Planning Commission Meeting   3/14/2023

I want to introduce myself.

Hello, Andrew McRoberts.

I'm with Sands Anderson in Richmond, and we've been acting as the county attorney, excuse me, city attorney for the last, I guess, month or so.

Thank you.

Strange process question, which is, I guess, what I do.

I have a request to clarify something that didn't happen, which is hard for me, procedurally.

There is a public perception that a planning commissioner violated our bylaws.

My understanding is that that didn't happen.

It's just that there is no violation.

This is my understanding.

If you could, I think that would be the best way to do it.

Thank you.

We are down Mr. Mitchell and Ms.

I have my head in order.

Apologies for the delay.

Very procedurally complicated planning commission meeting for me.

More manageable, not simpler.

Welcome all, thank you for coming.

Do we have enough planning commissioners to start every meeting?

Fantastic.

That works for me.

We have so much to talk about, oh my God.

So I'd just like to go run down the list here.

Consent agenda.

We've already had one thing pulled.

Do we want to pull anything else from the consent agenda or are we good with it as it stands?

We pulled 2005.

Correct.

Okay.

I thought so.

This is an abundance of caution, noticing the timing issue.

They want to make sure that there's a vote on it.

Let me turn on my microphone.

Watch your microphone.

There we go.

Sure.

So pertaining to 2005 JPA, we discovered following the meeting last month that the ERB there had been a miss in some of the advertisement for the code.

and so we caught it in time to put it back on this agenda.

So Mr. Warner is prepared to provide just a little summary of why it's on the agenda as well as some technical information that will help with some of the concerns that we receive from the community.

It's not super related to the ERB review, but I think when we talked about the Shake Shack drive-through, there was some talk of making the sidewalk into a shared use path because it's wide enough.

I don't know.

Okay.

No.

They're still under review.

Okay.

Are we in the consent agenda?

We're okay on it?

Mr. D'Oronzio, do you have a motion in mind for that one?

Sure.

No, no, we're not at 530 yet.

When we are there.

I understand.

Fantastic.

You understand.

2005 JPA.

We can go deep.

We can go so deep on 2005 JPA.

Yes, there's damn green panels.

Well, I mean, unless we're going to discuss the addition of gargoyles, I'm perfectly content to make it.

I made a mistake on the sign.

I thought it was seven days, ten days.

But they, primarily, we've also received multiple letters about, well, the assumption that the COA had been approved, then they appealed to city council.

But they'll have to do that again following

could have been on consent agenda and just simply that we had to re-appetize.

I don't think anything's changed, nothing's changed.

I think it would be helpful for the public once we get to that item depending on where we are timing wise to have Mr. Warner just give a brief presentation about why it's come back so that there's less confusion give a couple of give some of the highlights of some of the explanations for some of the concerns that have been received and if you all are okay then

then we've got a copy of last month's motion if folks wanted to move forward with that or we can have further discussion.

Yeah, I think it'd be helpful to at least acknowledge some of the things that have been expressed and then offer a brief response.

I mean, at least it's

Thank you.

Last call on 2005 JPA.

Hearing none.

1120 Avon, my understanding is that it is withdrawn.

The public hearing will not be taking place.

Correct.

It is withdrawn.

We have tried in the few hours in between to let

folks who have been interested in this project know what occurred.

We do anticipate that we'll have some people come virtually or in person or both or some combination.

We're going to encourage those individuals if they do want to speak that we have matters from the public on our agenda that's open to anything that folks want to speak about except for the other hearing.

but that this action, both of these actions are gone and we don't have anything to discuss on those specifically because they have been formally taken out.

I don't mind explaining that process or between the two of us we can explain that process and

so folks understand where it landed and if, you know, what happens, how it could come back again if there was interest there.

We definitely want to communicate status so that people, you know, have an explanation.

We need to do that early in the agenda.

Yes.

Just put yourself on loop every 20 minutes.

Indeed.

Okay.

We're talking about a two-minute limit for public comment because of the great interest, especially in Avon.

The individuals who had signed up or had interest in the Avon earlier, I definitely had communicated the two minutes.

If we're going to stick with two minutes, we need to add that to our explanation.

We may not have the same volume, but I don't know that we're going to know.

This is tricky.

I'm looking to my fellow commissioners.

Two minutes or three minutes.

We would want to be consistent.

Is that?

What we've done in the past is we...

If we finish the items, we can.

It's till 6.

I don't have any objection to going back to three minutes.

My guess is that more people are interested in speaking on 2005 JPA, which would be they'd want to get in before we approve it.

Well, I mean, we, you know, Well, right now we're three, and if we go to two, then the chair will need to declare that at the beginning of the meeting and throughout so that we communicate that since three is a standard.

But as long as we start the meeting with a specific timeframe, we're okay.

My current thinking is to start with two.

Okay.

just because we've been talking about it and it seems reasonable to me.

Sure.

Okay, Chair, so when you start the meeting, after you do your welcome, you're going to want to talk about the two minutes and then talk about the Avon Street, or you can pass it to me if you need me to do some of that.

Thank you.

It's a lot of pieces tonight.

Zoning ordinance.

I was concerned that this would be an 11.30 p.m.

conversation, and maybe it won't be now, maybe.

Well, we did not prepare anything specific because we saw that we had quite the agenda.

We do have some updates that we can share, and they'll probably be of interest to the public, so it'd be great to do that in the beginning.

when we do our report.

Yes.

But if there is other discussion and you all feel like the hour is okay, it's advertised for it.

Okay.

there has been great interest in the zero east high application you may have gotten an email or two about this in the last few days sure it was very exciting to come come through all of that so we in that same report will give you an update of where that is procedurally and

My understanding is that the Planning Commission may formally request public review of the site plan if we wish.

I cannot do that by myself.

Yeah, I will.

I would do it by email, naming NCCing the person who is with me.

Okay, I have Mr. D'Oronzio with me.

Again, I believe it's an administrative review, so I don't know, or not administrative, I'm sorry.

Ministerial.

Thank you, ministerial review.

So I'm not expecting any dramatic shifts or surprises, but we can do what we can do.

And that is everything.

No, that can't be right.

PUDZTA.

I guess they said they're going to submit, they're ready to submit next month.

Well, from a procedure standpoint, whatever you all's recommendation will go forward to Council, and that requires two readings.

And so then an application can come forward.

it usually once it comes forward and to work through the processes can take a month or two before it is scheduled for a hearing and ready for hearing and then it would be public hearing and then it would have two readings before city council as well so if the two hearings are not finished before if we approve our zoning code rewrite before those two hearings are done what happens does it just go away

yes that is a question that we have in with our legal counsel on the on the zoning ordinance timing and transitions of things and so yes that is a wonderful question and we well with the new zoning ordinance if the new zoning ordinance is enacted and set at that point in time the

Sounds like a lot of fun.

Sorry.

Potentially, but a lot of the things that are being recommended in the zoning ordinance currently are allowing us to move forward with our comprehensive plan goals in a way that we haven't been able to do so with the PUD ordinance.

There have been so many topics.

I hesitate to go through them again.

I don't think so.

I think you were probably talking about what we're discussing in the end of the zoning discussion we're supposed to have at the end of this.

Yes.

Very good.

I have a question.

Does it make sense to say

Sure.

Any other sort of questions about PUDZTA?

Hearing none, I turn your attention to the 501 Cherry preliminary discussion.

Okay.

And that's everything on my long, long list.

Anything else that you want to do?

Is the tree commission thing still happening?

The tree commission is still on my list, yes.

You can ask questions about that if you want.

Shall we do a short break until 5.30?

Yes, please.

Very good.

I would like to start the Charlottesville Planning Commission meeting for March 14, 2023.

Let's see.

I'd like to start with Commissioner Reports.

Actually, I've got a note before we start Commissioner Reports.

which I will remember that for tonight because of quite a bit of public interest we would like to hold to a two minute limit for public comment and the applicant for 1120 Avon has withdrawn the application so there is no public hearing

currently planned for 1120 Avon.

If you do want to speak on 1120 Avon, that will be matters for the public during the 6 p.m.

I'm sorry, during the segment, during the segment, before 6 p.m.

And now I would like to start with reports.

Sure, it's more...

informational aspirational than substantive so the Charlottesville affordable housing fund committee has met three times with a fourth meeting this Friday that involved both the portion of the vibrant community fund that's now called hops housing operations and support

and CAF funding.

We've made preliminary decisions on the former that we are holding in abeyance until we've reviewed the latter because there's some overlap.

And CBDG meets tomorrow to get rolling to come before you, I think, in April.

And the reconstituted hack is meeting tomorrow at noon to reconstitute.

I had a meeting with the tree commission on the 7th and I'll be hearing from them later this evening on the state of the urban forest.

During that meeting we nominated nine trees for protection and they should come before city council and

We discussed the importance of having strategies on how to incorporate large existing trees into the new form-based code, how we can have some, you know, methods to protect those and also allow for room for new trees to be planted that are going to be large canopy trees and how that meshes into the code.

So we're eagerly looking forward to Module 2.

Then I have a Citizen Transportation Advisory Committee meeting tomorrow.

So I'll report on that the next month.

So I missed the BPAC meeting this month, but I understand that the large portion of the discussion involved the dockless mobility and the city's attempts to kind of rein that in a little bit and renew their lease with whatever, I forget the company that we're using now.

Veo.

Veo, thank you, yes.

I know that, I see that every single day, but anyways.

For the BAR in February, there is nothing of interest except for we got another project that's going to be appealed to council, but that was 104 Stadium Road.

I talked about this a little bit at our work session.

It's a parcel that about 10 years ago, council declared and turned into an IPP and the BAR didn't really feel like it was our place to reverse that without councils kind of saying, yes, you can go ahead and reverse it.

Thank you.

Thanks.

I had my first meeting of the Downtown Mall Committee.

It's an impressive and very large group of stakeholders.

We will be working out all the Downtown Mall's problems over the next year or so.

Oh, yeah.

We'll have them all

All sorted.

All sorted, yeah.

So it'll be an exciting next several months as it gets ramped up.

That was pretty much introductions last time and a very interesting oral history of the origins of them all.

I am, and thanks for having me virtually.

Sorry I couldn't be there tonight.

Yeah, just a couple things.

I mean, obviously, we have a number of large projects going on at Ivy Corridor.

The McIntyre School is doing an expansion onto Cobb Hall over by Brandon Avenue, that area, and JPA, as well as...

at the athletics area.

There's a new athletics building for Olympic sports, but before that, a football operations building.

So all those facilities, and then just mentioned that there was a Board of Visitors meeting earlier this month, last week, and the outcome was that that was that

concepts, site and design guidelines, which is kind of the first step in the design process for capital projects at UVA, were approved for a number of projects at Fontaine to kind of enable the biotech institute that was announced.

for that site.

So that's going to include the institute, central utilities plant, and infrastructure to the roads and stormwater and all that, as well as a parking garage to support the added population at Fontaine.

And then there was another concept site design

guidelines approved for the Center for Politics, which is actually in the county off of Old Ivy Road.

It's a small research center.

It's small, but it's in the news a lot with Larry Sabato and the prognosticating that he does.

So yeah, that's it.

And I mentioned the Fontaine one.

That's also in the county.

But Hosea, if he was here, would probably recount the LUPEC meeting that he attended where

Fontaine is going to be kind of ground zero for a lot of projects coming up with us, the city and their smart scale project, as well as some VDOT county smart scale projects as well.

So there's going to be a lot going on there.

And RWSA, who is also replacing a lot of pipes in that vicinity.

So just, but that's all I have.

There's a brick apartment building group on Emmett there.

I saw it was fenced off.

Oh, yeah.

Sorry.

Yeah, I should have mentioned that.

It's called the University Gardens, and that's in the process of being removed.

It had come to its functional end.

I'll say the housing department or our housing office didn't want to

put in the very costly upgrades to keep it going.

So we're going to get rid of those buildings.

It's just going to sit for now.

We don't have a future use for it.

The parking that's there will remain, but

That's all I have on that site for now.

But yeah, if you see those buildings coming down, that's what's happening.

There was a lot of abatement over the winter of asbestos and other things and also removal of furniture and even finding a home for the boilers that were in there.

I heard somebody either accepted them as donation or bought them.

I'm not sure.

Of course.

Thank you.

I turn to myself.

The Charlottesville Plans Together Steering Committee met recently.

The discussion was wide ranging on a number of topics which did include zoning.

including trees on the downtown mall, fire code, a lot, a great deal of interest in, I think it's module two, which will have a great deal of clarity about questions, especially it looks like there will be incentives for reducing parking of some kind.

Want us to give our report?

Sure.

I'll go ahead and get started, and I'll turn it right over to James.

So there has been a lot of public comment the last couple of days concerning the Zero East High Street project.

wanted to let you all know that from a process standpoint that materials they're still in the comment review process on the preliminary and so the third round of comments has been sent and we notify interested parties when on high profile projects if people ask

and so once we sent that out there were a lot of people that chose to express their concerns and comments about the project and so that kind of that spurred that that current opportunity that folks took to share those comments with you all.

my understanding is that so the code allows for the commission even though this is a ministerial review the the code does allow for the commission to call up a site plan that wouldn't necessarily come forward and I understand that we are likely to get

paperwork from this body to do that.

And so we would schedule that once it is further along in the process because there are still a lot of comments that remain.

Now there are lots of other things that are going on with this site in general, but that is our little piece of the puzzle.

And so

Yeah, we have a very interested public and we're trying to do the best we can to make sure that they have the knowledge that we have for it.

Thank you.

And then we do have a work session scheduled for March 29th.

Remember, that's Wednesday.

We moved it from the Tuesday to the Wednesday to accommodate a conflict that Council had.

All right.

Good evening, Chairman, members of the Commission.

Good to see you all this evening.

So I have the pleasure or whatever to share where we are schedule-wise.

Basically, given circumstances really outside of our control, I'm having to exercise what I said early on that we may need to change our release schedule.

and at this point we're looking at rather than being able to release Module 2 this week, we're aiming now for a release date of March 29th.

and I wish it weren't the case but circumstances arose at the end of last week and being this week that kind of put us in the position that we need to push out where we are.

So we're anticipating for that work session meeting that what we'll use that time for is for staff primarily to do a presentation and introduction to the key components of Module 2 for the Planning Commission and City Council.

at that meeting.

As you guys know, there's some pretty significant components in it, in particular, everything to do with inclusionary zoning, sensitive communities, and all of that.

So I imagine there'll be a presentation on that, and then we'll also present on the other components that are within there, landscaping, parking, signs, and so on.

Okay.

We're going to aim for like a late morning, noonish release.

Okay.

You had, or I think the website had said they were trying to get

the majority of the feedback by April 1st.

Is that date going to be changed?

No, Module 1, yeah.

Module 1 is, it's actually the 30th.

Oh, okay.

It's all right.

A lot of dates floating around.

Yeah.

And really, we're doing that just to allow us to keep moving things forward.

I think last time you mentioned that you were going to compile all the suggested map changes to a document.

No, we were planning on having that by the time – what we're aiming for is when we do the open house events for Module 2 that we would have – oh, by the way, here are the things that we're looking at from Module 1 so that there's a clear indication of both that we've received the comments and that we're moving forward with reviewing those and taking next steps on each of them.

The resolution of what we do with those comments, with the proposed map changes, with other comments we've received, and they're obviously pretty extensive, that would come in the next consolidated draft when all three modules are brought together into one document.

but in terms of identifying all those things that we're investigating further about the list of substantive aspects of the module one and the map changes that we'll have in time for that open house.

We are looking now, we had previously been looking at the notion of doing a open house for module two and a separate open house for module three and I think it makes more sense at this point to do an open house for both module two and module three and instead of doing one

Open House Reach will do two open houses in different parts of the city, as much as we did for Module 1.

Additional questions on all this?

Thank you very much.

Absolutely.

I see 547, let's talk 2005 JPA.

Too many things.

Apologies, I'm doing my best.

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

As I noted, the application for Avon has been withdrawn, so this is your opportunity to speak on Avon.

We are observing a two-minute limit because of the great public interest tonight.

all right so we are going to handle this procedurally as we have in past meetings we will first ask if there is anyone in our in-person audience who would like to speak on matters from the public and then we will move to our virtual audience and we will alternate until everyone has had an opportunity

Good evening, good afternoon.

Chairman and Commissioners, my name is Sam Galland.

I live at 123 Goodman Street.

I want to speak tonight on the East High Street proposal to build apartments on the former circus grounds down by the river.

The proposal is concerning because it involves a massive amount of filled dirt that would be placed in the 100-year floodplain to elevate the buildings and the surface parking.

I think it would be in the neighborhood of about 50,000 cubic yards of fill in addition to the buildings and the impervious parking areas.

Filled dirt is the worst way to elevate structures because it increases the risk of flooding the properties around it and on a large enough scale it can also change the flow and velocity of the river in flood events.

Of course, this proposal has not come to the Planning Commission, but it does include public facilities, new streets, the widening of Caroline Avenue, and the extension and rerouting of sewer and water lines.

State code requires that the Planning Commission review proposals for public facilities and make a determination as to whether they are substantially in accord with the comprehensive plan before the facilities are authorized.

The exception is if the facilities are considered by the city to already be shown on the comprehensive plan.

With respect to this proposal, I think it's clear that those facilities are not shown on the comprehensive plan.

You guys spent a lot of time writing the Comp Plan, a very long time, and I supported it.

I think it's a very good comprehensive plan, and I think it would be a shame if you ignored that section of state code and one of the most important roles of the Comp Plan and of the Planning Commission as well.

It sounds like the site plan may be coming to the Planning Commission at some point, and if that happens, perhaps the comprehensive plan determination could happen at the same time.

All right, I'll turn to our virtual audience.

If you're interested in speaking from our virtual audience, if you would raise your hand in the Zoom application.

If you're on a phone, I don't see anyone on a phone, but if you are on a phone, you would hit star nine and that would raise your hand.

Do we have anyone interested in speaking?

Remy, I'm not able to see that listing We have no raised hands at this time Thank you so much We'll go back to our in-person audience Is there anyone in person who would like to speak during matters from the public?

All right, I see no hands here.

Okay, thank you all.

I'd like to close the public comment at this time.

Ooh, thank you very much.

Let us consider a consent agenda.

Yes, sir.

I would move that we accept to accept the consent agenda with the amended consent agenda, which removes item 2, 2005 JPA.

I hear a second.

Aye.

Thank you very much.

Good evening to you all.

So I'll start with just a summary of the request and then get into why we're having this tonight.

Again, this is the development of a 1.7-acre, three parcels.

The existing structure will be raised to construct a multi-story brick and stucco apartment building with a footprint of approximately 312 feet by 155 feet.

The building will feature two five-story wings separated by a courtyard and atop a two-story brick foundation or podium, which provides a street-level primary entrance and encloses an internal parking garage accessed off of Washington Avenue.

and you all reviewed this a month ago on February 14, 2023.

The result was an approval of the COA, a 7-0 vote that approved the motion for approval with conditions.

However, there was an error regarding the public notice posted at the site, which I'll explain, and so that's why we're here this evening.

So like I said,

I haven't typically put up the signs and I thought the EC signs had a week and they need to go up in 10 days so I put this one up eight days ahead and

but that was pointed out by some of the neighbors and so in the discussion it was decided to simply re-advertize it and get that correct so we did have a new signpost on the site actually on February 28th and I put up two additional signs, one on Observatory Ave and one on Washington Ave.

on March 1st, and the new notice letters were also sent out.

But with all of that, just so you all are aware, they received several letters of appeal to the February 14th decision.

Those are appeals to city council.

and just wanted to kind of try to address at least sort of I tried to go through and kind of say what were the the key comments and maybe just to offer some context for those so and for example one of the questions is you know what are the actual height the density density doesn't fall under your purview

that was established by the Special Use Permit and also the maximum height of 75 feet was established by Council's approval of the Special Use Permit.

The applicant's here tonight so certainly can answer any dimension questions you have.

There were a lot of comments about massing and scale.

For example, it's not compatible with existing structures.

It's extremely large.

Nothing like the surrounding residences, overwhelming, inappropriate, et cetera.

All I can say is that you all reviewed the COA request on February 14th, and you applied the EC standards of review, and the COA was approved.

There were comments about the plan not

representing modifications that were required by the ERB.

I don't know what that means.

Nothing's changed since you all reviewed it on February 14th.

A lot of comments about the height and

You know, five stories out of character with the neighborhood.

It dwarfs any other buildings.

It's tall and gargantuan.

It doesn't fit within the neighborhood, et cetera.

And references to the guidelines and projects of a certain height relative to neighboring properties with smaller, lower buildings.

Again, I can only say that you all reviewed the project COA on February 14th, and you applied the standards of review and approved the COA.

There are quite a few general concerns expressed, obviously, you know, concerns for traffic congestion, noise, light pollution, several comments about

The number of people in the unit, the service personnel that will result in noise, human activity that needs to be managed.

And again, I understand concerns ahead of a development project, but you all do not have, or the ERB does not have purview over traffic control.

And I don't know, by the way, do they have to gavel into the ERB so I don't forget.

And then you don't have purview over traffic control, you don't have purview over uses that are allowed by zoning, and certainly don't have purview over police in the city.

So I don't mean those to sound disrespectful, it's just simply what's under your purview.

And again, you reviewed the thing on February 14th and approved it.

comments about it doesn't fit with existing zoning.

The project is presented tonight and in February, is permitted under current zoning with the approved special use permit.

Some questions about the materials.

We had talked about the drive it.

I know there was a comment about the color, but we did have a condition in the approvals.

The stucco will be a durable synthetic material, which is mechanically fastened over appropriate change mats, et cetera, et cetera.

So that was addressed in the condition.

A lot of comments about traffic, parking, and the garage.

Again, understandable about traffic concerns ahead of a project, but you all do not have purview over traffic management.

You don't have purview over parking violations or accessibility of emergency vehicles, or even some recommendations of restricting parking on Observatory in Washington Avenue.

That does not fall under your purview.

Also, there's a condition of the special use permit that the owner develop a master parking plan.

There was concern expressed about vehicles entering and exiting the garage would be noisy and would have headlights beaming on to adjacent properties, obviously.

But other than to prohibit on-site parking, I don't know how you prevent cars entering and exiting a site from shining on adjacent buildings, wherever that entrance is.

There was a recommendation to require two garage entrances, possibly consider an alternative onto JPA.

Again, you all approved it following the standards and also the guidelines for parking.

They recommend reducing the visibility of garages by not having them on the primary facade and to locate them where this is located.

So in fact, putting the entrance on JPA would be in conflict with the guidelines.

There were several questions about screening and mechanical equipment.

Again, you all included two conditions relative to the screening of mechanical utility service boxes,

and any ground level mechanical equipment.

Concerns about site lighting, for example, the suggestion that properly situated lighting will help, recommend low strength outdoor lighting, exterior lights need to be more specific.

Lighting was addressed as a specific condition in the COA, the usual stuff about the color temperature, dimmability, et cetera.

Comment about the landscaping that the project would destroy mature trees and trees will take 20 years to grow.

There is a condition in the COA about the number of size type of trees that is consistent, be consistent with the plans.

Approximately 25 existing trees will be removed, 18 of them range between 4 and 15 inches, 7 will be considered mature trees ranging between 20 and 40 inches.

New trees will be approximately 70, 17 large canopy, 10 medium canopy, 25 small flowering, and 18 evergreen.

several comments about the trash and recycling the dumpsters will be loud debris and odor traffic dump trash truck traffic trash pickup timing etc the means that it's done is not under your purview a condition of the approved COA addressed dumpsters and trash and recycling bins be located within the garage so you address that

Several comments about the rear pathway.

Needs to be efficient for all users.

Concerns about ADA accessibility.

Suggestion that steps be eliminated and bike runnels be eliminated.

This is behind the building, so you almost in some ways wouldn't fall under your view, but you did review it and it was approved with the COA.

Several concerns about construction activity, noise, traffic, parking, how cranes and might disrupt, make the streets impassable.

Those are not issues that are under your purview.

And then finally, several questions about affordable housing.

Will this project provide affordable housing?

That this is a place that will luxury units that cater to the wealthy.

how the space is used, what the rents are.

It's not under your purview, but I will say I'm not aware of any rents or anything being advertised or discussed.

So those are the comments that I've received trying to summarize as best I can.

Questions for staff?

Point of order.

Please.

This is an excellent point.

I did.

And, well, there was, yeah, that it hadn't been resolved.

And I think, you know, that was one of the comments.

Was asking if it had been.

Any additional questions for staff?

So can I float a question for maybe three of you?

I don't want to rehash this whole thing, but I am still concerned about the green panels.

And if they were just a splash of color and artistic flair, I would begrudge you your bad taste.

But I note that the conceptual signage that isn't approved next to the door

is the same color of green.

And so it seems to me that they probably fall under design guidelines, chapter four, section F color, number six, do not use strong color that has the effect of turning the entire building into a sign.

And it seems to me that if this color of green is the theme for the building, these panels could be considered in violation of that section.

maybe we should add a condition that they be turned into a more muted color.

Conversation on this subject?

I'd agree.

I think the only, yeah, within our purview, the only thing that I still feel iffy about was the green panel.

Correct.

I also do not agree.

There's some parentheticals in there, but that's, you know, just to kind of, like, for example, clarify on the lighting, but yeah, you can read that verbatim.

Would you like me to read it?

All right, I'll do my best to do it as quickly as I can.

Having considered the standards set forth within the city's entrance corridor design guidelines, I move to find the proposed design for 2005 Jefferson Park Avenue is consistent with the guidelines and compatible with the goals of this entrance corridor and that the ERB approves the certificate of appropriateness application submitted with the following conditions of approval.

Glass will be clear at the locations noted in the staff report.

New railings, if required, will match the metal rail at the podium terrace as presented in this middle dated 12-20-2022.

All exterior lighting and interior lighting visible from the garage will have lamping that is dimmable, has a color temperature not exceeding 3000 Kelvin, has a color rendering index not less than 80, preferably not less than 90.

Additionally, the owner will address any reasonable public complaints about light glare by either dimming the lamp or replacing the lamp slash fixtures.

Note, this condition addresses two light sources.

Exterior lighting refers to all site and exterior lighting fixtures.

Interior lighting visible from the garage refers to all lighting fixtures within inside the garage.

Dumpsters and trash and or recycling bins to be located within the garage and pulled to the curb only on collection days.

If used for mechanical units, utilities slash service boxes, storage, trash containers, the MEC equip area noted on sheet 44 at the west elevation will be appropriately screened.

That screening will be subject to approval by design staff and must be memorialized as an amendment to the site plan.

Any ground level mechanical equipment and or utility boxes will be appropriately screened.

That screening will be subject to approval by design staff and must be memorialized as an amendment to the site plan.

Meters and panel boxes for utility communications and cable connections will be located preferably within the garage.

If not, then in non-prominent locations on the site elevations only and appropriately screened.

That screening will be subject to approval by design staff and must be memorialized as an amendment to the site plan.

Stucco used in the site will be a durable synthetic material which is mechanically fastened over appropriate drainage match with a code compliant water resistant barrier.

Bicycle runnels should be provided as part of the multi-use path at the rear of the site.

There will be no uplighting of landscaping on the site.

The number, size, type, and character of all plantings, trees, shrubs, et cetera, and the biofilter shall be installed and maintained in substantial accordance with the drawings.

Reference sheets 44 through 48 of the submittal dated 12, 20, 20, 22.

Screening of vehicular lighting at the south wall of the parking garage, particularly at headlight level, re-glare and brightness visible outside the garage.

I'll second.

Any conversation on this item?

Ms.

Sure.

Mr. D'Oronzio?

Aye.

Mr. Habab?

Aye.

Aye.

I just, you know, one final comment is, you know, I know the folks that the neighboring property owners

They again have the right to appeal.

This is now the approved COA and they have the right to appeal that.

I have a lot going on.

I can't promise when an appeal would get to counsel, but work that out with my bosses.

But yes, just to the folks out there, if they wish to appeal, then they can respond a second time that what was done prior does not constitute current appeal.

Duly noted.

I declare ourselves to no longer be the ERB and I wish to resume being the Planning Commission.

Apologies for the delay we had to discuss aesthetics.

Thank you for your patience.

The 1120 Avon application has withdrawn.

That public hearing will not take place.

Thank you for it.

Mr. Mayer, is counsel in order?

We are indeed.

Thank you very much.

At this time, I would like to consider a public hearing on a planned unit development zoning text amendment.

Good afternoon.

I'm Dan O'Connell, planner with NDS, and tonight I will be presenting to you a zoning text amendment that was initiated by City Council on January 3, 2023 to modify the required development size for planned unit development districts for property's currently zoned urban corridor mixed-use district.

So section 34-492 of our current code requires PUD sites to contain two or more acres of land.

The proposed amendment would remove this acreage requirement for parcels that are currently zoned urban corridor mixed use district.

and that would make the lots or parcels less than two acres within that district eligible for rezoning into planned unit developments.

This amendment is in response to a request from Valerie Long of Williams Mullen representing RMD Properties, LLC.

RMD Properties is the current owner of 2117 Ivy Road.

and wishes to redevelop this property with a nine-story mixed-use apartment building.

The property in question is slightly over one acre in size and is currently zoned urban corridor.

The property owner and the representative are requesting the zoning text amendment in part to enable 2117 Ivy Road to be developed as a PUD.

So some background.

Planned unit development districts were first implemented in the city's 1976 zoning ordinance with a three-acre minimum size requirement.

This minimum acreage requirement was removed from December of 2001 to July of 2006, and that allowed PUDs to be approved with no minimum parcel size.

The current two-acre minimum was added to the zoning ordinance via zoning text men in July of 2006.

Now according to city GIS data, there are currently 83 parcels in the city zoned urban corridor.

Of those, 16 are owned by the University of Virginia and would not be subject to city zoning for development standards.

So excluding those properties, there is a total of 58 parcels currently zoned urban corridor that are less than two acres of size.

And I've included maps of that in your packet for this evening.

So these properties, and that would include 2117 Ivy Road, would become eligible for rezoning with the passage of .

But of course, additional properties could become available for PUD rezoning should their boundaries change in the immediate future.

So this change to plan unit development districts may allow new developments within the urban corridor zoning district to better align with the vision contained within the future land use map and the comprehensive plan.

PUD rezonings could allow for higher residential densities, higher building heights, and smaller setbacks than what is currently allowed by right in the urban corridor district.

PUDs have been used numerous times in the past to allow infill development and permit a mix of housing options.

and the PUD process does involve community meetings and a public hearing process before the Planning Commission and City Council allowing for opportunities for public comment and discussion.

However, the city of Charlottesville is also currently undertaking a full rewrite of the zoning ordinance.

Any changes made to the current zoning ordinance would be effectively overridden by the new ordinance when it is adopted.

And so this zoning text amendment may therefore be extremely limited in its usefulness to developers as it may only be in effect for several months.

So in conclusion, the proposed change to planned unit development districts could be used to meet some of the height and intensity goals of the comp plan for parcels currently zoned urban corridor.

However, in practice, staff feels the change is somewhat redundant given that the entire zoning ordinance is being rewritten to achieve these goals.

Although currently in a draft form, the proposed new zoning ordinance and map shows most property's currently zoned urban corridor will be upzoned to permit 528-story mixed-use development by right without the need for a PUD rezoning or other special permits.

The zoning text amendment would likely only benefit one parcel, specifically 217 Ivy Road, whose owners have stated their intention to submit a PUD rezoning application immediately following the approval of this change.

So, yeah, likely to only, and this may be an applicant question, but if it's likely to only benefit this one parcel, I mean, bill of detainter issue aside,

So just for clarification, this is, we do not have an applicant.

We had a request from an individual and they presented that to council, so council initiated that and it's coming forward.

I won't use the term applicant, but the interested parties who intend to apply for this PUD,

What's the impact on the timeline here?

I can't speak to the timeline of the person who requested this request, but the line in there was basically because the text of that request mentioned that the owner of this property in specific would want to submit a PUD as soon as the change is made.

Right.

I guess to follow up on that, but the procedure for moving a PUD forward in those cases, would we not, before we got too far down this road, have any new zoning ordinance in its entirety?

I mean, that was causing you to call for a conclusion based on what all your bosses can make accomplish by now.

That there isn't really a much window for a bunch of people to do this?

That would be correct, yes.

Grandfathered in, right.

Okay.

Is there any complaint on this from the Commission or from Council?

Complaint about what, sorry?

Hearing from the requester.

Oh, no.

Ms.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the Commission.

I'm Valerie Long.

As noted, we made the request on behalf of a client of ours who's the developer working with the property owner.

All fair questions, and I'm happy to elaborate now or wait more to answer more during the public hearing, but it's really a matter of timing.

First, let me say outright this is not at all an effort to do an end run or beat the new ordinance.

our client is very excited about the new ordinance and they are designing the project toward to comply with the new ordinance draft as much as we have now our hope is that we'll be able to pivot but due to contractual timing issues with the property owner

We had to get started and while we're cautiously optimistic that things are moving forward on schedule with the new ordinance, in the unlikely event that it is delayed, we would have lost that time.

So we needed to be able to get started.

We recognize it's an awkward request.

we debated about whether to do it for this very reason but we think it's a wonderful opportunity to get a project started we think it's an opportunity for real early success story with the ordinance and the new comprehensive plan so the idea would be submit the PUD application as noted as soon as possible after this is adopted if it is adopted and then in if

You know, a month or two later, a couple months later, the ordinance is adopted.

Hopefully, it's really a technicality of the, we could withdraw the rezoning application and it would be a site plan application under the new ordinance, assuming that all those regulations are in place.

Hard contractual stop dates and such.

Okay.

Thanks.

I have one question.

I know in the letter it says it makes like a broad commitment to trying to meet affordability goals.

My one big concern would just be is if the affordability doesn't match what will be in our draft inclusionary zoning program.

Not specifics, but they are planning to comply with designing the project to the new ordinance, and that includes the new affordable housing and inclusionary zoning requirements.

So recognizing those could potentially change.

They are very aware of what they are and are planning to comply with those.

They're designing it for that way.

For some reason, again, there's a delay.

They would comply with the ordinance requirements that are in place now.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Any other questions for the requester?

Mr. O'Connell, please return.

Thank you.

Mr. Schwartz.

Yeah.

First I'd note for Mr. D'Oronzio that this commission rejected a zoning amendment I proposed in April 2019 on the basis that we were about to have a new zoning ordinance.

Right, but the parcels to be considered for a PUD rezoning would have to be zoned something else.

Okay.

And then I guess the question is,

What's the advantage of doing it that narrowly tailored?

I think the issue of redundancy, as I put in my report, was simply the fact that we have this new process coming where things like this will be done by right.

And if we are following a strict timetable, then this change may only be applicable for six months, if that.

The PUD process, though, is a known entity.

We know how it works.

So would we, is it that we just like don't want a flood of PUDs?

Like I guess I'm thinking it makes sense to just get rid of this two-acre requirement like blanket and go back to how it was in 2004 or whatever.

Is there any like particular reason not to?

Well, if by some horrifying event we don't get new zoning ordinances in the immediate future then

I went back and did some research on why this two-acre, this three-acre minimum was removed and apparently it led to a number of PUDs which were very small and basically did not meet the requirements of the ordinance which is why the limit was put back.

So I don't think there will be more PUDs in the near future aside from one on Ivy Road but

there would need to be extensive research done which would probably be beyond what we could do in house with all of our other things to really focus in on that.

I was here for the stuff back in the early 2000s when we didn't have, for those few years did not have a limit.

I'm sorry.

And it was very challenging.

so the infill SUP was a tool that was created to try and address that sorry that tool wasn't very effective either the PUD and the code has a lot of different requirements and you've got to have some space for those requirements

Mr. Stolzenberg, any more questions?

That's all I got.

Yeah, I am.

I don't have any questions specific to this right now.

Thanks.

Mr. O'Connell.

Yes.

I assume that I don't know if you've seen the draft application.

For a PUD currently?

Yes.

I believe so, yes.

We had a

Mr. Payne?

Just a quick confirmation of process.

So if this is approved, the next steps would be the applicant would submit a PUD, which would go to Planning Commission, and then City Council for a vote?

Correct.

Okay.

Thank you.

No questions.

Thank you.

What would be, assuming we, you know, you pass it, we pass it, and let's say come May 1, by amazing chance this has been, this has all been done, how much, given the way they've already gotten started on things, what's reasonable to think in terms of when the PUD application would come back before either this body or council?

If a PUD was submitted, it could take one to two months for staff to review.

If there are any comments that we would need to work out, there may be a back and forth between us and the applicant for them to change their proposal.

After the staff is done?

Yes.

Okay.

So, in all likelihood, we're not going to see anything for, you know, six months after it's adopted by Council?

Correct.

And I should say, when this came before Council, I don't mean to speak for others, but just speaking for myself, I was interested in referring it to you all just because I wanted to see what you all would say, not because we have conceived in advance that we think this is something we want to have happen, but rather having respect for the intellectual power of the folks on this body,

to find out what you all have to say.

And I'll be curious to know if you have any substantive concerns or thoughts one way or the other.

I am, I guess my,

On the one hand, I am not a fan of unnecessarily getting bogged down in SUPs.

And it seems like that may be kind of what's going on here.

If Ms.

Long says, you know, for various reasons that I guess need not be discussed in public, but I think we all kind of get, it's got to move forward.

We still would have the ability, I suppose, if we don't like the idea, to say, no, we're not going to give you this particular SUP, in which case we've had essentially

the one bite of the only apple that we're likely to see under this proposed revision.

So although it kind of does a little violence to my sense of how the ordinance ought to be administered, I don't think that it's going to be substantively obnoxious.

Thank you.

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

All right, we will address this procedurally as we have in the past.

We'll first ask our in-person audience for interested speakers, and speakers will have the opportunity to have two minutes to address

Thank you, Ms.

Creasy.

I just wanted to be brief, obviously offer to answer any further questions you may have, and then just reiterate, we appreciate you all taking the time to consider this, and we hope that it is something that will enable the project to move forward.

give the developer some comfort in continuing to invest money in the design process and the application, engineering, surveying, architecture work, all underway, and have a little bit of comfort knowing that they can continue to do that process, knowing that they'll have, if there is a delay in the zoning ordinance, that they will have a path forward.

So again, we're happy to answer any further questions.

Okay.

Yes, sir.

Thanks very much.

I just would like to ask all the decision makers in the room to please recognize that this proposed change, for what it is, it's an end run on your legislative power to attempt to slip something through in before this new zoning is in place, despite the

statements made earlier.

There are many specific aspects to the new zoning that would apply to the development that are not contemplated in the current zoning.

Please do not permit RMD properties to sneak something by you in order to give these developers a special and unusual benefit that is inappropriate for the property in question.

Please make them conform fully with the new ordinance, not merely assert that they are trying to comply with what they think it might be.

We know that these claims made on behalf of the developer are in no way binding and therefore are not entirely worthless.

All right.

We'll return to our in-person audience.

Do we have any speakers from our in-person audience?

All right.

Okay, if there's anyone in our virtual audience who's interested in speaking to the zoning text amendment for the PUD and the urban corridor, please raise your hand virtually.

If you are on a telephone, you would hit star nine, and that would raise the hand.

All right, we'll try one more time in our in person audience.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you.

Chair?

At this time, I'd like to close the public hearing.

Thank you very much.

And I turn to discussion.

Mr. D'Oronzio, can you start us off?

Based on the comments here, I guess I'm viewing this as a procedural matter to keep the process going forward.

I don't see the

I do not see the harm elsewhere in approving this amendment in the sense of using harm as getting a flood of applications that are going to bog us down prior to the despite the cautionary tale of the 2019 meeting but also

taking due note of it.

My thinking is that this does no harm elsewhere.

We would still be riding herd on the PUD as it moved forward anyway.

I am kind of off two minds.

If I can come back to that, it may in fact privilege the party, but we the city have also sort of put them in a box in a sense that their view of the highest and best use of developing this one way or the other is sort of hostage to our timetable in a sense on the one hand.

On the other hand, you know, they've declared in public that they intend to

that they're trying to conform to, as they understand it, the new zoning ordinance too.

So does it privilege them?

Sure.

Does it penalize them by saying, no, maybe?

And I think that that's why hearings and nuances are here.

and if we were three years out, my decision would probably be different.

Mr. Bubb, did you complete your thought?

Yeah.

Thank you.

Yeah, I can't see the harm in approving this.

I mean, we will get to see the PUD application.

So just because we're approving the text amendment doesn't mean that we're approving a project.

And who knows what the future could hold?

I mean, lawsuits happen.

So who knows when we're going to get our zoning code rewritten.

So yeah, if somebody thinks that they can do

Yeah, I agree with Mr. Habab that it would be better to have a rule that was more broad and applied to more of the city.

And I mean, I don't,

I love the two acre requirement in general I don't want to re-litigate a PUD request from when I was 14 but when I look at what we got on Franklin Street on a .9 acre PUD and look at what was proposed in that PUD it seems to me that what we got was substantively worse for the city for affordability

And it seems to me that smaller PUDs can be viable and beneficial.

That said, I don't want to increase the scope of this so much that it drags out and puts a bunch of extra work on staff.

So I'm reluctantly willing to not try to make this broader than the urban corridor.

I'd also note that this, kind of the urban corridor itself, is sort of a special case where, you know, this is the last parcel on Ivy Road that is not owned by UVA and therefore not subject to our zoning.

Even among the urban parcels were done and filtered out the UVA ones, most of the remaining, or at least all the ones on Ivy and many of the others are

owned by the UVA Foundation and are likely to be transferred to UVA for development at some later point.

So we might end up getting a building that is as large as contemplated here or under the new zoning and without getting a dime of tax revenue for it that we could be using to fund our schools and other services.

To me, that is a worthy

Goal.

Not that I have anything against UVA.

But I think there's benefit to having privately owned student housing that pays taxes.

Thank you.

Yeah, well,

You know, as UVA representative, I got to be, you know, I'm not really going to, we don't have an official stance on this project per se.

So I'll just say, I think you guys are thinking about this in the right way and pros and cons, and I haven't heard anything or have anything that thoughts that are different than what I've heard.

You know, I think you're describing the situation well and trust that you'll do the right thing.

Speaking for myself, I once promised Planning Commissioner John Santoski that I would kill the PUD system.

We're so close.

Oh, God, we're close.

I hate PUDs so much.

It breaks my heart to consider another one.

That said,

just likewise I mean I'm uncomfortable with the process but I also understand where we're at and I guess I'm given some comfort that because both bodies will need to approve the PUD we'll have two points to say you aren't matching the requirements of the draft or possibly finished zoning rewrite in my mind particularly the affordable housing requirements so that gives me a little comfort and definitely agree with Commissioner Stolzenberg in terms of

UVA buying up this whole corridor and that potentially being lost revenue.

And I believe Albemarle approved a fairly large development in this corridor as well just a week or two ago.

Mr. Pinkston.

Yeah, I'm sorry.

I don't understand the process as well as I should.

So from a process standpoint, so if this code change, so the Planning Commission will provide a recommendation on the code change, and then that code change recommendation will come forward to Council for two readings.

If Council decides to approve that code change, then the applicant would have the opportunity to submit a PUD because they would be allowed to under the code.

Thank you, that's very helpful.

That's all I need.

Nothing further.

Of course.

Mr. Chair, I would like to offer a motion.

Please.

Ms.

Sure.

Mr. D'Oronzio?

Aye Mr. Stolzenberg?

Aye Mr. Habaab?

Aye.

Sorry, John.

I believe this public hearing is closed.

Council, you are most welcome to stay if you want to do anything else with your life, so that would be perfectly acceptable.

How are we feeling?

I'm hearing five?

Any issue with five?

Let's do five.

Yes, Planning Commission, Matt Alpley, City Planner, Neighborhood Development Services.

So tonight you're just having a preliminary discussion about a proposed rezoning in SUP at 501 Cherry, the old location for the IGA that's not in use, and the surrounding four properties, which also includes

gravel parking kind of in the back.

The rezoning is being proposed from Cherry Avenue and R1S.

That's the weird part of this, the kind of gravel area, which a lot of people assume is part of that parking, is actually zoned R1S.

But a proposed rezoning from Cherry Avenue R1S to B3 with an SUP.

This proposal would be to reuse the existing building to allow residential developments, adjust the parking standards, adjust the setbacks.

Again, this is preliminary so the applicant's going to give a brief presentation but this is an opportunity to

provide some feedback.

They have yet have their community meetings, so this is not going to move forward to a public hearing until they have the community meetings, so you probably won't see this again for several months, but it gives you a chance to provide feedback to the applicant as they're preparing their application.

They want to make any modifications or changes.

Again, that will be the same thing when they do their community meeting.

With that, I'll turn it over to the applicant.

Kelsey with Shrimp Engineering and then Chris with Woodard Properties are here.

Well, good evening, commissioners, council.

So before Kelsey comes up and talks about some of the site specifics, I just wanted to give a

A brief background about the project since we closed on it last August.

Before closing on the project, or the property, we did contemplate a buy-right development using the four Cherry Ave zoned parcels, and that buy-right development would have been 47 market-rate apartments, market-rate commercial,

even though that worked financially we wanted the project to be something that was more community focused and more alignment with the community and neighborhood goals so we started thinking about how to add apartments to the site economically priced apartments and at the same time we started talking with a couple of local nonprofits

one of which benefits underserved youth and the other nonprofit benefits underserved seniors.

What came out of that was us essentially reserving or committing a large portion of the commercial square footage on the property to condo space that these nonprofits could purchase at below market rates.

And the remaining commercial space we reserved for a grocery store use or neighborhood market.

As most of you know, the Cherry Ave small area plan, a top priority of it is a

bringing affordable, healthy food to Fightville.

So in addition to reserving that space, the last eight months we've spent a lot of time and worked hard having discussions, meeting with local organizations, companies, the city, about how we could make this project a part of the solution, the food access solution of Fightville.

So we don't have anybody signed up yet for the grocery store neighborhood market, but we're hopeful as the project progresses and for successful with the SUP and rezoning that it will become a reality.

So in addition to that, on the affordable housing front, we have proffered in excess of what the current ordinance requires.

affordable housing is a key issue especially in Fightville so we are looking working with the nonprofit housing provider to try and increase the amount of affordable housing in the project and I did want to let everyone know too that we we have been in discussions and communication with

the leadership of the Fightville Neighborhood Association about the affordable housing efforts and collaborating with them on the grocery use and keeping them out of the loop with our progress on the nonprofits.

In summary, there's got three main reasons we're here.

One is to increase the residential density on the site.

Two is to increase the minimum square footage of retail space, which would be for one of the nonprofits.

And then three,

allow grocery store use, which is not currently allowed in the Cherry Hab zoning.

And I guess one other note, it's a question I kind of want to get ahead of.

A lot of people have asked us why we're pushing ahead with this rezoning and SUP ahead of

you know the zoning rewrite that's currently underway one the main reason is one of the nonprofits is under a lease renewal deadline their lease isn't going to renew the property they're at and they need to need to find a new home

Two, it's really expensive to hold undeveloped land at Charlottesville, so we'd like to get this going.

And lastly, we think this is a great project that's bringing together local companies to solve, you know, for community benefit and to solve issues in the community, so, you know, why wait for a project like that?

Thanks, Chris, and apologies for talking to me at the beginning of your presentation.

We had a few slides that we prepared, just some specifics of our application that I wanted to go over with you.

So good evening, Chairman and members of the Planning Commission.

My name is Kelsey Schlein.

I'm a planner with SHMP Engineering.

We've been assisting Woodard Properties with their proposal here.

So as Matt stated, well I guess just to draw you to the site context here.

So you can see the two white buildings is the massing diagram of the proposed buildings kind of in the center bottom right of your screen.

So we're looking at the property.

It's right across from Tonsler Park and framed by 5th Street and 6th Street and Cherry along the front of the site.

Next slide, please.

Just again, a slight contact so we can go to the next slide as well.

And so this is the existing condition.

So when Matt was referencing in his brief presentation, so the front four parcels are currently zoned Cherry Avenue.

The one parcel in the rear that's kind of jutting out, that is zoned R1S, but historically has always kind of operated as a single unit with the rest of these parcels.

If you look at the historic aerial imagery kind of dating back

to the 1950s.

You can see items stored there, cars parked there over a period of time.

So although it's zoned R1S, it has always functioned as accessory to this commercial use that's on the property.

Next slide, please.

So here you can see our design proposal.

So the proposal is to maintain the former IGA building and then add a second story to that and then add an additional building footprint that's a maximum of five stories with limitations

and quite strict limitations to the setback of that fifth story 80 feet from the rear just to provide some relief going towards the lower density residential properties further up 6th Street and a front setback on that fifth story as well.

There's structured parking with a maximum of two levels proposed with this and then

on the proposed new building.

It's two stories of structured parking and then there will be two to three stories of building above that as well.

And just kind of circling back to what Chris said, the main one of kind of a big

a big driver for pursuing this rezoning to B3 with a special use permit for increased density is that the Cherry Avenue zoning, although it's well documented in the Cherry Avenue small area plan that a grocery store is desired, it's not permitted by Wright.

We also have some limitations on

Retail uses, medical clinics, those are all limited to 4,000 square feet.

So that also creates a severe limitation to this proposal that we're bringing before you.

B3 offers a much greater flexibility, and I think with the proper statement that we've presented,

limiting height, requiring certain step backs of the building and limiting particular uses in the B3.

I think that we've really proposed in urban form that kind of meets the intent of that Cherry Avenue District but allows us to build some uses that we think the neighborhood really wants to see in this area.

Some specific items that we would like your feedback on is parking.

So in conjunction with the special use permit, we have requested some modifications to the parking standards and the zoning ordinance.

and specifically the parking requirements for multi-family dwellings we have requested to be able to provide residential parking consistent with the Cherry Avenue parking requirements which is a half space per unit and then for general retail and sales

which requires three and a half spaces per 1,000 square feet of gross floor area.

We have requested to reduce that to two and a half spaces per 1,000 square feet of gross floor area.

And we've requested those reductions.

because we think that can work for this site, especially with the complementary nature of the users.

So Woodard Properties has been in conversation with Music Resource Center and Twice is Nice.

Those hours of operation are often complementary with where

you know residents might be away at work and so we're hoping that this can work out with a shared parking agreement and that we can just more effectively utilize the impervious surface on this site especially more so than it is today for sure that is

All that I have for you at the moment, we can go through a few more slides just to kind of run through the remainder of some items that we pulled from our application.

on yes and it's probably it's like under our black oh sorry excuse me we have two red dots that's shown it as thank you for that we'll fix that next slide please and then you can see here this is the massing diagram of the proposed buildings in the context of the neighborhood next slide and just some additional massing angles

Great.

Awesome.

Well, that's all that we have for you, so we hope that we can have a good conversation with you all this evening about this proposal.

Thank you.

I see some suggested questions that we might consider.

I'd like to, I guess, just do a round-robin with each question, if that seems reasonable.

I'm seeing some knots.

First question, is B3 zoning appropriate for this location?

The answer to that question is, I don't know.

However, I'll point out that it seems that we have been trying to move forward with something on this parcel since Commissioner Stolzenberg was 14, at least.

I don't know if we need to stretch the usability there.

have been dragged into, I think, at least two prior attempts to make something happen on this property, the most robust one back in 2018.

And it's an odd property all the way around, from its elevations to its locations to its setback on the back on Fifth Street, where it's

with the two houses that are essentially on the property line.

Thank you.

On the B3 zoning, I think it could be appropriate, yes.

Especially when it allows us to do what we want to do.

Yeah, I agree.

I mean, we need to be able to get a grocery store on Cherry Avenue if this is a way to do that.

And, you know, we can continue to restrict it through the proffers, then, yeah, I think it's a good idea.

I think if there's a theme of tonight's agenda, it's that to get anything decent done in the city under the current zoning ordinance, you have to absolutely torture it to death.

And I mean, it's clear to me that this project couldn't happen in Cherry, which has some weird constraints and doesn't even allow SCPs to get around it.

I think there are uses in B3 that wouldn't be appropriate.

They've proffered out in their draft.

Thank you.

Yeah, I mean, I agree.

As for me, there were many useful and important points in the Cherry Avenue small area plan.

One that hit me right between the eyes was we need a grocery store.

I heard that very clearly.

I'm very interested in whatever method gets us there, and I see public benefit in that.

Yes, I think so.

Given the proffers that have been mentioned and I think that in general this is a creative project, at least what we're seeing so far.

It could meet the needs of, could be a good fit with that community as well as

support for the nonprofits that are being mentioned and would take a space that's quite blighted right now and not being used and do something, I think, remarkable and creative.

I think I knew the answer but have since forgotten.

What is the current expectation if we go with what we're now talking about for the zoning ordinance for this property?

CX3 right now?

I mean, the one thought I have is I've expressed this before, particularly with interest rates rising, if you do the present value calculation, once you start into affordability, getting out the 99 years doesn't cost you anywhere near as much as it sounds like it ought to.

There have been at least one time recently where we, at council level, basically insisted on 99-year affordability

and Lo and behold, the developers apparently figured out that they could do that.

I don't want to prejudge all of that stuff.

I would say whether it's as B3 subject to all these proffers or whether there is some other way to characterize things under what will be the new zoning ordinance, I do agree that getting to the point where there is

Turning back to the questions, the second question I have is, is a density of 87 dwelling units per acre appropriate at this location, precisely 87?

Yeah, I'm fine with that aspect.

Thank you.

Mr. Payne.

Yeah, I don't have any further feedback.

I think what you all have said about massing versus DUA sounds like we're heading in the right direction.

I have a final question, and then we can just do whatever we wish.

Are there any comments or suggestions the applicant should consider as they move forward with the rezoning and SUP application?

I think only in the context that Councillor Payne raised in the affordable housing and unit count and how we arrange it there to be comparable to what we're in, what we're contemplating going forward to consider that carefully.

The sort of limited six years, you know, X units for six years seems to be way over on the skim milk side.

Other than that, I don't think I know enough to make other suggestions.

Mr. Rebuff.

I'm really excited about seeing this.

The program is fantastic since the affordable housing component that could be better.

Grocery store is much needed.

Space for nonprofits.

All of this happening right across public amenity.

More density next to the park is a good thing.

My concerns are about boxing out the neighborhood that's there with the massing and finding a way to kind of massage the mass down to the neighborhood, maybe.

I haven't really thought about it a lot, but that would be something I'd be looking at.

And especially towards the rear, shadows, stuff like that that all could cast on some of the homes right behind the property.

which I think you're avoiding potentially by having a parking lot there but something to keep in mind and also the tightness of 6th Street right now it's a pretty narrow one-way road so looking at how traffic can navigate through but that's it for me.

So I think what the applicant had asked about parking, and I'm still of the camp that you let the developer figure out how much parking is required.

And I think this would be a good example of one that if they could pull it off, they could promote more walkability in the Cherry Avenue corridor.

I think what we are talking about with this application is...

So they are very much obviously not providing the affordable housing that we want.

But I think what they're offering is a sort of trade.

Do we get valuable non-profit space in exchange for that?

I think when they come back to us it would be great if they brought Twice as Nice and the Music Resource Center with them to try and you know they can try and sell why are they valuable enough to replace affordable housing and I think when you

you've got a trade-off in here where like if one of those nonprofit spaces isn't provided you get two units you'll end up providing two units for six years at you know whatever the affordability rate is you need to step that up the trade-off should be much greater to get us closer to if we don't get these nonprofits in here you really do need to provide the the minimum I guess counselor Payne said it was 18

Wherever that number is, you should provide that for 99 years to meet our future zoning code.

It would be fantastic if there was some further reassurance on the grocery store because I think that's what really sells this project.

I don't know how you guys can achieve that, but that would definitely go a long way in making it much more palatable.

So again, I think this is a trade that we're discussing, and I know we don't want to have PUDs or any sort of discretionary type processes in our future zoning code,

Yeah, my thoughts were very much along the lines of Commissioner Schwartz-Schwarz's.

I

Well, first off, it would be 12, I think, right?

It's 118 units max, so 10% would be 12.

And we're looking at five for six years, potentially up to nine without the nonprofit space.

I think the nonprofit thing is an interesting and kind of unique case that raises some weird questions, right?

It's effectively affordable floor area, but for nonprofits, which

is something I think we think is important and, you know, obviously makes the economics of the rest of the project work less well.

And, you know, how do you accommodate that in, like, a rule-based way in the new zoning ordinance?

I don't know.

And maybe the answer is just to have a discretionary, like, opt-out mechanism for something like that.

I don't know.

I do think the nonprofit stuff is nice.

I really am interested in the grocery use, and I know the neighborhood is too.

I'd like to see some teeth behind the grocery use in the proffer rather than just, you know, we're going to leave it available for groceries until we get a CO.

Like, you know, have some consequences if you don't get a grocery in there.

So I know that you're motivated to get a grocery in there, which I know you're

trying to do but I think it's good to have assurances.

Massing wise I think it's actually pretty good with like the three stories in the back by the existing homes.

I would just mostly be worried about how you make that parking garage look good more than smaller just like good.

I don't know.

The Darden parking garage is beautiful.

I don't think anyone else in town has ever done it well.

The Drossman isn't bad.

Obviously, I don't particularly find parking garage is good looking in the first place.

Yeah, I think the mass thing is going to be important on this one, especially

I think you can make it look really good from Cherry as you're going up 6th Street.

I think that was that really long bar of a building.

Breaking that up is going to be important.

I guess the only other thing is, you know, thinking about Cherry and its importance as a kind of

Corridor of moving people in and out of Charlottesville.

I think that the traffic aspect of this is going to be, you know, really key and it kind of ties in with the work that's being done on the Fifth Street corridor as well, especially at that intersection at Cherry and

Ridge, whatever it's called up there, Elliott.

So just ensuring that traffic can flow smoothly through there.

And I mean, the reason I'm focusing on traffic, because pedestrian stuff is really important too, but there's a lot of emergency vehicles that travel through that corridor because they can't really travel as well down Main Street.

But yeah, I look forward to seeing this develop.

For my own personal views, this is a difficult one.

It's a complicated site.

I don't think we're getting to perfect on this site, which is disappointing but understandable.

I want to hit every target.

That would be fantastic.

I don't think that's mathematically possible or physically possible.

I would be receptive to more height if it meant more affordability.

I think that that's a reasonable tradeoff, and that's a tradeoff that I believe I understood in the Cherry Avenue plan.

The grocery store, I believe, is very important.

I was excited to see it in the proffer.

I agree it's not the strongest language on that, but the grocery store is the main thing that I've heard.

And just to get the parcel in use, it's been a long time.

As far as really excellent parking garages, I'd like to praise the one at the School of Architecture.

I think it's really a very nice parking garage.

Check it out if you're in the market.

Really good stuff.

Yeah, I will try not to ramble and be quick, but I'm sure I will.

But I guess I share some of the other thoughts in terms of, you know, we should keep in mind that there's no guarantees of a grocery store there, and the economics of making a grocery store work, we all know, are extremely difficult.

and it's probably likely that to make the economics work you're going to get a boutique smaller grocery that's at a much higher price point and I would just say I think the affordability requirements are critical and I would just say if there's an opportunity to partner with a nonprofit to build deeply affordable housing

Really, it would just be great to pursue that because, I mean, that's going to benefit people who aren't going to show up at these meetings, who are ignored often even in our conversations, single moms working full-time, $15, $20 an hour.

families, people who desperately need housing that isn't being met in other ways.

And from my memory of attending the Cherry Avenue small area plan events, what the neighborhood was crying out for, more than even a secondhand clothing store, was affordable housing.

And I'm sure many people's reaction would be, we love that you're doing something creative, we know your intentions are good, and we're going to get these great amenities just in time for us to get priced out and displaced from the neighborhood.

So that's kind of my thoughts.

Thank you.

Yeah, I think that everything that's been mentioned, those are all reasonable points.

I would be interested in more discussion about the possibility in the future of these sort of having a rules-based way of the trade-offs between affordable housing and what I think are two noble and good nonprofits.

It is my understanding, and I think that you all mentioned it, that you're working with a local nonprofit to try to figure out the housing, the affordable housing component.

I understand the stack, I guess is the word they use to put the different

types of financing together.

I would like to see, you know, obviously as much housing as we can get in there at a lower AMI.

With the folks that are working on this, there's a lot of creative, thoughtful minds, and I think that you all will be able to figure out something that squares the circles that we're talking about.

I think you're probably right, Michael, about the point about a grocery store.

Everyone wants a grocery store.

I think the economics of making that work, we're not going to ask the developer to subsidize a grocery store in perpetuity, but maybe there's a place for a nonprofit there like Cultivate or some group like that that could take a space like that.

I don't know if it's appropriate, Chair, for a member of the Feistville Neighborhood Association.

They're here.

I don't know if they'd be willing to speak to the project.

But I think my sense is generally that the neighborhood is supportive of doing something creative at this site.

You don't have to.

I'm sorry.

I apologize for putting you on the spot.

You are most welcome if you wish.

I'm sorry.

Hi, I'm Sarah Malpass.

I'm the Vice President of the Neighborhood Association and I think at this point I'll just echo a lot of what's been said by the developer.

I have three thoughts that have occurred to me while we have been talking here.

The first thought is I am going to be terribly presumptuous here because I repeatedly say I am not an architect, I am not a landscape architect.

It seems to me that there's got to be a way to put a whole lot more trees on this parking lot and what they're going to end up with.

Otherwise, I mean, we talked about wanting to have at least 10 percent under tree cover, and what they're talking about here is maybe 3 percent, 4 percent.

It's very, very few trees being shown.

So I hope that that would be something that could be improved upon.

The second concern, similar to what Michael suggested, is I think one of the things about grocery stores, like most things in the private enterprise system, is that if there's a way for it to make money, it's going to happen.

And if it hasn't happened, maybe that's an indication that it's not a way for it to make money.

Now, obviously that

that situation may well change and may particularly change if you've got 100 units of people living right above it who would need to patronize it.

But I think we have to be conscious of the fact that there may be some strong headwinds against having a working grocery store there.

One of the ways to make it possible for a grocery store to work there

is to give the landlord some incentive to keep the rent on that grocery store low.

And one of the ways to do that may be to build in an affordability component similar to, you know, a commitment for X number of years, similar to what we're talking about for housing.

I wouldn't necessarily suggest 99 years for a commercial sort of application.

but certainly to a 10 or 15 or 20 year guarantee may be appropriate.

I have a similar thought on the nonprofit space.

If we are giving them various things in return for the fact that they are going to be giving some nonprofits a favorable break on the market, maybe that ought to carry with it a guarantee of a certain number of years as well.

Well, that's true.

That's true.

Would it carry for the buyers?

Would they have a similar obligation?

I'm just thinking about, or I'm not even sure whether I care.

It raised an interesting question of whether there's an economic development department component of this.

I mean, I know you guys had mentioned trying to get designated for, you know, for various, like, grants or whatever, but, like, conceivably, you could imagine we have all that money sitting in that economic development strategic initiatives pot.

We could condoize the grocery store use.

Not for long.

And, uh...

I think, oh, sorry.

I think, like, if, you know, all these things we're talking about have trade-offs, right?

Like, they all have costs.

And to some extent, you can, you know, have win-wins where you trade off a little bit of, you get extra height and height is scary, but that makes the economics work better.

So, you know, I think that's why this fifth floor makes sense.

I don't even really think the front setback is super necessary.

But, you know,

You know, maybe you could add a third floor to the IGA.

I don't know if that's structurally feasible.

You know, I think if there's room for more tradeoff by doing things like that to make the economics better, that would be great.

and then, you know, if not, right, like if we're asking too much and you can't make the numbers work, I mean, I think it might make sense.

I know developers don't like to do this, but just show us those numbers, right?

Mr. Chair, could I ask a question?

Please.

Why is it interesting to you all to keep the IGA building?

It's not.

I think there is an element of sustainability.

So it's less expensive.

It saves costs.

I think it is.

We could verify that with our structural engineer, but we do know adding the use to the property, we won't be able to park it.

We won't have enough parking capacity on the property.

I see, okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Additional conversation on this item?

Thank you very much.

I think we're done with this.

Were they expecting to come at midnight?

The tree commission members are joining us virtually this evening.

Is the presentation being pulled up?

You go, Peggy.

We're having some audio issues.

Okay.

I see a presentation.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

Well, thank you very much for having us.

I'm Peggy Van Yaris.

I'm past chair of the Tree Commission.

Good evening, yeah.

So I'm going to, we have three sections during the presentation.

I'll do the first two and then Jeff will conclude.

So okay, let's have the next slide, please.

So first we want to talk about the state of the forest, vision versus reality.

Next slide, please.

Our comprehensive plan, which you've recently adopted, has some goals that we'd like to live up to.

And if you just let me read this one.

It says Charlottesville will be an environmental leader with healthy air, water, and ecosystems, as well as ample high-quality, accessible open space, natural areas, and a preserved and enhanced tree canopy.

Next slide, please.

Well, the reality is that the city does not have preserved urban forests, nor are we enhancing it as quickly as we'd like.

As we looked at our last tree canopy study, we can see that in 2004, we were at 50%.

Today we're at 40%.

And what's a little bit more alarming as you look at the graph again, it took us 10 years from 2004 to 2014 to lose 5% of our canopy, but then it only took us four years, 2014 to 2018, to lose another 5%.

Next slide, please.

So 10% loss from 2004 to 2018 is equivalent to 660 acres.

And you can see what that looks like as it's put on a map of Charlottesville.

Next slide, please.

So here we are today.

That's five years later from 2018.

And we can project that we possibly lost another 5%.

So we would be at 35%, which is the equivalent of 990 acres.

And then you can see again how that grows, the loss of all those trees on our map of our city.

Next slide, please.

And also our canopy study did a deeper dive into the neighborhoods.

And we can see that all of our neighborhoods have declined except for two.

And we have 12 out of our 19 neighborhoods, which are below 40% canopy.

40% is a minimum goal where we'd like to be.

And we also see that we have eight neighborhoods below 30% and two, including Tenton Page and Star Hill below 20%.

Next slide, please.

So what we have with this loss of canopy is worsening heat islands.

I'm sure you've heard that term.

It's neighborhoods that have low canopy.

And what we find, what scientists have found, that trees with low tree cover have a higher

incident of health and pollution related diseases.

In fact, we have some statistics on 10th and Page.

The fire department's been collecting information about our different neighborhoods and risk assessments.

And 10th and Page has some of the highest rate of heart attacks and asthma.

Two illnesses are related to heat.

Tenton Page is also the hottest neighborhood in the city.

And this was found out through some studies that 3C did.

So next slide.

So we did an experiment a year or so ago in September of 21.

We wanted to see the heat effects.

We went to Venable neighborhood, which is close to the Tenton Page.

In fact, serves most of the kids in Tenton Page neighborhood.

They have two playgrounds there.

The one on the left is almost completely shady with mature shade trees.

The one on the right is completely open, hot, next to sidewalk and asphalt parking lot.

We took the temperature there on the same day.

The cool, represented by the blue thermometer, the cool playground was 82 degrees and the hot playground

with the red thermometer was 102 degrees.

So we know that heat, and you can see nobody's playing on the hot playground.

Heat affects our younger citizens and our elderly citizens the most.

Next slide, please.

So there's other goals that we try to do in the tree commission.

We try to plant 200 trees a year.

We haven't met that.

This year in 23, we are going to plant almost 170 trees.

So we're getting better.

Next slide.

We we try to plant shade trees mostly and you can see that's that's in the green and every year we are trying to

plant more shade trees than we do small trees and ornamental trees.

And a friend of mine just sent me an article today talking about shaded streets are so important in urban areas because people won't get out and walk unless their streets are shaded.

So Jeff is going to talk about this later, but be careful about reducing setbacks, particularly to nothing, because we're going to have hot streets, not shady streets.

Next slide, please.

This year, or in 22, we planted mostly trees in the right-of-way.

You can see on the graph, the right-of-way is sort of the teal color and the green is

the parks.

We planted most of our trees over the last few years in right-of-ways and parks.

But I think because of what we found out on Venable, that we really need to look at our school grounds and make sure they're shady, particularly where people gather or children play.

So this year in 23, most of our trees are going to be planted on playgrounds and schools.

Next slide.

Thanks to you and to city council every year, except for when COVID hit in 21, you've given us much more money for tree planting.

We also appreciate the money that you've given before because of the ash trees removal.

All of our ash trees are dying in the city except for those that are being treated.

Next slide.

So just to go through some primary activities the tree commission did last year until early this year.

Next slide.

We have three acting committees.

One is the education advocacy committee and some of the important things we've done.

We've tried to improve the tree commission's website.

We've advocated for more funding and you've been very gracious.

We prepared with our urban forester, a downtown mall tree management plan, which is about to go out asking for proposals.

This is very important because, as you know, these trees are about 45 years old.

They've done amazingly well, but many of them are reaching older age.

And just like all of us, we need a little more tender care.

So this management plan will help us how we can keep these trees living as long as possible, but also how are we going to replace them and with what kind of trees.

So also we participated, I'll tell you a little bit more about tree planting in 10th and Page, and we've begun to develop some educational material too.

Next slide.

So our armor committee really does more hands-on things with trees.

Last year at Clark School, and that's Steve Gaines, our urban forester, we planted a tree thanks to JW Townsend, and we had kids outside teaching about trees, and you can see they got very excited.

This committee also works with Steve to decide where to plant trees.

We helped work with the Department of Utilities for a tree giveaway program they did this year and last year, and we've begun discussions with PHA on Fredrick Court to try

to try to preserve as many as those wonderful oak trees that border that neighborhood.

Next slide.

Our codes committee, I think, as you know, you've heard from them a lot this year.

is going to be and has been looking at the rewrite of the zoning ordinance.

We've commented on the critical slope and the climate action plan.

We also consult, particularly Steve does, with tree preservation and neighborhoods.

And you've heard us comment on many development projects.

Next slide.

Now, we told you last year about a program that the Tree Commission helped to initiate and the Nature Conservancy here in town has helped fund us.

It's called Relief Seville and we

want to particularly improve the health of our low canopy neighborhoods with more trees, more shade.

And we'll do this by planting trees, preserving trees, and educating kids and families about the importance of trees and nature in the city.

So next slide.

Some of the important things that Relief did last year in the spring, and we're going to do it again this year, we'll invite you to it.

We had an environmental career fair.

where we had over 30 vendors from nonprofits and people from the green industry because we want to teach kids the importance of trees and nature, but also tell them about all the jobs that are possible in the green industry.

Next slide.

So last summer, we had our Green Team Ambassador Program.

We worked with the City of Promise.

We had 10 children, not children, teenagers, many of them from Tenth and Page.

We taught them about tree care.

We taught them about climate change.

We taught them how to knock on doors in their neighborhood and asking people if we could plant a tree.

So next slide, please.

So then after they actually helped us, they went out in the neighborhood with a knowledgeable tree person, they knocked on doors, some of them were very nervous, but by the end of the day, they were wonderful.

And they convinced, I'm sure of it, they helped us convince that we were able to plant 39 trees.

At the same time, we worked with C3s and they handed out literature to the homeowners about how they could make their homes more energy efficient.

And so many times we heard neighbors say, you know, this is the hottest tree in the city.

This is the hottest neighborhood in the city.

And so we were glad we were able to plant a number of shade trees near sidewalks, hoping to make this a shadier neighborhood.

Next slide.

Jeff, yes.

Yeah, absolutely.

Nice to see you all tonight.

So this section, which is five or six slides, we'll talk a little bit about what the city can do for the urban forest.

So next slide, please.

And part of that is to support some of the goals that have been defined in the comprehensive plan.

In particular, we wanted to pull this one out that they're

a request to require the zoning changes preserve and enhance natural resources and sensitive environmental areas, designated floodplain areas, deep slopes, rivers, and streams.

So that comes directly from the comp plan and asking that, you know, as we think about zoning and development within the city that we keep this goal in mind.

Next slide, please.

so some of the things that the tree commission is recommending for the zoning rewrite and I think you've also seen some of the comments that have come through from us on the module one but in general the the main objectives would be that there are increased requirements for planting new trees and and of course protecting existing trees what we've come to understand is that

You know, a newly planted tree typically is fairly small and it's going to take a good long time for it to grow to the point where it has a mature canopy and provides the shade that we would ideally see in an urban environment.

So preserving existing trees that are already at scale and already providing that canopy is pretty key to the work of keeping our city livable.

Also established consequences for the public tree damage and incentives for saving those trees, the trees that are in the public right of way.

It seems like it's really important for us to figure out ways to keep that canopy intact and to penalize developers or others if those trees have to come out to the point where some of those payments can go into a tree fund

that can further support planting within the city or preserving and maintaining the tree canopy that we already have.

One request here which is certainly a conversation piece I'm sure is to eliminate the no setback waivers and that would you know in essence if you provide no setback there really is no place to put street trees and

having canopy over the places where people walk as Peggy noted and even over roadways reduces that heat island effect that she was talking about.

And then of course encouraging new development as we saw in the Cherry Street presentation tonight on degraded land or brownfield sites is much better than pushing it towards the greenfield.

And then again do not increase density on forests and other environmentally sensitive lands.

Next slide, please.

So I think one other question we have for you all, and as we talk about, you know, new developments within the city is a desire from the tree commission, I think others in the community to protect critical slopes and to think about these forests that we have that are intact and that

provide habitat and provide recreation for the community are preserved.

And one of the ways to do that is to not approve critical slope waiver developments.

And so that's something that we have put out there as a request.

You know, just three approved projects this past year are set to remove over 30 acres of mature forest.

So we're seeing significant pressures on the urban forest

within the city and we'd like to request that those are reviewed and questioned to the degree that they can.

And that now this third bullet point is to really strengthen those critical slope ordinances and other environmental ordinances now.

And then also the fourth one here is to

Think about including environmental assessments of large developments in sensitive areas.

And we've already heard a little bit from Steve Gaines about this, of talking about, you know, how do we preserve our soils?

How do we preserve our waterways?

How do we preserve our forests?

It's not just a question of trees and tree canopy, but it's a question of the entire environment.

Next slide, please.

we've put forward some requests to council and we hope those move forward in the next in the next year and we'll see what comes of those some of this is work for preservation and replacement of the downtown mall trees you know one of the premier landscapes of the city that is in need of our help and care as it moves into hopefully the next number of decades next slide please

and then you know some things that we've put forward and have started to talk about and as we think about supporting Parks and Recreation and Steve and Rion and others that they work with is to really encourage integration between parks NDS and Public Works to have Steve available to review plans and to be present for you know conversations that need to happen relative to

preserving environmentally sensitive spaces within the city.

And then perhaps requiring a person from environmental sustainability department to attend the tree commission meetings, having their input and being a part of that process could be quite helpful.

And then even thinking about a new staff member potentially, that could be this creation of a natural resources manager who could help facilitate these environmental assessments and site plan review and other things that happen within the city.

Next slide.

And then I think this is maybe the final one.

Or maybe there's one more after that is to, you know, think about either the tree commission or an expansion of the tree commission's mission or an integration of the commission with

perhaps another commission that could be this natural resource commission that could really talk about some of the things that we have talked about tonight relative to air quality, soil quality, wildlife habitat, trees and plants, places for people to recreate, clean water, et cetera, those things that really draw people to Charlottesville as a city.

And then the last slide,

really just says, you know, we appreciate everything that Steve and Rion and others are doing at Parks and Rec and working with you all to really try and preserve the tree canopy and expand it as possible.

And knowing too that Peggy noted the development on Garrett and Second Street and that having good tree canopy is not in conflict with affordable housing and with development in the city, it just has to be done.

Thank you very much.

Next item I see is titled Zoning Ordinance.

Chair, I had a question, sorry, about just the previous presentation now that I'm thinking about it.

What would be the process to get a natural resource manager or another commission?

Where does that move to?

Greasy.

Well, this presentation was provided to Council before it came to the Commission, so that may be something that they contemplated.

I'm not sure that they did.

Sorry, that's not on that topic.

To answer your question, it would be part of the budget process.

In my mind, the first step would be including it in the budget.

I should add, I had looked at a number of models of other jurisdictions.

For example, I think it's Fairfax County.

that has what they call an environmental commission or environmental committee that has a I'm not quite sure what it's

Go forth and be liberal on environmental things.

And I was thinking about it in terms of, personally I was thinking about it in terms of sort of sustainability and having some group that would kind of be the citizens committee that would own the sustainability plan and would own the climate action plan.

That's a little bit different from the notion of an environmental committee

or a resources committee or something like that.

But one of the things that I've observed over many years in this area is that if there isn't some group of citizens and some entity within government that feels a sense of ownership for a plan,

It doesn't get owned.

It doesn't happen by itself.

And maybe the thing to think about is what kind of a group would we want to constitute that would take an ownership interest in the sustainability plan and climate action plan, something like that.

Again, a little bit different from the natural resources field, but that's some of the thinking that I've at least been doing.

Yeah, so more generally on the tree canopy.

So I guess I've just been trying to get a sense of what's driving the reduction in tree canopy.

And, you know, 990 acres is a big number, right?

Like in a city that's like 6,500 acres or so, I mean, well, as you said, it's 15%.

And I just say,

I've been trying to figure out where it's been happening.

And I got kind of a rough map from the Planet Geo consultants that did the study.

It wasn't really enough for me to understand why it's happening, right?

So, like, take the 330 acres of loss in that 2014-2018 period.

Of all the developments I could find in that period, they totaled about 49 acres total.

And I don't know if they were all counted before or not.

I got the shape files and imagery, and I've been spending a lot of time zooming in and out and toggling the layer on and off.

I'm very much not a geospatial analysis person and so I guess the question is like or the request maybe is I would really appreciate more of a deep dive into where we're losing canopy and why that canopy is going away because

To me, like I can certainly see that development is a part of that.

You know, you look at Lachlan Hill and this imagery and it's like a gash in the landscape and same with the YMCA.

And then, you know, some birate cul-de-sacs over by Bryce Spring.

But it's not the full story, it seems.

And actually, it's only a part of the story.

So I guess my question for you guys is, do you have a sense of what's causing the rest of that loss and how we can kind of stanch that bleeding?

Or do you guys have someone with the geospatial japs to dig in?

Peggy, do you want to speak to that, or would you like me to... Well, Jeff, you're the president.

I thought maybe you could... The chair, sure.

Well, I think part of what we're looking at is an old data set.

And so we do need a new data set to really understand exactly what's going on in the city at the present moment.

The report that you referenced, Rory, that, you know, it's from 2022, but it's based on a data set that is four years old.

So we need that updated.

And we've talked about that needing to happen in this next year.

What that does state in its executive summary is that some of this tree loss is due to development, but it's also due to some work that was done in the city on stream restoration, so specifically the Meadow Creek stream restoration took out a fair number of trees.

Many of those have been replanted and are growing back and we're seeing significant growth, certainly through the Greenbrier Park area and towards hydraulic road.

So there are areas that were denuded at that time and that now are going to see regrowth.

So, you know, that probably, you know, if we took that out of the equation, what else are we seeing?

And they note in the executive summary that there are, you know, parcels, private parcels that were affected by that restoration work.

And then the rest of it is development.

So I don't think we can really shy away from the notion that development

does have a hand in, you know, tree canopy loss, but it can also have a hand in restoring tree canopy.

So, yeah, I guess I've been confused about why the data, like why do a study in 2022 on 2018 imagery rather than newer imagery, especially since presumably that imagery exists because next time we would do it on 2022 imagery or whatever.

So like, is there a reason for that lag?

Cool.

Rory, I can't answer your question completely, but I know that

When it was done in 2021, there was a lot of discussion about technical discussion, which was beyond me of what year they could use.

And for some reason, they had to use 2018 because of what was done in 2014.

It's partially explained why in the canopy study.

Again, I can't remember exactly, but it had some technical reason.

We certainly didn't want to go back to 2018, but they had to.

Yep.

Great.

Thank you.

Additional questions or discussion on this item?

A thought I had just in terms of things that the tree commission can do, I find the budget recommendations very helpful.

One thing that we've talked a lot about is forested areas of especially high importance.

Right, yeah, Michael makes recommendations about potential parkland or purchases.

That could be expanded.

I mean, I think there's some pockets that would give access to neighborhoods that don't currently have access to forested areas.

That could be an interesting way to, you know, to propose on new, smaller parkland.

Thank you.

We're having a little trouble hearing Rory online.

Remind Council, I'm pretty sure we recommended that the invasives study be fun or the invasives

Any additional questions?

It was a CIP item, I believe.

Additional comments or questions on this issue?