that we have to get control over in the city because a lot of times they are left, several of them are left just in a road or on the side, on the sidewalks, and if you're in a wheelchair or something and you see that and no one is around, you're just kind of stuck.

I'm not sure what happens.

I move them when I can, but

I wish we could allow, let people know, or the bike makers, or the scooters, or something, let them know that, you know, that this is an issue that, that I think if we have any say, and this is not necessarily for you all, this is kind of one of Juan's pet peeves at this point now, so, that we need to address, because it is, I think, a valuable form of transportation, but it inhibits

other forms of transportation.

But I think this is good.

It kind of brought back some memories of my old days doing transportation planning where we actually had an organization that we started called ACT, which put a lot of different kind of transportation providers together to address these type of issues.

And I'm glad to see that

This is being done because Charlottesville is relatively speaking a walkable city because we're 10 square miles and I know it's a lot of hills, but there are a lot of options here.

Questions at this end, comments?

A couple questions.

One, I know it came up a couple times in your report, the areas that are basically in the urban ring of Charlottesville and Albemarle.

I know that Albemarle is working on some comprehensive plan updates at the moment.

Do you feel like the work you've done with this in Charlottesville is able to plug in well and parallel with what they're doing there?

So in some ways, yes, I think that the responses are ones that would resonate with Albemarle's urban residents.

But at the same time, I think they ought to have their own stay as well.

So some utility for them, maybe it's good questions to start with.

So for example, this issue of obstruction from the sidewalk, I think that's something that they can put into their top level of research, like rather than discovering, oh, obstacles make it impossible to live with dignity.

Yeah, another question.

You mentioned quick builds.

We've talked about it plenty, but in the more immediate term, I think our biggest goal for city government is getting the project managers in place to kind of get through the existing backlog.

But quick builds are maybe something more immediately that can be done.

Do you have any examples of kind of what some of those would be?

Well, I think one that's been quite successful actually is the hiring of crossing guards.

So in some ways, maybe adding a crossing guard to an intersection would do more than getting the hard infrastructure right in terms of making it feel safer.

So yeah, I think that's a great example or flex posts to create a shorter crossing distance.

And I mean, I think an ambitious plan would be to try some stuff on Fifth Street, not only to make it easier to cross, but to blow the vehicles down.

I guess those are just some examples.

Also West Main Street, I think there's a proposal to go ahead and do what we can with planters and paint while we're waiting for

Yeah.

Just more informally in talking to people about biking, I hear fairly frequently that one of the barriers people have to start biking is just the fear of traffic, obviously, and one of the barriers is a lack of protected bike lanes in the city.

Oh, absolutely.

Yeah, definitely.

That would be

You know, if I could name five things that people asked for, protected bike lanes would probably be one of them.

You know, along with better crosswalk, fewer sidewalk obstructions.

So I'd say it's a first level priority for residents.

Yeah, and it's a little left field, but

I'm curious, you know, I've never been able to quite figure it out, like what are the barriers to protected bike lane construction in Charlottesville and Virginia?

Because it seems like we often, it just often doesn't end up part of a smart scale project or other improvements.

So we have Sam Sanders on the call.

I'm sure he could say a lot more than me.

But I think from my perspective as a transportation planner and advocate, I think what's unique in Virginia is legacy property lines.

So there's an acquisition issue.

We have utilities, some of which are active, some are disused that are a real mess.

We don't have the sort of clean slate that a lot of other places have to work with.

Thinking, and then even when something looks like a clean slate, sometimes the challenges are hidden.

So thinking about the Franklin Street sidewalk project, for example.

If you look at it as a novice, and maybe that was me when I first encountered that project, it seemed like, well, what's the problem?

There's lots of space, you know, they're not even trees or power lines in the way.

But you know, water management, hidden utilities.

Yeah, I wonder if that almost requires changes on VDOT on smart skills end at some point.

But anyway, that's another conversation.

And just one final question.

It's kind of bigger picture, but I think it's really important that you highlighted the disparities in neighborhood response rates and that the response rates weren't reflective of the entire community.

You know, I know that's been a perennial challenge in a lot of areas, particularly in bike ped advocacy.

Right.

So I acknowledge that I get existent advocacy perspective and I don't have to weigh, you know, all the whole city's concerns the way that you all do.

But I think it's sort of a question of staying focused and we know where the need is.

It's not like

These problems are like newly discovered.

But we do have to stay focused on doing work where there is actual public benefit for a large number of people whose lives can be really made better.

I mean, we're talking about, for example, making it easier to get to a grocery store

I think ought to weigh more perhaps than having a perfectly visually appealing neighborhood in some other location.

I guess that's one way of just saying like we need to apply this like

A justice and equity lens to everything with the work.

And also, we should really listen to neighborhood leaders and people on the ground.

Sometimes our assumptions from afar or even based just on a survey are interesting, but the picture becomes a little bit different when you

when you talk to people on the ground.

I think that this issue of obstructions is something that the survey indicates, okay, there could be a concern, but talking to people on the ground really reinforces that.

So we need to focus on equitable outcomes and we need to aggressively collect data in multiple ways.

Yeah, and I know there's no one easy answer there.

You know, it's more of a shift in mindset about how we prioritize and make decisions.

But those are all the questions I have.

And the only question, I guess, that I have is sort of what's next?

You know, getting a lot of information.

I know that a lot of folks will have that information available to them, but it sort of seems like it feels like we should be doing something with it.

Now I notice Mr. Sanders coming on.

I have a little clarity in that this really speaks to the comments that you all heard during the CIP conversation, the Planning Commission.

And Council Payne just really hit it on the head.

It's really about prioritization.

We have done a great job as a city determining things that we need to study.

We have done a great job of finding the funds to pay for plans and we've done a great job of being able to figure out what all the various issues are.

So that's a good thing.

The bad thing is that in some instances we've taken a plan and basically replaced or diminished the prior plan that was never fully implemented just because we have more current information.

and that's a lot of places do that so that's not a criticism of Charlottesville it's just the state of being but what we have not done previously is that we've not actually had anyone to own this effort this work and we now have that with Ben Chambers stepping in as our new transportation planner we actually have someone to drive this literally drive this process forward because we've only been

touching on it and kind of hitting the surface and pulling some things forward, doing a little work as a result of it, which was all good.

But now this is a part of someone's day-to-day figuring out transportation needs for the city as a whole, looking at it from a regional perspective, looking at it through an equity lens, looking at it for gap analyses and various things that we just haven't had the time to do for the approach to be had available to us with it just being

a part of what Public Works is doing, part of what NDS is doing, part of what CAT is doing.

This actually gives us some synergy in that we have one person who now is the convener of all these different conversations.

We've already had our very first meeting that was about two weeks ago.

Ben pulled together a transportation cohort.

It's all internal staff.

to begin to kind of plan out how do we do the assessment work for what's on the table today and then determine what that says to us, what may be needed and then how do we go forward.

and you know I don't work for Sam I can be quite critical of the city but I think he also has had right hit the nail on the head about the importance of building a team to actually implement the fruits of those plans so I think that's what happened in Albemarle County and they're enjoying some of the benefits so I really do think you're on a good track getting a team

Anything else?

I'll just, you know, underscore what was just said by Mr. Sanders.

I've met the new planner and he seems really sharp and this is why staffing is so important.

We can't do all the things we want to do as a city if we don't have the people in place to do it.

going into this next budget cycle will continue to be a focus for us that we get the people we need to do the work.

So, yeah, I appreciate all of everything that I've heard tonight.

So thank you very much, Mr. Krebs, Ms. Martin, Mr. Winston.

Thanks.

It's been it's been very educational.

That is all we've got on our agenda for the four o'clock

Session.

We do have some closed session business.

Can we get a motion to go into closed session, please?

Second.

All right.

Is there any discussion of the motion?

If not, let's see.

Yes.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Motion passes.

Council is now in closed session.

We will return to a separate Zoom link for those of you who are joining us by Zoom for the open meeting at 6 30.

Well let's go ahead and get started then.

Alright I can do that.

Okay, any discussion?

Councilor Magill?

Yes.

Yes.

Mayor Snook?

Vice Mayor Wade?

Yes, Mr.

Chair, I'd like to make an announcement for the continuing his dream and his works put on by Alexander's event.

It will take place Monday, January the 16th from 1 to 3 at Carver Rec.

It's going to be, I've been to these before, and it's really a great event for the family and everyone.

Some of the things that they're going to have there is the Alicia Lugo Award.

There's going to be a guest speaker.

There's going to be some singing, dancing, and Alexander is going to be speaking as well.

And so, it's just a great event.

It's a partnership between Charlottesville Parks and Rec and Alexander.

And while we're also talking about other Martin Luther King Day events, the Martin Luther King Community Choir will be performing at the community celebration on January 22nd.

That's Sunday, January 22nd at 4 p.m. at the MLK Performing Arts Center.

Another announcement, the Harambee Family Events is a calendar that highlights African American cultural activities in Charlottesville and surrounding areas.

The calendar, created and designed by Mr. Alexander, presents countless events from January 2023 to December 2023 and is now available.

The Harambee Swahili for All Pulled Together cultural events objectives are to inspire and unify area citizens to communicate more effectively and create and maintain a positive environment for change and civility.

The calendar also strives to strengthen family relationships and nurture cultural awareness, particularly among African American residents who have experienced a lack of inclusion in many area events.

The Harambee family event calendar will be distributed throughout central Virginia.

and people can view it at alex-zan.com.

In addition to that, just another reminder that in both Charlottesville and Albemarle, the plastic bag tax is now in effect.

If you go to local businesses and use non-reusable plastic bags, you'll be charged five cents per bag.

And if you are a SNAP or WIC beneficiary, you can receive two reusable bags for free.

Okay.

Any other announcements?

Consent Agenda.

Items number five and eight were moved to the end of the meeting.

Two minutes, December 5th minutes, three ordinates, private drainage easements,

at 2100 Avon Court, second reading.

Four, ordinance temporary aerial easement at 1223 to 1225 Harris Street, second reading.

Number six, designation of Park Street site as a revitalization area, one reading.

And that's it.

We will now take public comment regarding items on the consent agenda just read by the clerk.

Each speaker will have up to three minutes.

I should note, by the way, if you were following along on the program that you thought you had for the consent agenda at four when we began the meeting at four o'clock, we moved number five, which is the resolution of appropriation to amend the fiscal year 2023 budget.

and number eight, the critical slope waiver application request for the Azalea Springs subdivision.

Those will not be on the consent agenda but will be on the action items.

Ah yes, technical gremlins.

Those will be at the end and so those are not on the consent agenda and they are not what I'm talking about now.

If you want to comment on the other items that were read by the clerk, this is the time.

Each speaker will have up to three minutes.

In the Zoom webinar, you may select the raise hand option to be placed in the speaker queue.

If you have joined by phone and wish to speak on the consent agenda, you may press star 9.

We'll alternate in person and virtual speakers.

Is there anyone in council chambers who would like to speak on any of the items on the consent agenda as amended?

Yes.

That is not on the consent agenda.

The time for that will be in just a little bit.

Anybody else who might like to speak on the matter on the consent agenda?

Anybody online?

All right.

Second.

Any further questions or comments from Council?

Councilor Magill?

Yes.

Yes.

Mayor Snook?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Wade?

Yes.

Mayor of Council, there are a couple of items that we'd like to bring to your attention.

We have scheduled a swearing-in for the new Police Chief, Michael Kochis, for January 17th at 4 p.m. here in Council Chamber.

Also, the Labor Relations Manager, Jimmy Morani, has been hired.

and will join the city of Charlottesville in January.

The new manager will be introduced at a future council meeting.

The role will be critical to the implementation of the new collective bargaining ordinance passed by council last fall and is effective January 1.

Proposals for the role identified under the new ordinance as Labor Relations Administrator, which receives petitions for recognition and conducts elections, will be received on January 11th.

Representatives from Labor will serve on the evaluation committee with me.

A selection will be made by the end of January with the capability to receive petitions

in February and with an expectation that we will begin to have the elections in February and begin negotiations in March.

The city manager's office is, along with human resources, is putting a major emphasis on filling a number of vacancies that we have.

We have a new recruiter,

Victoria Falick, who will join the Human Resources staff in January and will be crucial to reducing the backlog of vacant positions.

Seven proposals were received for the search for a strategic planning consultant.

The evaluation committee has narrowed the proposers to two and we've had interviews with those two.

We expect to make a decision this week and begin the process of the strategic planning process

in February to kick it off and we expect that process will take about four months trying to tie it in with our budget process so that the new plan will take effect on July 1.

Deputy City Manager Ashley Marshall was very active last week as the weather got very, very cold.

Yes sir, thank you very much.

Good evening mayor, council and members of our community.

During the cold snap, we're very thankful that we were able to work hand in hand with our nonprofit partners at The Haven, as well as at Pacham to ensure that members of our community who found themselves unhoused were kept safe and warm.

I'd like to thank the efforts from our Department of Human Services Director, Misty Graves, as well as our Department of Social Services Director, Sue Moffett, for their extraordinary and quick work to make sure that we were providing key supports

to those critical nonprofits and the work that they do day in and day out.

We would like to remind the community that if they have a loved one who finds themselves unhoused or if they themselves are unhoused, they're more than welcome and encouraged to call the homeless intake hotline.

We will continue to publish that information both on our website and through our social media with a thanks to our social media

Lead, Ms. Caroline Rice, just to make sure that that number is accessible for members of the community.

But again, just a big thank you to our partners for working so well and collaboratively and quickly to ensure that we were able to make sure everyone was safe.

And while we don't have that weather this week, we will continue to work to make sure that that kind of engagement occurs.

Thank you.

And at the last council meeting, there was one of our residents who brought to our attention a concern about no lights being on Belmont Bridge.

Yes, sir.

A few things.

Good evening, Council and members of the public.

The reference last week, the last meeting, was about adding safe lighting along the Belmont Bridge.

I'm happy to report that that project has been completed.

It was already in progress.

Solar lights have been ordered.

The contractor has received all of those lights and installed them.

At one point, we were thinking that they would be spread out about 100 feet apart, and instead, they're 50 feet apart.

So we actually have additional lights

based on the request for additional lighting for safety purposes.

In addition to that, I just want to share with everyone that we did release the CAF RFP today.

There's $835,000 available.

That application period will close on the 31st.

That gives our housing providers an opportunity to apply for funding to add to our housing stock.

And then lastly, the downtown mall committee application period has concluded.

We received 30 applications, probably have about half that number of seats available for this committee.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

Yeah, I've seen the lights on the bridge.

They're very cute and effective.

I just want to do a special call out to city staff, particularly Ms. Marshall and

I'll make sure I have this right.

Ms. Graves and Ms. Moffett and their partners over at The Haven for their work helping the unhoused during that cold snap.

I think we all had a sense it was going to get cold.

I don't know that we had a sense it was going to get that cold and then that it happened just before the holiday weekend.

I'm just grateful you all

Met and you came up with a plan and you executed against the plan and I'm glad to see that sort of collaboration happening.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Okay.

Any other questions, comments of the city manager?

So now it's time for the more general community matters.

And this is a time when you can speak on anything.

We have 16 slots, nobody preregistered.

So we'll alternate between people here and people online.

You'll have three minutes if you're calling in.

Of course, again, it's on Zoom.

You select the raise hand option to be placed in the speaker queue.

If you're joining by phone and wish to speak on the consent agenda, you can press star 9.

Again, we'll alternate.

First, is there anyone in person who would like to speak on any other item on the agenda or frankly not on the agenda, anything at all?

Did you want to?

This is the time to speak.

Actually, that item is a public hearing.

That's a public hearing.

Yes.

The McGuffey item is a public hearing.

Oh, that's true.

That's true it is.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So, anything other than that?

Anybody else?

Good evening and Happy New Year.

I'm James Groves, city resident.

I'd like to share a few numbers for climate action in 2023.

1.2.

1.2 degrees Celsius.

That's how much the average surface temperature of the Earth has warmed since the year 1800.

If we imagine temperature increasing at a constant rate, then our global temperature rises about one-tenth of a degree Celsius every 20 years.

Unfortunately, temperature rise is not constant, but accelerating.

Today, scientists indicate that global surface temperatures are rising by one-tenth of a degree Celsius every three to five years.

At that rate, we will reach 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming before the year 2040 and two degrees Celsius by 2060.

So 1.2 degrees, increasing one tenth of a degree every three to five years.

90 to 80 in the past 50 years, 80 to net zero in the next 50 years.

Keep in mind that our global energy dependence on fossil fuels has dropped from 90% to 80% over the past 50 years.

And scientists strongly recommend that we drop from 80%

to net zero in the next 50 years.

That's daunting.

Twenty-five.

Twenty-five percent.

That's how much of Charlottesville's greenhouse gas emissions come from its municipal gas system.

Will we have action this year to halt gas emissions growth?

Ten.

Each and every month right now, the city of Charlottesville gives away about 10 free natural gas line installations, increasing local greenhouse gas emissions.

20,000.

Those free gas lines represent about $20,000 per month in fossil fuel subsidies.

Five.

Five percent of Charlottesville's greenhouse gas emissions come directly from city operations.

For operations that are directly under your control, including transit and school bus services, will we have action this year to reduce emissions?

How many votes will city council take this year to implement climate action?

I can count at least two.

I anticipate you'll adopt the recently published climate action plan.

I anticipate you'll adopt zoning revisions that might reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Two.

Will you take more than two climate actions?

I'm certainly going to do what I can to encourage you to deliver a much higher number than that.

On Christmas Eve, what will your number be?

Thank you, Mr. Groves.

Yes, Mayor Snook.

Hello.

You can hear me, right?

Yes.

Good evening Mayor Snook and Councillors.

I'm Jean Hyatt and I live at Meadowbrook Heights Road.

I have been following the request for a waiver to our steep slopes regulations for the Azalea Springs proposal and I have sent in comments to both the Planning Commission and to the Council.

Watching the proceedings at the planning commission we could see that all of the commissioners were unhappy with the choice they were presented with and they did not have access to the report by the expert preservation arborist Keith Pitchford who you now have that report.

Now that we have all read that report it's clear that granting

A steep slopes waiver for this development would have devastating consequences for this area and actually lead to the damage and destruction of more trees than a Bi-Rite project.

Would also seriously degrade the Azalea Drive neighborhood and make it less livable.

This is a community of moderate homes.

This is an area that we should be hoping to protect.

And considering our newly adopted climate action plan, granting a waiver would be counter to the goals of the climate action plan.

I urge you to resist granting a waiver and to follow the expert recommendations by the Tree Commission and the preservation arborist Keith Pitchford.

Thank you, Ms. Hyatt.

Next, we come back to in the chambers, anyone wishing to speak?

on a matter that's not also a public hearing.

Our next speaker online is Nicole Skrow.

All right, Ms. Skrow.

Thanks.

Good evening and Happy New Year.

My name is Nicole Scrow.

I'm a land use attorney and real estate developer.

I just wanted to talk about the zoning text amendment that's coming before you later this evening.

The initiation is for the elimination of the two acre minimum for PUDs.

The current request is tailored to be limited to just the urban corridor zoning district.

I'm just requesting that the elimination of the two acre minimum apply to all zoning districts.

It seems from the staff report that it is tailored the way it is to address one specific project.

And I hope that that project moves forward and that we have more housing, but the elimination of the two-acre minimum can impact other projects as well.

And so I simply ask that Council treat all projects fairly and consistently and apply the elimination of the two-acre minimum to all zoning districts.

Thank you, Ms. Crowe.

Anybody else in the Chamber?

No.

Thank you very much.

I speak as a former mayor and retired environmental attorney who advocated for strengthening the critical slopes ordinance 15 years ago.

As such, I urge you to vote against the waiver

on Azalea Avenue that would allow the developer to destroy eight acres of mature trees and degrade a stream.

I agree with the city's own tree commission and ask you to consider the assessment from its urban tree expert that Gene Hyatt just spoke of.

The true level of canopy loss is six times greater than the applicant claims he wrote.

However, due to grading and utilities, even the trees marked for preservation would not survive.

The expert further explained the application is, quote, a gross misrepresentation of tree canopy loss, tree preservation efforts, and seriously distorts forecast of reforestation to offset these losses.

You're poised to endorse the city's climate change plan, yet this project would further exacerbate climate change by destroying an important pocket of urban trees and the ability of this area to absorb carbon and rainwater runoff.

I had not thought about the historic nature of this site until an Azalea resident told me she had investigated the court records of Azalea Hall built in the mid-1800s.

It had two cemeteries, one for white family members and one for the enslaved.

The white cemetery is behind a house on nearby Garden Street, but where is the enslaved graveyard?

This forested area could have been used for that purpose.

Moreover, prior to European settlement, the indigenous monocons may have lived in this area.

An archaeological study could shed light on any of these.

Please vote no on the waiver, but in the alternative, if you choose to send it back to the Planning Commission, ask that they consider the Tree Commission's expert testimony and also require an archaeological study.

Thank you, Ms. Lauder.

We have one more raised hand at the moment, Joan Alberston.

All right, Ms. Alberston.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

My name is Joan Alveston and I have owned property at 301 Azalea Drive for nearly 30 years.

I sent a letter to you in December opposing the critical slopes waiver for Azalea Springs when the Planning Commission was considering the waiver at that December 13th meeting.

I sent an email to you today reiterating my view and attaching a copy of that letter and expressing dismay that the city is moving forward with the climate action plan while at the same time considering approval of the critical slopes waiver for Azalea Springs.

The waiver request does not meet the standards of findings to qualify for approval.

The property on which the development is proposed is not appropriate for standard single-family development.

Please consider the information as well that the Charlottesville Freeze Commission has provided to you along with a report by their expert arborist.

I also agree with many of the things that Kay Slaughter has just told you.

Thank you, Ms. Alveston.

All right.

For the record, Brenda Kelley with the Office of Community Solutions.

The item you have in front of you is a request to approve a lease agreement with the McGuffey Arts Association for the lease of the city-owned building and property located at 201 2nd Street NW.

But before we get into specifics of the McGuffey lease,

I'd like to share information with you on this lease agreement document.

This is a new format that was prepared by the City Attorney's Office that more closely reflects a standard commercial lease agreement.

The reason that I thought it would be important to review this document is that we intend to generally use this format going forward, but customize it for each specific property lease agreement that comes to you for approval.

more generally for those leases for standalone buildings and properties.

So you may see other forms for different types of uses.

So here are some items in this document that we would like to bring to your attention that you may not have seen in previous city leases.

In Article 4 and Article 17, we will be getting confirmation that the use is allowed by zoning before the lease comes to you for approval.

In Article 5, we have included a fair market rent value and an in kind financial contribution by landlord to tenant value.

This allows us as well as the tenant to document that additional in-kind contribution for the city for the difference in the rent payment as to a fair market rent.

In Article 7, we are now requiring a security deposit equal to two months rent upon execution of the lease agreement.

In Article 10, we have discussed the insurance requirements with the city's risk staff and have included that information in this document.

We will include much more specific information as to tenant responsibilities, landlord responsibilities and maintenance repair information, and city inspection information.

Our wonderful City Public Works facilities staff have worked hard to document terms of use, which now will be included in leases as an exhibit.

I don't.

I'm sorry, I did not have the time that I usually do to review some things covered in this document.

That will be customized, like I said, specific to the property.

Right now the city is providing a lot of those services on a lot of the properties.

And is there also then a place in the document to start tallying how much

Yes, that we will have to come up with some type of system working with the appropriate department on what those costs will be.

They may be a little bit more time coming to get to that.

And also, would that also then include if we are

paying for any of the utilities, etc.

We can look into that.

And there's one issue that

It's a more esoteric issue.

It's not something that can really be as codified in a lease.

We have a number of facilities that we have engaged with various groups throughout the city who have been renting from us.

almost gotten to the point where it's even forgotten about that it is.

And it has been a confusing maze and I really, really appreciate how you have been navigating this.

That will basically be a policy decision so in this particular case tonight where we're recommending a five-year lease that is why a public hearing is required because the state statutes require anything five years or more for the use of public property to be a public hearing.

If we even did something that was like a one-year lease with four-year extensions that would still require the public hearing but if we did less than that

that would be specifically called out in the lease.

In this particular case, the McGuffey folks had asked or requested that they have that longer lease term as they have had in previous leases.

and I understand that.

I worked in nonprofits and where you're going to be time to time is a big thing that hangs over your head.

But the other thing I just philosophically that we also need to be addressing is how are we maintaining city assets as a reflection

of changing mindset and changing needs and changing values in a city.

And I think that's just something we need to be thinking about in general, about do we, is an agreement that we started in the 70s still reflective of the needs of the community?

It might very well be, but what's happened is

things have become rote and therefore never re-looked at as to whether or not they are still meeting the needs of the city of Charlottesville.

And I think one of the things we should be asking anybody who rents from us or because, especially if they are getting any sort of

Deal.

And I'm sorry that McGuffey is being the organization right now who is coming forward to this.

This is not meant to be focused at McGuffey.

This is meant to be just in general.

That we're making sure we're asking each organization, how are you still addressing the vision that we see our city?

What need are you

addressing in our city for this in-kind donation that we are giving you in terms of reduced rent.

And I just ask that we keep thinking about how we request various places to show us.

Again, it's a nebulous thing.

So it's going to be harder than a monetary,

something that you can put into a spreadsheet.

Good points.

Yeah, I guess it's specific to McGuffey, but I guess there's the fair market rental rate and then what we're actually going to require.

So in in our previous discussions, when we came to you with an overall view of the leases that the city was a party of, we reached out to the property assessor's office to get what they thought was a value on the lease.

and generally we got a range.

And then I'll work very closely with the Office of Economic Development to get any updated information they may have on commercial values for the area.

That's also in your agenda item that provides that information.

So we kind of look at all those values to come up with a general number.

And if I'm reading it right, it's about twice as much as what we're actually going to charge.

It's a lot more than twice.

OK. Well, it's about 500, I can look it up, but it was over $500,000 difference.

I think the twice figure is compared to the taxes that would be generated if we were to give it away and then tax it.

Without the park's land value included?

Okay.

Now specific to the McGuffey lease in front of you, the McGuffey Arts Association has leased this building from the city since 1975.

The proposed lease rate is $2,593 a month with an automatic annual increase of no more than 3%.

The proposed lease period is for five years expiring December 31, 2027 and as we've discussed a public hearing is required for that five year lease term.

The city will be responsible for maintenance of structural items and some landscape services and those are now spelled out in this lease document where previously in most of our leases it wasn't specific on what the city would be doing and the tenant would be doing.

The tenant will be responsible for such items as grass mowing, general building and property maintenance, janitorial services, utilities and insurance, and the tenant is accepting the property in an as-is condition.

So one item that you brought up specific to this is previously the city has provided all landscaping, mowing and ice and snow removal services

at the city's cost.

In this lease agreement, we are proposing that we require the tenant to now be responsible for mowing and ice and snow removal.

We've had discussions with the McGuffey representatives and they are concerned

but they will have to find folks to provide the service so they've asked either that the city continue providing these services or at the least if the city can provide the services and invoice them or bill them for those costs.

so that you may hear from the McGuffey folks on that tonight.

So as you know, we have representatives from McGuffey that would like to give you a brief presentation and talk to you about what they are doing and providing services to the city.

I actually did have two other questions.

Do we need to authorize any changes to the space?

If the tenant

comes in and wants to take out a wall or wants to do changes, rehabilitation.

And I didn't get it down in time.

I'll remember it later.

So we're going to work on that as we write the policy and procedures.

What's in this document, this lease document, it says we may provide annual inspections or inspections on a lease renewal or a new lease.

This particular format will not.

Office of Economic Development basically oversees those and the city attorney's office had previously worked on with them to develop a type of format that they rent out those spaces.

Do we have any for-profits that the city releases to through this mechanism?

Can I look into that and get back with you?

Ms. Kelly, I have one question.

So the entire building is filled up by the McGuffey folks.

There's not like a separate area that we could rent out to someone else.

Got it.

Got it.

And are they using the whole building?

Yes.

Okay.

All right.

Yep.

Any other questions?

Yeah, I had a couple of.

So, I mean, just in general, I think it, you know, I have no idea like how much it is for the mowing and snow removal.

But ideally, you know, we would want to have the tenant to be billed for that.

OK. And concerning the use of the space, I've been in there several times.

It's a wonderful space.

What if the city needed to use it?

Let me look while they're talking because I seem to remember a discussion about that, but I'm not

What's with the pavilion?

And my last comment is that not just for the McGuffey, but for all of the rental agreements that somehow we are able to check to make sure that they're in the line without

efforts for equity and inclusion.

And I've been to the McGuffin Center several times and I know that they are I love the work that they're doing.

But, you know, we just want to make sure that is a way we could if someone's not we hear something, you know, because I didn't realize until I got on council, but we have a lot of different properties that we're leasing and things like that out there.

So that's just in general, as you if

Good, thank you.

I suppose the interesting question would be whether there is any provision in the lease that is sort of like a, sometimes in

Public endorsement deals, you have a morals clause.

If you do anything offensive, then we get to terminate the agreement.

And I was just looking through it fairly quickly.

It looks like it's a fairly standard, purely real estate, real estate, real estate, no, none of these other things.

So I don't know that we would have any authority if somebody was not behaving in an equitable manner.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

That's kind of where I've – just how do we – I mean, this is a very – while it's not coming out of the coffers, therefore it doesn't hit our budget.

At the same time, it is funds that we could be bringing in.

And so when we are looking at these city properties, we need to figure out what is it we are getting for the constituency that is that equal value.

And again, that can be a very nebulous thing.

But it's really important.

Shall we hear from the public?

Okay, same rules, up to three minutes.

Thank you for having us here this evening.

I'm Amanda Laskowski.

I am the Executive Council President this fiscal year 22-23 at McGuffey Art Center, and I am a performing artist in dance.

I want to thank Brenda and all the council members who have taken the time to come visit us and speak with us and also those of you who we've conversed with over email for your support and your feedback about our programming.

A little bit about us, we are an arts association that's run like a cooperative, run on committee, and on sweat equity.

We have 100 associate artists in our community who exhibit in our space and teach in our space as well as 50 renting members who have studio space residing in the building and take on the governance and the committee work for the day-to-day operations as well as some part-time staff.

We currently have six incubators and two residency artists also in the spaces who receive mentorship and free or reduced rent to help them kickstart

In our fiscal year 2021-22 annual report you will have seen that just circulated via email.

So it's there for your reference.

One item I'd like to highlight for you is our partnerships with the Charlottesville High School, International Neighbors, UVA Arts Mentors Program, and the Charlottesville Boys and Girls Club, providing art experiences and mentorship for middle school and high school students, which continues this year as well.

Also wanted to announce a partnership this year with the Charlottesville Black Arts Collective, who will be

selecting and placing the artists that are in our residency space receiving free rent and mentorship in their art and community in their art as well as opportunities to exhibit with us and we already had established a diversity equity and inclusion committee that continues this year and they are currently in the process of reviewing our handbook and all of our policies with an eye towards opportunity and access and inclusion and they are making recommendations at each of our governance meetings and

I will also highlight

Since the annual report period ended in the last six months, we also had a really exciting Dia de los Muertos event in late October, which brought foot traffic of over 700 members of the public to enjoy this cultural event.

Others might be more familiar with that and might speak to that later, so I won't give all the details.

But I've just spent a bit of time here with you all

speaking to the current activities at McGuffey and I'm going to cede the floor to a long time McGuffey member Judy McLeod who's going to speak to the past and the future vision for McGuffey but I would also just like to emphasize that we always want to hear your feedback and be an integral part of the strategic vision for the city that we are in

and play a big role in the creative economy here as well.

So I'll give it over to Judy and also myself and any of our council members and staff who are present and members are available for answering questions.

Good evening.

I'm Judy McLeod and I am a Charlottesville resident.

Long time.

And I thank you for reviewing the lease at McGuffey Art Center so carefully and assiduously.

I thank you and all of your predecessors in the Council for the many years that we've been here, for our long, positive, fruitful, and creative relationship between the McGuffey Arts Center and the City of Charlottesville.

We are in our year 47, and that means we're nearing our 50th anniversary celebration, which will be in 2025.

As a very young woman, I was a founding member.

So do the math.

I've been around, and now I'm the resident historian.

During these grand decades, we have enjoyed proudly our relationship, our dual relationship with the city of Charlottesville and with the city government and counselors.

We're proud of that.

We have nurtured and enjoyed a lively and creative relationship with the Charlottesville City Schools.

I know because I was the one over there on the other side in the schools making sure it happened and I work with, we all work with Aaron Eichhorst who's in the City Schools, coordinator of fine and performing arts.

And our stately art center during our time of tenure has been put on the historical

Register, and we have invested numerous leasehold improvements to our galleries and to our open studios, studios that are open to the public during public hours six days a week.

In addition to that, McGuffey Art Center is now, when you look online, it says top places to visit in Charlottesville.

There we are.

Okay.

Now, all that's history.

Let's look forward.

We have all suffered the tragedy of

the pandemic.

But now that we're reopening, we are reviewing, renewing, and revising everything about how to be in our new world.

And we really are.

And examining traditions, some of which you had mentioned, and

policies that were voted on a long time ago.

And so we are eagerly, eagerly at this point restructuring as needed, especially with regard to DEI&J going forward.

And I think that during the time that we've been there, almost 50 years I've been there, there have been about 500 resident artists, people who've come there and had residency.

That's not even including all the things.

What do we give to you?

Let me tell you a few things.

45 open studios open to the public.

We have hundreds of visitors a year, thousands of visitors a year.

We have five galleries for members and outside organizations like faculty at UVA have exhibited there, the Botanical Garden.

So we provide space for art exhibits for other groups in our community.

We have classes for children and adults with an ongoing endowed scholarship fund that has been going for many years for free or reduced classes.

And there's before COVID, there was an outreach and we will do this again to find through the city school teachers kids who should be getting classes there.

and in addition to that we have collaborations with City of Promise, Boys and Girls Club, we're doing a big thing with them this coming spring, and the senior centers.

And also I don't want to fail to mention international exchanges with Bay Sanson and Pojo, is my saying that?

Pojo.

And also Cape Town Powerhouse, we had an exhibition and that was jointly with University of Virginia.

and McGuffey Art Center.

So let's go on.

Do you have any questions we can answer?

I do have one question.

Do you know how many of the 45 artists in residence are city residents?

Well, it's easy to find that out.

Yeah.

We have actually more than.

We have 45, and then the five, we have more like 50 something.

But no, sorry.

Don't have that answer.

Easy to get, though.

We can.

That's, again, as city council and the city supplementing the rent is how many of the participants are city residents.

Specifically, I was wondering, as somebody moves forward in their art and

Well, that's what we're always trying to ensure.

There are short-term members, but if you take 500 over 45 years, you could see approximately something in that range.

There are people who come and stay for a year or two and move on, and then there are some people who have, and I'm one of them, who have been a long time there.

That is important to the running of the McGuff, as we're this artist-run center,

one of the only, well the oldest artist run art center in the nation we are.

That means that a lot of the more experienced artists or longer term artists are the, you know, keep everything rolling.

We're always looking for new and young, but it is also incumbent on this changing, evolving group that some people continue.

There's something different about an art center than a commercial art center.

A commercial art center makes commercial art which makes money.

We are a fine arts professional center of dancers and actors and musicians and visual artists and sculptors who are prestigious even with national reputations who will never make a living doing the art that we do.

and to a person, well there's only a couple people who don't work other jobs.

I was in the city schools so that we can continue.

I've known a number of McCarthy artists over the years and I know some have built

studios at their home as time went on and more in their other job they got raised up throughout the year.

And I was just, I guess what I get concerned about is sometimes as

Well, that's the executive council's job every year to patrol the halls and and the membership to be sure that everybody there is a vital and contributing member to the association and is validly using the terms of the lease that we have had

I could say you have to do this.

You have to be on the committee and do your job.

You have to pay your rent.

You have to spend a certain number of hours there.

It was brought up earlier on the concerns that you all had about the on-site maintenance.

Right.

Hi, I'm Rebecca Wistrell.

I'm the Vice President of Council right now.

And that was something that we noticed, because the cities are always taking care of snow removal, ice management, and lawn care, I guess.

So our concern was if that was something we had to take on immediately, which is the lease

would start right now so especially with snow and ice removal we felt like we felt like it was safer for the city to keep doing that and we you can bill us at the end or however that would work that's an agreement that we would have to make we're happy to take that expense on if that's something that

is desired.

That was something that is in the least that we saw and we approve everything.

We have talked with Brenda about that.

So that was just something that we were hoping would happen, that we could stay on the schedule of lawn mowing and ice and snow, which is probably the same schedule that you would

that would be there for the schools, right, if there's snow or ice removal that needs to be dealt with because that's just something that we would feel safer having that continue, having you continue to do that.

No idea.

Do you know?

So we have reached out to the Public Works Department and Parks and Rec Department to try to estimate what that is and get more specifics to provide to McGuffey, as well as is it a one-time request to please do this for this annual lease, or is it a per service, like when they see the weather getting bad or something like that.

I guess the concern, since we don't know what that amount would be, we're in the middle of doing our, you know, working on our budget.

So as far as this next six months and this spring and summer would be, I guess, a trial, obviously, if the city is doing that and the expense

is much more than if we were to find someone to do that for us.

I don't know.

I mean, I guess that's something.

Yeah.

I guess that's my concern.

I mean, your annual net income is, the past few years, $10,000 to $26,000.

We don't know the cost that we're going to be imposing on you, really, with no

Foresight to give you that we were going to do this.

I just have some concern about that in terms of not giving you any runway for fundraising or anticipating that.

I mean, if it's like $3,000 a year or whatever, fine.

Yeah.

Just wondering, Ms. Kelly, if you could, in the current lease that we're seeing tonight, what does it say relative to the, how is it currently set up relative to this topic of whether they pay us or we just do it?

In other words, we're not, the old model was we just took care of it, right?

Correct.

So we list other services or amenities provided by the landlord and that is trimming, mulching, stuff like that that the city will continue to provide.

And then we have a section, this is

Article 14G, Other Services or Amenities.

Upon request by tenant, landlord agrees to remove snow and ice from parking areas, sidewalks and walkways.

They can request us to take care of the ice and snow and we build them.

What about the landscaping?

Yes.

Okay.

I don't know if Mr. Sanders is listening.

I'm sure he is.

I don't know if he's available.

Put him on the hot seat.

I mean, I have a hard time thinking this is more than $10,000 a year.

No, we would have to spend time.

This has been an ongoing process of trying to more or less capture what the priorities are for council as this work has been going on.

We don't have those figures available at this time to be able to anticipate what the cost would be.

I regret not having that, but I understand that that's been part of

Understood.

Yes, we could do that.

If I may, if I could ask a question, I'm sorry.

Ms. Davies, is it possible for us to

I'm in the terms of this lease and suggest that the first year we leave it the way it currently is, where the city will cover those charges, thereby giving a one-year runway to McGuffey to then be able to handle it.

I believe so.

I mean, there's a modification provision in the lease that contemplates the ability to change the terms by mutual agreement.

Yeah, so this is Alison Davies again.

I think that what we would need to do is invoke the modification provision in the agreement, draft a modification and have both McGuffey and the city sign that agreement after we had reached a further understanding about that amendment to the lease.

So I think that before the council tonight is

I think you could certainly do that if that is the council's pleasure and put it back on the agenda.

From a legal perspective, I don't know.

We have to have the public hearing tonight.

So I guess the devil's in the details on that, Mayor Snook.

How many changes are there going to be if, as I was suggesting, if we can invoke the modification provision and have it be a very narrow change in a one page exhibit about landlord services.

If you have any doubt about it, we'll just just re-advertise it.

I just I just think it's important that it be done

in writing,

Finally resolved.

We all move on.

And, you know, and just to be clear, Mayor Snook, we don't actually because it's only a five year lease.

We do the public hearing, but it doesn't require some of the additional procedural requirements that we have with longer leases.

Yes it has and just to remind the council that there was a provision

Okay.

I've got one more question for you.

We have a section in there that they just need to provide us the information and pictures and information on all those things that may comprise that.

Yes, and they have a fire inspector come in on a regular basis.

I just didn't want this to be some sort of like paint, petroleum based.

Lee specifically mentioned cyanide.

Let me just say the one issue we have not, well actually we should still do the public hearing and then we can talk about some other things.

McGuffey you all heard from?

Is there anybody else in the room who would like to speak as a matter of the public on this issue?

Just very quickly, my name is Estella Knott.

I've been a member of the McGuffey Arts Center, I think probably for about 11 or 12 years now, and I'm incredibly grateful for the space.

I am a music teacher, a performer, and a community organizer within the Latino community.

We started the Civo Sabroso Festival.

Were any of you able to make it to the Civo Sabroso Festival this year?

The Civo Sabroso Festival started at the McGuffey Arts Center and because I am of Mexican descent and I love my community and feel that we have a rich cultural heritage and when

Immigrant people come to our community here in Charlottesville from different parts of the world they bring with them so much from their cultures that are that are that are rich visual arts, performance arts, food, dance, values, traditions.

And so we started the Civo Sabroso Festival with the with Cimbarreras.

They were our partners.

And one of the reasons why we did it is because we see these rich cultural traditions that people bring with them when they come to our city.

And we wanted to bring it into the center of Charlottesville.

And McGuffey is in the center of Charlottesville.

And it started at McGuffey with about 400 people who came to the celebration.

It was raining that day.

It was a beautiful time that we had that grew from the McGuffey Arts Center to become a 7,000

People Festival that welcomes up to 7,000 people a year.

We had to shut down for the Civo Sabroso Festival for the pandemic and then came back this year.

It expanded from the McGuffey Arts Center out into the community.

the X-Art Park and then we just moved to the Washington Park this year.

I also started Dia de los Muertos event at the McGuffey Arts Center.

We had our 11th annual Dia de los Muertos event this past year with, I think it was, what was it, did I say?

for 700 people in attendance this year.

We had an international mask maker from Mexico who came with some traditional masks that are used during the the Day of the Dead event that is traditionally from Mexico and other parts of Latin America.

The reason why I raise this up is because McGuffey has provided me with a space to welcome my community into

A space that is owned by the city of Charlottesville and hosted by artists is made possible by artists like Judy who have held this space for 47 years.

As Amanda mentioned, McGuffey is run off of sweat equity.

I was on council.

I was president of McGuffey last year.

We all rotate.

We all have to sit on council within five years of being at McGuffey.

That can be anywhere from 30 to 60 hours a week that we have to put in on top of the jobs that we do or the

What's that?

Oh, I'm sorry.

Anyway, so I'm just I wanted to say thank you for this space.

It does provide a lot for the community.

Is there anybody else in the room who would like to speak on this public hearing?

Seeing nobody, then we'll close the public hearing on matters now with council.

Let me say we've talked a lot about how we might deal with this one issue of not trying to catch folks by surprise, changing the rules as far as snow and grass and so on.

Let me say one of the things that

I haven't quite figured out what I think about this.

As a general proposition, I have been concerned, as long as I've been on council, about the fact that we do not treat our various landlord-tenant relationships the same way.

That we, for basically everyone, is unique and not simply because of individual bits of language that may differ here and there, but the overall economic

relationship is different and I haven't, one of the things that we are hoping that at some point in the next year or two we'll start to figure out with Ms. Kelly's help is to wrap our arms around all of these different relationships because one of the things that happens is that whenever we say to somebody else well you know you should be paying more rent they say well what about McGuffey or what about

The Discovery Museum, or what about somebody else?

And I don't like to be in the position of seeming to treat what looks like it ought to be roughly the same category in very different ways.

As was noted earlier, the amount of rent that we would receive even with the increase would be roughly 40% of what the taxes would be if we gave the property to you and said, now pay us taxes.

I don't know that I'm necessarily inclined to say that

At some point down the road, we ought to be looking for everybody to at least pay the amount of the taxes, though that kind of makes a certain amount of sense to me, that if we're foregoing $50,000 a year in taxes, we ought to at least get $50,000 in rent.

that would mean a significant increase for you all.

And I'm not saying we should be doing it now, but I would say that we may I would suggest that we consider a program by which, say, five years from now, we have everybody who sort of bumped up that we've made that runway, so to speak, to a greater degree of financial contribution.

I say that purely as a matter of, I mean, it's a little bit further along than thinking out loud, but not a lot.

It's kind of where I think I would like to end up being with all of this in a few years, but I'm not proposing it now.

I think the fact that we're proposing a 20 percent or 25 percent increase in the rent this one year is itself a significant thing, but I would really like to encourage

And I'll say I look at it a little bit different than that.

I mean, I think the conversation we've had tonight has been good.

And it's good that we're having an upfront conversation about leases.

And I do think that we should frame it outright as these leases are basically a subsidy and support for public spaces and nonprofits.

And to me, the relevant policy question is, do we want to support public spaces and nonprofits?

in a particular space.

McGuffey is a strange space and I think that's a good thing.

I think it shows a lot of foresight and vision on the part of city government many decades ago that they wanted to create a public space that wouldn't just be driven by profit.

and I think we should maintain that because as our city continues to gentrify truly public spaces where you don't need $30 to come and spend time with other people or enjoy something are pretty rare and if we decide we want to keep a public space and the question below that is do we think that the nonprofit or entity there is the best one to make use of that subsidized space

And when it comes to McGuffey, at this point, it seems like it is.

I'm not aware of any proposal for any different nonprofit to move in there.

I'd say if we were going to charge

Neoliberalized.

And I'm not suggesting you are.

And what you suggested is still a subsidy, a rather large one.

And I guess the final thought is if we decide that we want to maintain subsidy and support for public spaces that aren't just driven by the market for profit, I'm not entirely sure what we're gaining by kind of saying the city wants to get $10,000, $20,000 here to

have them do basic maintenance or we want the rent to be five or ten thousand dollars from the perspective on the city.

I think we should just make a decision whether we're all in or all out on supporting a non-profit public space.

Well, and the other question that I have, Councilor Payne, about the maintenance of outside of the building, so then we have to have some sort of criteria

that is acceptable to the city to Parks and Rec or whoever does outside spaces of what counts as appropriate snow removal or landscape maintenance.

And then, you know, the folks at McGuffey are going to have to go, I guess, get bids from local contractors to figure out who can who can match those requirements.

And

It seems like it might just be simpler to have the city do it.

Yeah, I mean, we can discuss this.

I've been on many nonprofit boards and it's money in the community.

Other nonprofits raise funds to, you know, they get donors and things like this.

So this is not like

You know, maybe we're Charlottesville, maybe three or four times a year, snow removal and cutting the grass.

They don't have a big yard, you know, for that.

Yeah, that's what I have proposed.

I just will say in general that I agree with Mr. Payne in terms of we just should be upfront with the fact that this is a subsidy and it's because we care for these common spaces that you all are helping us maintain in your own ways.

There is a value even if it's not monetary.

And I think the other strangeness of trying to evaluate the worth is that the subsidy is also about not just the nonprofit, but in this particular case, like a publicly available space that is sort of like a park.

I mean, anyone can go up there without paying money and see or do First Fridays, other events.

Well, so

I guess we're to the point where the only point of disagreement for tonight or the only thing requiring further action is to nail down this language about what's going to happen.

I guess maybe we all are saying you don't want to shift that cost at all.

I don't know.

And I think that one proposal was to let it go like it is this year to give staff time to really come up with

A true estimate and I don't think that it would be putting a lot of pressure on staff to do it even in a couple of weeks.

If I may, that's the proposal that would be preferred operationally.

As I'm thinking about this, there are operational implications.

I mean, we're having a hard time in some cases in filling positions in public works to maintain our facilities.

And I'm concerned about the strain

that places on the facilities that we occupy.

So I'd like to take a look at this both in terms of balancing manpower and implications.

So maybe it's not a big deal in terms of the snow.

Maybe we only get one or two snows a year.

Maybe that's okay.

But the landscaping is a whole different

So in two weeks we would vote on something?

Okay.

And based

Basically, we would just vote that the language would be adjusted that we, when it comes to maintenance, we extend what the status quo is for a year.

I'm open to that.

I share Councilor Pinkston's perspective, but if others disagree, I'm open to moving forward.

I see Mr. Sanders has just jumped on.

I was only just, Mr. Rogers got what I said.

I was basically wanting to say to you that we can have the information in two weeks.

That is not a concern for staff to figure out because they had already started the work.

Okay, so we will defer it until next meeting with attention really just on that one issue and

Why don't we put it on the consent agenda and if people have difficulties with what is there, we can take it off the consent agenda.

Sound reasonable?

Yes.

Yeah.

That's what I'm understanding.

Okay.

Okay, so the next item on the agenda, number 10 on the agenda, is to establish days, times and places of the meetings of the Charlottesville City Council during calendar year 2023.

The only real issue that we've got is the question of what do we do about July 3rd,

The last few years, we have simply canceled that meeting.

Clearly, we wouldn't have it on the third or the fourth.

You don't have to just take one break?

OK. Are there the note that I have here is what dates to take a summer break.

And that would certainly be for the first week in July.

And yeah, and any other meeting dates to remove from the regular meeting schedule.

There is often some change around the holidays, November and December.

The only real relevance there November 20th is, of course, three days before Thanksgiving.

November 18th is a week before Christmas.

We have October 16th.

I think the schedule looks good.

There's a note in here about possibly only having one meeting in months with major holidays such as November and December, but we need those dates.

I think so.

Historically, particularly November and December of every other year when certain councilors are rotating off,

There's a push to try to get a bunch of things done and those meetings would get pretty darn crowded if we didn't have them all.

This is just a thought and I'm just finishing my first year so I don't know

if it's possible, but if there is a, if we advertise this and there's a meeting, let's say, I'm just going to say the second meeting in May, there's only one or two items that's not time sensitive and the city manager say, you know what, we probably can do that at the May, first May meeting or June meeting.

Yes, we did that one year.

It was around Christmas time.

We cancelled either around Christmas or the first of January meeting.

We could do that.

So I'm figuring that out.

I'm figuring that out.

But Mr. City Manager, if there are opportunities out there as you're doing it, if you see that, you know what, it's a pretty light agenda.

Then feel free to do so.

Just saying.

OK.

Okay.

Any other discussion?

Councillor Magill?

Yes.

Yes.

Mayor Snook?

Yes.

Okay.

Passes five nothing.

Next resolution adopting the amendment and reenactment of November 15th, 2021 comp plan for City of Charlottesville as amended.

Good evening, Mayor Snook and members of council.

All right, the item before you this evening is an amendment to the comprehensive plan.

There's substantively two items.

In fact, the adoption of the climate action plan and amendments supporting manufactured housing as a form of affordable housing.

The second item addresses a requirement in state law that the comprehensive plan must consider manufactured housing.

Public hearing was held on December 13th, and both staff and the Planning Commission have recommended approval of the two proposed amendments to the comprehensive plan.

I have with me here this evening, Crystal Rudevold from DPW, the Environmental Sustainability Manager, and Missy Creasey, Deputy Director of Neighborhood Development Services.

Anybody have any questions?

No.

We're getting a little feedback or looping.

OK, so we have no questions for Mr. Freese on this.

Yes.

OK, done.

January 17th.

Thank you.

Good evening again.

So this proposed zoning text amendment was submitted on behalf of RMD properties and seeks to reduce the minimum lot size for a PUD for planned unit development within the urban corridor zoning district.

RMD is seeking the zoning amendment in order to essentially create a pathway for their proposed development at 2117 Ivy Road.

Now I want to be clear that this pathway has many steps in it.

The action tonight is in no way an approval of the project, but if Council were to approve the resolution before you this evening, it sends this item, the zoning amendment proposal to the Planning Commission for their consideration and for a public hearing, and then it would come back to City Council for a decision.

and then ultimately for the project to move forward as proposed, it would then require a rezoning to the PUD district.

Staff is supporting this resolution to consider a text change at this time primarily because the project as proposed has the potential to hit on a number of the goals and objectives of the comprehensive plan, particularly those relating to housing.

But that said, staff will be doing an analysis to understand the full implications of this proposed change and reserves the right to

develop a recommendation on the proposed amendment independently of the recommendation here this evening.

I think, A, first our recommendation is really more tied to the fact that there is a proposal in front of us.

Broadly speaking, I would say that

While we do have a rewrite of the zoning ordinance in front of us, we have that rewrite, there's no guarantees.

We anticipate and we certainly hope that we'll be able to move forward in a timely manner with that zoning ordinance amendment.

But in the meantime, PUDs do offer an opportunity for a more flexible approach to zoning that could be consistent with our efforts at the comprehensive plan.

and this particular district with its proximity to the university and the transportation infrastructure is a good place to be considering those types of developments supported by the comprehensive plan.

That area, that zoning district itself is described as a transition type district.

I don't know that there's anything in particular in practice.

I do, and it's noted in the staff report that there was an amendment to the zoning ordinance to increase the minimum acreage for a PUD to two acres a number of years ago.

I believe that was in 2008.

Generally speaking, the purpose of a PUD district is to promote innovative development projects.

Yeah, I think so.

I mean, I'm generally supportive of this.

Again, so we've gotten emails and we had a comment tonight about, well, let's just go and do this across the board and not just seek a zoning amendment for this particular parcel.

At this point, we're just talking about this particular parcel.

Is it the case that once we get to the promised land, so to speak, of a zoning, a comp plan that we've finally, finally adopted, and this zoning rewrite that's occurring, the idea would be when we get to that ideal future state, we won't even have to worry about PUDs and all of this really becomes moot.

Right now it's our intention to not include a PUD section in the new zoning ordinance.

Again, PUDs are meant to promote flexible standards for development.

Got it.

OK. OK. Yeah.

But there will still be a chance to look at this project down the road.

There's no decision being made this evening as far as actually approving this amendment to the zoning ordinance or for that matter, approving the project.

It would still need to go to the Planning Commission for consideration and a public hearing.

Okay.

So is there any other discussion of it or are we ready for a motion?

Yes, I will do that.

Is there a second?

Second.

Allowing the Planning Commission to start looking at it.

Right.

Councillor Magill?

Yes.

Councillor Payne?

Yes.

Yes.

OK, it passes 5-0.

Thank you, Mr. Fries.

Extending the DOCLIS Mobility Sharing System Permit for VioRide, Inc., Ben Chambers to present.

Mr.

Hi, good evening.

I'm Ben Chambers.

I'm the transportation planning manager for the city.

The item that you have before you is a resolution that would extend the 2022 dockless mobility sharing system permit to VEO ride for 90 days.

That would put it to about March 31st, 2023.

This dockless mobility permit is how we manage the for-profit scooter and bike share programs around the city.

It's been around since 2019.

Over the years we've had multiple operators holding this permit.

Currently VEO is the only one holding this permit.

In 2019 they approached us about renegotiating some of the terms around the permit.

They're looking to restructure fees, be able to change fleet size restrictions, better align what our program is doing with what some of our peer cities are doing.

And in order to have that discussion

and continued discussions with VEO had requested a limited extension under the current terms of the city's permit program.

The key incentive for the city to grant this 90-day extension and continue discussions with VEO is that this provides us some time to figure out how we can address the community feedback that we've heard about this program, particularly around parking, ADA issues and safety.

This 90-day extension will allow us to come up with a plan for addressing those concerns with VEO as a team.

It will help us develop recommendations for the permit program so that we can hold VEO accountable for that plan that we're developing to address parking and safety.

It'll also give us some time to hire a bike head coordinator who would be the one managing both the permit program and soliciting additional community feedback so that we can continue to improve the program.

The staff is recommending approval of the 90-day extension of Vela's permit.

A 90-day extension suggests that by the first meeting in March, roughly, we'll have all this figured out.

I think it's doable.

A lot of what we're looking at with the parking issue has actually been addressed at UVA.

They use the exact same vendor that we use as sort of an extension but they have done a lot of work looking into how they can address sort of the issues with parking and ADA access on grounds.

Yes, so just to be clear that the issues of parking is not just on UVA grounds.

I'm not sure if I understood what you were saying.

Yeah, the issues that we're seeing most are on Main Street corridor, not necessarily on UVA grounds.

UVA seems to have a good handle on how they want their system organized.

We see a lot of issues on Main Street because that's where a lot of the heaviest traffic is for our scooter system.

But we also see them off Main Street where, you know, sometimes scooter gets sort of left somewhere.

It doesn't get moved.

very frequently.

I guess the first thing is I want to say welcome, Mr.

Chambers.

Glad to have you on board.

I know there's lots of work that you've already been tasked to, and we're glad that you're here.

You know, my general opinion of these things is that they're terrible because they're always in the way and they're a safety hazard and most people aren't wearing helmets and they're in the way of sidewalks and that does happen.

I work at UVA.

That's still an issue over there too.

But as I've spoken with people, there are many people that this has sort of become an integral part of how they get around.

And also being on the RTP, the Regional Transit Partnership, I've come to have sort of a grudging

appreciation that we need something like this, you know, some sort of service like this.

So, you know, I do hope in the next 90 days, y'all can sort of, you know, cut the Gordian knot on how to make this work where people in wheelchairs aren't having to negotiate

One of these lying in the way.

I always wondered if there's like a way to impose a fee or something on the user if they just drop it in a sidewalk.

Is there a second?

Second.

Discussion?

Councillor Magill?