Planning Commission Meeting   2/14/2023

Thank you.

It's mainly for us to get some feedback from you guys on how best to form the work session on the 28th, because we know we can't talk about everything, but that there may be some main things.

We're really talking about everything right now.

Okay.

And, you know, you certainly don't want to rely on my aesthetic.

Trust me on this.

I do trust you.

I saw on your email, you don't refer to the planning condition.

We want to make sure people don't refer to the planning condition.

It's not.

Okay.

So, I know it's not public participants.

Well, my thinking was that we would limit participation if that was the case because a lot of the, I mean, even this architect said he's had already started playing with some massive on some of his clients' sites.

He said, I can't share.

So I think, I think we have to set that that way.

I will have to run interference, but, you know, obviously, no more than you agree on how the community should be meeting.

It's not, you guys are on a subset of a financial institution, so you guys are helping us put together this focus group.

It makes sense.

It makes sense.

We should get an asset tonight.

Yeah.

Okay.

We'll just keep doing it like that.

Okay, yes.

I will send you... I guess it's not turning on.

You're the youngest.

Patch Tuesday.

Patch Tuesday.

Everything's broken.

Apparently, it was... I turned it on three times today to make sure everything was on there.

Same issue.

The radar is detecting the disturbance.

Okay.

So you dug the hole, filled the hole, now that can have half the gray period.

Oh, I found that.

I mean, we have a corn.

There are step backs in many of the mixed use quarters because they allow for higher height and so so those are that is a tool that's in the current code and it's in the code not an entrance

SE508PM, I'd like to get us started on the pre-meeting.

Commissioner, if you would please find your seats.

Looking at the agenda, first up I see critical slopes for Buford item on the consent agenda.

Any questions on that item?

Mr. Mitchell, do you have a question we could hear?

What are you asking about 2005 JPA?

Mr. Stolzenberg is out of the country and will probably join us remotely.

I have no questions about the 2005 JPA.

This might be real short for your meeting.

Shh.

Hush.

Seems like we understand it.

Apologies for late notice on this.

We just sort of got our heads around what we wanted to talk about at the end of this meeting.

And if this meeting happens to go late, I would appreciate a short discussion about zoning.

I hope you'll support me in that.

But we had just a few questions to consider.

What we've been hearing from the community,

community on the zoning ordinance materials, topics for depth discussion for the February 28th work section, and questions for exploration at the February 28th discussion.

I'm pretty early in my own preparation for that work session, which I would guess the rest of you are as well.

But anything you do have would be very helpful for later tonight.

So I'm probably going to just have a whole bunch of comments after I've read through the thing.

We can take them written.

I mean I assume we're not going to just you don't want me to ramble through them all for our work session please don't probably for the work session the more the themes might be it may be that that you all determine that there are multiple members that are interested in specific themes and so that would kind of help with

framing that discussion.

We just know there's a lot of material in module one and so we want to use your time as well as we can and talk about the things that you all want to talk about in addition to pointing out whatever we

Right.

Well, let's see.

So if you all were to submit comments in advance, we could compile them.

I will note that for the entire process, as we're receiving comments, there is a database that has been set up to compile the comments as they come in and to put them into categories and such.

So we do have a mechanism for that.

But if you all

the way you've done this.

And I really like being able to, for a person who reads the way I do, at a glance to be able to see what you're attempting to do.

But I've gotten some feedback from folks that have read through this that suggests, and I'm neutral on this, that in every beginning, like residential aid, maybe a couple of lines or paragraphs

Dan, it's one of the themes all through this is to try and make it readily digestible and to be able to quickly get to what is the information I need in order to move forward with my project.

So particularly in the next section, which we just started looking at ourselves, there's a lot more tables as well.

The people I've talked to are not developers or not planners, these are just people who live in Greenbrier who are at a glance.

Which I would be leery of.

Any more about zoning, or do you want a short break?

Care for a short break?

Thank you.

All right, let's come back at 5.30, and then it's going to be a good chunk forward from there, so gird yourselves.

So where exactly are you?

I am in Mexico.

Not in the parking garage, yeah.

It's much nicer here.

Somebody is coming in clear then?

Sorry, Rory.

I have full faith, but we will all get it together.

Let's proceed for now.

Welcome all to the, oh boy, February 14th, Valentine's Day edition of the Charlottesville Planning Commission.

Hope you're all ready for romance.

First up, speaking of romance, let's talk about Planning Commissioner reports.

I don't believe I have a report today.

Alex expressed to us that if commissioners wanted to have a participatory role on the CAF allocations or the Housing Advisory Committee, they'd see if they qualified for a category and apply, which I dutifully did.

So we now have Planning Commission representation on the HACC, and we also have it on the Charlottesville Affordable Housing Fund Committee.

was named to both, and that committee, the latter, Brenda Kelly, is in the midst of running a very complicated doodle poll to figure out what we're meeting.

Thank you.

I had two meetings.

January 18th, the Citizen Transportation Advisory Committee met and we

looked at the long-range transportation plans, web page redesign, and some additional content that went up on that.

And it's available through the Thomas Jefferson Planning Commission, District Commission's website.

And we looked at the smart scale project pricing that came back.

I think Rory mentioned it, mentioned the bridge at least during the last meeting.

It was a lot more expensive than we thought.

and only one project was recommended to be funded which is the Avon Street multimodal project and that included sidewalk, bike lane and improvements from Druid Avenue to I think it's right around the bridge over Moores Creek that crosses there.

My second meeting was yesterday.

It was the tree commission and there were a few announcements.

It was the annual review meeting.

The one announcement is the wood that was collected from the trees that were cut on the downtown mall and is being stored and they're looking for ways to use it.

There are a few projects and people that approached them to use the wood.

and 162 trees are going to be planted around the end of February, early March.

A winning bid was given for those to get planted and they're mainly going to be around the schools or in the school properties.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Ms.

Thanks updates from TJ PDC we met in February one I guess major exciting thing was the TJ PDC received a safe streets and roads for all award from

the U.S.

Department of Transportation in the amount of $857,000 and to develop a comprehensive safety action plan for the region.

So these sort of grants provide funding for communities to implement strategies and projects that will significantly reduce or eliminate transportation-related fatalities and serious injuries.

So that's a big win for TJPDC.

Also announcing that in March, Friday, March 24, TJPDC hosts the second annual Central Virginia Regional Housing Partnership Summit.

And it's called Coming Back Home.

It will present a regionally focused summit on affordable housing needs.

So it's all day.

It's at the Omni.

and registration can be found online.

I just Googled the Central Virginia Regional Housing Partnership coming back home and I think that was the best way to find it.

The theme for this year, coming back home, recognizes the important role local and regional housing policies play in the recovery from COVID-19.

Sessions will focus on programs, partnerships, and policy that can be utilized.

The keynote speaker is Jay Grant.

the Executive Director of the Local Initiative Support Coalition, I think out of Hampton.

He'll talk about his time at HUD and DHCD and will share valuable perspectives about regional collaboration on affordable housing.

At the end of the month, there's an active mobility summit.

That is being, so Peter Crouch gives me some text for that.

The City of Charlottesville, Amaral County, and Piedmont Mobility Alliance are hosting their third annual Piedmont Mobility Summit next Friday, February 24th, UN City Space from 9 to 3 p.m.

At this free workshop, representatives from organizations, businesses, agencies, and individuals will work towards common goals of a better connected community and everyday access to the outdoors.

The gathering will focus on local success stories and actionable, equitable outcomes.

Lunch will be included.

Registration is required.

And you can sign up at pecva.org.

We talked about the fact that Bike Month and Bike to Work Week is coming up.

EPACC used to be more involved in that.

that Commissioner Russell just mentioned.

Some discussion of safe streets, or safe routes to school,

We, it sounds like the city is, they're working on a proposal from VO, which is the dockless mobility provider in the city, scooters and electric bikes, to see if they can get some better rules and some better management of parking.

So they're looking at some parking hubs

I mentioned I would give a description of what went down with the solar panels on this church.

I'm looking back at this and I sent Councilor Payne a three-page email in response.

But it's a complicated issue.

It was...

I'm not even sure I voted the right way.

Sorry.

Forever couldn't hear any of that.

I'm not even sure I voted the right way.

This was the BAR.

This was the Board of Architecture Review, yes.

To put the panels on the roof would have required removing 100-year-old, very good quality slate roof, replaced with asphalt shingles.

Guidelines are very vague, and our ordinance says to look to the Secretary of the Interior's standards and their advice in such a situation, or where relevant, and the Secretary of the Interior's standards are, or at least their guidance is more conservative than

you know we in practice have been so the guidance there was very clearly to deny the you know from those who approved the idea is that you really can't see the roof so visually it's not a big deal so it was complicated it was difficult some guidance from council would be very useful obviously we do need to update our guidelines so that's

Yeah, the BAR is not allowed to look at the comprehensive plan in the same way that the Planning Commission is.

We're not supposed to take into account financial situations.

You know, the Climate Action Plan is, it's not really our purview.

Our purview is what our guidelines say.

So there are instances where the BAR has to rule in a certain way

and Council.

It's the process is set up for Council to overrule us if that's the case.

If we want a different outcome, we need to change our guidelines.

Thank you.

I can.

Thanks.

Just a brief update today.

I attended the MPO Technical Committee meeting where we recommended new safety targets for the upcoming year.

Thanks to our new transportation planner, we ended up recommending the more ambitious targets for fewer fatalities.

I was pleased to see that.

We also discussed the upcoming long-range transportation plan and a conceptual look at how to prioritize, potentially prioritize different things.

That process will continue to develop.

The Charlottesville area transit is developing a new strategic plan and Jaunt is developing a new transit development plan.

So those will be interesting.

And finally, the TJPDC will be submitting a RAISE grant for preliminary engineering on the Rivanna pedestrian bridge in order to hopefully reduce some of those contingencies.

So next smart scale round, the cost estimate hopefully comes in lower because there's more certainty.

Thank you.

As for me, during our last work session, you might have noticed I was a little bit cross-eyed.

That was because legislation was being debated at that moment over whether the City of Charlottesville should be permitted to adjust its taxation to reduce the burden on buildings and increase the tax burden on land.

something that I personally believe is very important strategically and for affordable housing.

Sadly, during our meeting it died in committee on a party-line vote.

I continue to believe it's important to consider, but it is certainly illegal to enact, at least for the next year.

We are still free to think about it and study it if we wish.

NDS how are we doing sure we're doing all right um we are getting ready to embark on well i i would consider today part of all of this fun and excitement um we have module one out on the street uh for review a lot of people have been taking a look at that we've been getting comments um conversations have been occurring

Next week is kind of our big participation community open house week on the 22nd of February, which is Wednesday.

We have a open house.

We have three open houses.

They're all similar material.

and in three different locations so I was going to go through just and this is all on the Seville Plans Together website or if you go to the city website under zoning ordinance it'll get you there as well but you can choose one of these three or you could go to all three it's totally up to you

on February 22nd, Wednesday at Charlottesville High School from 6 to 8.30.

That's our first community open house.

Our second is February 23rd, which is Thursday.

and that's going to be at Buford Middle School same time 6 to 8 30 and these are drop-ins so you someone doesn't have to stay the whole time or they can choose to stay the whole time it's it's totally up to the individual and then on Saturday February 25th we are going to be in this room in city space between 11 and 1 30.

and we're hoping that we'll get a broad group of audience come to those events.

If we continue into the next week, we have our work session on the 28th.

We'll be doing a little prep for that later this evening.

And then the following day on March 1st is the steering committee for our project, Seville Plans Together.

So a lot of things all in this kind of compact time frame and we're also working on other opportunities as we have outreach from groups trying to get schedules all of these kinds of things to try and help people as much as possible with questions and comments

Great, thank you.

At this time, I would like to turn to the public.

Matters to be presented by the public, not on the formal agenda.

Tonight means absolutely anything.

Sure, and we'll handle this the same way that we have been handling our public comments.

Again, as the Chair noted, this is the public comment opportunity for this evening.

So if you have any item that you would like to address to the Planning Commission, this is your opportunity to do so.

we'll start with our in-person audience and then we will alternate with our virtual audience one person internal and one virtual and we'll go back and forth until everyone has had the opportunity to speak

I'm going to start with our in-person audience do we have any interested speakers yes sir good evening my name is Stephen Johnson I'm a resident of Fifeville neighborhood I'm here on behalf of Livable Seaville to discuss homelessness in the Charlottesville and Albemarle areas

Housing is a human right, and it's a clear violation of that basic right when someone experiences homelessness in our community.

The other underlying problem is also clear, insufficient housing.

Homelessness is getting worse in our area.

According to the Blue Ridge Coalition for the Homeless, the point in time count for our area jumped by 50% to 266 people in 2022.

and the more than 440 people accessed the Haven's Day Shelter services over 19,000 times in 2022.

We need to overcome inaccurate stereotypes and address the factors that cause people to experience homelessness.

While certain risk factors may increase the likelihood of an individual losing access to housing, attributing homelessness to individual choice or behaviors not only misunderstands why people become homeless, it results in harmful policies and defers real solutions

In their recent book, Homelessness is a Housing Problem, Greg Colburn and Clayton Page Aldrin analyzed data from around the country.

I thought this was a fascinating study.

They concluded that it's not the levels of drug use, poverty, unemployment, or mental health problems that predict levels of homelessness in an area.

Nor is it the weather or even the relative generosity of local social services.

Instead, it's all about housing.

The authors found that the cost and availability of housing explains regional variation in homelessness, specifically low rental vacancy rates and high rent.

I'm here this evening to share copies of the book Homelessness is a Housing Problem with each of you.

Inside you'll find a flyer from our friends at The Haven with info about the invaluable work they do.

We hope that you'll read this book and as the city rewrites its zoning code and develops its budget for the next year, you'll help implement its lessons so that homelessness in our area becomes rare, brief, and non-recurring.

Once you finish reading it, please pass it along to someone you think might benefit from learning more about this important topic.

I would describe this as de minimis Our next speaker will be a virtual speaker and the person at the list is Kenneth Hill.

Okay, hi.

My name is Kenneth Hill.

I am the owner of a duplex on Washington Avenue, which is basically across the street from the JPA 2005 project.

I have several concerns with the project.

The height of up to 101 feet

on the side of Washington and observatory avenues is too high in conjunction with other nearby buildings and doesn't fit in well with the JPA neighborhood.

As planned, the structural tower over surrounding houses with concomitant effects of natural light, shadows, and quality of life for the residents and people living nearby.

Parking is also a problem as far as the traffic that will be expected to increase with 390 tenants for this project.

The plan calls for 122 on-site cars with a single entryway on Washington Avenue, which is right near my property.

It is not enough for 390 tenants.

visitors and service vehicles.

As a result, overflow parking will occur on Washington Avenue, Observatory Avenue and other nearby streets when the enclosed parking is full.

The added traffic for the facility will create bottlenecks and safe traffic bottlenecks and safety issues for vehicles, bikes and pedestrians in the area.

So also,

There will be mechanical equipment for the building that will be located in the parking area.

This mechanical equipment will come off and on and will generate a lot of noise and humming and it will potentially disturb the neighbors and the tenants in the area.

we'd like to know more about that as far as what the plans are for that and if it will be enclosed so the main again the main concerns are the traffic will definitely increase and especially during the construction period there will be bottlenecks on Washington Avenue in particular cars park on both sides of the street most of the

students who live in this rental area along Washington Avenue do have cars.

I can attest to that from the tenants that I have currently.

And so these are some of the main issues that I have with this project.

All right, we'll see if there's anyone in our in-person audience who would like to speak.

All right, no hands at this time in our inside audience.

Our virtual audience, our next speaker will be William Shafe.

Yes, I can hear you.

All right, so good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

I'm grateful for the opportunity to have the opportunity to talk to you this afternoon.

My name is William Schaaf and I own the property of 113 Washington Avenue.

The property and my adjacent neighbor, Mr. Hill, that just talked to you are probably the most significantly affected by the proposed design as to the ingress and egress from the parking garage,

from the location of the garbage facilities and of course the mechanical systems.

They are all three directly opposite the driveways of our properties.

Over the years, I have tried to provide affordable housing to Charlottesville residents and they are just common folks.

They're not rich developers.

They're good tenants and they deserve to be treated well.

I'm asking this afternoon that I want you to understand that they will suffer because of this design.

Washington Avenue is not designed for the ingress and egress that the traffic design creates.

I'd ask you to consider making them put the garage entrance and some of the mechanicals maybe in the middle of the walkway in the back and certainly the garage entrance in the front that would exit and enter.

off of JPA, which is a street much more suitable for handling the number of cars that will be involved in the owners or occupants of the property.

Of course, all of the things that Mr. Hill mentioned are important to me, and so I'm not going to review them.

But we are, again, being most, I know we stand in solidarity with our other neighbors.

There's a short and a long run of concerns with the consideration of parking, noise, lighting, environmental impacts, and safety services.

And I encourage you as you review this application to reject this plan and have the developers redesign it to minimize the impact of these items in particular on the folks who live there and are neighbors and owners of the houses.

All right.

Just checking in with our internal audience here.

No hands.

Another virtual speaker, Lorna Martins.

Ms.

Yes.

Yes, ma'am.

Okay.

This is also about 2005 JPA.

I submitted six questions that I had about the new proposal that was published in the entrance corridor design review materials.

So I did not receive an answer to my questions, so I'm going to ask them now.

The first one is, I would like to know the height and feet of the building that is featured in the revised plan submitted to the entrance corridor review board.

Then next, in detail, how does the new height and feet compare to the height and feet in the original plan?

Third,

The new plan shows porches giving onto Observatory Avenue and I would be interested to know who will be allowed to enter and exit via these porches.

Is it just the residents of the apartments that open onto the porches?

or is it going to be all residents of the building, their guests, delivery persons and so on.

Then next, originally a bike path was suggested or in fact recommended behind

the building and this has become a pedestrian walkway and I was interested in hearing more about that.

How does the one compare to the other?

Next, originally 2005 JPA was going to have 119 units.

Is the number of units in the revised plan the same or not?

And finally,

originally the building was planned for 390 students and I was wondering if there had been any change in that figure in the revised plan.

Yes, ma'am, we can hear you.

Thank you.

I'm a resident of the JPA neighborhood.

I am not directly affected by the development of 2005-2007 in JPA, but we have been, as a neighborhood, completely inundated with students and

and as a result, everyone in the city seems to think that is what we should be even more so.

The building that is going up is going to house students.

Students are the responsibility of a university that's next door as far as we are concerned, not having to

have that as their source of housing as default, I should say.

This building, and after listening to Mr. Johnson talk about housing, this is not going to help affordable housing.

These are going to be student housing.

And the rents that the students can afford in a building such as this does not

add any affordable housing to the city.

So it's difficult for us to accept it.

The building itself is out of character of the JPA corridor, entrance corridor design.

There are a lot of factors that are causing us distress.

We are a small community of owners.

They're only owner-occupied

I'm going to say 20 to if that many of us.

But we have housed students.

We are not against housing students, but we shouldn't be the only area to house students in large numbers.

And so we are distressed about this.

The zoning changes are not going to make it any easier.

In fact, it's going to add more commercial

areas from looking at what the new zoning aspects of it.

They're going to add a few more commercial parts to it.

So it's going to even take away more areas for housing.

I

have no qualms about a building going up there, but this is out of character and not really solving the total needs of what they're saying.

All right.

Are there any additional speakers, whether in person or virtually at this time?

Oh, one just popped up.

Please.

All right.

Oh, and it went away.

Okay.

Okay, well, Ms.

All right.

Let's see if we can get Ms.

Benham on.

It appears she's having some technical difficulties.

Ms.

Hi.

Okay.

Thank you.

I'm also here to talk about 2000 JPA and my concerns.

I live at 116 Observatory Avenue, which is almost right across the street from the proposed project.

and I want to say that I share the concerns of all the folks who have spoken about this previous to now.

I'm especially concerned about traffic and noise and also whether or not there will be any representative from the city or the developer that residents can contact

if a problem should arise.

For example, about the noise of the excavation or construction, which, by the way, I believe is supposed to go on for two years.

And I understand is supposed to start early in the morning and go on until four in the afternoon.

I don't know how many days a week this is going to be, but perhaps if you can imagine how loud noise would affect your quality of life if it went on five or six days a week for two years.

In any case, I'm wondering, will there be any limit on the volume of the noise or the length of time the noise can go on in any one given day?

Will there be any limit on that?

And if so, will that be communicated to the residents?

And as for traffic, I was on Washington.

I mean, yes, Washington just last week.

and there was a truck on the road that couldn't move for a few minutes and there were cars parked on both sides of the street and I was using Washington actually to go through to JPA and turn around and go up observatory and I had to wait 10 minutes and this was just last week and this is before

anything happens with the project.

So that occurred to me.

It occurred to me at that moment that there could be potentially much longer delays when construction started.

So thank you for this opportunity to bring up my concerns, and I would like answers to those questions I have specifically about contacts for complaints and any limit on the noise that can happen during the construction.

Thank you very much.

Ms.

Creasy, do we have contact information for Ms.

There is a we have a document online for residents to contractors and so it has some very basic information if there are noise complaints that's actually a call to the non-emergency police number and but if it's construction related in most cases construction is exempt from noise ordinances around town

so that gets a little bit tricky but we do encourage our contractors to be good neighbors as they're doing their projects and many of our contractors will work with people in the area to do the best they can to coordinate but it's a complicated time

Thank you.

Apologies.

I would like to close the public hearing, or not hearing, but matters from the public at this time.

Turning to the consent agenda, I see two items on here.

And I'll supplement that by

there is a critical slope waiver in the consent agenda.

And staff has recommended that we approve that waiver.

But on page five of the staff report, there is a contingent that should be embraced in our approval of this consent agenda.

So I'd like to supplement Ms.

Ms.

Creasy, is this clear?

Do you accept this amendment?

Ms.

Creasy, can you call the roll?

Moving forward, I see an item called 2005 JPA.

Do we ever do that?

I declare us no longer be the Planning Commission but something else entirely.

We're not the BAR.

We're the Entrance Court or Review Board or ERB.

What?

Lisa Green is just...

Good evening.

I'm Jeff Werner.

I'm the preservation and design planner.

Myself and my new assistant, Molly Murphy, take care of you all and the Board of Architectural Review and the Historic Resources Committee.

So tonight I'm wearing

with my ERB hat and bringing you this project on JPA.

This is why we've been having conversations with you the last month or so about the responsibilities of the ERB.

So this is a design certificate of appropriateness, a COA request for the project at 2005 Jefferson Park Avenue.

There are

it's three parcels actually four there's one parcels not within the EC overlay but we're looking at the entire project and this is within the Fontaine Avenue JPA entrance corridor and therefore it

is subject to review by you all, the ERB.

So just quickly, when you all are reviewing a COA request, there are five primary criteria for you to consider.

The overall architectural design, form, style, including but not limited to height, mass, and scale.

you're also looking at the exterior architectural details and features you're looking at the texture materials and color that are proposed you're looking at the design and arrangement of the building the structures on the subject site and then the fifth criteria sort of all of those bundled together does that result in a

as a whole is that something is architecturally compatible or incompatible with the entrance corridor.

So the applicants are here.

We'll get into a lot more detail on the request.

I have a sort of a lengthy description here about

Well, basically, I'll read it.

It's a brick and stucco building composed of a five-story U-shaped two-wing building surrounding a central courtyard, and that five-story unit is set atop a two-story brick foundation, also referred to as the podium.

each wing is approximately 62 feet wide and running north-south and it's separated by a roughly 30 foot wide courtyard the way this site is the grading of this site is such that there's a 30 foot drop from the back northwest corner down to the front southeast corner and as a result there's a

The seven-story primary facade from JPA, it's reduced at the northwest corner on observatory to five stories and at the northeast corner on Washington, it reduces to six.

Staff, you know, in the review, and I know we've had a lot of discussions about this with the special use permit review, and there's certainly a lot in the design guidelines in lieu of going through all of those one by one, but we certainly can discuss them.

The recommendation we have is that the improvements are appropriate.

given the comprehensive plan, given the design guidelines, and recommend approval of the COA.

I've included a list of recommendations, conditions of approval, should you all choose to go that route.

I've also made some notes to

amend the motion to kind of address the question about the stucco.

But I'll let

I'll let the applicants talk about that, but essentially we've had, as you know, the guidelines, both BAR and ERB, advise against the use of what was called EFIS, and we have guidelines, both of them need to be revised, and we used to have the

the styrofoam stucco, and if a golf ball hit it, it's stuck in it.

And that material has changed somewhat.

But I think that a condition that you could add, and I'll just read it, it would be the stucco will be a durable synthetic material mechanically fastened over appropriate drainage mats and over a code-compliant water-resistant barrier.

And I'll let Aaron and Kevin can address that.

There was also, in a recent project with a similar material on West Main, the BAR had a requirement that they wanted to review a panel, a mock-up panel prior to installation.

That was really just to check the color and the texture and material, not necessarily to say, oh, we want you to go back and start over, but just to sort of go, okay, we're all on the same page.

One moment.

A question for you.

So, before I get lost in this, I want to talk about the stucco just a little bit.

So, we've got traditional stucco, which is like, you know, the more long-lasting.

Masonry stucco.

Then we've got synthetic stucco, which is more elastic, but it doesn't crack like the traditional stucco.

It doesn't crack as much, because it's more elastic.

The intent is it doesn't.

And I said, I'll let the architect can get into the specification and the details and the materials.

I think

It's not the styrofoam material, it is the material we've used on, as I said, the BAR has approved this type.

You can certainly, let me put it this way, if there are questions about a material they're going to use or anything, and this is Mr. Stolzenberg and I were talking about this earlier, if there's anything that I haven't answered, I don't answer sufficiently, you all can

adopt a condition to address that.

You can request a deferral of this until you get that information.

You certainly could deny this request based on not having that information available.

That's there for you.

But I can tell you standing here, I cannot give you an engineering breakdown of the synthetic stucco material.

But we can certainly provide that, or the applicant can certainly provide that.

but I understand what you're saying I said this is where we've gone with the BAR's discussion of this from that the old type that got banged up and dink to this surface material you know this is a different type of material so but I think your question is valid but I just I don't know if I can answer it

Please continue.

Okay.

Sorry.

I tried to keep notes while the folks were asking questions.

Missy certainly addressed the noise issues.

That's not something that falls under my purview of what's going on during construction.

Traffic and parking, not under my purview.

In fact, the thing about this project that was

is appealing as the parking is inside and not visible.

The heights and specific numbers, I will let the applicant address some of that.

This project, the height of this project was approved.

There was a special unit

Special Use Permit approved by City Council and it established those conditions and those so we're now working with the box and conditions that that Council approved and there was the for example and then the next question was about the porches on Observatory Avenue I don't have any purview over

who goes in or out of a door, and I would say that's not something that falls into the, you know, you certainly can ask it, but I don't have anything like that in the guidelines.

Bike path in the rear, that is behind, I need to pull the

language from City Council, but this has to meet the conditions that City Council put in there, and I think we had talked about some sort of connection not being eliminated primarily was the concern.

As far as the number of units and number of students, I think the density was established by the SUP, but those are not anything that we have purview over.

This, as I've said,

to folks this could be a building with one big room in it or it could be a solid block of concrete the only thing that matters from the design review is the exterior of that building and so hopefully that answers that question or at least so anything I can help you with I know Aaron and Kevin are eager to to present to you and I said I would say if there are if there are questions that are unanswered

So, as we do with the BAR, you can discuss with the applicant deferring, in which case, you know, they bring it back and, you know, solve things you have.

Or if it's something that's just simply unacceptable, then cite those reasons as a motion to deny.

And I can help if the conditions that I've outlined

If you want to add any, we can certainly work through those to get to a motion for approval if you wish.

I have a question for Jeff on the glazing requirement.

I saw that it was generally where all the brick was and not really where the stucco was.

So, and I would refer to detachment four in the staff report.

I think it was four or five years ago, the ERB was doing the Tarleton Oak project, and the question came up about what does clear glass, that definition of clear glass, and the

The BAR has come down on 70% or higher is that definition of clear glass, but there's, for example, when it's a residential

like we never look at what's the VLT on glass on someone's, you know, a new house on Second Street or something like that.

So the question was, all right, what does that mean and in what circumstances?

And so the ERB asked the BAR to review it.

We had a really good discussion about it.

And they came down on, for one,

The primary spot you want that clear glass is something like on the mall or store frontage on a shopping center or that street level so that people are seeing into that space and not seeing their reflection.

As you go up the building,

It becomes less important, I think.

In fact, you know, some might even argue, like at Dairy Central, I know there was some discussion of going up the building, you know, is it okay if we use glass that isn't 70% VLT?

And so the recommendation that you all got from the BAR was that variability was possible, really came down to what was the design goal,

And I guess a note on the stucco, there's, you can get, like, high-impact stucco.

They even make them hurricane-proof if you want to go that far.

So I think that might be the language we could use because, I mean, they do use synthetic stucco in an EFIS system.

EFIS is, like, a system of different parts.

with synthetic stucco being the face of it.

So you could just spec a higher impact resistant one.

I don't think you said anything wrong.

I mean I can get into this when it's time for comments but it just seems like everything that would be EFIS is above the street level it's not touching the ground it's not I mean EFIS today is not EFIS from you know forever ago it's not the concern isn't the impact it's EFIS back in the when it was first developed trapped water in the building assembly so then it would you know

Rott the building.

Today they fixed that.

There's drainage planed.

And no architect would design a building without a drainage plan in there.

No competent architect would do that.

So personally, the word evens doesn't scare me.

That's fair.

That makes sense.

I think that's all I had for now, and I'll have some after I hear from the applicant.

Ms.

Mr. Schwarz, Design Review.

I don't know who this question is for, but it's the, so there was the requirement in the SUP approval to follow the Streets That Work plan to have a three-foot buffer between the sidewalk and the street, and I,

I guess that just seems kind of silly because we're basically not allowing trees in that buffer by making it just three feet so I don't know why we landed there I checked the streets that work plan I guess it does say a three to six foot buffer is suggested for these areas we settled on three feet I mean is that

Okay, so here's my question.

The BAR tends to have a feeling that they can push and pull a little bit during these applications.

My understanding is if there's something established by the SUP, then it's locked.

Now, I mean, I'm not the city attorney, nor do I want to be.

So, but that is my read.

No.

Thank you.

Mr. Stolzenberg.

Thanks.

Yeah.

front elevation at that sort of maybe arguably blank wall along the street.

It looks like maybe a sort of breeze block situation going on there with the sort of tables and chairs in front of it.

I guess my question is, you know, is that whole setup, including the tables and chairs, part of this COA not be part of it?

You can require it, I guess.

I mean, a lot of stuff is seasonal, gets moved around.

I mean, think about the mall.

They do call them built in at some point in there, I think.

Oh, not here.

I'll let the applicant speak to how that space is programmed and if there are, I guess, seating built into the wall or designed into the masonry walls versus metal furniture that may appear there or not.

I do not.

I see that we benefit from one Mr. Payne.

Just a high-level question in this process.

So, you know, and this is where I could say with an historic district, BAR's involvement, we would probably see greater detail in the elevations, wall sections.

Entrance corridor tends to be more of a general view.

Generally, what does this look like?

so this isn't the first time I look at something and the same thing with with the historic districts it'll come in for approval it's also a lot of these are reviewed for the site plan so there's things that we're looking at there it also comes back in for a building permit so I look at it there so I try to look at the application in terms of what

it is somewhat different than when we review it with the BAR but I know that something's going to come back as a building permit and do I see if I is it significantly different or is it slightly different I'm not going to say you know in the between that corner and the window it looks like it was 18 inches and now it's 15 inches no so there is

Just one other clarifying question for Commissioner Schwartz.

Yeah, there was a condition in the SUP, and it wasn't the setbacks, it was that there would be a three-foot planting strip and a seven-foot sidewalk per the streets of the work plan, and it just seems, I don't know if that's a fault of the streets of the work plan or if it's something that's just an oversight, but all the street trees are pushed inwards up against the building where they've

would more ideally be outdoor between the sidewalk and the street.

Thank you.

Thank you.

For me, fine job.

Very clear.

As I said, there's a lot of detail in the staff report.

We can go through it as much as you want, but I figured it better to get to the applicant's presentation.

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

Good evening, everyone.

I'm Kevin Riddle.

I'm here with Aaron Hannigan and John Matthews of Mitchell Matthews Architects.

And we also have Carlin Tacey of Timmons Group, all of the members of the team.

We wanted to catch you up on our latest progress tonight.

And we have a little slide presentation.

We can go to the next slide, Patrick.

Thanks.

So we'll start out, we'll go through a few sections.

The first is just highlighting some of the parts of the ERB guidelines that I think are most relevant to, you know, what we're going to be discussing tonight and how they relate to it.

So next slide.

I'll start by mentioning Chapter 5 of the guidelines in which it describes the vision for the Fontaine Avenue and JPA corridor.

It uses these words.

Foremost considerations are traffic calming provisions for pedestrian safety and pedestrian amenities such as sidewalks, landscaping, and transit stops.

So in other words, how the project engages the street is of first importance.

So to that end, this project proposes robust edge spaces, continuous sidewalks, a variety of planting beds supporting a range of flora, both big and small.

big paved major spaces adjacent to corner entries.

In addition to that, we have these smaller, slightly more intimate spaces along Observatory Avenue porches that relate more to the smaller buildings that are on the other side of the street.

Together, these steps, terraces, and site walls, they all have the potential to expand the public realm beyond the city sidewalk and encourage social activities.

The project proposes many spaces where people can gather whether to catch up and chat or simply to take a load off and unwind.

and these spaces would include tenants but they aren't necessarily exclusive to them.

The entry terrace there you see in the middle image as well as a pedestrian path we propose at the rear of the site.

We expect that those would be used by many of the people in the neighborhood not just the people in the apartments.

Next slide.

to help strengthen these edge spaces.

The project envisions a generously planted perimeter.

Carlin will be talking more about that later.

Pedestrian routes and gathering spaces will enjoy beauty, shade, and comfort provided by street trees.

And in the process, functional needs beyond comfort and aesthetics will be supported where the landscape contributes to stormwater treatment.

Next slide, please.

So within the layers of landscape we imagine a building that emerges gradually.

Massing is reduced in several ways with this current proposal.

We use step backs at upper stories to create a terraced effect.

We allow taller parts of the architecture to recede in a different material.

The material changes further discourage impressions of a monolithic form.

and the brick facades especially that we've restricted to three stories above the podium level, we hope that they sort of shift focus to the lower stories and that the darker muted stucco tones above would then recede more in the background.

Next slide.

The fenestration is oriented vertically and scaled to residential proportions.

We do have larger windows and storefronts, but they're proposed only along JPA and at the entry where more prominent openings are appropriate.

The range of openings also helps to mitigate against repetitive facades.

Next slide, please.

Now we'll look at a couple of images of the JPA corridor.

Next slide.

You'll be familiar with some of what you see here.

The slide after this one, we kind of consider it an example of some strengths of the corridor that we'd like to pursue.

This slide is in a way a counter example.

You see a lot of properties and we didn't really have to cherry pick to find these.

that have lots of paving and parking in the front yards, little to no street trees, and it goes to show how sort of the setting, the siting of the buildings has as much to do with whether they're sort of supporting the corridor goals as does the size of the building.

You see, in fact, on this page a number of rather smaller buildings, but their unfortunate sort of site conditions, they don't engage the street, they aren't very welcoming.

Next slide, please.

And here you see some better examples.

You see lots of street trees.

You see prominent steps.

You see site walls.

And the plantings, too, are an important factor.

That image of a 2011 JPA at the bottom really strikes me.

The architecture itself under those trees is fine.

It's nothing special.

But that canopy is pretty terrific.

even sort of newer projects like 1725 JPA there in the bottom middle it has a nice largely glazed stairwell that announces entry and also gives the residents a nice way up and down with lots of visibility that's somewhat unusual and so that's laudable you see in the top right corner an example of a very nice porch on one of the apartment buildings across the street and on to the next slide

So now we'll get into some of our imagery showing both the previous design and the current proposal.

Next slide.

This is just to orient you.

Yeah, you know where we are.

We can go to the next slide.

Here's a site plan.

Sorry, it's a little bit washed out on the screen there.

But again, that's just to sort of remind you of what some of the parameters were in the approved SUP.

Next slide.

Here we have the first image of the previous proposal.

I think you saw this before.

We're looking at the corner of Observatory Avenue and JPA.

Next slide.

And so what we'll do with each of these, and I'm sorry, this one's really hard to see, but we kind of reduce the original design to an outline.

And then the next slide.

and then we have overlaid the new proposal and so the dark red is the outline of the previous proposal the red fill the lighter red fill shows you what in a way has been reduced or subtracted to get to the current proposal next slide

and so this gives you a sense right away of the very different material palette and you can see too not just up at the corner near the entry where Washington and JPA meet but also toward the back if you look up Observatory Avenue there's a lot more sort of terracing that we used at that back corner to address massing where the building gets the closest to the smaller houses that are up the street there.

And the next slide.

Now we've turned to look from across the street toward the main entry.

Next slide.

And the next one.

And there again, you see how the massing has changed, in particular there at the frontmost wing where the entry is located.

And now the next slide.

here you see the proposed project and I want to note that Carlin will be talking later about the landscape and in some of the images you're seeing some landscape that we put in initially as kind of a placeholder it does give you a pretty fair sense of this sort of atmosphere we'd like especially as trees have matured but some of the slides she'll be talking about will show you really more specifically what these plantings will be like than this perspective does and the next slide

We threw one more in, and we did this in a few cases, just to take those street trees away so you just get a better look at the architecture at the lower stories if that helped to clarify the design.

Now we go to the next slide.

Here we are at the corner as you approach from UVA.

And the next slide, maybe go two ahead.

Here we go, the previous and now the new.

and you can see at the upper level there, the upper two stories, we've stepped back about 12 feet and we think that what we end up with, if you go to the next slide,

is an architecture where there's just fewer elements vying for position.

It's gotten, we think, a bit quieter as it sits here on this corner.

You also notice, too, that we revisited the way we use that brick base.

It used to just sort of travel around, all around the building, and the building had a kind of a stratified effect.

In this case, we wanted to go more for kind of juxtaposition, so the bricks do come up in certain places and creates, we think, a better variation over what was before.

The next slide.

Thanks so much, Kevin.

As Kevin said, I'm Carlin Tacey.

I work with Timmins Group.

I'm the landscape architect on this project, and it's my pleasure to talk with you about our intentions for the landscape.

So here you're seeing the site plan.

We're getting to see sort of all sides of the intended streetscape, and we're going to kind of talk again about those different views on Washington Observatory and JPA.

We can go to the next slide.

So looking here at a section across JPA, you can see that we're trying to nestle ourselves into that streetscape.

As noted earlier, it's important that we do the work on some of those street trees there in our front landscape since the power lines do run through the middle of that median.

And it's our intention to kind of bring them in towards the site to allow for a larger soil volume and success there as the sewer does run just on that corner of JPA in front of our building as well.

And so you can also see our language of site walls and trying to bring this down to the pedestrian scale with those precedent images up at the top.

Next slide.

Here we're looking at Washington, and we can see we are using street trees that are approved from the Charlottesville Master Tree List as preferred or secondary for entry corridors.

Here we anticipate a nice higher canopy story.

These trees would be probably about 60 feet at maturity.

This isn't quite their mature height, right, that we're showing here, but we're showing that upper canopy with a lower

street planting sort of more at the pedestrian level, at the hip level there with some shrubs and grasses.

Next slide.

The other side here, observatory.

So this one's really fun to see.

We also have an intention for a biofilter kind of terraced walls here to bring our stormwater down, sort of that grade change that was described earlier.

And this nestles right into those intentions with the porches on this side.

So the trees here would be something that likes to be adjacent to biofilters and water for those inundation periods.

Next slide.

And we kind of took those trees away for a moment, as Kevin described, to give you a look at that architectural intention along that corridor.

And it kind of lets you also see some of that understory planting that's intended there.

So those would be sort of a mix of natives that have a lot of ornamental value and are low maintenance.

And that's really what we're going to try to do across the entire streetscape.

Next slide.

And here we're bringing ourselves back to that front view with a little bit more detail on the intended planting there.

and again that's kind of a nice you know pallet of stone and brick for those pedestrian areas up to that entry I think that might be We have one more slide and just another look at that same terrace we like to think giving you an impression of how the space could be occupied there is some furniture there that some of you were asking about it's possible

that furniture could be bolted down, but we also wanted to leave the owner the flexibility to have furniture that could come out at certain times of the year and in at others.

What we think is important, though, to have as a permanent part of the architecture and the site walls you see there, that they are located in a way that they have a comfortable seat height.

So this is always going to be a realm in which it's not just people coming and going.

There's opportunities to

You know, take a load off here and gather with people here.

And we'll leave the presentation there.

We know you probably have a lot of questions.

in which they're planted but I think you know you could start seeing like 20 feet height in the first you know five years give or take yeah before they start really holding a presence up there at the second story I think so 10 15 depending on how well they're they're growing I'm not an architectural landscape person but you think there's enough space for the roots to grow beneath the

Yeah, we do.

This is a pretty generous planting sort of within our property line of about 8 to 12 feet in some areas.

I like the recommendation.

Honestly, at this point in the design, we had not reached a point where we were looking specifically at certain assemblies or manufacturers that we were going to go with here.

We wanted to make sure that the broader strokes of our redesign were finding some support first.

But certainly, it's our intention to use a synthetic stucco that will be durable.

As Carl mentioned, it is located mostly at upper levels.

The application methods have improved greatly generally among contractors.

That drainage plane, there used to be a habit of using drainage mats that had vertical grooves in them.

sometimes installers wouldn't apply them so that they were oriented vertically.

And so then you would have trapped moisture because that synthetic stucco does not breathe like traditional stucco does.

So we would be making certain to have a product that would be durable, would look good.

Mr. Matthews, remember my first

And some of our reason for pursuing the synthetic stucco is that we see a lot of apartment projects where, unfortunately, it's kind of an entry-level fiber cement panel is used.

And they often, I think they

partly responsible for imparting a slightly generic quality to some multifamily housing.

Mr. Dronzio So this is my first swing at one of these so I don't have a whole lot of questions at this point on this I'm trying to listen and learn and if you could circle back to me I appreciate it I will say that you know in your discussion of the stucco a triggering event for me

Yeah, and then you just essentially have funnels pushing the water inside instead of out.

Yeah, good.

I'm so sorry.

Mr. Hibbaugh.

I just think you guys have done, you know, this is a lot better than the first one that we saw and you've done a great job so I want to say that.

I had a question on, it was kind of marrying one of Jeff's comments on the enclosure that's next to the entrance to the garage and what was going to happen there.

So let's see.

What slide might be helpful to look at to talk about that?

We have some elevations in an appendix, but let me just see if I can describe it.

As you come up Washington Avenue, we're going to have an entry into the parking level.

and then to the left of that entry there is a wall that's going to come up I believe it's about four and a half feet and that will be a place in which trash bins can be rolled out on trash collection mornings and that's the only time that they would be out there and then they would be rolled back into the parking level with non-trash days and the owners do plan to have this be a sort of professionally managed property so it wouldn't be you know just up to the tenants to go down and roll the bins out

and oh yeah, thank you, this is very helpful.

If we go then, so we were talking about this area that's right up here.

So this is the little spot I was talking about where the trash would be kept on trash days.

Now when you look right here, that's an area that's much lower than Washington Avenue, about 10 feet below the grade out here and enters in at a lower level of the project

We do anticipate that we may have a generator there, but generally the equipment for heating and cooling is going to be up on the roof of the building.

It's possible that a transformer will also be there along with the generator.

The generator will likely only run once a month, cycle on and off to test it, and then not go in use except for an emergency.

So it's not going to produce constant noise or disturbance.

Thanks for that.

Well, that is a good question.

And I think we might have to get back to you on that one.

Because, again, we're still exploring what exact stucco system we'd be using.

And so I hear what you're saying.

You don't want that to start looking blanched out within five or six years.

So, yeah.

Especially going with a darker color, you can really see that.

Yeah, yeah, right, right.

Yeah, allow us to look into that because I think we definitely want to make that a priority, too.

Thank you.

Russell.

This may be a question for staff, but do we have language on and sort of like...

Regulation around commercial generators, siting, and run times and that kind of thing.

Is that something that would be worth potentially including in an entrance corridor review, you know, as a provision?

I don't recall ever having a condition similar to that.

I was just saying, Kevin and Erin and I actually discussed that thing quite a bit.

But yes, there is a

There is a guideline about siting mechanical equipment in such a way that it's not, but the guidelines are not an ordinance.

So again, that's something that there's a, in fact, we've started doing this with lighting in a similar condition here.

If there is an issue with lighting, we have required that applicants will work with us to address glare and lightness.

You could incorporate a similar condition about noise.

Yeah, you addressed it.

Well, I guess the color range you see on the corridor, it does vary quite a bit.

I mean, I know there's a lot of red brick, and there are some lighter colored buildings.

But, I mean, I guess our goal here is to have a building that has a little bit of

maybe a distinction of its own.

It's not pursuing a traditional vocabulary in its detailing.

And we felt that the darker colors, they have in a way a slightly sort of more modern connotation.

And we felt they contrasted well with the brick in a way that

you know with say a more non-committal color palette maybe like something sort of creamy or beigey I feel like you see that a good bit around Charlottesville and that you know this palette represents something maybe just a little tougher

And just to confirm, the trees that are shown in the renderings are not at the proposed or the expected, like, planting height.

Yeah.

So they aren't showing exactly what they would be when they were initially planted.

They're also not showing at the full maturity.

Yeah.

So they're kind of in between there.

But it is hard to predict exactly how well a tree will grow.

Thanks.

I will say that's the problem sometimes with renderings is what age and the life of this project do they select.

But to be clear on color, if this were an existing building that had been there 20 years and then the owner contacted me and said, I want to paint my stucco, I'd probably approve it.

I mean, I wouldn't say do whatever.

As I say, my standard answer is as long as it's not, you know, bright green or fluorescent orange or, you know, has a dragon with sparkles, I can probably okay it.

Otherwise, if you want something else, you'll have to go to the BAR ERB.

So to be clear, if they 10 years from now want to paint this, I probably won't be here, but the person in my position could make a judgment on whether that color is appropriate.

So if you feel strongly about

Oh, the green?

No, not right.

This is, again, my renderings, and you know, renderings are always like, I don't even look at it.

It was, sorry, it was a little startling.

I don't know, there's, again, like trees, trees are difficult to read them, but then if you take those and strip them away from the image, it then becomes completely different to look at.

But no, I was not,

concerned about the green just because I've been in a lot of conversations with them about this whole project.

And candidly, when I went through and saw the changes from what we saw with the SUP, I was really excited about the darker colors.

There's been some difference of opinion within the office.

But this is where the guidelines are not

Yeah, the one more thing I'd add about the trees and how they're represented in these images, something that stood out to me when we were looking at this corridor and we were working on this project, one of the projects that I featured in the early pages at 1707 JPA,

If you look at that on the city GIS map, there's a little thumbnail image of it.

And you see it raw shortly after it was constructed.

And I think that was built less than 15 years ago.

And now you can see what those sycamore or maybe London plane trees have done within 15 years.

I mean, it's a...

Those trees have gotten some size, and they're not in huge planting beds either.

I have one other design question.

I'm not exactly sure why you're showing these variations of brick, like this or that.

Yeah, sure.

and Barbara was we wanted to kind of leave some flexibility there.

I mean the owner inevitably is going to have to go through a pricing exercise and it could be that either of those end up not being available or the prices have gotten sky high.

But that gets you kind of close to what we're going for.

One is sort of a nicer kind of rougher texture, one not as much but there might be a little more variation in color.

So I think they each have their own strengths but you know what you see in the illustrations

Okay.

Mr. Schwartz.

Okay.

I swear this is not a leading question.

It may not even be our purview.

I'm just kind of curious.

It's all amenity.

Avenue.

I don't know that the owner has all the programs set for those spaces, but they're liable to be maybe exercise rooms, meeting rooms, study lounges.

We are kind of hoping, too, that that corner part of the building there at Observatory and JPA, especially with the terrace that adjoins it, it could have a potential use at some point for the public where there could even be a little

Yeah, yeah.

The idea was maybe instead of some more storefront there with like, you know, a kind of occluded or a paid glass, maybe it would be nicer to use the masonry the way it can be used and have something that's a little more open and kind of let air in.

But that's really not the main reason.

That's it for me.

Mr. Stolzenberg.

and immediately mess up.

Let me try stopping video.

You guys hear me okay?

You sound perfect.

Great.

So glad we covered the green panel situation.

Just to be clear, you guys didn't mention vivid colors in the courtyard.

They are on certain facades that are within the courtyard.

I think, actually, if you look at the perspective that comes around and looks at the corner of observatory and JPA, you see as much, I think, as you're going to see of it, you know,

from a typical, you know, theirs is one that especially before trees are large is gonna be more visible and more prominent.

And we realize this is probably going to be a stretch for some.

And I would add that even though I think the darker colors do work well with the brick and with our massing strategies,

With this vivid color within, while we like the idea of kind of aligning that courtyard with something else, especially for the tenants to maybe have something, assuming it's not too loud, that makes that environment a little more lively, we thought it could be a promising addition, and yet we're not really wedded to it either.

And so we wouldn't want support for the project to hinge on, you know, whether that's a bright chartreuse or not.

And certainly I think it's going to be important to the owner that we are looking more at views kind of within the courtyard to make sure that that really is a color that that everyone will be comfortable with.

Gotcha.

Okay.

And then

I mean, I have mixed feelings about it, but we'll get to that later.

The bricks are laid in a dense enough fashion that you might occasionally get some dispersed beam coming through.

We haven't done an actual study of headlights sort of panning through those as they might be as they're coming into the garage or down the ramp.

We could perhaps try and do a study of that, but we were thinking also that, especially with a student project like this, you're not going to have commuters, you're not going to have people coming and going all the time.

And so we assumed that an occasional view of lights sort of through there are certainly not going to be any worse than what you would have of lights just occasionally coming down, you know, a street, down Observatory or Washington Avenue.

It would be infrequent.

Got you.

Does it have to stay?

Is it a ventilation thing?

It could be totally solid.

Or even just, you know, from

Like the lighting comment that Jeff made as a suggested condition, if it's a problem after it's built, I'm sure we can all adjust it then.

Although I have to admit, an occasional swing of lights through there, I think that can be kind of intriguing, gives you a hint of what's really going on in there.

And then are the trellises for the plants to climb up, are those just between those sort of relief bays or is that all over all of them?

That's yet to be further studied on the type of climbing system that would be needed, and that would also depend on the final species selection for those climbing plants.

Okay, thanks.

Thank you.

Well, I appreciate the four sides of this design.

I think in some of the past projects that have come through, that hasn't always been the case.

My question, I guess, is regarding the back of this.

There was a comment about maybe they thought there was going to be a bike path through there.

Now it looks like a walkway.

Just want to hear what the difference is.

So the SUP resolution requests it to be a multipurpose path, both bike and pedestrian.

Just so we're all on the baseline of that before you go ahead.

So there is a fair amount of topography through there, and so we're trying to kind of minimize the disruption of that by doing a series of steps.

So it's not a big stair that you have to climb to get up there.

But you may want to walk your bike down that.

And I'm not trying to say I don't appreciate your reason for that.

And if I could chime in, too, this is Brian Sock here with the Timmons Group.

I think it's important, too, to understand the relation of the language and the condition for that piece, too, where it says the landowner shall consider construction of the multipurpose path.

It was an intent to link the two sides together and the ideal being for bicycles and pedestrians.

But as we've gotten into the fine details of it, the topography between the two makes it difficult to accommodate the bicycle connection.

So there's

connection there.

I don't have the language in front of me, but it sounds like consider, and that gives enough flexibility there.

Yeah, they just read it perfectly.

The landowner shall consider construction of a multipurpose path for bicycles and pedestrians, linking Washington Avenue and Observatory Avenue within the rear setback.

So there's a

The Council established that they should consider it.

They have.

You all also still have design guidelines that you can refer to.

That is your option.

I felt like what was most important was that we didn't preclude it.

And I think the grade issues, because I had played around, I remember Jody Alejandro had talked about the

the building from Observatory to Washington.

I toyed around with the idea, all right, well, what if you split the building in half and ran steps down it?

I was surprised how many stairs there are.

So they are working with a grade that's difficult.

So I would say they have

met what Council said.

They have considered it.

It is not required.

If you all deem it to be something that they should do, you can have that discussion.

And I just will say about the color, you know,

My bad on that.

This is what happens when you see something up on the big screen versus the little.

I would not recommend the green.

I would not recommend something off from the color palette as was presented.

So just to be clear on where I stand.

But if you all feel strongly that one way or the other, again, it's something you might want to clarify with them.

I don't think I have any questions other than just to say I appreciate the progress that's been made.

I think it makes sense.

And I'm remembering, oh, God, was it three years ago?

The Planning Commission had a work session on this item with the design team and me.

I recommend looking specifically at 1707 JPA, which I think you did.

So I'm pleased to see that.

I do see influence here.

So thank you for listening and doing.

Mr. D'Oronzio, I turn back to you.

So a couple of questions bubbling beneath the surface have been answered, so I'm good.

Thank you very much.

I believe we understand.

And now I ask, what do you want to do with this?

Let's do a round-robin on this.

I like where they are.

I think a number of amendments have been suggested by Mr. Warner, and I think Ms.

Thank you.

I'll come back to you.

Ms.

Yes, I agree, and there I think are a couple of things to add around the stucco.

I don't remember what the first discussion of light pollution was, but

Yes, I mentioned maybe a condition about if the breeze blocks become an issue, they could be blocked out, made opaque.

And I don't think the color of the interior, I'm not even sure that's, is it in our purview, if you can see it from the entrance corridor?

I don't know.

I would look for guidance on that.

But I think it's going to be something where, as you said, the owner may say, hey, you know what, I don't think my tenants are going to really want to look at this green out their window all day long.

so I don't feel strongly about that Mr. Schwartz yeah I'm leaning towards approval with some of the conditions we've mentioned I guess I just want to make sure that you know things happen during the site plan process so like the site plan that we're looking at substantially should be there with all those trees or the majority of them I'm assuming that's a given but

kind of had to say that and you know I just got a small opportunity for a soapbox I mean we talked about the gray it's an aesthetic choice I don't think the argument that it makes a building recede or go away works but I think it's an aesthetic choice and I'm fine with it as that I know it's sometimes used as an argument and it

Yeah, I probably agree.

I don't totally hate the project.

It's not how I would have architected it, but they didn't give me an architect's license.

For the two big open questions, I think, is what to do about the bright colored panels.

I don't completely hate them either, but I do feel like they...

break the flow of the whole project and are the thing most likely to piss a lot of people off.

And I think just making those some more muted color would be helpful.

And then on the multi-use path, I don't know if this makes sense as a condition, but I would like, you know, I'd like at least for them to consider and will to do to add bike runnels to those stairs so that you can roll a bike down there, even if you, you know, have to dismount and don't have to like drag them down the stairs.

I'm still

kind of concerned about the garage breeze blocks out front.

Just, I think the programming and part of it mitigates it, but if there is no programming and, you know, maybe the trellises don't work out for the climbing plants, you end up with a very long link wall

in the front that's basically just a garage that, you know, our new zoning ordinance talks about not having blank walls of that length.

And so I just want to make sure that they do that well.

I don't really have a condition to propose.

I think the one about not having headlights flaring out that Commissioner Russell's mentioning might make sense for that, though.

Thank you.

Can't get my green light to come on.

Here we go.

I appreciated Commissioner Schwartz's comment about how the site plan should, if there's trees on the site plan, they should show up in the end.

I'd add to that the biofilter areas.

I know those are important to stormwater management, but I'd hate to see those get

value managed out, so to speak.

Just briefly, I think it's significant progress.

I'm very pleased to see it.

Yeah, I think kind of what everyone said, the green, when I looked at it on the big screen, I will say the projector makes it brighter than looking at the PDF.

It might be better if it was a slightly more muted color.

If we can't see it from the entrance corridor, then it could be whatever you guys want, but I'd go with more muted there.

And would we be able to put a condition on the vine system since it wasn't in the images?

Is that something we can add?

And then say, and or if that doesn't work, do what Commissioner Russell suggested by blocking the bricks from the inside?

Is that something I guess?

I'm thinking of

Thank you.

Thank you.

Something that BAR looked at, talked about slats at like, you know, almost like a shutter at a certain level, because you're not, you know, you're really, what's the height that you're trying to block that light from?

So, I mean, there are ways to do that.

I guess you could leave it to them.

You could make a suggestion on how, but tell them it has to be done.

But really, try not to...

I think totally enclose an opening, so if you only have to worry about this height, then it could probably be screened in some way.

You know, it's Valentine's Day.

It's late.

I'm starting to wither on you.

But I will say Carl is outstanding at making motions and capturing those things.

Jeff, good question.

Thank you, sir.

Happy Valentine's Day.

So this is all kind of, and I know I was thinking at the end I could kind of do a, you know, debrief kind of what's different here and what's different from the BAR process.

Yes, you can request materials.

We've had discussions about 3D models and renderings versus, I think, only had one project where it had an actual model.

But this is where those initial discussions

and I'll say for this project if it wasn't a historic district there would be a required preliminary discussion so it wouldn't it would be for you in in that discussion and that's where I always say the BAR what do you want to see what information is missing what's you know we try to iron it out so that we get to an application that's approvable it's a little

Oh, Ms.

Creasy, back in the old days, going back to 2006, we actually did get samples of the materials that we're reviewing.

But yeah, I guess generally I am supportive Thank you Additional comments?

I would also entertain a motion at this time

I would propose a motion to approve.

I'm going to need help with the stucco provision, but I would move to approve generally that the design is consistent with the guidelines with conditions as outlined in the staff report as well as, and here's where we're going to start,

Wardsmithing it.

Stucco provision.

I can read it if you'd like.

The stucco will be a durable synthetic material mechanically fastened over appropriate drainage mats and a code compliant water resistant barrier.

In addition, a condition that bike runnels be included in their rear multi-use path.

A condition that no tree uplights are on the landscape plan.

I think that's what the

Yeah, so they had landscape uplighting as TBD.

Landscape uplighting.

No landscape uplighting.

But to include trees and biofilter as generally shown on the landscape plan.

And then finally, you know, to

ensure that if light pollution from the garage out of exiting the breeze blocks becomes problematic to pedestrians, to the neighborhood, the owner will look at blocking, obscuring that in some way from the inside.

So there's some variation of what recommended or is this in addition to?

This was in addition to yours.

That's what I heard.

I hear a second.

Discussion on this item?

No.

I like the green panels.

I just think it will work itself out personally.

Well, I won't make a fuss about it then.

Ms.

I would just like to suggest that we make that headlight layer motion just blanket.

Sorry, I got it really dark here.

The

The whole problematic language, I feel like, is sort of vague.

And I feel like it'll just be easier if we say screen headlight flare from the inside and just avoid having any amount of headlight flare.

Does that make sense?

That does.

What the problem is, is then tomorrow I'm trying to type this up and I got the errs and ums.

And does that make sense?

And it's so trying to make sure that we've got something that's enforceable and legible.

Screen headlight area.

That is, and I just would like to maybe suggest, I know when I spoke about the interior lighting in the garage, it was really zeroing in on that garage entrance, and I just

thinking now about this, all of a sudden we've got UVA tennis courts lights blasting out of this south elevation.

So are you saying in addition to your point about the lighting visible at the garage entrance, what is the addition?

Yep.

And then eliminate the word entrance.

And then there is the, I just simply noted, the screening of the vehicle lighting within the garage at the south elevation, specifically headlight level.

That's...

Between the two of us, we'll get it.

All right, sorry, thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Ms.

Additional discussion on this item?

Ms.

Sure.

Mr. D'Oronzio?

Aye.

Mr. Mitchell?

Yes.

Ms.

Russell?

Yes.

Thank you all very much.

At this time I would like to close discussion of 2005 JPA and turn to what we all really want to talk about, zoning.

Who would like to start us off on this?

Ms.

All right.

Good evening, everybody.

So again, our intention for this evening, we don't have a presentation.

Our intention for this evening is really just to prepare ourselves for your work session on the 28th.

And to that end, we had sent an email back on Friday the 10th with some questions.

Again, this has helped us to kind of focus in and narrow in that conversation.

We're aiming for our work session to be no more than

What?

Six?

No, two to three hours, yeah?

And there's a lot to cover in Module 1, so we want to make sure we've focused the conversation appropriately.

And at this point, it's really not our intention to do a big, long presentation, but more take the perspective that you guys have studied the materials, reviewed them closely, reviewed everything that we put up on the web at that point in time.

we'll also have at that point in time had our community meetings steering committee meeting is before or after this I can't recall it's after this so that that won't have already occurred but there'll be a lot of materials out there and so rather than not doing a presentation reserving most of the time for discussion

So I'm going to read the questions again, and I think the floor is yours from there.

Great.

All of them.

Okay.

That's exactly what it was said, but I was surprised we had to say, but not remember in the discussion.

Yeah, and I'll note that module two will have the detailed actual ordinance language that implements that, what you see in that summary.

Okay.

We just, given that affordable housing is a key aspect of this, we thought it was useful to have a summary of that, even though we didn't have the ordinance language yet.

Yeah, it's going to be.

Again, the question I was asked, I couldn't answer it.

And we're focusing in, and I don't remember the use table off the top of my head, but as Virginia's law is constructed in terms of a special use permit, it actually really focuses more on uses

rather than scale and those types of things.

And I'll reiterate the point that I made earlier.

This is wonderful.

I love just being able to look at this and figure out what you can do.

Yeah.

Yeah, I do second Commissioner Mitchell's comments on the intent, not only to provide clarity in general, but only to stymie and frustrate wannabe originalists trying to figure out what's what there.

As far as what I'm hearing, I'm not hearing a whole lot that more has to do with my hermitage than anything else, but I have been in touch with a couple of contractors who are rummaging through it now.

There's that.

As far as topics in consideration, I am interested in the mechanics and logistics of the special use permit question.

I'm also interested, there's a lot of reference to this proposed tentative sensitive areas overlay that we're thinking about.

I'd like to get one level less abstraction on that.

just to sort of set, and if only so that we can sort of see how this sort of integrates, it might or might not, because that is extremely fuzzy to me now.

And I'm sure I've got other stuff, but those are sort of the main points.

And I think, I get the sub-lock concept, but I think it would be helpful that instead of

Okay, yeah, that sounds good.

Thanks.

I had a few questions.

Some stuff I heard and some stuff just reading through.

One question was on like site plan.

So we are working through those questions with our outside legal counsel, and so I'm going to defer for the time being.

Strictly speaking, unless you have an affirmative governmental action, which is an approved site plan of any type or a building permit or anything like that,

But you also got to figure out where you draw those lines.

Yeah.

I had a personal question on just elevation determination and the finished level from that.

The residential level says it's two feet above the elevation determination and that I guess concerns me because Charlottesville is very hilly.

first of all with the grade level termination and it brings issues about accessible entry and how you can accomplish that, especially with, you know, we won't be aesthetically pleasing or practical to have ramps going into every

place even if you have the space for it.

And then you also look, you know, thinking of living situations where you have kind of like a walkout basement because it works with the grade where you have a couple steps down from the grade elevation and then you take a couple steps up into the first floor or second floor living space depending on how you look at it.

This feels like that would eliminate that being an option.

So just questions on how that works and those are my concerns with it.

Then on the just entrance requirements, not any concerns, just a question, like, would something like the code building, for example, be able to be done, given that I don't know what the downtown zoning is, but, you know, when you have, like, say, 40 feet from one entrance to the other, and you have this big, great change.

Sometimes you're hitting a place where you're between two floors and you have to put a door in.

I don't know.

It can get tricky.

Last question, and I can top these up for you, is about lots that span multiple zones and how that can get, you know, reconciled.

you have to change the so zoning lines are independent of lot lines right as a generally as a convenience we draw the zoning lines at lot lines when we do the zoning map but but those zoning lines exist legally independently of the lot lines so in your example of somebody merging two lots that are straddle zoning boundary you would have to rezone that but you also or you could move forward

I had the same thought about wanting to, as you said, game out examples.

I also just think, I think I process things through examples, so like just scenarios, what could be done in different lots, and I know that's kind of

been indicated through massing, but maybe I'm more thinking about either different sized lots in different neighborhoods or different scenarios where there is an existing building and what those kind of examples, you know, we have Belmont existing buildings and we have Locust Avenue existing buildings.

Yeah.

And it's really, I mean, to further clarify it, it's anything over four, right?

Not defined in terms of its massing, but in a bonus height situation, are there then step back and massing stipulations?

Right.

And just off the top of my head, it is a Module 2 issue, but off the top of my head, it would depend on the requirements within the district or like in transitions where we're looking at a higher intensity next to a lower intensity to zoning districts.

We're looking at step backs as part of that transition.

Okay.

That's great.

Yeah, I'm not going to be a whole lot of help with this because I've gotten halfway through it and I've already started picking it apart and I'm not going to, the themes are going to come out over the next week or so as I continue to pick it apart.

But I do want to, you know, the sub lot thing, yes, similarly I'd like to know does it work, will it, what conditions would it not work, you know, what is,

when with the fire departments they know you can't do that I think there was a you know it either has to have a ten-foot vehicular access or a five-foot pedestrian access and that seemed interesting that it a five-foot pedestrian access work whereas I just yeah I'd like to know maybe analyze that a little bit more

And some of where my brain was going as I was looking at this is, yeah, all the, you know, when we have existing funky lots, what happens with the, you know, the setback requirements and things like that that are built in here.

And so I need to dig into it further to really come up with some good questions.

Okay, yeah.

Some lots, it's not going to work.

And I guess something I'd like to understand is what conditions would make it so it wouldn't work.

Right.

You know, it's, yeah.

What are some of the parameters that allows that to function or not function?

And remember, you know, other rules that exist out in the world don't go away.

Right.

So, for example, even if you're doing sublots and say you have a very, very deep lot,

and you want to just do, oh, I'm just going to do a five-foot pedestrian path back to some of these new lots that I'm going to build on back here.

If it's more than a, what's the word, hose pole, then it's not going to work.

Right.

It's the same one that's existing that we used today.

Yeah.

What is that?

I think it's 150 feet.

Is it?

Yeah.

Thanks.

I guess starting with things that I have heard.

First, I've heard people express concern about the prohibition on front yard parking, including driveways.

I know for a lot of the small scale residential forms we have in the city now, people have driveways in front that they park in.

sort of a, you know, minor or a cane question, but by my read of it, that would not be allowed anymore.

Obviously, it's not conforming, but as much as I hate to say it, many people do have cars and squeezing in parking where we can will be, I think, a big part of making all this work.

Another thing I've heard, people are pleased with the idea of being able to run a restaurant, a small restaurant or a coffee shop.

out of their house.

And personally, I think it is a good idea to make that by special use permit and do it case by case, at least until we have a bunch of precedents to see what works and what doesn't.

People were sad about the fact they could not run a pub out of their basement, even by special use permit.

Personally, for my questions, and I have not reviewed it as thoroughly as I'd hoped to by now,

for a variety of reasons.

But I have lots, I think, kind of answered the questions about the bonuses versus the 100% affordable, kind of almost an overlay concept.

So I understand what we're going with for now.

I have problems with that.

I would like to have a discussion about that.

I don't know that that is a module 1-1 or a module 2 thing.

But at some point, I think we should talk about it.

And then lastly, I still have a lot of hurtburn about the height reduction we're contemplating in the RA zone relative to the current R zones, R1 and R2 zones, the 10% at least, and kind of, you know, how I think maybe I could be convinced that that makes sense, the height reduction.

But, you know, thinking about how height and feet relates to height and stories,

and whether, you know, we're just going to get a lot of really tall stories where, you know, your 14-foot residential stories are going to be fairly high-end, whether it means a lot of mezzanines, you know, what that is going to look like.

One thing that came to mind, I'm surprised I didn't hear it, maybe it's not a problem.

Some of the districts have unlimited units and I think that's hard for me to get my head around what that means.

Obviously there's

Yeah, okay.

So just, you know, when you see that on paper, it's kind of like, whoa, what does that mean?

Can I just make all these small rooms or something?

Anyway, that would be one.

I think something Rory just said resonated with me.

What was the last thing you, Bessonins?

oh yeah the height or height so if it says five stories or 70 or it says five stories slash 72 feet does that mean it can't go over 72 feet if it's five stories or does that mean

It can be 72 feet and three stories.

Is there wiggle room there?

I guess.

You don't need to answer it now.

So I might ask to defer that to Module 2 because there's two things that we'll have with Module 2.

We'll have the actual ordinance language that is implementing the inclusionary zoning, which we don't have yet.

So there will be ordinance language separately implementing the bonus density granted in the RA, RB, and RC, which we've talked about a little bit tonight.

language implementing the inclusionary zoning.

The other thing we'll have as part of Module 2 is a separate document which will be our manual for implementing the inclusionary zoning.

Okay.

Then a question maybe for you.

We've got this topic area overviews sort of like

a little more approachable in the framework of I'm interested in the environment or historic preservation or affordable housing.

What am I going to find in this zoning ordinance?

And if there's any, I mean, if there's some of those in there that you've already flagged, we can talk about whether they fall in Module 1.

Looking forward to that.

My review is limited at this time, but I can tell you the answers I will try to find and maybe that will give you something.

I'm concerned about heights.

It's been a challenge for us for 10, 20 years.

So if we can get that crack, that's fantastic.

If we can get better, that's still good.

An issue that I've been thinking about a lot is stacked townhouses as sort of an ideal vehicle for affordable homeownership.

I'm going to be very interested to see how that works in this zoning.

Does this zoning work for that?

I understand that most zoning codes are not optimized for stacked townhouses at all.

It's always sort of packed in.

Because we have so many and because it's been such a challenge, slope sites in general,

if we can get it right, if we can just get it better.

Parking under to take advantage of slope, that's something we've seen in a few examples recently.

That's something that I'd like to encourage in the code if we are doing that.

A challenge that we were dealing with at the comp plan level is

Infield to match existing fine-grained urbanism.

We have a lot of older neighborhoods where there are small houses on small lots.

Are we delivering that with this code?

I'm not sure if it's 6,000 hits that or if it creates some odd structures.

Yeah.

Right.

So if there is an existing fine-grained urbanism.

Okay, that is suggested.

I'm thinking of 10th and page here, but there are other examples.

And daycare uses.

I have no idea.

Yeah, they're allowed in every use.

So I know the land use map is or the zoning map is based on land use map, but there are some

Are we going to have an opportunity to discuss any of that?

Discussing what about?

MR. You're right.

There's two in particular, right?

You have the medium intensity land use category is implemented by the RB and the RC, and decisions were made as to where those are applied.

And then the, I'm not going to remember what the land use category was on the map, but the CX-5 and the CX-8 are both implementing the same land use category where the note in that description of the land use category refers to greater heights being allowed at key intersections, right?

MR.

And I have some questions looking at the map.

Okay.

Awesome.

Thank you.

I understand you.

Other questions and concerns?

One more thing.

One more thing.

In the topic area overview, in the section on historic preservation, it talks about

you know we're discouraging full well we're encouraging adaptive reuse and retention of existing structures but only really seemingly in the RA

because that's where there's a preservation existing building bonus unit for preservation, right?

Right.

No, I wonder what you're saying.

So what's the rationale behind that?

how in R, B, and C, or maybe also A, the affordable housing needs to be 100% affordable.

How does the bonus height, I guess, work for the more intense zones that would actually be subject to IZ?

I know previously we talked about how that IZ has to come with incentives.

No, no, the bonus height is separate.

And I'm going to I'm going to defer that one to module two.

But basically the include.

So we've got the bonus density provisions in our A, our B and our C. And that's one section of the ordinance.

Inclusionary Zoning will be another section of the zoning ordinance that will apply in all other districts where there's at least 10 units being proposed.

Then you will also, under the inclusionary zoning, be able to seek bonus density if you do your inclusionary units at 50 percent of AMI rather than 60 percent of AMI.

Gotcha.

Okay.

So it feels like a pretty robust set of topics.

I think a good set of topics.

Sounds great.

Additional items you'd like to raise?

I would also entertain a motion at this time.

I think Phil's got a motion.

All right.

Yes, Mr. Chair, I have a motion.

Happy Valentine's Day.

In looking back on...

Looking back on St.

Valentine and the legend of St.

Valentine and how he came to this holiday, he was a saint, 3rd century AD, 276, 295, we're not sure.

And he came to his end for being a, by being, he was ordered beaten to death at work, he was then beheaded.

and supposedly this happened on February 14th.

As I was doing a little bit of research in this, I realized that he is the patron saint of epileptics.

He's also the patron saint of beekeepers.

And as I was contemplating that, I realized and did a little research, and there is no patron saint of planning commissioners.

But I would submit to you that as we go forth into the night, that we consider Saint Denis, Saint Denis, Paris.

And here's why.

also a third century and he was speaking truth and he was ordered beaten to death and that didn't work and then his head was ripped off and the legend has it that he picked up his own head and walked several miles while continuing to speak the truth.

I hear a motion and second.

Can I see thumbs?

Amen.

I see thumbs.