Planning Commission Meeting   12/13/2022

All clear?

Beautiful.

Thank you.

I can keep that up, I think.

For a long time.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

I was going to say, last time I knew that, what was your level?

Oh, so I have this effort, and I just, I've been, I shouldn't have been with Charlottes, I'm kind of, I haven't talked to him lately, but the plan was always to, you know, say, you know, as we had, you know, as we had,

I think we're all thinking, you know, we're getting ready for the long haul here.

Preparing our bodies and our minds.

I'm okay.

I'm prepared for the long haul.

Is he asking us something?

No.

He wants to tell us some basic information we should already know.

And we can ask him questions.

We do.

I'm not going to be my best self, but I will try.

He has specific instructions that he's been provided, so we shall see how that goes, but understanding the hour that it will be, it is supposed to be succinct, but again, we'll see.

Well, he's not coming until later.

That's why.

He's not so far.

Yes.

Take a time.

After midnight.

$800 million.

I want to speak to you.

No, you can.

I'd like to start the preview.

We're a little bit late.

Can we start the pre-meeting?

Maybe we can't.

Not really.

You're not voting.

Is it possibly a vigil?

They can't vote.

is knocking out of my house.

Oh, that's not the same way.

It's like I actually ran over here, which is not really well.

Well, thank you for that.

Although, I'll try to.

I didn't stop.

Yes.

Run is about the right word.

Attempted.

Tower walk.

Yes.

I think, I mean, you can start talking.

You won't be making any decisions.

You'll just be asking questions.

This is true.

If it becomes such that you want others to hear,

instead of repeating.

First issue I'd like to share, public comment tonight, two-minute cap.

We will still be having a very late night, but that is something we can do to manage and to manage.

I think we'll be in service all around.

Oh, we have four.

Very good.

He's disappeared.

God, I'm already losing positive ability.

CIT?

Questions?

Concerns?

We have two people who are virtual tonight.

Because you all have a quorum in the room.

They are able to participate virtually.

Well, we didn't do this before COVID.

Oh, yeah.

CIP, as I emailed please have some language prepared tonight.

The later we wait to write language the worse it gets and the more painful.

All right, all right, work on it.

This is good.

Rory, you can do all the talking.

As in the past, please avoid specific dollar amounts and cents.

Coaching to have language in mind.

If you have changes you'd like to see, please have them prepared.

And no dollars and cents, please.

More and less would be useful ways to put it.

I think that's a useful point.

Agreed.

Questions, concerns on the CIP?

Surely it's not.

Well, maybe it is.

Ms.

Hamill, impressive response.

Thank you.

Oh, thank you.

Good.

It just came in, right?

It will take some time.

She did just, you did just send us an email like the last 30 minutes, right?

Why is my email not updating?

People on the phone, Mr. D'Oronzio, questions on CIP?

Well, it's not quite a no.

I will allow the more grizzled veterans here

to precede me in that.

He has such a wavy part.

I know.

Let's call on CIP.

Surely we have questions on this.

I don't feel smart enough to ask questions.

Okay, very good.

Moving to the matter of the comprehensive plan and all related issues to the comprehensive plan.

Precisely.

Manufactured.

I'm already losing words.

Oh, God.

Boss, just a procedural one.

Two-minute public comment tonight, yes.

Yeah, okay.

I guess I have a question on the manufactured housing one for Lisa.

So the state code section says we shall incorporate conference plan strategies to promote manufactured housing.

Such strategies may include preservation of existing, creation of new communities, and the creation of new manufactured home subdivisions.

Right.

The point of the requirement is that you acknowledge that manufactured housing units can be an important component or an important way you can make some affordable units available, but which particular strategies you choose are up to you.

So as long as the comprehensive plan acknowledges that they're available or will be accepted as an acceptable alternative, you can decide how you want to incorporate those.

Sounds good.

Additional questions on the comprehensive plan, climate, manufactured housing?

I guess I still have a follow-up on the question I was asking by email so it's I guess the question boils down to like when we talk about unreasonably restricting or actually even even better the first part of that right

effectively prohibit the use of such property.

So the current situation, I don't know that we necessarily know because all those are lots of record.

So there is the right to have a development

okay that makes sense then yeah okay yeah yeah that overrides the question anyway so wow additional questions on azalea mr dronsio good thanks wonderful

Actually, I had a question about the CIP, if we can circle back to that.

I had a question about whether the affordable housing elements there are scaled with increasing inflation over time.

I didn't see a response to that item.

Could you speak to that, Ms.

Yeah, I'm sorry, I sent that late.

So the bondable CIP project was Council's original commitment to the CRHA redevelopment.

So that's why there's not funding in the 27, 28 years.

And I haven't done the math, forgive me.

That's okay.

You mean for the, if we're talking about 10 million a year?

Yes.

Do you want to talk about that, Sam?

I mean, we're not specifically increasing 10 million to something greater than 10 million because of inflation.

We're basically budgeting to those specific programs or projects.

That was the big one, thank you.

Okay.

ERB, welcome.

Hi.

My understanding of this is it's a presentation and then some questions.

Any questions about the ERB, which is us?

All right, so Mr. Warner is ready to provide an overview.

We've had a lot of new members, and this is something that doesn't necessarily come up as often as a lot of our other types of applications.

So he wanted to do a refresher course, basically.

I know we talked a little bit earlier and we may see how things go with the timing this evening as to whether the timing when that would come up would be a time when it would be very digestible after other items

Wonderful, thank you.

Any questions on that?

Looking at our new commissioners most closely.

Actually, you're not a new commissioner.

I guess on shriveling, you guys mentioned it's currently under consideration of move up money for design.

So you're welcome to make a recommendation.

We are working on a memo that will move some of that up, but it requires council approval.

So both Council and the Board of Supervisors have had one reading on the approval of that agreement it requires a second reading to formally approve it and then of course signatures so once that all circulates and it's finalized

then that project would be available for discussion to liquidate or reprogram it is correct it would be a bondable capacity that would now be freed up because we won't be using it for the parking garage if council decides

You know, I think what you'll see from the CIP draft is pretty full.

And we have a lot of competing priorities, which we'll briefly talk about in the PowerPoint.

So there are a lot of unknowns as well for construction costs, inflation, so it never hurts to give us some room.

And we can also reprogram those for things that are in the existing plan.

So...

How's that for non-answer?

That order is actually a very good question.

I will have a very hard question, which I don't know that we'll have a good answer tonight, but I'd like us to think about it.

We have a lot of, I think, important projects that are not recommended for funding in this CIP.

I suspect they are important and we need them.

I would like to have a better understanding from staff

how painful this is going to be to not fund them.

How much pain are we in for?

Okay.

So you know I think if we go back to last year when we looked at the CIP we talked about the fact that in order to add the school project we started out talking about we had no more capacity and in fact if you look at the five-year plan last year we didn't have any bondable dollars in the fifth year

Skip forward, you know, we had a big assessment increase, our general fund budget grew, and so we realized towards the end of the budget cycle that even with adding the project, we would have additional capacity.

Not a lot, but we do have some.

We're not tapped out.

I think what we'll talk about tonight is that capacity is not really an issue we're really back more to affordability so with our general fund that the growth that we've seen there we do certainly have capacity but whether or not we can afford it is another topic and to your point there are lots of things that aren't even on the list for example for schools

I guess I have a question on sort of light textile affordable housing projects.

So we just got seven new applications, I guess, for new potential things that want our money.

That's a great question.

The reality is that there is no money that is basically set aside for that purpose.

So when those applications come in, the approach that we're taking by creating this RFP to try to channel all of them at one time is so that we can review them.

basically compile that information and put it before council as these are additional projects that are in various stages of moving forward.

What's your pleasure?

And it comes back to the choice word is really what it's going to be about.

Staff's interpretation of what our responsibility is, is to get $10 million out of the door every year to meet the objectives of the Affordable Housing Plan.

Based on what you see in the CIP for FY24, we hit it with just the CIP.

That doesn't include CHAP.

So we are above the earmark that we are supposed to prioritize as staff.

Most of the remaining years in the CIP, we do the same thing.

There are a couple of years where it drops below, but when you add CHAP in, we hit 10, or we're pretty close to 10.

So from our perspective, we are actually implementing the Affordable Housing Plan as it was intended.

but we know there's a lot more projects that are out there that are on the table to be done.

There's a lot more desire for the city to be engaged in that and council has to help balance that.

So for us, we just wanna evaluate each individual project, put it together and put it in front of council and say,

Would the, well, actually, interesting point.

No, we did not get a request in this round.

I'm not exactly, I have to ask Alex for sure, because I haven't seen the list yet, so I haven't.

Are they in that list?

Yeah, so we don't have that information.

Brenda's actually out sick, so we won't know until she gets back.

But I don't believe they were on the list of applications that we were anticipating coming in.

Okay.

All right.

They could.

Yeah, they could.

And it is beyond what the commitment is today.

How do you want to tackle that?

I mean I have to look to my boss for direction on that too so I don't get in trouble.

Cool.

So I guess then like will these two PHA projects be part of that conversation?

They are not.

And that would be a question.

Yes.

I think part of the assessment work that we will do is we will point that out if that turns out to be the case.

I mean that again is our responsibility to say not picking winners or losers but assessing the information for what is in front of us.

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I guess that's where I'm leaning towards.

We should just put aside some funds and call it big LIHTC projects, pot of money, and then we can do that competitive allocation versus...

I mean, when we added this to the CIP, I guess it was added after we reviewed it last year, right?

I'm not sure about timing.

I don't think we are performing, but essentially your point is well taken.

That's a great point.

I think when Mr. Sanders got here, this was one of the things in his mind, and he put it on the table and wanted to channel

or those light tech project or any other project for that matter, you know, through one channel.

So we'll be able to effectively review the cost effectiveness of each project, you know, in terms of the cost per unit, you know.

So we are still heading in that direction, you know, but the pro forma, no.

And I'll add to that, I mean, just as Alex just said, I've been trying to identify standards.

is probably the best way for me to describe it, so that everybody has to fit through the same hoop, and that in itself allows council to be able to evaluate them on their own merit, but they're at least meeting the basic expectation that's the same across the board.

Yep.

Cool.

Yeah, I mean, I appreciate you guys, you know, formalizing the process.

I guess then the question is, like, are we pulling out the rug on PHA if we toss them into a competitive allocation at this point, given that they were just in a projected future year of the CFP and not the actual capital budget?

Like, as far as I know, they don't, you know, do a LIHTC application or plan to make a LIHTC application until the money's already committed, right?

Yeah, I mean, it would be putting their project in jeopardy.

Both of those projects would be in jeopardy if somehow we undid what we did last year.

Yes, absolutely.

We have one more minute.

Okay.

Anything else?

I know you have more.

I believe we are live in one minute.

You have something to do briefly.

This is the time.

Do I see council?

Oh, we don't see council till 6.

We're good.

Very good.

And I see 530.

Welcome all to the Charlottesville Planning Commission meeting for December 13th.

Susan's greetings.

It's going to be a night.

First item I'd like to be clear on, we are expecting a lot of public participation tonight.

We'd like to hold public comment to two minutes per person just so that everyone can be heard from.

Looking, I believe we're starting with Ms.

Creasy for an overview of the schedule and other logistical items.

For the evening, I can do that.

Thank you.

So yes, generally we are, we have two public hearings this evening.

Those will begin at 6, they'll follow one another.

following that we have one regular item and then we have an additional presentation as we talked about during the pre-meeting if the hour is very late we may shift the presentation to a future meeting but we'll see what happens this evening concerning that

the chair has noted how we will be handling public comment from a time standpoint and as usual we will be when we call for public comment we will ask for a speaker from the in-person and then we will alternate with the virtual and we'll go back and forth until everyone has had the opportunity

to speak.

So I think that's general logistics.

Excellent.

Thank you.

I would like to hear from the Planning Commission on what you've been up to.

Mr. Mitchell, we've got a comment that your microphone wasn't coming across very well.

That will make a difference.

Okay.

All right.

Appreciate that.

Quick update.

We talked about the AWID community forest trails expansion.

150 acres of property we recently bought back in 2018.

Thank you.

I would if my spacebar would unmute me.

Okay.

I don't have much to report for my assigned Planning Commission duties.

I had two meetings.

The first one was the Citizen Transportation Advisory Committee.

We met November 16th.

We looked at an overview of the Long Range Transportation Plan 2050, which is now going to be called Moving Towards 2050 in an effort to make it easier and more palatable, I guess.

We did some brainstorming on how to conduct public outreach.

I think the first round of public engagement will be conducted by June of 2023, if not earlier.

And we set a goal of about 1% public engagement, which is kind of slightly ambitious but possibly achievable.

And the main goal, just a reminder, of the long-range transportation plan or moving towards 2050 is to set up projects for smart scale applications.

So they have to be included in the plan to then be eligible for smart scale applications.

For my second meeting, it was the tree commission, December 6th.

We looked at the downtown tree removal.

The timeline for that's going to be around mid-January.

The lumber is then going to be kiln dried and there's going to be some public outreach to determine what the lumber should be used for and I think the Arbor Committee is going to meet with the Tree Commission and Parks and Rec and schedule sessions with parties interested in using it.

and there's a new tree planting list around 150 trees to be planted at schools next year.

$50,000 is going to be planted in spring and the rest is going to be planted in fall.

I think any leftover money is going to be used for watering the trees.

And then I have an update from Relief.

They planted 50 trees in the Stanton Page neighborhood.

and a series of nominations for heritage and specimen trees were made around the city by the tree commission and there were some comments from the tree commission I think all planning commissioners received for the critical slope waiver and the CIP.

I'm struck with the idea that the lumber could in some way be used for the Sister Cities Commission.

I don't know.

I'm moved.

Maybe, yeah.

Very nice.

Ms.

I don't believe so.

Though, Mr. Chair, would you check and see if Mr. Palmer is there?

Mr. Palmer, are you with us?

Nope.

I don't see him.

Okay.

Best to you and your family and season's greetings.

Oh, there he is at the top.

So sorry to see you.

But you're most welcome.

Yeah.

Yeah, great.

Yeah, sorry I couldn't be there tonight.

We had a little sick child in child care, inability to have our normal child care.

So anyway, UVA-wise, not much to report other than we had a Board of Visitors meeting last week.

And items of note for you guys would probably be that there was

an approval for an Olympic sports building, which had previously been approved, but the design had changed enough that we felt like we needed to go back to them with that.

Also, a review of what's called the Carson Institute for Democracy over at the Ivy Emmett or Ivy Corridor development.

It'll be the third building to go in there and

Got a lot of good feedback on the design so far, but not an approval.

That should come in March, hopefully, and keep that going.

So those are the two things I thought I'd mention.

Otherwise, nothing else to report.

Thank you.

Oh, you know, I might be intermittent at some point, but I should be here.

As long as that can be.

Yeah.

Mr. Schwartz, please.

All right.

So the November BAR meeting, not a whole lot of interest.

There was a demolition request for a

Servants' Quarters behind a house on Ridge Street, and it's one of the only remaining on the street.

And it was an interesting conversation about what's valuable to preserve by appearances.

It's just a nice-looking shed, but it is a Servants' Quarters, and it's a rare structure.

So that was just an interesting conversation.

We're also looking at...

300 Court Square which is adjacent to the Monticello Hotel and it's on the southeast corner of Court Square and they're looking to turn it into a boutique hotel and that could be kind of exciting to see how that works out.

For the Bike Pit Advisory Committee

The Piedmont Environmental Council announced an active mobility summit coming up on February 24th, which will be a live event here.

We received an update on some quick builds for around Rose Hill and Walker Upper Elementary to solve some of the drop-off pickup issues that are happening.

And it's just going to be some paint buffers and things, and trying to get parents to go in a one-way loop through the neighborhood to try and control traffic and give kids a place to walk.

City is hoping to get the bike counters up and running again, and they have a plan to better maintain them and collect data from them.

We had a really brief discussion on snow removal.

And then I just want to disclose, I met with Anthony Woodard of Woodard Properties last week concerning a project that we may end up seeing in the future, and it was just a look for red flags.

It was kind of the point of the discussion.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Yeah, I had one meeting of MPO Technical Committee.

Unfortunately, I had COVID and had to attend remotely, and I understood about 10 words the entire meeting with their microphone set up down there.

But the big takeaway

at least out of the meeting materials is that the VDOT cost estimates for upcoming smart scale applications are in and they are absolutely brutal.

The Rivanna River pedestrian bridge, for example, came in at over $42 million and was expected to cost under $16 million.

So there's been some severe cost escalation.

We'll see how that winds up for allocations next year.

I've been looking at a great number of spreadsheets recently.

That's my main report.

I would like at this time to hear from NDS.

Ms.

Sure, well, James is coming up here.

He'll provide some more details.

We're getting to the end of this year.

We're starting our new year.

We will not be having a work session two days after Christmas.

I know you're disappointed.

but please get geared up because we are set for the first four fourth Tuesdays which is our regular date for work sessions for related to zoning ordinance related activities so we're going to be very busy doing that as as things come forward

I think that's the only coordination there.

All right.

Good evening, Mr. Chair, members of the Commission.

Just draw your attention to the memo that was in your packet, provide an update on the zoning ordinance rewrite project.

As noted there, one of the things we wanted to do was give you guys a more detailed schedule as we're looking forward to the rollout of the draft zoning ordinance itself.

So as I've said a number of times before, we're looking at a process that's measured twice, cut once, right?

So back over the course of the summer, we were looking at the diagnostic report that basically laid out how we were proposing to move forward with rewriting the zoning ordinance to implement the comprehensive plan.

And there was a particular report there focused on the inclusionary zoning provisions and how the ordinance might play out in the housing market.

That work was completed.

Planning Commission and City Council discussed it in September, and we received the go-ahead to move forward with the project.

So we're now looking at releasing the draft zoning ordinance itself in three chunks, three modules, as described in the memo.

The first of those will arrive during the week of January 30th to February 3rd.

the second one and that one is going to be detailed information on the zoning districts that will include the zoning map use table and all the district standards so the measurements the rules height lot coverage lot size all of those things that we associate with each of the districts

The second module then will arrive in the week of March 13th to March 17th and will include the development standards.

So that's things like landscaping, parking, lighting, and those types of measures.

And then the final module is zoning administration.

Most importantly, that includes the review processes associated with the zoning ordinance and that will arrive in the April 3rd to April 7th week.

Now with all of those weeks, as I noted in the memo, I'm reserving the right for it to take longer.

and I say that because zoning is a complicated and very large body of rules and there's a lot of review that needs to happen as we move each of these parcels forward coordinated between us and the city attorney's office in particular other departments as well as we move forward but these are our targets and we're going to work very hard to achieve these targets

As Missy noted, we have some work sessions scheduled in particular on the zoning ordinance.

January 24th is going to be a grab bag of topics.

I've listed here critical slopes, floodplains, and entrance corridors as the primary ones.

If there's any others that come up that might bear discussion, we will include those as well, time permitting.

February 28th, you guys will be discussing Module 1, March 28th, Module 2, and April 25th, Module 3.

And again, as we've discussed a number of times before, we are aiming for a public hearing in June, adoption June, July, ideally.

So the other thing that was included in the memo is the draft zoning districts as they stand today.

And I'm happy to take questions on those.

Highlights, our current zoning ordinance has about 30 zoning districts in it today, not including overlay districts, not including the fact that each time we do a PUD that's effectively a little zoning district.

30 zoning districts today.

The new zoning ordinance is proposed right now at 17 districts.

So that's a substantial drop in complexity right there.

Five of those are residential districts implementing the general residential, medium intensity residential, and high intensity residential land use designations in the comprehensive plan.

Then we have 10 mixed use districts which are essentially replacing all of our commercial districts.

And then the final two districts, as proposed right now, are a civic district, which would cover essentially all public uses, and a campus district, which would cover large-scale, single-owner uses, like UVA, noting, of course, that UVA is exempt from our zoning anyway, but just for completeness sake, there they are.

But more importantly, things like medical campuses, large private schools, maybe even a large church, or something like that.

Questions for staff on the side?

At the end of all this process, when it's approved, is there like a, not a grace period, but like a period between when it becomes implemented?

So for like architects who are planning a project, for instance,

Well, it'll depend on, and I think that'll be something that we need to be discussing as we get closer to adoption.

Generally, if we were to go down that road, we would have to put an effective date into the ordinance itself, right?

So, because otherwise an ordinance becomes effective on the date of the council decision, right?

Okay.

Other question was, I noticed you noted here that all residential lots will have the same minimum front-engine area.

Did you guys, was there any more, did you learn anything about the sub-lot idea?

That's something that we're still discussing.

I have a question about the civic designation.

I guess it's about whether that locks those civic uses in place or whether normal uses or redevelopment would still be allowed.

And then also whether you've talked to the county about how they feel about it.

I recall a few years ago they tried to get

So the civic use is intended to offer a certain degree of flexibility for public uses.

A lot of details to be worked out.

I will say that if we were aiming to reuse a parcel that is a civic use, that would involve a rezoning, because right now the focus of that civic use category is to create a designation that's specifically for public uses, which tend to operate outside of how we regulate privately owned parcels.

That would be on them as their public process, but we would have that process.

It's within our jurisdiction, and it affects our residents, so they would have the process.

Additional questions?

that's all going to come up and be part of that first module of work that comes in.

Again, I'm going to refer back to the idea that we're very intentionally trying to ensure that we meet the comprehensive goal, the comprehensive plan has an expectation that we're both

identifying opportunities for new housing construction, but also keeping that housing compatible with its existing context, right?

And I'd just note, 17's a good start, but before 2003, we had 13 zoning categories.

Take it as a comment.

A concept I think we've discussed in the past is because there are many different code sections that we're discussing as part of the rewrite.

I would prefer to answer that question when I have more meat on the bone than what we have here today.

I'm also hesitant because what we're looking at is a pretty significant rewrite of the existing zoning ordinance.

It's less of a tweak and more of a significant rewrite and the zoning ordinance interrelates in so many different ways that across the whole thing that I would hate to move forward with something

and realize that there's something over here in this other section that's important to realizing the objectives that are built into the section we've brought forward that it doesn't work and that we don't achieve our objectives as laid out in the comprehensive plan.

Does that make sense?

It does.

Additional questions?

Very good.

At this time, I believe I'd like to hear from matters from the public, not on the formal agenda.

An item that you might talk about would be Azalea.

That would be one option.

All right, and again, just from a procedure standpoint, speakers will have two minutes this evening.

We will begin with our in-person audience and then we will go to our virtual audience and we will alternate.

until there are no other individuals interested in speaking.

Again, this is specific to the items that are not for public hearing this evening, so it can be any item except for the comprehensive plan in the CIP, which will have their own public hearings coming a bit later this evening.

So first we will ask if there's anyone in our in-person audience who would like to speak concerning a matter from the public.

Just raise your hand.

All right.

I do not see an in-person audience member at this time.

We will move to our virtual audience.

And we have one speaker listed.

All right.

Ms.

Van Yeris, can you hear us?

Yes.

Can you hear me?

You are welcome to begin.

Thank you.

I'm Peggy Van Yeris, Chair of the Tree Commission.

We strongly oppose the waving of the critical slope waiver for the Azalea Springs.

And we are also dismayed about losing, possibly losing one of the few remaining large mature forests in the cities when our tree canopy is rapidly declining.

It has declined to now 40% over just four years to 5% decrease.

And as we look at the rapid pace of development and the other critical slope waivers that have been granted, we know that it's probably down to 35% now.

We feel the public benefits of denying this far outweigh what the developers propose.

The developer has proposed a man-made stormwater management system that will have to be maintained by the homeowners when we have a natural forest, a natural system that doesn't have to be maintained.

He proposes a tiny park and I bet everybody would love to have that mature forest instead of that little tiny park and only two affordable homes.

As we look at the public benefits that are listed in the critical slope ordinance one is to protect loss of natural features such as forest and wildlife habitat one is to protect streams and this intermediate stream goes into Moore's Creek which depends on water going through natural soils and forests other public health benefits are public health

reducing heat, energy savings, storing carbon.

So we think it's the Planning Commission's job to protect the public, so just do it.

On just a personal note, I had three minutes and I'm trying to go fast.

As a landscape architect, I really wonder about NDS speculating that more trees would be lost by right.

All right we'll check again to see if there's anyone in our in-person audience that would like to speak for matters for the public Okay seeing none at this time we'll go to our virtual audience and we have hand raised Ms.

Good evening.

My name is Genevieve Keller, and I will save time by saying that I agree wholeheartedly with the comments that Peggy Vanieris just made.

And I would also refer you to the very excellent letter that was sent to you by Kay Slaughter, an environmental attorney by experience in education and our former mayor.

She has been committed to

the wise use of our environment and its appropriate development and redevelopment for several decades.

You really have such good and expert advice and consultation coming to you from these two very committed citizens and I ask you to take

to take their advice very seriously in your deliberations tonight and not over engineer projects, but to work with the natural environment that we have and use it to best advantage.

Thank you.

Much appreciated.

Yes, thank you.

I just wanted to make a statement about the decisions about low-income housing.

While I think it's a very wise policy decision to move forward with standardized approaches to requests for LIHTC funding,

PHA has been working very hard to make two projects.

I represent the Park Street Christian Church project.

And I think if we're really going to move forward with the city's goals of making affordable housing take place, that

continuing with the commitments that have been partially made to full decisions so that applications can get in on time for this next round because it's still years before we can actually open the door, even if we can submit and be successful in March.

Okay, we'll check in audience, in person audience.

Yes, thank you.

I am a renter on Monte Vista Street.

I've lived here for about 12 years and I have noticed how

heavy the traffic has become on Jefferson Park Avenue those of us who like to walk and walk dogs etc and walk with children find it very very challenging today to cross Jefferson Park or Harris and so keeping in mind the heavy equipment that will be brought in to fill in

Mountains and tons and tons of dirt to fill in that valley once all of the trees are gone is going to be impossible.

It's already terribly dangerous here.

The traffic backs up, especially at rush hour, and now we have so many children

walking to Jackson by a school.

And I hope that you would please take into consideration that really our neighborhood will be destroyed by this development and all that will take to make it happen.

I'm sorry, that sounds like the comprehensive plan.

I'm sorry.

All right, do we have any in-person speakers on this or any virtual speakers on matters from the public?

Please do keep in mind that we have a public hearing on the conference of plan and on the capital improvement projects and those will be additional opportunities to speak on those matters but if you have a different item that you would like to speak upon we have that opportunity right now.

All right.

Thank you all very much.

At this time, I would like to turn to the capital improvement plan.

Where did that put us?

Do we hear the presentation?

We can begin the presentation.

Maybe.

I would hear a motion.

I make a motion to approve the minutes from September 27th, 2022.

I object.

I move, yes, with Commissioner D'Oronzio's amendments.

Do I hear a second?

I hear a second.

Thumbs?

Yeah.

I see thumbs.

Excellent point.

Thank you.

Now we have a forum for the council.

You're most welcome.

Perfect time.

So good evening.

Thank you for your time tonight.

We're going to do a very brief presentation of the CIP draft, which was released last week on our website, and then hopefully open it up to your questions and discussions, which will ultimately end up with your recommendations to the city manager.

So next slide, please.

So just real briefly we're gonna talk about a few challenges of the CIP, talk about the revenues which we didn't address in the last time we met in the work session, talk about the five year draft specifics, and then open it up for any questions and discussion.

So next slide please.

So in looking at the CIP, there are always challenges when we work on the CIP budget or any operating budget.

We always have the mission to balance all the revenues to the expenses or vice versa, expenses to available revenues.

And with that, the challenges are always, we always have more needs than we have available revenues.

And that is the same that's true for the CIP.

we always have competing priorities as well as you know we have issued an RFP to begin updating council's strategic plan which will be coming forward we know from schools they have a lot of needs we have one big project in the CIP right now but there are others as they look to the future we have a fairly aggressive affordable housing program

Transportation and Access, there's always more room for sidewalks and trails and those types of things.

Climate Action Plan, which we'll be talking about tonight.

And then the one thing that's kind of boring, no one likes to talk about, but we do have a backlog of capital maintenance for existing infrastructure that has to be part of the CIP as well.

This year in particular we do have some significant inflationary increases that we are looking to address.

Construction costs are through the roof and there's the potential for our cost of borrowing to increase.

We have recently been issuing bonds and we've been very fortunate to have historically low interest rates.

Every year we come to council when we're ready to sell bonds and we say you're never going to get this right again and we have sustained those low rates for several years but as we know that time will come to an end and so those are some challenges that we were working to address with this budget in particular so next slide please

So how do we pay for it?

We have a few financial policies that we always address.

For one, we have our 3% PAYGO policy, which basically says that 3% of the general fund budget is dedicated to cash transfer to the general fund.

We also several years ago council dedicated the mall vendor fees to go to the CIP to help pay for downtown mall infrastructure and then the other large revenue source is bonds

so somewhere in between there's a lot of new stuff anything that you see in green in these next few slides are changes from 23 to the 25 I'm sorry to the 24 plan so one is Mr. Sanders has been talking to you about the changes in the housing program and one of those is that for any applications that were previously submitted through the vibrant community fund that are for housing initiatives will now be going through the CAF process

So we looked at that and we took an average of the VCF dollars that are allocated to housing programs which was about $575,000 and we're now re-diverting that to the CIP so that's an increase.

In addition, the schools have gotten some construction grants from the state which they have agreed to apply to the school help offset some cost increases to the school reconfiguration project

In addition, at the next council meeting our finance director will be coming before council to present the FY22 year end results and we know from that that the schools have had a surplus and there is an existing gain share agreement and they are asking and staff is requesting that council appropriate that to also go towards the CIP.

so those two items and then in the past we have also used cash from the CIP contingency fund to help offset some of those costs and we are in particular using that for this budget so if we go to the next slide

Our five-year plan, we are looking to transfer just under $50 million from the general fund.

In general obligation bonds, we are looking at about $125 million.

We're looking to use about $9.5 million in year-end surplus, and we will receive just about $3.5 million from the schools, and then about $3.1 million in other.

The largest portion of that 3.1 is related to the Strivelling Avenue funding agreement.

So next slide please.

So some of these revenues are one-time again the gain sharing is a one-time kind of thing the construction grants from schools are a one-time thing the Stribbling Avenue funding agreement is a one-time thing and the contingency fund technically is a one-time thing so how did the contingency fund get such a large balance if we can go to the next slide

If you will recall, our contingency is funded by year-end surpluses.

So we actually do have a policy and a practice that anything that at year-end, anything that is in excess of our 17% fund balance policy gets transferred to the capital projects.

we currently have a balance of just under 13 million dollars or 12.7 million dollars in the contingency that's a lot how do we get that so if we take a little step back in FY20 we had 3.9 million dollars of surplus and then in FY21 if you recall we didn't fund any cash projects in the 21 CIP we set that aside for a COVID reserve

and council hasn't programmed that yet so that and then also as part of the 23 budget council approved about 1.9 million dollars to go into the CIP which we put in the contingency in anticipation of the school project

So those three things together are what is leading to this larger contingency balance and we're looking to program most of that this year to balance out the expenditure side of the CIP.

So next slide please.

So everybody's favorite table that we talk about every budget season.

Happy to say that I don't think we'll have to spend much time on this chart this year, but I do want to pop it up.

So the numbers that you see here are basically the same chart, no changes, where we ended the budget cycle last year.

we are in 24 which is that yellow highlight and if we estimated that the general fund would grow about one and a half percent and if we estimated that we were going to issue these bond issues on the side in the second column then you'll see that we're well within our nine percent target policy

So again, as we were speaking earlier, capacity is not really an issue for this year, fortunately.

Of course, all of these things are subject to change, so if we talk about that,

the bond issue amounts are estimates and you'll see that in years 25, 26, 20, I'm sorry, 24, 25, 26 those numbers represent the drawdown amounts for the school projects so that's why they're slightly different and we estimate that we'll issue average about 15 million for other projects so again those amounts will change they're not exact you can see the

exact issues from in that are in black there those are the exact bond issue amounts from prior years so they you know depends we issue on a cash needed basis the timing of the bond issues is subject to change the interest rates can change and also how much the general fund grows so if it grows a lot we have more capacity which is what happened to us with the 23 budget if it shrinks then we have less capacity

So those are sort of the relationships on that table.

Question?

No, not yet.

Okay.

Next slide please.

So here's where the issue is.

Affordability.

so if we look at our policy of the general fund transfer sorry I see now that I forgot to put the years on here but the yellow line is actually FY23

and that is what we actually included in the budget.

If you'll recall, part of the budget discussions with council at the end of last year, they discussed the opportunity to use some of the anticipated surplus from 22 to put in the debt service fund to buy down some of the increases.

so what we discussed was about 3.8 million so I've sort of added that in the additional column and you'll see that that adds to the debt service fund balance and it allows us to buy it down but we still are required to increase on an annual basis almost a million dollars for the general fund transfer.

so the more debt we issue the more bonds we have to pay back the higher the debt service so even though we are planning to put in more money in the debt service fund we're still not out of the woods even with the CIP plan that's been put forward so next slide please

So I would be remiss if I didn't just mention this.

We are lucky as a city to have a AAA bond rating.

It allows us to get cheaper borrowing.

It allows us many things.

But the one thing that it does provide us is an independent review of the city's ability and willingness to repay our debt.

And the four key factors that they look at is our economy,

our management so do we keep to our policies do we keep to our procedures are we meeting our targets all of these things that we talk about matter and they play into the to the bond rating so from a financial standpoint they also look at our practices and then they look at how much debt do we have and what are our future obligations look like as well next slide please

So we're to the moment.

This is the draft.

This is the five-year summary.

It's sort of summarized by the large groups.

The priority groups are sort of if we were to do priority-based budgeting, which is where you put your dollars, you would see that our three priorities that are most funded are education at number one, largely because of the reconfiguration project,

affordable housing at number two and transportation and access at number three so we have a total five-year plan of 191 million the 23 I'm sorry 24 budget is just under 100 million at 99 and again that that big swing is because of the Beaufort project so if we look at this in a little more detail

next slide please I'm sorry before we actually forgot about this slide before we get into a little more detail we did have with all the submissions this year we did ask that every project be linked to the chapters of the comprehensive plan and so this slide and the next slide are intended to be a visual of where those projects landed

So if you can just flip to the next slide please.

And then the next one.

So looking a little deeper in each of the categories for education, the 24 budget has $76.7 or $8 million in it, $97.7 million over the next five years.

Again, anything that you see in green here is a change from the five-year plan last year.

That is correct.

Yep.

and in fairness there are things so we break out the bondable and the non bondable projects that is intended to be a plan it doesn't mean that things are that are listed as non bondable aren't bondable necessarily it's just that's the plan for how we're planning to spend them so there is a two hundred thousand dollar a year budget for small capped items for schools that we don't typically sell bonds because they're just those kinds of small things painting handrails

So just to make sure my math is right, we've got 79 million bucks in bondable projects for this coming fiscal year.

That is correct and so I just want to be clear about that we have the full amount of the school project in 24 and all of the bonds in 24 however they won't be issued until we need them on a cash basis so if you recall our discussions last year VMDO provided us with a

Spend rate or drawdown basis of the project and so if you remember back to that debt table we were just looking at you never saw 72 million in one year it's because we're sort of issuing the bonds based on how we spend them now it doesn't mean that by the time we get there depending on the environment we may find hey we're going to do this project it'll be finished in two years and we may sell them all in one issue

it's just we have to put it in the budget we have to have the expense there to encumber the contract and so we've got to put all the revenue in one year to balance the expected expenditure next slide please facilities capital projects we have just a little under 1.8 million for 24 7.8 million over the five years

next slide please public safety and justice 1.3 million for FY 24 and 5.5 million for the five years transportation and access seven a little over seven point million in 24 and 30 million over the five years

Parks and Rec 1.9 million in 24 and 6 million over the five years and affordable housing 10.6 million in 24 and 42.7 million over the five years and again these are non bondable project oh well bondable and non bondable so you'll see the CRHA at the top which is bondable and then everything else which is non bondable

and then sort of a catch-all group which is the general government Rory's favorite which I copied the wrong chart that's actually zero we zeroed that out in 24, 25, 26, 27

I copied the whole wrong chart.

I don't even have 28 on there.

I apologize.

Economic development, the strategic initiatives is zero in all the five years in the draft.

The PEG fees are actually, or the technology account is funded by the PEG fees, which is

40,000 that's just offset by that revenue so that doesn't change that one's actually still correct and then the citywide IT strategic infrastructure remains at 250 but it did add 250 in 27 and 28

I was wondering thank you for clarifying that yeah sorry I didn't catch that so what's next I think this was a chart I showed you before we're having the public hearing tonight questions and discussions from you all in the public which will then you all will hopefully

I see that you are muted, sir.

You are not muted.

Now you are muted.

Greenlight's us talking, I think.

Please unmute.

Come back to you.

That seems fair.

Yes.

I just wanted to ask another question.

You mentioned about the contingency.

Okay, thanks.

Another question.

I know staff is working on the priority list for the sidewalks and bike lanes.

Commissioner, are you referring to the presentation that Jack Dawson and I gave the others?

Yes.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, and as we've noted, that that tool is going to be used to prioritize our entire list of sidewalk and bicycle projects.

Great.

Thank you.

I had, I think, possibly another question for Mr. James.

On the small area plans, there's the ongoing

funding to that, and I was wondering if there are any ongoing small area plans right now?

Ongoing at the moment?

No.

But the intention is, and that will be something we'll be discussing here with the Commission, but the intention is that once we wrap up the current project, the zoning ordinance rewrite, the overall Seville Plans Together program, that we'll be teeing up small area plans for the future.

So, yeah, and I've been putting together kind of a schedule for that work.

The very first step of that, as called for in the comprehensive plan, is actually to first kind of agree on a

more or less standardized process, format, what have you, for those plans so that we know, so that there's a certain degree of consistency for those plans as they go forward in the future and we know what we're anticipating receiving in terms of outcomes and we can focus those in on a defined set of achievable outcomes.

So just another question related to that, we're building up

I'm assuming this fund for when we need it.

MR. Well, I do because, I mean, if we stay on schedule, the zoning ordinance will be wrapping up within this fiscal year.

Okay.

Thanks.

Yep.

And I just wanted to say the online tool, the online tool was pretty great.

maybe potential next step if possible.

It would be really interesting to see what funding the city's contributions do like unlock in grants or matching funds.

Because I know when we contribute X amount of money it actually could equal a lot more with our LIHTC or whatever kind of program.

Yeah, definitely.

I'll get back with you so we can talk about that a little bit more specifically.

Thank you.

Mr. D'Oronzio, I heard some sounds.

Outstanding.

Actually, I'm following up on an email exchange regarding that Rory initiated about CISRAP and I am curious, this is probably a question for Alex on data for that and how many of these vouchers we're actually pushing out at present.

because my understanding is CRHA says that they are not going to be needing the suggested funds, therefore, and we've repurposed some of those funds, therefore, what is the state of the numbers?

Yeah, I think currently they're serving around 62 residents.

Yeah.

The good thing is I think recently CRHA requested and working with the deputy city manager, Mr. Sanders,

followed up with the city council and city council agreed for CRHA to use some of the unspent money to acquire permanent housing, which is sustainable.

And then, of course, there was a question that Rory asked.

So that particular activity, you know, essentially accomplish that question and also provide some kind of flexibility.

So just for clarification, so you're saying that

Because I understand they have the capacity administratively to push out more vouchers, but they're at the point now where they don't have places to put these people.

I mean, the problem is getting the vouchers, right?

I'm not...

I'm not sure whether, I think one of the things in terms of capacity, one of the things that when the city council approved the last agreement several weeks ago or a few months ago, one of the issues that the housing authority requested was to increase the admin fee to 10%.

and the City Council reaffirmed that request.

So I think in terms of capacity, they have the funding they need to enable them to meet that needs.

On a related note, I think based on the housing feedback we are getting from the Housing Authority,

you know that the number of people on the waiting list is coming down actually so essentially what it means is that either that the program is working and people are finding permanent housing you know on their own I'm just putting that out there and they are moving on you know or

All right, thank you.

You're welcome.

And thank you.

Mr. Schwarz, questions about the CIP?

No questions at the moment.

Yeah, sorry, Alex, gonna need you again.

Welcome.

So if they have the staff capacity and they have extra money and the waiting list is dropping but not at zero, what's the holdup?

That's another question.

I think that's something that we'll have to follow up with them.

But as far as I'm concerned, I know they requested increase administratively to meet the administrative needs.

And the city council reaffirmed that request.

So that's

in terms of the city supporting that particular need.

So obviously the city doesn't have a problem there.

However, we have to follow up with the housing authority so they can provide additional

information in that regard.

Yep.

Okay.

And so they want this funding dropped to $500,000?

So they're not asking for it to be taken away.

They're asking for it to be reduced in this particular line item, and the actual request is for that amount of money to be made available to them for use in a different way.

That is to be determined by council.

We used that this year for the surplus that had been generated because we were getting concerned about how little of it was being spent and that it was building up, and that was the items that we brought forward for council to consider.

But for the long term, that 900 is in excess of what they're saying that they need, and that would then mean that we have to reconcile that.

I want to jump back and just say that I don't want to speculate on behalf of CRHA as to what they need to speak to for themselves.

They, as they presented it to me, as it was presented to me, what their concern was is that they don't need that amount of money for the current number of people who are presented in need of the rental assistance.

They're using their vouchers at a faster rate than they had been at one point because there were two different waiting lists.

That's no longer the case, it appears.

which is why they were able to reach the conclusion that the reduction was possible.

Okay, and so when you say that they're meeting the need, does that mean for the people who currently hold the vouchers or also?

And those that are presenting in need of assistance.

Right.

Okay.

The only, as I appreciate it, the only way to spend the money that they currently have

But the city funded ones are 125%, right?

There is an issue in terms of increasing it to 125.

The issue being that if the city council decides to do it, it cannot be something that the city has to do one time because it's like setting a trap for the beneficiaries.

So after the one year, then what happens thereafter?

Gotcha.

No.

Okay, so moving on from CRJ, what's the deal with Friendship Court?

Why are all these new, specifically for infrastructure improvements, there are all these new funding for new years when we had previously not had any future spending for infrastructure improvements?

But there are some cost escalations, you know, sometimes when you have a massive project like that, you know, there is bound to be some kind of cost increases or some kind of unseen circumstances that might warrant

Cost Adjustment, you know, if you are in the construction industry, you know that happens from time to time.

So those are some of the experiences they are having.

Even CRHA, you know, is having the same experience because South First Street, Phase 2, you know, they had a very considerable financial challenges, but they were in the end.

they were able to get additional funding from the state and the city was able to provide actually I think more than $400,000 in additional funding to help them leverage the gap.

So I think the cost escalation that has occurred as a result of several factors which includes of course the COVID

and every other thing, you know, has affected the project, you know, and Mr. Manthon is here.

Chair, it appears that both Mr. Manthon as well as John Sales are available, and those are two organizations that have been discussed in the last few minutes.

I don't know how you all want to handle

I'm looking at my fellow commissioners.

Seems reasonable to me.

Good evening, commissioners.

This is John Sales here.

Hey, John.

I did have some questions about CISRAP and sort of what's preventing you guys from just issuing more vouchers to more people.

No, I think the problem really started in 2020 during the pandemic when agencies were not referring families over.

And so the agreement specifically called out using the HCV waitlist, which we completely zeroed out at the end of 2020, and we opened up the waitlist again in 2021.

And we are going through that waitlist really quickly.

We had 1,100 families.

We're down to less than 500.

And so we put out a lot of vouchers.

We plan on issuing

about 100 vouchers a month until about March.

from the HCV program.

And so that cleared out that waitlist and HUD had an issue with us utilizing our voucher waitlist for CISREP because it was really hurting the voucher program.

We would lease up families with CISREP and then it took a little bit longer to lease up because we had to do the entire process over again to lease up for HCV.

And so HUD had an issue with that because that's a federal program and so they wanted it separate.

And so we were working with

TJPDC, now Brock, I think, and Family Self-Sufficiency Program through this CRJ itself and also PVCC.

So it was a partnership with Ridge as well.

And so we didn't receive any referrals for quite a long time.

And we finally started receiving referrals again this year.

And so we're assisting families again, but that pool dropped down

So I think we were serving a little bit less.

Maybe it was around 50 families because they were moving off of the sister program into HCV and we weren't receiving any referrals.

And so we went through it relatively quickly.

We're now starting to receive referrals from both programs.

We received, I believe, five recently from PVCC, and we've been consistently receiving about 10 now, probably for about maybe the last month and a half.

for homeless, homeless referrals.

And so we are starting to lease up those units again.

And I will say the city did approve having the fair market rents, the payment center set at 125% of the fair market rents in the city and 110% in accounting.

So it has already been done.

The concern was raising it to 150%, which was with some of the, I think some of the other agencies or organizations outside of CRHA was asking for, which I did say I think that's an issue that we should not get into because it would drastically impact

not only the number of landlords that will serve HCV families, because a lot of them will raise their rents to maximize the CISRAP rents, which will make it so HCV vouchers cannot be utilized.

And that's the larger program.

We're serving over 450 families at the moment.

I think it's really close to about 500 families due to voucher program.

or we're only serving about 60 something in the CISRAP program.

So I guess how are you running through the wait list so quickly with only 500-ish vouchers total?

Is that because people are getting them and not attaching?

Some individuals circle out of the program and we've received a lot more funding.

So when I took over the housing authority, we had about $600,000 or $700,000 in funds that HUD was slated to take back unless we leased up, which is we did a huge lease up.

We issued a lot of vouchers and we received even more money this year.

So the way HUD typically works is the more you spend, the more they give you.

And so

We actually have a voucher cap of like 650, but we never get enough money to actually max out the 650.

And so as we continue to get more funding, eventually we'll be able to max out that 650.

Plus we've added additional vouchers through the Emergency Housing Voucher Program, which was 15 vouchers, the Mainstream Program, which was 40 vouchers, and then the additional funds.

So all of that played a part into being able to issue more vouchers.

Okay.

And then, so what would you like to see happen with this CISRAP line item?

Yes, because I believe as we continue to go through the program, we are going to have some families that come off of CISRAP and go to HCV.

That will continue happening because we are encouraging families to join that program because that's a more permanent program.

The city program is a program that's year to year, even though there is a commitment, somewhat of a commitment in the CIP, but that could change every year.

And so we have been encouraging families when the HCV waitlist is open,

to get on that wait list as well, even if they're on CISRAP.

And so that plays a role.

And so I think the money sitting in a more flexible account is a good idea and allows us to adjust to what's happening in the market.

But it also allows us to assist more families if that's what the need is when it comes to CISRAP.

Okay, and then last question for you.

So in this CIP, we showed the last $3 million commitment for redevelopment in FY26, I think, which is fulfilling the $15 million request.

So we definitely will be making another request.

The $15 million does not take into account West Haven, which is our largest site, and it's probably the most challenging site out of all of them, and provides the most opportunity as well.

And so we are working on the dollar amounts of what it will cost to complete that site through our sustainability plan, which was required by the city council.

And so we're going to present that

at the beginning, hopefully at the beginning of 2023.

And I think it's going to be around $15 million.

We still don't have a firm number.

Let me say that.

But when we've looked at the projection and plugging in gaps, I think we're at about $15 million, which is what's going to be needed for West Haven.

The residents are currently working through that plan, and we plan to submit a LIHTC application for funding in March of 2024.

And that's probably going to be a three or four phase project consisting of single family homes,

Gotcha.

Thank you, Mr. Sales.

That was very helpful.

All right.

Sorry?

Can we get Sunshine?

What was the question for Sunshine?

Mr. Mathan?

Thank you.

Can we get Mr. Mathan?

Also while we're waiting, I guess, I think at the retreat we talked about having like a work session to talk about all this sort of stuff.

Yes.

And really set out like the long-term plan for housing commitments.

Budget meetings is when we get to the important things.

It's a good thing.

I see a picture.

Good evening, Commissioners and City Council members.

So to respond to Commissioner Stolzenberg's comments, what I would start with by saying is that the original numbers that we put forth to City Council and Planning Commission were actually based on late 2018-2019 estimates.

And as you can imagine, those numbers are old and stale in today's world.

As has been noted by Commissioner Solzenberg himself and others related to past earlier city projects, cost escalation has been dramatic and pervasive across every form of construction, including the work that we do at Friendship Court and other affordable housing

So the numbers that are, the increases in numbers reflect that cost escalation as best we know it right now in this moment in time.

And I think one of the aspects that is also slightly confusing in the sequence is that when we originally submitted our requests and estimates for Friendship Court back in the early state, like two or three years ago,

Basically, we are directed by staff to sort of lump together the infrastructure and the housing subsidy numbers, but in the interest of trying to bring more clarity and transparency to that in the last couple of years we pulled that apart.

Clear that a certain portion of the funds go to subsidize the housing, just like any other affordable housing.

and a certain portion of the funds are dedicated to the extension of 4th Street and public streets as well as a new future city park that will be owned and operated by the city in phases two and three as they get finished.

But overall the bottom line is that the escalations we're seeing are no different than we're seeing that any other industry in the construction side is seeing.

Now there are some

And so is the city covering kind of its like pro rata share of that gap, like increasing proportionate to the cost increase?

Or are we covering more of the gap from that?

And like for your future LIHTC applications, won't there be like, won't that be reflected in the LIHTC awards?

And I know you guys got supplemental LIHTC for phase one.

There are a bunch of points and questions in there.

I want to pull it apart a little bit.

So just to be clear, we did not get additional supplemental LIHTC on phase one.

Public housing got some additional LIHTC for one of their projects, but we did not on Friendship Court phase one.

Setting that aside, the increases in costs, the amount of money that were additional money we're asking from the city is actually a lower percentage than the pro rata share

because, as I mentioned, the federal and state resources actually make up more of that percentage.

So it's a lower than pro rata share in that regard.

Unfortunately, that is not the case.

And the reason for that is because...

There is a limited amount of LIHTC nationwide.

There is a proportionate limited amount for Virginia specifically.

And then inside of Virginia, Virginia Housing, the State Housing Finance Agency, breaks up their allocation into various regions.

The region that we exist within is a relatively low population compared to some of the other regions.

So there are maximums each year on how much each region can absorb.

And we are already assuming the max.

There is no additional LIHTC resources that can be pursued in that regard.

That being said, there is continued at the federal level, there is continued advocacy nationwide to increase the total allocation across all states.

But in this current congressional environment, it is unclear whether that will pass.

If that does pass, the calculus may change in the future.

Thanks.

Mr. Palmer.

Thank you.

My questions have been asked and answered very efficiently.

Trying to just be very brief, but to return to the affordable housing slide, beginning in year, fiscal year 27, the amount is roughly 4.3 million.

So I guess I would just interpret that to mean we don't have a plan for how to match the commitment of our affordable housing strategy yet.

Yeah the jail actually will be issuing their own bonds for that project and they will bill us both for operating and debt service and that will come out of the general fund Mr. Pinkston can you get your microphone we're having questions from the audience

So we did receive a request from the library for renovations to the downtown branch.

That is not currently in the plan, partially because that would be a joint project with the county, and they're a little bit behind us in terms of their CIP, and it's unclear what they're working on.

Okay, because as I understand, it's a pretty large request.

Yeah.

I could look up the email.

I don't have it.

I'm going to say it's like six million if I'm pulling that off the top of my head.

Is that?

Yeah.

$7 million is our share, okay.

I'm just wondering, and this is something I could probably follow up with Mr. Sanders on later, but the amount of money that's set aside for the downtown mall, continuous maintenance, I think it's like $80,000 a year.

The assumption is that that number won't stay.

I guess my concern, and the same with the sidewalks, I think it's fantastic that there's a new tool that's being developed, but if we're

if we have to get through these tools that we're putting together in lists and then we end up 18 months from now basically, only that wouldn't be right, but a year from now still so we're having the same conversations.

I'm just wondering even if we don't have a firm number

It will kill me, but we will make progress in 2023.

Progress in terms of actual.

In getting production.

Right.

So the money that's been set aside for sidewalks that allegedly is not being spent, that's sitting somewhere in an account and accumulating?

It's in the CIP.

Yep.

It is seven.

And we have three actual line items within the CIP that carry an ADA label, and we're working through that.

There's still more that is coming to you all as council for sure in the way of an update as to where we are with ADA, but the desire is to be able to produce more sidewalks.

Right.

And so, you know, one of the pieces of feedback we're getting is, hey, we should spend $2 million a year on sidewalks, which I think is fantastic.

But A, it sounds like when you add up a number of these line items, it's more than just $100,000 a year.

And you've also been sort of accumulating funds over the years that has not been spent.

Sure.

That is my message.

You all just heard that from me just a few weeks ago.

It's continually what I'm focused on.

We don't have a money problem today.

We have a performance problem, process problem.

We're fixing that and then I'll need more money.

So I will tell you, she doesn't want me to say it.

We will be asking for more money because we'll have the processes in place to ensure that we can spend it.

Yeah, I think that's helpful for the public to know, so thank you for that.

Meadow Creek Trail, did that disappear?

Okay.

What about it?

We're funding the gap through surplus.

Okay.

Yeah, that'll be coming to you at the next council meeting.

Love it.

Just amazing.

Thank you, Sam.

I may well, but my first question is going to be for Chrissy.

Mayor Scott.

So you've indicated that our current contingency fund balance is about $12.7 million and that you've allocated about 9.5-ish in here.

and so leaving by that math $3.2 million left in the contingency fund.

What is, is that a typical amount year over year?

It does.

I mean, I think if you go back and look at the history of the contingency account, we've kind of been all over the place.

Three million's typically been about our high.

This is not normal, really, but those three things are contributing to that.

But, you know, we don't have a policy about how much should be in there.

I note that there are three roof replacements in this schedule.

Is there any plan to coordinate with some sort of, you know, replacing the roof and adding solar panels or something like that?

Sure, yeah, we, as you said, we don't have funding for the solar component right now, but we will be designing those roofs with the intention of making them solar ready.

And related to that, I'm looking at the budget for the CHS roof replacement, and you've designated, I mean, say $4.8 million between fiscal year 24, 25, and 26 to be spent on that, plus $1.2 million in this fiscal year, suggesting a total of about $6 million.

I guess my first question is I'm a little surprised that it's a four-year project.

I would think it would be something that would be completed faster than that.

There are a couple reasons.

One is that there are some supply chain issues in the roofing industry right now that's causing it to be pretty difficult to get that quantity of roofing material all in one shot.

Another reason for that is that there's a limit to how much we can accomplish in one summer as short as our school summers are these days.

And that's not something we can do with an occupied school or part of a school.

And another is to make it a little easier to swallow financially point two million on roof replacement, not to mention the four point eight to come.

Well, right now we are making plans for the roof, which includes making the roof solar ready.

So in that sense, we are planning for it.

In another sense, we do have our friends in environmental working on a plan to find an alternative funding method for that.

So that is happening.

I can't report on where they are in the process with accuracy, so I won't, but that's not something that isn't being planned on right now.

Okay.

Turning to the next page.

Thank you, Mr. Goddard.

I think that's all the questions I've got that are school-related.

Thank you.

All right.

A couple of questions on the transportation and access portion.

We're looking to be spending next fiscal year $3.7 million on traffic signal infrastructure replacement, and then $1 million a year thereafter for the next four years.

What's driving that?

So there is a study that has been commissioned and we are awaiting the final results but we do know that we have a lot of aging infrastructure as related to the traffic signals there have been three specific intersections that have been deemed

and then I note there are a couple different places where we've got some money set aside and then it's written in green so I assume that's a change.

it looks like it got zeroed out of the non-bondable and put into bondable is that what happened that's exactly what happened actually somebody asked maybe Rory asked that question today and I had a little bit of a heart attack because I looked at that and I was like oh my gosh that's not supposed to be zeroed out and I forgot we had moved it up to bondable so but there is some existing balances in those accounts and Mr. Sanders and his team is working on an ADA plan

which will be coming forward to Council as well.

And I appreciate the fact that, you know, we talked last year during the budget process about the need to get additional construction capacity and project managers and so on so that we can actually start spending some of the money that we've allocated.

And I take it that this is how that's going to be happening at this point.

Now, on the next page, there was a sly reference to Commissioner Stolzenberg that I must have missed the significance of about the Economic Development Strategic Initiative being zeroed out.

I'll just tell him myself.

It's one of his favorite things to bring up in the budget that he questions every year.

And there is a balance there.

Thank you.

See?

See?

1.6, I assume that's million, not individual dollars.

It is million.

Then there are, on the CAT transit bus replacement match, next year we're asking, you're asking for another $100,000 and more than this year.

How does that number get figured?

Is that based on a certain number of buses that we think we're going to want to replace or?

So CAT maintains a bus replacement schedule.

Those dollars are only the city match dollars.

The large majority of that purchase price is covered by the state and federal dollars or federal dollars, which are in CAT.

Any idea how many buses that's expected to buy us?

I can ask Mr. Williams between now and the time we pass the budget Yeah, we'll follow up with you on that Then there's $100,000 allocated for neighborhood transportation improvements which is an increase from 50 years before What are neighborhood transportation improvements?

Those are generally specific projects that our transportation engineer has laid out.

Do you know what they are?

Yeah.

Neighborhood transportation improvements are improvements aimed at neighborhood safety and they're intended to be

of the quick build variety.

So not totally dissimilar from what we've been doing with the Safe Routes to School program, right?

So it's recognizing that a lot of the improvements that we'd like to make in terms of transportation improvements, neighborhood safety, pedestrian safety, and all of that type of stuff tend to be very expensive sidewalks.

We've seen what the costs are for sidewalks lately, right?

So what are the things that we can do more quickly on a more wider scale across the entire city

particularly with a focus on safe routes to school.

So that's what those funds are targeted for.

Thank you.

Sorry, and just to clarify on those traffic signals, that's five for next year in that 3.7, right?

I'm sorry, I said three.

Okay.

There are a couple of other issues I'll talk to folks about later on, but one of the sort of broad concerns I have is that we know that although we don't have a plan to deal with the issue yet, I think we can reasonably anticipate that at some point in the next...

hopefully six months or so, we will at least develop some sort of a plan to try to do something about the unhoused folks.

That's likely to involve a capital expenditure.

And I will just say that I think that if we get into a situation where we don't have any flexibility at all to address that problem,

Well, I would be reluctant to include a line item that is purely a stab in the dark, particularly because it's likely to be a seven-figure stab in the dark.

And that's more than I want to be stabbing at.

Well and I would just say in fairness I mean one of the sort of themes with this CIP budget is it is sort of holding the line because there are a lot of things that are unknown affordable housing plans are coming ADA stuff strategic plan and so we do have

capacity as we've said we still have to figure out the affordability piece of it but all of the inflationary increases and the increases in the CIP that we're seeing because we are fortunate enough that we have this CIP contingency we're able to cover those increases without really I think last year our bondable dollar amount was either like 119 121 and we're only at 125 and we've added

two more years in.

The last comment I would make

at the risk of seeming like I'm engaging in a debate with Councillor Payne is to note that for fiscal year 24 and 25 we're projecting to spend almost $11 million the first year and over $11 million in the capital fund

out of those two years, and $9 million out of FY26.

It's only in FY27 and FY28 that things begin to fall off a little bit, although by FY28, we're still back over $10 million a year.

Right, it's $42 million out of a $50 million commitment.

Yeah, that's all.

At this time, I would like to hear from the public.

Again, two minutes per please.

And please try to avoid repetition if you can.

It's adequate to say I agree with the last speaker or something along those lines.

That counts.

Okay, as our Chair noted, we have two minutes for each speaker.

We will begin with our in-person audience and ask for speakers, and then we will alternate with our virtual audience.

Do we have anyone in our in-person audience who would like to speak to the CIP?

I knew it.

Good evening, Council and Planning Commission.

I'm Peter Krebs from the Piedmont Environmental Council.

I'm a Belmont resident.

I'd like to just start by applauding the staff for a really great job this year with both the quality of the materials, but also very frank, candid, and mature

a discussion about what's going on.

The city's bicycle pedestrian infrastructure is really far short.

I think we all know that.

And we also know that there are very serious and legitimate constraints.

Those were articulated a little bit but for the benefit of the public who are listening.

Two issues are a large amount of funding properly dedicated to reconfiguring schools and also currently a sort of lack in project management expertise and staffing.

So I just have a few creative ways to deal with those two situations.

First of all, I really applaud the effort to staff up the project management capacity.

Let's really keep our eye on the ball with that one and see it through.

That's not only for spending our own resources but for availing of federal and state resources.

Also, we should allocate in the millions of dollars, monies for sidewalks and bike lanes in the out years once we have the capacity and once we're past the reconfiguration.

That's what the county did.

They allocated $6 million across several years and now we're seeing sidewalks on Raya Road and Avon Street.

Lastly, I'd also like to applaud the commitment and please increase and continue the neighborhood transportation projects that are making it safer to get to school for kids and are having a real impact on people's daily lives.

All right, we will move to our virtual audience.

Miss Johnson, you can unmute and speak.

Miss Johnson, are you able to unmute?

serving the last of my six years and I wanted to thank council and the planning commission for your continuing support for tree related issues over the past years we've been working with the city's new urban forester Steve Gaines is with you tonight seated behind the mayor and have identified top priorities for our that have found their way into the CIP there are four specific

line items.

One of them is to mitigate the loss of trees that we've talked about in our State of the Forest report, funding for approximately planting 200 new trees, summer replacement trees, to offset the accelerating decline of the tree canopy.

There's a line item for ash trees, which we're losing at a particularly great rate and have become an actual safety hazard.

and so that request will span several years as these trees are almost entire will be eliminated except for the ones that are protected inoculated and and the third item is a for taking care of our downtown mall trees we are

in need of a strategic plan for a lot of these trees which have been declining.

Most of these tree items are really defined as a backlog of capital maintenance and existing infrastructure as you've defined it earlier today.

And lastly, and this is a new item, is invasive plant control and containment.

A lot of our parks and schools, as you may have noticed, are becoming overrun with invasive species and they need really a push to sort of retake those areas.

All right, I will turn back to our in-person audience.

Do we have anyone else who'd like to speak on the CIP public hearing this evening in the in-person audience?

All right, I don't see any hands at this moment.

We will go back and hope Ms.

Johnson is able to join us this time.

Ms.

Johnson, are you able to unmute?

Ms.

Johnson, we will come back to you later tonight.

All right.

Can you hear me okay?

Sounds good.

Great.

Hi, John Semelhack, 1515 Chesapeake Street, representing Livable Seville.

The proposed CIP is a significant step forward for Charlottesville.

It prioritizes quality school facilities and the city should be commended for its funding of affordable housing initiatives.

But even as Charlottesville's housing crisis seems to be worsening, the proposed CIP keeps funding flat for the Affordable Housing Fund and the Supplemental Rental Assistance Program.

We recommend increasing the funding for both of these programs to help meet the city's housing needs.

Second, where the proposed CIP falls far short is in the area of improving pedestrian cycling and accessibility infrastructure.

We strongly recommend progressively increasing funding over the course of the five year CIP so that by fiscal year 2028 the city the city is spending $2 million annually

for both new sidewalks and bike infrastructure.

The proposed $100,000 for new sidewalks and about the same for bike infrastructure for each of the next five years are not consistent with a comprehensive plan's vision to make Charlottesville a city that is accessible to all people.

Providing safe, reliable, and accessible bike and pedestrian infrastructure is essential to meeting the city's climate and public safety goals.

It's also essential to the comprehensive plan's vision for more housing in Charlottesville

as quality biped infrastructure go hand in hand with allowing more people to live close to jobs, schools, and amenities.

We recognize increased revenue may be required to pay for these projects.

We support revenue enhancement and do not believe money should be pulled from projects such as school reconfiguration or affordable housing initiatives.

so that we can fund everything, including improvements to bike and ped infrastructure.

Thank you for your service to our community and for your consideration.

All right.

I'll try our in-person audience.

Are there any interested speakers?

All right.

Then we'll move back to our virtual audience.

We have Mr. Whittle.

Thank you.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Great.

Thanks.

So sorry, thank you very much.

Do we have any other virtual speakers on the CIP hearing?

If you would like to speak, please raise your hand virtually.

Good evening Planning Commission and City Council.

My name is Brandon Collins.

I've lived in the city of Charlottesville my entire life and have raised children here and continue to raise children here.

Just wanted to put in another vote in favor of planning ahead to meet the needs of the Charlottesville community and its affordable housing needs.

The redevelopment of West Haven

has begun in a sense as we've begun working with residents.

That site is a large site, has many opportunities.

CRHA is going to find many funding opportunities that we're not going to be able to find without city support.

and I think it's really wise to start thinking now about five years down the road when we'll be ready to spend some money to fundamentally alter the situation of affordable housing and public housing in the city of Charlottesville.

I'm not going to give you my whole speech but in 1954 the city of Charlottesville created a housing authority to basically steal land at Vinegar Hill and Garrett Street and Hartman's Mill

and the only thing that was given in return was that housing authority which is now steadily performing and providing additional affordable housing while significantly increasing the quality of life for our current residents and if we want to do that and we want to be a city that can make amends and that can provide ample affordable housing for the entire community

Well, we really have to plan ahead and be thinking about where we're going to find those dollars for West Haven redevelopment.

All right.

Do we have any speakers in person?

Yes, sir.

Nice to see your face.

My name is Bob Roach.

I'm the Vice President of Johnson Village Neighborhood Association.

I keep hearing about the funding for, I think what Mayor Snoop called the paint and plastic versus the concrete.

One of the things that we've tried to do over the years

mostly for safety reasons and especially now with all the kids walking to Johnson Elementary is to get a four-way stop at an intersection in our neighborhood at Trail Ridge and Shamrock.

We've been rebuffed time and time again on this that it's just not really

needed.

And the truth is that it's probably needed now more than ever.

And I think that we finally got our Neighborhood Association going again after being dormant or a one-person band for a long time.

Thank you, Heather.

But we've got our Neighborhood Association going again, and we're going to be coming back to the city to try and get this four-way stop.

They did put in the paint and plastic, the little white poles, which

I think, in my opinion, are a temporary solution.

They are helping, yes.

We're glad to have them.

But to us, it's a temporary solution where we could have a four-way stop.

And we've been given a long list of reasons why we shouldn't have it there.

and I could give you all kinds of reasons why we should.

So I just wanted to bring that up as part of the CIP.

All right.

We have a couple of hands.

Mr. Mathon, I believe, is trying to speak as a speaker for the public hearing, and we have him on our panelists list.

Thank you.

Good evening, Planning Commissioner and City Council members.

I've truncated my comments since I had a chance to speak a little bit earlier as well.

But up for discussion tonight is the upcoming five years CIP with requests for substantial investment in the development of housing that will be affordable to families and individuals from below 30% of the area median income, those who rely on the stability of safety net housing.

up to 40 and 50 and 60% and even up to 80% of the area main income.

Those families who want to live in the city who are often striving to break free from cycles of generational poverty and yet cannot afford to live in free market housing.

The call to action is clear and over the last few years the city has stepped up admirably and done its part by funding friendship court and public housing redevelopments and the time for action yet is renewed.

Our regional housing nonprofits, CRHA, Habitat, and Piedmont Housing Alliance have invested hundreds of hours of staff time and ventured hundreds of thousands of dollars in pre-development planning efforts to put additional affordable housing opportunities in front of you.

Historical thresholds of city investment and affordable housing have been commendable, but as has been noted earlier, we operate in an entirely new development cost environment now.

I know from peer housing organizations in Virginia and beyond that inflationary pressures are regularly delaying or killing affordable housing projects across the nation.

And though some state and federal resources have increased during the pandemic, they are insufficient on their own to close the funding gaps, while also holding firm to the deep levels of long term affordability desired.

City funding unlocks every other potential subsidy source.

And to be blunt, these housing opportunities have no chance of moving forward without substantial city support.

Commissioners and counselors, please continue to raise your voice in support of the investment necessary to make these opportunities possible.

Do we have any other speakers in the room?

I wasn't planning on speaking about this but since Bob got up I decided I'd just second what he said about Johnson Village.

I'm a civil transportation and environmental engineer.

I've been working for the DOT as an engineer for 22 years and I've tried to

when I first moved here I've lived here for 15 years when I first moved here I tried to get speed bumps put in on Shamrock because people fly in and out of Johnson Village it's one way in and one way out so you really are limited and because of that they couldn't put speed bumps in

So I definitely agree with Bob that a four-way stop is necessary for that intersection.

We've had pedestrians get hit on Shamrock.

All right, our next virtual speaker is Ms.

Mute.

Now I've got the direction that I'm unmuted.

Thank you, planning commission and city councilors.

I've written you about my case slaughter.

I live in the Woolen Mills neighborhood.

While I've written you about the West Main Street, I'd like to speak to it tonight for the CIP to ask that you allocate some amount of money to redo the plaques on the Drury Brown Bridge, purchase flag holders for existing lights,

and flags silkscreened with faces of the 37 bridge builders that can be put in, and they're not 37 lights, of course, but can be circulated during the year.

I think that this would be a great memorial, if it were more visible, to these 37 people who contributed to the civil rights of the city,

working for justice and equality for citizens in Charlottesville.

For PC, Planning Commission and City Council members who served for a while, I presented this plan in the past, but it's always been waiting for the entire street to be redone.

Meanwhile, existing plaques have rusted, some have been removed, the bridge is not noticeable.

You can look on our website at charlesvillebridgebuilders.org to see a mock-up of how the signs could look.

Many other cities have done this, including New York with a big exhibit of the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei's portraits.

Hometown heroes, veterans in many small Virginia cities have been honored this way.

I'd like to propose that the city look at this and consider it in the current CIP.

Thank you very much.

All right.

Any other in-person speakers?

and then open it up to the commissioners.

I'll begin with me since the chair usually begins with me.

One thing that I would like to continue to remind staff to do is to get the chair involved a little earlier than we do.

The couple of years that I chaired, I had to jump up and say, oh, remember me, remember me, invite me in.

So it would be really helpful if we could get

talked a little earlier so that the chair can begin coaching the rest of his colleagues on what's on the way.

But I've done this, I think this is my sixth CIP meeting.

And this is absolutely the most complete, most thorough, most well thought out, well presented, well organized piece.

I really appreciate the way you guys

married this to the comprehensive plan.

A very nice touch.

I really appreciate the tools that you guys provided us to navigate through this.

And I do recognize the amount of wrestling you guys did with the trade-offs.

There are lots of trade-offs.

I'm frankly not going to second-guess anything you guys have suggested we do.

Because I've watched what you've done.

I've read the documents pretty completely.

and I'll just defer to my colleagues as it relates to what trade-offs they may want to do.

The only thing that I'd ask that we do is that we respect our fiduciary responsibility and by that I mean we respect the importance of our bond rating as we make recommendations.

We respect the importance of balancing the budget.

and we respect the importance of making this thing as revenue neutral as possible.

Let's not recommend stuff that is going to force Council then to go back and ask for yet another increase in revenues.

Thank you very much.

You've correctly intuited my plan.

Mr. D'Oronzio.

Close.

I see you are unmuted, but I do not hear you.

Mr. D'Oronzio, we will return to you in a moment.

Thanks, Chair.

I had, can I ask more questions to staff?

Yes.

That I missed earlier.

One question I had, I would like to hear from, if you have anybody from the climate program, on how

while we're collecting them from the other room because they're next door waiting to come in to make their presentation.

I'll speak to it just to kind of fill time.

Thank you.

Council is currently prioritizing action items for implementation in this FY24 fiscal year.

As that information comes together, which I'm wrapping up right now, we'll be sharing that with the staff for them to begin to integrate that into their work plan, and that'll be a part of the budget assessment as well.

I'm sorry, do you mind repeating the question?

Welcome, Ms.

Thanks.

Oh, that's a big question.

I think there are projects in the CIP that align with

key actions in the climate plan.

I think there are always opportunities to add more things depending on what the pace is that we're looking for.

It's also my understanding, and Mr. Sanders may already have answered this, that there's some work that could be done to make the CIP reflect climate as a priority.

Does that answer what you're looking for?

We can talk maybe more during the climate plan piece, but

As we have presented in the climate plan, there are some specific strategies that will help us make progress, particularly on the municipal side where we do have facilities that use energy, we have fleets that use energy.

Those are some places that we could select to put some funding towards to start making progress sooner rather than later.

2030 is not that far away.

Thank you.

And perhaps, I mean, making a point to Mayor Snook's earlier question on the roof replacement and the solar panels, if there's a way to

Yeah, and I appreciated Mike Goddard's answer.

His team and the environmental team are co-located and we do a lot of brainstorming together and trying to sequence what has to happen first and clearly you need a viable roof before you can put solar on it.

So getting the roof projects funded is critical to moving the solar piece forward.

If there is not a strategy to fund solar with bondable or unbondable funds, then we are being given the direction by alternative to use a funding method like a power purchase agreement.

Thank you very much.

You're welcome.

Thank you.

One more question to Mr. Gaines on the invasive species control.

I saw they had a request for $75,000 and I wanted to ask, you know, is that enough or what is, how much, where does that take us?

Welcome, Mr. Gaines.

And how much do we need it?

Well, I think a lot of the funding with the invasive

This containment goes kind of hand in hand with how we are trying to restructure our canopy.

We are investing a lot of money in planting trees.

We have a lot of areas throughout the city that are really overrun with invasive plants.

So the idea is making, you know, getting rid of some of the invasive plants and getting room for more plantings.

So I think $75,000 would be a good start.

I think overall, I think they should probably be about equal.

If we're putting $100,000 towards trees, I think we should probably put $100,000 a year towards having more places to put those trees.

But we are losing the battle with the invasives.

So does that answer your question?

MR. Thank you.