Planning Commission Joint Work Session with City Council   3/29/2023

It's almost like the races become the workouts.

and this guy got my attention.

Turns out we graduated high school together.

I didn't know he, I kind of knew he lived in the area, but he's in JV's soccer field.

He was there, one of his soccer players was running the 100.

Really fast kid.

I think he qualified.

I think he said he got this qualifying time.

He was like fourth or fifth on that fast kid.

I saw it.

I only saw it.

Yeah, that's about the time.

How you doing?

It's just going to take two of us.

People like to do that.

I'll be walking across an intersection and someone will lay on the floor and it gives me a heart attack.

And it's not someone who wants to drive through me.

It comes from love.

And again.

Hey, better, we got it.

Welcome all to the Charlottesville City Council and Planning Commission joint work session on zoning updates, modules two and also one as well.

I think we've got some updates from staff about module two and then we can dig in.

Good evening, everyone.

Just a few meeting logistics before we jump into everything.

Make sure to pay attention to your microphone so that we're catching that, though our audience from afar will let us know if there's any concerns with that as we move forward.

we will not have any public verbal public comment this evening if the public is interested in commenting during this time frame we have note cards for those in person or we will get the comments emailed to me directly that's for anyone out there and if they're emailed during this meeting then we will attach them directly to the minutes

That's it.

Okay.

Mr. Chair, are we ready?

I'm sorry, I didn't catch your... Yes, thank you.

All right.

Patrick, can you put the presentation up?

All right.

Good evening, Planning Commission, Council.

Good to see you this evening.

Want to just check in?

Everybody all set?

Ready to go?

Excellent.

All right.

So our goal for this evening is just to do an overview of the Module 2, which we got out the door late this afternoon.

There is a recorded presentation as well.

This presentation essentially mirrors that.

Available online as well as the draft document and executive summary and other documents as well as everything from Module 1.

I'll note right from the get-go that our comment period for both Module 2 and Module 1 reaches out to April 30th.

So we're extending the comment period for Module 1 and incorporating Module 2 into that.

So April 30th is our new comment deadline.

Patrick, slide please.

So again, this is just an overview of the Module 2 portion of the draft zoning ordinance.

Slide, please.

These are notes for more aimed towards the public.

You guys know all of this stuff.

It's the same as what we've seen in the past.

Go ahead, Patrick.

Actually, Patrick, let's go ahead and skip through a handful of these slides.

This is just schedule stuff.

Go ahead.

Go ahead.

All right.

So I just wanted to note here at the beginning that we've got an ongoing process of taking comments.

We particularly have focused on the comments we've received already to date from Planning Commission and City Council, both in your previous meeting jointly and in previous meetings of the Planning Commission.

Here are some of the changes that we're already working on.

I'll just highlight a couple of these.

One we're doing for the district's both summary images and intent language.

As was talked about the last time you met jointly, we're looking at the parking in the front and side yards for one and two unit dwellings.

We're doing additional clarification around the issues of height.

also note at this time that with regard to map changes we're not intending to talk about map changes this evening but we are we what the staff has been doing is we're collecting every single map change that we get specific or general we are sorting through all of those we're going to do an analysis of every single one over the next three weeks or so in preparation for

After we get through the module phase of this work, we're going to be consolidating the zoning ordinance into one draft document, which will then come back to you, come back to the public for a review of all of it together.

With that will be a new map that will reflect all the changes based on that review that we've done at that point in time.

So right now we're going to focus in on text with the map changes to come.

Slide, please.

All of you guys know what a module is at this point in time, but I'll just note we're focusing here now on module two, which includes the development standards.

Things like landscaping, parking, signage, and lighting.

So it's a big section.

There's a lot to go over.

Slide, please.

So this is just a summary page of all the different sections to module two.

I'm going to go into each of these at least a little bit so you guys know and have an understanding of what is presented in this section.

Slide.

And slide, please.

So note, in terms of using the development standards section, know that this section of the ordinance refers a lot to outside documents, manuals that we use, that staff use, that the public uses in order to get down to the details of what is required in the city.

So these include the standards and design manual, which is an existing document, Streets That Work,

our tree, our guidelines for planting and maintenance of trees and then the new document which was also released today is the affordable housing dwelling unit ordinances implementation manual and that shows that beyond what's required within the ordinance that tells

a property owner, how they go about submitting their affordability requirements, the details in terms of meeting that requirement, and how that requirement is monitored and tracked for enforcement purposes over time.

Slide, please.

So the very beginning of module two of the development standards section of the zoning ordinance, there's an applicability page.

And this is basically a nice shorthand way of understanding, depending on what nature of development I'm doing, whether it's new construction, an addition, or a facade treatment, what standards then apply to my project, right?

Because certain standards only apply at a new construction level, for example, whereas others apply

for even a simple project.

For each development standard, you'll generally find an intent section, a section that then goes deeper into what types of project that section applies to, the standards associated with that standard, and then how that standard is measured or implemented.

Slide, please.

So the first thing I'm going to talk about is the development bonuses section.

And there's a couple things covered in here, but the key thing that's covered in here is our affordable housing requirements.

I want to state right up at the beginning, we are defining affordable housing as housing affordable to a household earning 60% of area median income.

So while that's the standard for the purposes of this work, there will be individual programs or policies adopted by the city that will target lower area median incomes.

For example, we can imagine in a round of CAF

Funding being released that the city might choose to target a 50% or even 30% AMI level for that particular round.

Or as another example we'll come to, we're proposing additional incentives for developments that hit a 50% of area median income standard.

But overall, for the purposes of defining affordable housing, we're using a 60% of area median income standard.

For reference, in the last year, that standard meant a household income of $62,900 for a four-person household.

Slide, please.

So there's two types of development bonuses included in this section.

One is targeting the preservation of existing structures, and the other one is for affordable dwelling units.

Slide.

The existing structure preservation bonus is intended, and this is something we've talked about a lot, is intended to incentivize preservation of the existing structure and it does so by requiring that the first 25 feet of the structure be

preserved in order to qualify for the bonus, and then the bonus offered is an additional residential dwelling unit.

We're proposing to apply this standard within the RA and now the RB district as well.

Slide.

And the affordable dwelling unit section is at the base level requires that any project with 10 or more residential units that are located in zoning districts other than residential A, B, or C have at least 10% of their units at 60% of AMI.

Slide, please.

So that's noted here.

So 10% of dwelling units must be affordable at 60% of AMI or less, or developers must pay a fee-in-lieu.

And the money from a fee-in-lieu goes directly into the Charlottesville Affordable Housing Fund.

And again, I'll note here the manual that I referenced earlier for the Affordable Housing Dwelling Unit Program includes all the standards and how we deal with things like monitoring enforcement over time.

Slide.

I'm sorry, I thought there was another slide in here.

Could you go back one?

It's all right.

Well, I'll go ahead and speak to the other thing I want to talk about is in terms of standards.

It's not there, but that's okay.

Okay.

So the other rule that we have is we have an additional density bonus of two stories where a development takes the 10% of units that they're required to do and puts it at 50% of AMI.

and then the final bonus that we're proposing is that in the residential A, residential B and residential C districts, a project could double the allowed density if 100% of the project is affordable.

That is the entire project, all units on the site are affordable at 60% of AMI or less.

Would you like us to wait or do you want questions as you go?

How about quick clarifying questions as we go?

All right.

James, if you want to flip to slide 19, those bonuses are outlined just below the requirement on that slide.

That's where they were.

Thank you, Christy.

I was about to say.

Thank you.

The voice from above.

Thank you, Christy.

All right.

Slide, please.

All right, next section of the ordinance talks about blocks.

We recognize that in order to enhance walkability, one of the things we can do is create smaller block sizes, right?

Create more connectivity, a better street network overall.

So this requirement basically says where you exceed a certain size of your lot, you're required to introduce a block pattern.

New streets, new connecting streets, so on.

Details are in the ordinance, but this requirement applies both where a lot is of a certain size or greater, or where there's a certain length of street frontage.

Slide.

Streetscapes, again, also meant to encourage and support walkability and also create space for street trees in particular.

This requirement introduces a size standard for the amount of space in front of the building that needs to be available for sidewalks and a green verge, if you will, where the street trees and lighting and so on would be located.

Either way, that's the minimum amount of space that needs to be provided.

So it's either or.

Slide, please.

All right, this section, we have two sections here.

This is in this section dealing with transportation and parking.

We've got a detailed set of requirements relative to pedestrian access, ensuring that buildings are always accessible from the street, from the public pedestrian realm, to the access to the buildings.

and then we have a minimum set of minimum bicycle parking requirements both at the short term that's for visitors to a given location and then long term storage which generally targets residential or office uses.

Similarly for motor vehicles for cars, we have standards that require safe access to sites and then significantly at this point we are proposing no minimum parking requirement in order to support reuse and redevelopment of sites within the city.

We fully anticipate that there will be a great deal of conversation on this topic and we look forward to having that.

Slide, please.

Another important section of the ordinance deals with transitions.

This is where we have a higher intensity district next to or abutting a lower intensity district.

And these standards then apply in those situations and use space

setbacks, landscaping, and step backs.

That's where the greater height of the building might step back at a higher point in order to reduce the overall massing in proximity to the lower intensity district.

Slide, please.

Tree Preservation, so we've preserved many of the requirements that exist within our existing ordinance and are beefing those up, if you will, in order to ensure greater opportunities for tree preservation and replacement on sites.

In particular, there's the tree cover requirements.

These exist within our existing zoning ordinance.

One of the things that we're including is the requirement for a tree removal permit.

So it makes it very clear that if you're removing a tree over 15 inches in caliper, you are required to get a permit from the city.

So what is a tree removal permit?

I know it's going to be a Module 3 thing.

You're right.

Are we talking council approval?

It simply goes to the zoning administrator.

Okay.

That tree removal permit has to be submitted so that we can ensure that the act of removing that tree doesn't take the site out of compliance with the standards in the zoning ordinance, right?

So would this apply even to a site that isn't having a development on it?

Yes.

Yeah, this is not relative to development.

Each individual tree.

Well, I mean, theoretically, if someone's removing five trees, they would submit a permit application and indicate on that five trees.

Slide, please.

Finally, this section has our critical slopes provisions.

I will note that the requirements are the same as today, but the language is significantly streamlined and easier to follow than today's ordinance.

The key difference is that rather than a waiver, which is a somewhat undefined term, we are moving this to a special exemption.

Special Exemption process will include an actual public hearing, but otherwise will be the same process, planning commission to City Council.

So for those who are familiar, the waiver process that we have today does not include a public hearing.

And that is, as we've said, a high-level overview.

Mr. Mitchell, can you start us off?

A couple questions.

The first question relates to the affordability dwelling unit number two, the bonus.

What do the developers think of that?

I mean, do we have the developers nodding their heads saying we think we can build

100% affordable units on this site.

So the notion of the bonus provided in the RA, RB, and RC that basically says you can double the number of units if 100% of the units on site are affordable.

We don't anticipate for-profit private sector developers taking advantage of that, right?

That is really something that

The only ones who could take advantage of that would be an affordable housing developer who is seeking a subsidy from some source within the existing range of sources that are out there.

So question about the critical slope waiver.

Yeah.

So the language is no different really than the language we've got today.

The outcome is no different from the.

The outcome that's important.

Right.

Because the outcome is a little different from the language because the language really focuses on environmental mitigations.

No, so let me clarify the statement.

The process is defined will allow the Planning Commission and City Council to take in all factors when they're weighing the public benefit.

So we have defined it as that broad term of public benefit.

I forgot the second point I was going to make in there, but I know what it was.

But when I said outcome, I didn't mean necessarily the results.

And just one general statement.

You talk about parking and transportation in the document.

The parking that you're talking about is focused on residential parking, and that's important to do.

But I'll just remind us, you guys have heard me say this over and over again,

to be a destination, not a place that people drive through.

So we need to develop a parking strategy beyond just the residential stuff that allows us to recognize that parking is a

Yeah, I'm definitely not going to disagree with that.

But what I'm going to emphasize in what you said is a parking strategy.

So just like in our existing scenario, the downtown area does not currently have a minimum parking requirement.

That was removed some years ago.

But we continue to need to assess parking need and have strategies for meeting that need.

And I will always be one to refer back to what does our data say in terms of what we need.

The other thing I had meant to note when we got to that slide was we're proposing a transportation demand management requirement as part of the transportation requirement.

That requirement gets triggered by, right now we're proposing projects that are at 50,000 square feet or greater.

We can notch that up or down as we go through this process of discussing what that is.

But the basic idea is that a project over that size will be required to submit to us a transportation demand management plan that we can review in order to understand what actions they're taking on site, either physical improvements to the site,

or programmatic improvements to the site that serve to mitigate the transportation impacts, including parking impacts on surrounding areas, as well as encourage the use of alternative forms of transportation.

So examples of that would include obviously parking of all types, parking for bicycles, parking for cars, parking for shared scooter systems, shared vehicles, and those types of things.

It could also include programmatic things like guaranteed ride home and so on.

So there's a wide range of things that could be included in that, but what we're doing there is putting a focus on

thinking holistically about transportation systems and how a large-scale development fits within those systems and how we ensure those sites are maximizing the transportation choice available to residents, tenants, or users of the site.

And I agree with all that.

My only reiteration is that our friends in the surrounding counties are developing economic notes, and they're doing that

so that there people don't have to drive into Charlottesville.

If we don't stay competitive, right?

And parking is a part of So I had a question about

Yeah.

So can you give me an example of a project maybe that's been approved the last 10 years that if it had come in under these guidelines that they would be required to break it up?

I think actually one off the top of my head is the the 240 Stribling project that was approved last year which did break up into blocks so that's one that would not only ever met the been required to provide it but then met that requirement in their design any redevelopment in on the Route 29

60% of AMI.

I think that, well, I'm going to start by saying that that's been the conversation that I've heard for quite a while, that our target is 60% of AMI.

Yeah, thank you.

And it's a 60% AMI maximum.

The housing plan is at a minimum half of investment going to zero to 30% AMI.

Absolutely correct.

I was trying to emphasize that point when I spoke, but I may not have.

The main thing when we define affordable housing as 60% of AMI, what we're really saying is that 80% of AMI is not.

and that's kind of the federal or national standard for affordable housing is 80% of AMI but what we're saying is the city of Charlottesville is going to be 60% of AMI but there'll be individual programs or policies that will target even lower numbers and the affordable housing plan provides us with direction in that regard to target 30% of AMI for a portion of our spending.

Mr. D'Oronzio.

Questions on this?

Very good.

I've got one follow-up question.

Please.

I think you have it on the right page.

You talk about, last page, you talk about trees.

Yes.

You suggest that we're pretty strapped to being able to regulate and dictate what happens with trees.

I don't know.

At this point, we haven't included incentives related to trees.

Yeah, and I'm happy to think about it.

I do run into the question that where I incentivize, my biggest incentivizing, my best tool for incentivizing anything is density bonuses.

Which takes up more space.

And we're already offering density bonuses relative to affordable housing.

No, and that's what we focus on is the sticks, that while we're limited to a certain degree by the state, we're trying to push the envelope on what we can require, right?

So we've got the tree canopy requirement that's dictated to us by the state.

But one thing we can do is we can, by putting this tree permit in place, we can ensure that our enforcement is much, much stronger and easier for us and therefore make the whole system more readily enforceable.

Then the other thing we've done is where we can identify a public health, safety, and welfare basis for requiring trees, we're doing that.

So in the transition requirements, we've put tree requirements in those transitions.

In the streetscape, we've put tree requirements in the streetscape.

And there's a third one.

What's the third one where we have it?

And I know those are a number of some pretty big changes, I think particularly the permit process for tree removal.

I think I could easily see how that kind of just creates a cultural shift in terms of expectation and staff review.

I know in the tree commission's report, they talked about how Richmond's tree canopy has been expanding in recent years, which has been a success story because obviously their population's growing, they're seeing more development, yet they've done it.

I don't know the specifics of what's happening in Richmond.

I've actually started a conversation with the Richmond planning director and I'm hoping to continue that conversation on a variety of topics.

But, I mean, one thing I might speculate is that it would be tied back to the fact that they're in more of a redevelopment.

We're in a redevelopment phase.

They're in a redevelopment phase.

I suspect, though, that we have more greenfield sites

that are available and being developed, and they're redeveloping more sites that they can then bring trees onto where they're not currently existing.

I've heard a little bit about this.

There's a citizen effort to take care of and plant trees in street tree spaces.

Mr. Bob, questions?

Yes, thanks.

I have a question.

Speaking of the trees, why 15-inch galliper?

I don't know the basis for the number.

It was a number that was chosen, I imagine, from a reasonable perspective.

That is currently the

threshold for trees.

I'll turn my video so you can see me.

That's currently the threshold for if you are taking down those trees, you technically have to submit a site plan.

So it's sort of an existing requirement, although I don't know that necessarily it's used in the way that we're anticipating it being used in the tree removal permit.

Thanks.

Yes, so that's a bit part of the question of where do sidewalks exist?

Are they in the right of way?

Are they in private property?

Really, the idea is with the, I think by the green space requirement, you're talking about the outdoor amenity space requirement.

Right, so the

the way that we're setting setbacks is either from the property line.

So if that streetscape exists fully in the right of way, then those minimum and maximum setbacks will be from your property line.

But often whenever we have the smaller setback requirements in the mixed use districts, we'll say that those setbacks are from the sort of back of sidewalk or what we're calling your clear walk zone, because that's what it's called your streets that work plan.

So that means that, you know, you can

have a bit more flexibility if that streetscape needs to have an easement on the private property.

Yeah.

So going back to Carl's question before, does the streetscape requirement exist in the right-of-way or on the private property?

It's both.

The main thing is that the requirement has to be met, and where is the space in which to meet it?

That makes sense.

Another question, this goes back to earlier in the presentation on the fee-in-lieu calculation.

So that's described in the manual.

The actual fee-in-lieu numbers are put in the manual.

There are different philosophies on how to make that calculation, different models, if you will.

Some of them are based in the idea of what is that the fee in lieu is equated to the lost revenue, and there are some where the fee in lieu is equated to the cost of producing a unit.

Depending on which route you take, it has different implications for what that number actually ends up being.

What's that?

It's the revenue model.

Thank you.

It just feels like the, usually the numbers we see are, don't,

Right.

The current code language was provided to us by the state, and so we had to use the formula that the state provides us, and we didn't have any other options.

Thank you.

They're a lot higher.

The proposed is a lot higher than the current?

Ms.

Mr. Schwartz.

I think Kareem actually asked all my questions.

And we're comfortable with the idea, because I feel like we're going to get a lot of pushback on the idea of still being able to pay for affordable units versus actually building them.

Yes.

Okay.

That was my next follow-up.

That was one of my questions is, you know, our conversation around inclusionary zoning up to this point had been requiring the development of on-site units, and I'm certainly open to seeing more information, but just seeing that makes me

Pretty uncomfortable, both that we are not requiring affordable units to get built on site, how the formula will play out, whether we'll end up getting less affordable housing unit creation based on the payment lieu, depending on how that's calculated, as well as one of the goals of inclusionary zoning being to desegregate income within housing, where we repeat a pattern of putting affordable housing only in specific developments in areas of the city that inclusionary zoning would help

to desegregate in that way.

Yeah.

I will note, and I don't disagree with anything you said.

I think you're hitting on all the concerns that come with the fee in lieu

anyway and what we should be providing to you in terms of understanding that fee-in-lieu structure, the model, the formula that's being used.

I mean the one thing I'll say about the fact that affordable housing has often been kind of segregated to certain areas,

That's a product of funding decisions, but it's also a product of zoning that our zoning ordinance is attempting to address, right?

Because when affordable housing is primarily multifamily and multifamily is only allowed in certain areas, you right there have created that situation.

I think I agree with your concerns, too.

Yeah, and I think a lot will come down to the details.

I'm curious to know how that will be calculated, how it will work in practice, and whether we'll end up getting, if you were to add up kind of the indirect subsidy that's going into building the units on site versus what they're going to pay, is what they're going to pay going to be less?

So net, we're getting less affordable housing in the city, and every developer is going to choose that payment in lieu for that reason.

Yeah, I mean, I just follow up by saying I'm also very interested in how these were calculated and how we arrived at these numbers in the first place and how we fix them or, like, keep calculating them going forward because, yeah, the goal needs to be to make sure the in-lieu payments are more attractive.

Right.

But a couple questions on that.

There are different numbers for rentals and owner occupied in lieu.

I'm assuming no one's living in a pile of cash.

Like like for a one bedroom.

Yeah, I'm sure it goes back to the revenue model, and we'll just have to dig into it.

This manual, one of the things we noted is it is very much a first draft, and one of the things that we have asked for and need to have in there is that the actual formula is provided, not just the numbers.

Cool.

Yeah, I guess I'll let you guys work out the kinks on the draft.

The only other thing I'd say is on rounding, we're talking about rounding up to the next whole number, which generally makes a lot of sense.

But given the formula we have, 10%, right?

It would never be viable to make an 11 unit building.

That's a big issue and I think something worth talking about as we go forward.

When you round up from point one, you significantly disincentivize those lower points, right?

Because it's because the

The whole purpose is that the project has an internal subsidy, right?

All the market rate units, so every 10 market rate units are subsidizing one affordable unit.

But when you're in those less than a whole unit situation, the points and you're rounding up, you've got a fewer number of units providing that subsidy.

Right.

That was, yeah, I mean, I definitely want to see more details on that, but I won't belabor it.

And we didn't expect this level of detail in the comments and questions, quite honestly.

We thought we'd get there next time, but we wanted to provide an overview.

Cleared my whole calendar today.

I just think the Greenscape thing is a great idea and makes a ton of sense.

That's all I have to say.

That's all I got.

Thank you.

I think I had a similar vein of questions to the in lieu payment because that's something we hadn't heard before.

It's not a requirement, it's just a best practice.

If you read what people are talking about in terms of inclusionary zoning, particularly as we're looking at

You know, there's a lot of questions around that kind of a mandate.

And so the response has been in the practice to provide options.

And so fee-in-lieu is generally the best option that most people, most places are using.

And then the only other thing I'd mention, and I feel maybe I shouldn't even mention this.

when we were talking about, you know, preserving trees on sites and what incentives you might provide for that.

No, it hasn't.

And certainly take the note, I think one of the things we're also working on, though, is

Right.

So we need to actually hold that because we're particularly interested in preserving existing trees.

There's my comments.

I'm mainly just bouncing off of previous ideas.

So for in-loop payments for affordable housing, I'd recommend the concept of a net improvement versus onsite, that we should be getting more better versus onsite.

so play that so if I'm doing a development project and I'm looking for the option I can't incorporate them on site for for some reason the standard is that it tell me again that there would be more affordable housing at a deeper level for a longer gotcha gotcha

This is my suggestion.

Well, one of the ones we hear a lot is about student housing, and I will recognize that student housing can be a challenge, and I'm treading outside of my direct area of expertise, but there are exceptions built into the federal law for student housing because students are inherently low income, but they're not really, right?

So... I mean, not necessarily.

And on the city for monitoring that requirement because what ends up actually having to happen is under the federal law you then have to go back to their household home family's income to make a determination.

Right.

And I think the other critical consideration in the payment in lieu is within our affordable housing strategy, making it explicit that that payment in lieu is not contributing to our $10 million a year commitment.

Any payment in lieu is going above the $10 million.

Leave it.

Last comment.

We have a budget.

We have a capital plan.

We can pay money for trees.

That is an incentive.

I urge us to remember this in budget season.

I mean, big questions.

I think a lot of people have already asked, obviously, the payment in lieu.

A question about, you know, the Module 2 was sent to us 30 minutes before this meeting, so I haven't read through it in depth.

But having searched through it, one of my questions is something we had discussed as one of the affordable housing incentives is modeling what they had done in New Haven with incentivizing inclusionary zoning for a developer to have at least one of the required affordable units be paired with a voucher.

I didn't see that reflected in Module 2, either the summary or the documents set today.

Yeah, 100% agree.

The other question I have is, again, just scanning through the Module 2 documents sent today, a concern that there doesn't seem to really be any clear definition of the sensitive community's designations and what that will actually mean.

And I'm curious what that will look like because I'll keep hammering it.

We did release a document looking at the overall issue of sensitive communities in conjunction with the release today.

So that should be on the website.

But what you will find is that we are still feeling like we need to have conversations with the affected communities to continue to talk about this issue.

because it is a challenging issue.

Let's talk about that flood of capital you're referring to.

That flood of capital is coming into many of our sensitive community areas right now under our existing zoning ordinance in the form of single family homes that are being flipped either in a teardown scenario or a significant addition or expansion scenario.

So we're seeing that happen without changing the zoning ordinance.

So we're having that conversation with residents from those communities to say, hey, where do you lean in this?

And right now the conversation is mostly, not entirely, but mostly saying we lean towards more restriction.

And that's why my primary concern is high concentration of lower income renters because if the owner is an out-of-state LLC, they're just completely screwed.

Again, like our existing mobile home parks, I think.

It may be easy for us to minimize, yes, there's already an existing risk, but for those specific parcels, will we accelerate that risk substantially even further?

I appreciate it and and like I said it's one of those areas where we've done a lot of looking into the literature and trying to see what are other communities doing and everybody's wrestling with this issue and everybody is not finding clear answers and so we're trying to be sensitive and trying to talk to residents in those neighborhoods in particular about what our pathway forward is the other thing I will say is that I strongly believe that zoning is

is in reality a very, very small part of the answer.

Like community land trusts and similar.

Definitely agree with that and definitely appreciate that, particularly when it comes to homeowners.

For sure.

Community land trusts are great.

Mayor Snooker.

Well, first of all, I apologize for coming in about 5.30 at a jury trial that didn't want to get over in time.

I appreciate your restraint.

Thank you.

Anything more on Module 2?

It's fresh, it's new.

Well, part of this, actually, Councilor Payne took the words right out of my mouth on the back door to the investment, but it occurs to me that if we're establishing a higher density and build rate, that this in lieu, no matter what, that revenue stream is going to go up considerably over present.

Could.

and if that's the case we are that even though it doesn't equal the cost of building a unit it may provide us with an opportunity with an economy of scale to leverage that a bit more particularly if we're leveraging it as Mr. Abebe said on light tech stuff etc so I think that's it's worth doing and I

Module one, what a great idea.

I got one more thing.

I did want to talk briefly about the low density zone or the R zone bonus.

Sure.

The 100% affordable requirement.

So I think we all agree that the goal of doing that, of letting the affordable housing providers build more is that they can out-compete

you know private builders to buy a lot right so that so that say Habitat or the land trust can buy a lot for the price of a lot with six development rights on it rather than 12.

and so it seems to me that it would make a lot more sense for all of the incremental units to be affordable, to be required to be affordable, so that that market rate developer doesn't get any additional benefit still, so the price remains, you know, the price of a lot with six development rights, but the land trust can now buy it, build their six, and then sell off additional six

up to six to private builders, meaning the land trust can now buy that lot for the price of a lot with six development rights minus the price of six lots that are smaller, like half the size, and then they can buy it for very little, in fact, much less even than the lot price in the first place that we're keeping.

I guess I would say incremental units instead of 100%.

I'm struggling.

In the R zone, so like RB is up to six units, and then if it's in this draft, if they're 100%, if all 12 are affordable, you can build up to 12.

So I'm saying the six by right units should be...

allowed, and then the next six units should need to be affordable.

I guess.

Yeah, recouping, yeah.

So in the end it's for cheaper.

So they're going to use half the lot and build six and then they can, then there are still six left, six market rate units allowed, right, which

If there weren't six affordable units, six market rate would be all that's allowed.

I think all of them should be affordable.

Yeah, but it would be at the discretion of the affordable housing provider, right?

Yeah, because no one can do, have 50% affordable anyways.

Yeah, so you're giving them the option to- We can't set up bonuses based on ownership of the land.

So that is something to keep in mind.

So there would have to be a deed restricted affordable housing built and so you'd really have to build the affordable units before or at the same time as any market rate units.

It wouldn't just be that the land trust could own the front half and then the back half they could sell off.

They have to be done concurrently, yes.

No, but the bonus, as the ordinance is written, has no restriction in terms of who can take advantage of the bonus.

Right.

And I guess I'd also say, like, Habitat's model is often to do this, right?

Are you also saying that a land trust, in a land trust scenario,

I wouldn't necessarily say that.

But it means that the land cost for them will be the price, at best, the land cost per unit that they have will be half of what a market rate developer could get, right?

Yeah, but you can work that in reverse.

Market rate developer can come along and say, all right, here's what I'm going to do.

Yeah, so they can say I have some extra land in the back.

I'm going to sell it to Habitat and get a little mixed income component to my development and recoup a little bit of money.

In the end, they'll... Not necessarily, because it's going to be the for-profit people who can do that, because Habitat is your example, and maybe PHA, but generally speaking, most non-profit affordable housing providers do not have the capital excess to pull that off.

So it's a problem in terms of having to carry that for a period of time Sure, yeah I would say, however, I'm a yes and on that I agree with Commissioner Mitchell on this That 100%, I think, should stand But looking at that idea in some other circumstances And I don't know what they are To sort of try to pressure and push that As a method, yes But I think that

How about the nodes?

I want to add something just quickly.

What I would direct you to is the manual in terms of how we manage and monitor and enforce the importability requirements over time addresses that particular issue and would be applicable in this scenario as well.

They have to go within three months if they hit 100% of AMI.

As it's written.

So they still have to go.

Fair enough.

Yeah, at this point, I don't...

I don't feel comfortable making a decision to alter it from being 100% affordable.

Before I would make a decision to change that, I would like some more time to think through how it's likely to actually work in practice.

Right.

So actually, I'm intrigued by this, and I think it makes sense to me in that it's

I think what we're going to get in the RB district is no affordable housing built.

It's all going to be six units market rate.

And then we'll get like the one person who's going to do a nonprofit that's going to get grant funding and everything else to do their .

Whereas if it was six units and then every additional unit was affordable,

Every other unit is affordable, and then what's the corresponding bonus to that?

No, not every other.

Yeah, but what bonus does that allow?

The developer can sell their lot to Habitat, which will have to be on the cheap, because the only buyers could be Habitat or the land trust.

Nonprofits willing to do this.

Isn't there a height?

I think we're going to dive down into a very complicated series of how transactions can work, how they can't, rights to land, use, and all of that.

And it's 610, and we haven't touched Module 1.

Thank you for that.

We can look at it, but I also want to note that at the end of the day that the decision to create that density bonus, that doubling, was effectively a compromised position, right?

Because our starting point was that we're trying to maintain

building scales within the RB and the RC in particular that are house scale.

And that was something that staff was really focused on accomplishing.

But there was a request from particularly affordable housing developers that was presented back in September asking for some compromise in this space.

And this is what we came back with.

So in some respects, it's not about creating more opportunities for affordable housing so much as just creating an opportunity

I mean, I guess I'd just say to that, well, this would give more rights to the affordable housing developers and make their jobs easier, which, you know, maybe is not enough of a reason.

But to me, I think a lot of the reason why we wanted affordability bonuses or some kind of affordability component of the medium intensity definition was that

We wanted to create mixed income communities and get those regulated affordable units both in neighborhoods and within specific developments like 12-plex.

Mr. Wade.

If it's concerning that, you can go ahead.

Really quick question.

In RA, there is an incentive to do an affordable unit.

RA, RB, and RC.

Okay, that's right.

it's sparked something else this conversation about what you said about kind of keeping existing buildings and try to kind of remove the kind of scrape and replace type of model in the first 25 feet so is that just

I mean the incentive is built around retaining the existing structure, existing building, existing home.

We've defined that at the first 25 feet to get beyond the facade but recognize that at the back of the building part of how people are going to accomplish the additional units is by putting an addition on that existing building.

Last call on Module 1.

Sorry, Module 2.

These numbers.

Let's talk Module 1.

I'd like to start with a round robin on where we are, and then we're going a deep dive, which maybe we'll do a break before, depending on how we're feeling.

MR. I like where we are.

Mr. Schwartz suggested something about setbacks that I thought was intriguing, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

A question.

Are there any zero setbacks in the city today?

Some of the mixed-use districts have zero.

In the next iteration, we're looking to have zero setbacks.

So Kristy and I are both going to answer these questions and I'm going to kick it to Kristy for most of these questions because she's obviously the author of the standards.

So Kristy, I'm going to kick it to you.

Yeah, and so I'm going to speak explicitly to side setbacks.

I'm really interested in front setbacks for the moment.

I do want to talk about side setbacks, but I may even defer that to you when we get to that.

The thing that worries me, again, is trees and zero setbacks, they hurt that.

But Mr. Schwartz had an interesting idea, I thought, and you may not remember it.

that we do allow zero setbacks if in fact that creates a place to have open space where trees can be planted or moved.

It was really half-baked.

I was wondering if there is some way we can incentivize, you know, I think we need to have the trees.

So if that means that we have to have a 10-foot setback everywhere, then we need to do that.

But maybe there's an incentive that you can have a zero-foot setback if you bury your power lines and if the trees can be

in the right of way.

Or if there's some sort of, I'm just throwing that out there.

So that's what's so cool to me about this Greenscape idea.

The streetscape, when I just quickly looked at it, it looked like they put the power lines in the green strip, and if you have those, then you don't get canopy trees, you get small trees spaced every 20 feet.

So we still have the power lines as a problem, but yeah, just throw it out.

And that's similar to what Mr. Palmer was suggesting, that maybe we use the open space as a allow folks not to have the required open space.

In fact, there are going to be trees here.

We can move the building closer to the road if there's open space that can accommodate trees.

Yeah.

I would need to dig into your state statutes because it is kind of a state by state basis on if you can require that or not.

So I think it's a great thing we can look into.

And, you know, getting power lines buried as much as possible is absolutely a goal.

And so I think it's something that we continue to look into.

There was an interesting comment that we got from at least three people and it was relating to RA zoning around schools and wondering if maybe there may be a safety issue relating to that.

because it's going to drive a higher, sorry, RC.

Yeah.

So as I noted early on, we are taking every single one of the mapping comments we've gotten and we're going to be doing an analysis of each one of those comments and bring that back in the next version of the map.

I think that is a significant policy question that we're going to need you guys to engage on.

I suggest we hold that for a dedicated map conversation, perhaps.

But the policy question really boils down to

One of the reasons the comprehensive plan directed greater density towards amenities like schools was to increase the population who had the opportunity to walk to schools.

And it also plays into all the work that we are doing and need to do around safe routes to school and traffic safety generally.

We have a lot of work to do in that space and recognize that there's a challenging dichotomy there too that we found with the pandemic.

One of the things we saw is when the traffic volumes went down, the speed went up, right?

Because unfortunately the way, and I'm just speaking now broadly,

in kind of suburban America generally, in America generally, we've built for high capacity, lots of cars, and then when those cars, when there's fewer cars, the speed goes up, people drive faster.

Yeah, I don't know if you wanted to get into this level of minutia, but the zoning, again,

boarded up.

The Crescent Hall zoning is, maybe that's too much minutia, but a little problematic, because I think they're looking to expand that area.

And currently, the current zoning would be pretty restrictive.

And that's an excellent affordable housing opportunity that we need to maybe up some a bit.

Yeah, so if we, yeah, if we've got it on the list from Rory, we have it on the list.

So much like you, Mr. Chairman, I had wild ambitions about my ability to get the bandwidth to take a deep dive, and when I finally got around to do that,

I got somewhat into it and then decided to go back and read your comments and Commissioner Schwartz and Commissioner Stolzenberg which was delightful because I did save myself a lot of repetition so a lot of this is yes and so I have something on side lots that is almost as wacky as Commissioner Stolzenberg and I'll sort of give an outline of that

but I'll circle back to that and I'm just sort of flying over at 30,000 feet.

Carl I think is right that we I don't like this I don't like the tone of RA's restrictions not in their setbacks not in the uses not in the I think that it's

it seems to me that we are piling on a lot of requirements into RA that probably do not have that don't show a clear benefit to me either in terms of zoning in general or in terms of

in terms of affordable housing or in terms of even attacking some of the problems we say we want to attack and I think we need to take a look at a lot of that and I had a lot of problems with setbacks and Carl dove into that somewhat and I'm even more

More agnostic to being blasphemous on a couple of that.

That's one.

Two, I think we need to delete every single word in this that says anything about marital status, family, blood relationship, or anything like that.

that is a straight-up legacy of classism, misogyny, homophobia,

etc.

It all needs to go.

I think that, you know, we're essentially defining to somebody to third party what somebody's household or family is or isn't.

Do you have examples?

Because I know one of the intentions was to delete those and I see Kristi nodding her head.

I think it may be the adult living

standard.

And, you know, just so everyone is aware that you standard, we carry forward a lot of those from the existing code.

So a lot of the comments you all have are

things that we've heard a lot, and we are certainly looking at making sure we're getting all of those legacy issues out.

So there's that.

I see a lot of us getting sort of tied up in stories versus height.

and that with RA I'd like to back into that and say let's push this to the building code let's talk about height and let the building code and you know let's determine things like stories and ceiling heights and in sort of that and to what we whatever we can push to the building code and in general an RA I mean these are this is

you know the highest density proportionally owner occupied primary residences this is the home it's not a commercial enterprise and unless we can come up with a really good reason to not do something you know let it ride

as a general philosophy.

And I just see that, I think that RA is just a little too tight for that.

I've got some thoughts on, as you know, the HACC pushed out some work product on density from the newly constructed HACC.

It put together a subcommittee to look at Module 1 and there I can distribute out their response.

But in general look at really bumping up the density for affordable housing and really privileging density even greater extent that we have.

And doing the same thing with height.

And I think that that's worthy of a discussion there.

And now side lots.

In lieu of.

The current setbacks, which seem to be overly complicated to me, particularly when you're talking about frontage versus width of lots.

Good point that lots are wonky shaped, let's look at the frontage first and sidelines.

I would, and particularly since topography in these smaller lots can be what they're going to be.

Can we look at something like a side setback that is measured in aggregate?

So let's say side setback, just for an example, is the minimum setback in aggregate for both sides is 10 feet, for any given side is three feet, to pick a number.

What that means in effect in these RAs, and then have an exception for common wall, right?

For common wall residences.

What that would do is that would in effect put six feet minimum between buildings or 10 feet minimum between buildings.

There.

I see we're already backing up on parking in front yards.

I think we need to simplify that.

Your rear bumper needs to be eight feet off the curb.

That's that.

Your tires have to be on an impermeable surface.

And let's go with that.

or off the amenity or whatever that is if there's a sidewalk or something that impinges on that eight foot.

So those were sort of my initial run through thoughts.

Responses or concerns on that from the team?

I know I jumped around a little bit.

The team or the staff of the team?

Staff and Ms.

Dotson.

James, do you want to respond to any of that?

Yeah, I mean, I, it was still pretty general in the comment.

Well, I wanted in the interest of time to say these are the things I'm thinking about.

Yeah, I mean, no.

I mean, I think just where I'm going to come back from is what the district standards are trying to accomplish, right?

So you're identifying many of those district standards as being obstacles.

I'm identifying them as trying to accomplish what we believe when we read the comprehensive plan was intended in terms of striking a balance between accommodating greater densities within all of our neighborhoods while recognizing the while ensuring that that development is I think that word we use familiar to those existing neighborhoods right and so when we think about scale that's one of the things we're trying to get to but also when we think about

How do we ensure that new development comes into the neighborhood and is promoting things like walkability, safety and comfort in the neighborhood and on the streets?

And that's where we come to things like entrance requirements and transparency requirements and those types of things.

So I'm happy to discuss the balance, but I want to put a stake in the ground that those requirements aren't being put in there.

We're not suggesting those as aesthetic rules.

Yeah, my concern particularly with RA, and Carl, feel free to jump in with the next level of detail on these because you went into some precise stuff there,

We can make things difficult, particularly with smaller lots, with odd topographies.

And we're also, I think, sort of stifling some ways to adapt to that by sort of taking certain things off the table.

Right, and I had one other comment on the manufactured housing.

One, only being allowed is parks in one zone in the city.

I'd like some sort of depth on that.

There's only one district that allows that.

And secondly, the requirements to me seem to be a bear trap to make it just about impossible to put in a small park.

Put in a, oh, you mean a small mobile home park.

Mr. Abbott?

Thanks.

I think outside of some of the comments that Carl and Rory sent already, I can send you a note and say which ones I, like, second, I guess.

I think everything was brought up in the last work session, and I don't have any comments.

I'm going to look at Module 1 and 2 together and try to kind of piece together where the trees and the landscape fall and how that works out.

Ms.

I want to go back to something that was discussed in Module 1 that James said, and this is around the sort of height story debacle or, you know, crux, but you said, I think three stories will result in more single-family teardowns.

And the concern I have in that statement and then maybe just moreover is

encouraging a situation in which small, yes single family, but you know sort of maybe naturally affordable rental, potentially rental units, landlords are there, are incentivized to sell.

because they realize they can make more money selling to a developer to put in something that is maybe it is denser but it's not affordable and therefore we've just lost some rental stock or some sort of modest, maybe it's historic, maybe it's not, but like it's historic in the sense of it exists and is kind of older.

So I don't know what the answer is there, but I just want us to really, really think about that when we're talking about the residential area.

Then my other kind of observation in reading a lot of Carl and maybe Rory's but more so Carl's comments and in talking to Kareem as an architect was it seems like some of your commentary, Carl, was like

I don't know why we would need to do this.

No one's ever going to do this.

And no one would ever build like that.

And that's coming from your position as an architect.

And not everyone that develops in this city is an architect.

And so I would just go, well, I would want to understand, and I haven't delved in, and it's not my expertise, what would we be giving up?

What are the potential ramifications of this?

And in my, I don't know, in my mind, developers like to be told what to do.

They like to have very clear parameters.

So sometimes those regulations are actually helping a project move along.

Mr. Schwartz well I guess starting with setbacks so I need to reevaluate setbacks based on the whole streetscape thing that you've provided today I think that's that opens up a lot of opportunities but for side yard setbacks I guess my one comment is we've got four feet which seems strangely arbitrary in the RA district when five feet is a building code

rule for you don't have to rate the wall, you can have as many windows as you want.

It just seems between four and five, I think I'm willing to give up that one foot to make it easier for the permit office to not have to deal with all that, at least in RA.

Christy, is there a basis for the four feet beyond?

I mean, this is something that we've talked about amongst staff as well.

It's essentially to provide that little bit of extra flexibility.

We've heard from a lot of infill developers that sometimes in places where you have lots that are 35, 40, 50 feet wide, that extra foot really makes a difference, especially if you're trying to save a tree or squeeze a driveway by an existing house.

and, you know, people are kind of willing to do more limited windows and and do some, you know, pretty minor fire writing that you can get to with some, you know, fire rated plywood on that side of the building.

So it really is just letting the building code do what the building code needs to do from a fire rating perspective while giving sort of letting zoning get out of the way and provide that little bit of extra flexibility.

Some communities go even down to three feet and they're sort of in town.

I'm not going to push hard on that because that makes sense.

It just seemed like it was a strange thing, but thank you for explaining that.

Sure.

I mean, a complaint I was hearing is that people can't do townhouses in the RV and RC.

And I guess they can, but they can't go up to their property line.

And I just feel like that's something that would be worth discussing as a group at some point, whether a zero foot setback is

Desirable in RV and RC.

I do feel kind of strongly that for, at least for RA, that some of the requirements, we've got too many requirements, that it's, we don't need to be monitoring transparency and windows on a single family house or a duplex.

It just seems kind of, it seems a little silly to me.

I mean, no one's going to, well, someone might build a house with no windows, but that, you know, let crazy architects be crazy architects.

Well, I will say, I mean, it's less about no windows entirely, but what I have seen, particularly on those sites, is where developers are putting in a kind of standard house, and particularly if they have multiple

sites right next to each other, and they decide, all right, I'm putting the kitchen and the master bath and built-in closet at the front of the house.

and those have small to no windows and you do end up with a frontage with very limited window frontage.

And again, I will go to bat for the safety and sense of community that comes from and that safety for the people, the public safety aspects of having a street where there is windows where I can at least have the sense that somebody can see me versus

a street where those windows are small and constrained.

And I have seen those narrow lots get developed with that kitchen master bath layout because

because it means that they can put a big family room overlooking that forested stream valley below because it means that that's the pattern that I came out of the book that I purchased and it, oh, the numbers work, it's cheap and I can do it.

And the other way that would go I think is like you could have, if you were developing three in a townhouse format that kind of went into the lot, you could just have a big empty wall that's the side of the townhouse facing

Yeah, that's true.

And that's one of the outcomes when we get into the RB and RC is those townhouses that go into the lot.

Okay.

If the rest of, if everybody's in agreement on that, then I'll completely back off.

I think the sort of front to back townhouse is exactly why we do both the transparency and it's also why we do the active depth requirement.

You know, you think about it in those sort of front to back townhouses and also when they turn a corner on a corner lot, really fundamentally a lot of these requirements are about getting people space in the front of the building and making sure that anything that's like a garage around the back, that that

blank wall.

That sort of car space is pushed to the back and away from the corner of the lot.

So in things that do that are the entry requirements, the transparency requirements, and also the active depth work really in tandem.

I will say that there's there's a lot of flexibility built in.

So these requirements, if you read through the rules of interpretation that are after the zoning districts for things like active depth.

So once you're back, I think 20 feet,

back from the property line, then active debt goes away.

Even ground story requirements, those go away.

So it provides a lot more flexibility, particularly in RA when particularly existing houses and re-looking at the existing setback lines, they're going to be outside of that requirement.

So it's essentially, it doesn't apply whenever you're back far enough from the property line.

So there is a good bit of flexibility built in.

You brought up another question of mine, which was, so we've got some neighborhoods, you know, like around the high school or Greenbrier areas where the houses are actually very far back from the street and have fairly small backyards.

And I guess I just wanted to bring up with the rest of the group is

The way I'm reading the code is that any new construction would have to match the existing setbacks of surrounding houses.

No.

Put the house wherever you want to put it on your lot.

The way that we have it currently written for that standard,

and I'm flipping through to make sure I say this right.

You either can adhere to the prescribed setback range of the district or the established setback range of the block.

And it's not even the full block.

It's sort of the two houses on either side.

And so we say that you can be no closer than the closest and no further back than the furthest.

And that

essentially is an established, what we're calling an established setback range.

So that's an easy rule.

Okay.

I did not know that.

That definitely clarifies that.

I very much understand the reason for the maximum coverages, but I do just want to bring up, you know, in the R1S districts, a lot of those are pretty small lots, and they're already close to those, well, maybe not, it would be very difficult to add much to those lots.

So in a sense, I guess one benefit would be those are mostly sensitive communities, so you wouldn't be seeing a lot of development in there, but is that also,

is that a good thing or a bad thing?

And I just kind of want to make sure that we all saw that.

I mean, my own lot, I'm not sure I could get another dwelling unit on there and meet your coverage requirements.

the transparency and active depth completely understand but again just want to bring up the idea are we going to lose things like are we are we not going to have a grocery store because of that or you know I'm thinking of some of the historic stuff on the mall a lot of the side streets don't have windows and it's

I guess it's nice because they're historic and they're historic bricks so you don't really notice but like we wouldn't have the Violet Crown because they've got a whole blank wall that goes down the entire street and just make sure that we know what we're giving up for that or maybe there's a way that someone can overcome that.

I know you've got all those different features for how to deal with blank walls but I think you still have to have the transparency.

That's right.

And so, you know, we have split transparency into primary streets and secondary streets.

Yeah, I personally don't know what the answer is because I think the transparency makes a lot of sense until we get a use group that we want that doesn't meet those requirements.

You guys have my list, so those are kind of the really, really big things.

Oh, lot widths and a lot of the mixed-use districts.

And I think Lyle may have brought that up as well.

Our traditional lots are like 25 feet, 30 feet.

So I don't know why we've got 60 foot or 40 foot or whatever it is in some of the mixed use districts.

It just seems like we should be able to reduce those quite a bit.

Yeah, we can look at lot minimums.

The reason it seems a little non-intuitive to have a wider lot

with minimum for the downtown and the no districts.

But the reason we do that is because we're differentiating between lots that have front drive access and lots that have either no vehicular access or it's from the side or rear.

And so what we're really trying to do is incentivize that side and rear or no vehicle access.

And so that's when the lot sizes go down to that.

I believe it's 15 feet.

I need to double check.

But that's the idea is that

almost all of those existing lots that are really narrow either have no vehicle, vehicular access, or it's from the side or rear.

And so that's the pattern we want to continue to deploy.

And maybe that's just it.

Maybe that's the lot minimum, or it could be nothing even for those districts because it is an existing pattern.

We, we generally think that

Lots frontage or that minimum width is sort of it's more important in our mind than the area of the lot because it's what you perceive.

It sort of sets the pattern.

So in those districts, we don't have lot area minimums because

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, it's pros and cons because, you know, if you don't have something, then you can get big blank walls, so.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

I keep the maxes, but take away the minimums is what I'm saying, yeah.

They happen, they make interesting architecture.

Yes.

I'm going to stop.

Well, and they wouldn't come up necessarily because you have to have a buildable lot in order for it to be subdivide for the code.

Mr. Stolzenberg Yeah, I think Carl made a lot of good points.

The one about blank walls is interesting.

You know, most uses don't involve locking yourself inside a building with no light coming in at all except movie theaters and maybe like a laser tag.

I wonder if maybe just an exception for those types of uses.

Grocery stores too.

I mean,

Yeah, but you could have lightened grocery stores.

I don't know.

So I'm sure you guys all read my notes and agreed with everything.

Oh, well, I guess we'll see what that 0.1 is.

Outdoor amenity spaces, I mean, Carl talked about this a lot.

I just don't see the public good in providing private amenity spaces.

I think rooftop decks are awesome.

I have one myself, though it's not communal, so it wouldn't count.

They're great.

I don't see the public good.

And that said, I can see how the other ones sort of fall apart.

I didn't go as strongly as Carl saying get rid of all amenity space requirements, but maybe that is the right thing to do.

I need to think about that more also with the block requirements in Module 2.

I did want to talk about lodging.

Surprise, Commissioner Russell didn't bring this up.

So beyond homestays, which I think are mostly a carry forward from existing code, except for the pets thing, and I do feel like renters should be allowed to do them, lodging by right in RB and RC, I wanted to make sure everyone noticed that that was there.

So it's like saying B and B type places would be by right in RB and RC.

I do feel like that means it's pretty likely that we'll get a lot of Airbnb conversions and Airbnb RC.

And so I think making those something like a special use permit, since we get the idea of doing it along corridors, but I don't think we want to see mass conversions of these whole corridors, which I think is plausible.

I think that would be a healthier middle ground.

Let's see, I said a bunch of random uses.

Those weren't very controversial.

I guess we'll talk about side setbacks.

So I guess I'll preface this by saying, like, if I were to say eliminate requirements for side setbacks, everyone in the community, I'm sure, would say, oh, my God, Rory wants to build, you know, this apartment building next door to me right up to my lot line.

and I think that is a reasonable concern and that it's specifically your lot line that you worry about, right?

Like I don't care about someone's side lot line that lives five blocks from me.

I care about the house next to me not being

immediately up to the lot line unless I'm okay with it or I'm given some incentive to be okay with it.

And so I think there are a lot of benefits to having buildings that go up to the lot line.

One in the handy diagram I sent you all,

which I'm sure you looked at when they're not the lot line you have space for windows in the side the building needs to be thinner and deeper into the lot and so you have less usable open space you have this like sliver of unusable side yard and you have a bunch of windows pointing and looking out at your neighbors

But if you build to the lot line, you can make the whole building a lot more compact and square.

You force the views to be front and back onto the street for that safety element.

And you're just making a better use of space.

There's more space for trees.

There's more space for recreation.

Personally, if I had to choose between either of those two and the lot next door to me, I would pick the one that doesn't have all the windows looking out next to me and what seems like a giant building because it protrudes halfway into the backyard.

So some mechanism to make that happen, I understand it's probably not completely legal to say the neighbor gets to decide whether you do it or not.

It's not.

If it can be a discretionary review process that takes that into account along with other factors, but mostly that, that James can

think about and be like, well, if the neighbor's okay with it and also it has other public benefits, then sure.

I think that would be good.

Responses to that?

Just to elaborate on the point on the legality of that, so the zoning enabling legislation gives authority to local governments to do zoning, right?

And particularly invests that power with the city council and then planning commission and staff to make decisions under that, right?

Sure.

Like I said, I'm not directly suggesting they get absolute authority over this.

But really with waiver, special exemptions, special use permits, what we look to is a set of standards.

Well, if the neighbor doesn't think it's bad, then it's not an adverse effect on them.

Let me add, there actually is some legal precedent for that.

There are a lot of subdivision restrictions that say if you're going to do something that may violate these restrictions, the neighbors have 30 days to object.

And if the neighbors don't object within 30 days, they lose those rights.

Now, whether that would be transferable in some way to the city, I don't know, but there's at least some authority for neighbors having some sort of veto Is that in contract law?

This was the 0.1% for me.

Sorry.

Please.

No, I'm just saying I disagree.

I mean, right now you'd have to rezone to RX or higher, right?

I mean, I guess if you allowed it in RV and RC, but, or, yeah, if you allowed zero side setbacks in RV and RC, then you could rezone to RV.

But otherwise, you have to rezone to RX3, which is a much more intense zone.

So, yeah, I mean, I don't hate the idea of going to zero side in RB and RC like Carl's suggestion, but I think this, but then I think, you know, the neighbor in RB is going to be like, what the hell, someone's building up to my lot line.

And I think this is a more balanced and fair way of going about the change.

The other thing I really like about it is that it incentivizes, I mean, of course, the discretion in my amateur legal analysis would probably end up with the NDS director, but if they were to weight the opinion of the neighbor, it creates a good incentive for the developer to work with the neighbor directly and come to a mutually beneficial outcome and

I'll just share my perspective right now and I don't want to get too deep in the weeds on this but I'm happy to think and talk about it more over email but I guess my initial thought is I feel like it's one of these things that is internally coherent and makes sense on paper but I'm not sure what it looks like on the implementation side in terms of like city staff realistically and I don't know if it's

And I thought one of the reasons we went through this is to make the whole zoning thing a little bit easier for everyone to complete.

Yeah, I think you might have an exact inverse offense.

effect or an opposite effect which is you know Stolzenberg construction comes to my comes buys the lot next door to me and wants to do a zero lot line and I say no and you say please and I say no and then you say I will deliver this new Maserati to you tomorrow afternoon you know driven by a lingerie model and I still say no

and then you get kind of pissed off at me because I've said no and you go about building something else on that lot that's going to annoy me even more, particularly if you start with your backhoe at 7.01 a.m.

every morning for the next, yeah, I think it just sort of adds up opportunity for conflict as opposed to smoothing over one.

It puts you in a difficult position.

No.

I mean, I guess I'd endorse Carl Stimpler's solution then.

I don't think I have any comments right now.

Thanks.

If something comes to you, please let me know.

As for me, you got my email.

I was thinking about geometry.

That was the only thing in math class I was any good at.

In general, my understanding is that pedestrian-friendly design means narrow lots, that people can get through a lot.

It creates visual diversity.

It just makes it more walkable, more interesting place.

And thankfully, we have a lot of places like that in Charlottesville.

We're pretty good at that, at least in the older parts of the city.

And I think that's

to the extent that we can support that in the code, I think that's going to be a win for us for affordability, for design quality, for walkability.

It just seems very successful.

I sent an email with a long list of mixed-use buildings or commercial buildings that are sort of neighborhood scale that all have front access, but generally either an alley access or a shared right-of-way between two owners.

and they're all narrow and they seem to work well all with parking behind.

So I think this is a model that we've seen succeed in Charlottesville and something I think we can incorporate into the code successfully.

Though how you do that I'm very interested to see.

Rear setbacks, this just occurred to me as we were into the conversation.

Do rear setbacks know about alleys?

Do they change if they're alleys?

They do.

Okay.

I think there's an alley setback.

It is more generous, I assume?

Same as rear.

It's rear slash alley.

I think it's always like four feet or something.

It depends from the in our district, so R, A, B, and C, they are the same.

So there's side slash rear alley, and that's because we're requiring four feet back there.

My suggestion, if possible, would be to be more generous with alley space because there's less opportunity for nuisance with an alley.

It is itself a buffer between those properties.

Shared open space requirements.

What I think you're trying to do here, and I hope you're trying to do here, is my favorite things in the world, which are courtyard apartments and courtyard cottages.

Am I reading you correctly?

Yes, so these are meant to be places that are actually amenitized as opposed to just blank front setbacks that are, I mean, maybe grass and people can sit on, but aren't really particularly designed for actual public open space.

So we are providing an incentive where you're actually get a count of that square footage double whenever you're doing an amenitized

pedestrian open space for things like courtyard apartments.

And we're also including that towards your build to requirement.

So because it is a an active space, and that's really what we're intending for the build to requirement, it counts as if it were a building.

So we're trying to use that to really incentivize those pedestrian oriented, more sort of urban and design well designed

Yeah, a couple different ways.

So if you dig into the outdoor amenity space requirements, you'll see in there that, you know, we have a 10% of your lot area is required.

If it is adjacent to the public right of way, so if it's adjacent to your sidewalk, then that square footage counts double.

So if you provided

functionally, if you provided all of your required outdoor amenity space, it would only add up to 5% of your lot that you're having to provide, because that counts double.

And then also, because we want you to put that next to your sidewalk, and that means that maybe your building can't be in that part, then on particularly corner lots, or if you think of a courtyard apartment that's sort of a U-shape, you're

that would require a developer to sort of carve out the middle of that U-shaped apartment.

That gets to count towards your build to requirement.

So it means that you can have, and functionally that's cheaper to build, right?

You're not putting a building there, but you are putting a landscape pedestrian plaza.

No, it makes sense.

And I think the idea of using these outdoor amenity spaces, you had a whole section on how you're supposed to design them and things that should go into them.

I think that all makes sense.

To use it as a way to modulate the mass of the building makes sense to me.

To use it as a way to say the residents need to have an amenity space that's within the building or on the property doesn't make sense to me.

My concern is more that when you require an amenity space, it is never functional.

It's never useful.

The city should be focusing instead on its own parks and on like, so like the county has requirements for like, you know, half court basketball court and like a top lot with two pieces of equipment, things like that.

I forget what the city has.

And I know yours are, your requirements don't go into those sorts of details, but it,

These amenity spaces are never actual, they're not usable by the tenants of the building.

They're kind of substandard.

They're just there because they need something code.

Or it seems like it's much more of a useful tool, as you're saying, if it's something to carve out the building.

So I'd prefer to see this rewritten in a way that it's used as a way, a massing tool versus a, this is a place that, you know, the residents of the building need to be able to use.

Yeah, I understand the concern.

And, you know, that's part of the reason that we use that, that requirement, and we build in those sort of pre prescribed design standards.

And we require them to be a certain size and certain width.

So, so it is trying to get that usability, we want it to be meaningful space, not just a sort of little sad courtyard that nobody goes into, you know, there's some, there's transparency requirements.

So we're treating the facade around that.

as if it were against the street because we want it to be tied in with that sort of private to public realm, that progression.

There's some planning requirements, planting requirements.

So getting some of that landscaping and trees in there, which I know is of importance.

And it is also an incentive now that you mentioned the building massing.

Whenever we talk about building with, we do build in an amenity space

We call it, I think it's an outdoor amenity space building break alternative.

Language like that off the top of my head.

It is an alternative where you can have the same building and it essentially, if you insert a plaza within that building, it counts as a new building width.

I think all those things are useful.

I think that's why that section should be kept.

So I think there's also a question of where they're applied, right?

Like they're required in RB and RC.

So let me ask a question.

If I have a single family house on a 5,000 square foot lot in RB,

So there's a 500 square foot amenity space requirement.

As an existing single family house?

Let's say I'm building a new single family house.

Well, I won't be as in the weeds as this past conversation.

I mean, my thoughts at a higher level, which may still overlap with some mapping issues, which I know we didn't want to get into tonight.

But I guess the first one that comes to mind is that the Housing Advisory Committee has done a little bit of work looking at

Density, setbacks, other issues, and the impact that could have on affordability.

I won't get into the weeds on those, but I think that would be worth a serious discussion and consideration of what the HACC has been putting forward there, and some of that will bleed into

module two in terms of their concerns about sensitive areas as well as if there's any potential in terms of tax abatement and that incentivizing further affordable housing construction, which I understand there's really no analysis or plan to do analysis about whether tax abatement is a strategy that makes sense to pair with zoning changes in any way.

On Module 1, I guess one of the things I'm still unsure about is I understand the mapping logic that there is in terms of these nodes that jump up specifically, particularly in the mixed-use commercial districts.

I was just going to ask, arbitrary how?

I mean some of the locations that are for example just like an example it's not arbitrary in the sense that I understand how on the mapping logic that is outlined how we ended up there but in terms of like actual on the ground practice it seems kind of arbitrary to me where you'll have like one or two single parcels that have jumped up significantly in height and then everything around them wasn't or an area like

the intersection of East High and Meade you have it jump up to NX8 and I understand how you ended up there at the intersection of Long Street and Pantops but I don't understand how that intersection how like on the ground logically that makes any sense and I understand both because it's all

single-family height and density around there currently, and the infrastructure doesn't make any sense for that level of intensity.

And I understand development comes before investment in infrastructure.

It doesn't make any sense to say, you know, no change will happen until there's infrastructure.

But that's just one example.

Like, there's a couple other areas that popped up where, like,

I wasn't really getting how it made a lot of sense in practice.

I haven't had a chance to read through them.

Maybe the transitions in Module 2 will, you know, address some of those concerns.

The other one I've talked about which is really more Module 2 is specific.

When it comes to residential, I think my only real major concern is areas that have been missed in sensitive communities that, again, have that risk of displacement, which is more Module 2.

Module 1, the other thing is just how do the zoning changes align with existing plans?

For example, resident-led redevelopment of West Haven Friendship Court.

We've talked about Crescent Halls and how the zoning may not have been aligned, some of the future plans there.

I mean, I think it's for under the existing zoning, you know, the Friendship Court will be overshadowed by 12-story buildings.

That's a policy choice, but I know that's not in alignment with kind of their resident designers' plans.

That's attention, but it's one that I feel like we haven't really discussed or dove into.

Similarly, like Cherry Avenue small area plan, I actually see how the zoning map kind of aligns with that plan But there's some others, like Star Hill small area plan, maybe we've just abandoned that, guiding anything But, you know, how does zoning map changes align with that and the urban Rivanna River corridor plan

which I know, whole different world, but it called for even a new zoning district along the Rivanna and at least have zoning that matches a plan along the entire Rivanna that's in the city to kind of guide the future of development there, which I don't think our current zoning map reflects in any way.

And that plan wasn't calling for, you know, no development, but I think calling for something that's more intentional like Asheville's River Arts District where you've done some intentional planning around that area, created more of like a greenway space.

So I don't see that reflected in it.

And the final thing, it's kind of related to the arbitrariness, or at least my perceived arbitrariness of how high the heights go in some of the mixed use nodes.

It's a whole other can of worms, but we've discussed residential, understandably, but I feel like we haven't really discussed as much the mixed-use commercial districts.

And there may be something I'm missing, and it may be that the transitions in Module 2 will address some of these concerns, but I feel like

I mean, some of these districts, in terms of mixed-use commercial, you're jumping up like two, three times in height.

Maybe that's the direction we want to go, but, you know, you think of an area like Kerrytown in Richmond, part of the planning they've done is to have a mixed-use commercial district, which was more of a human-scale height, which makes it a unique district.

And we have some of that.

Obviously, the downtown, well, you know, it's a whole other thing.

but we have some other commercial, mixed-use commercial districts I feel like along East High, downtown Belmont, to some extent Preston that are kind of in that direction and our zoning change to allow, you know, 10 and in some cases 12-story of height is going to abandon that being the structure of commercial development.

And again, maybe that's the direction, you know, we want to go but

One of the things I just wonder about is when you're increasing, one, I don't have a good sense of what the incentives will actually be for them to be mixed use development and not 100% commercial.

I may just be missing and not understanding it, but I'm unsure about that.

And when you go up that much in scale, you know, I just wonder whether you're going to have different institutional developers and investors who are going to purchase those parcels and you're going to see a structure of commercial development that looks much more like

an office park or something rather than again a human-scaled mixed-use commercial district like I think a lot of people envision.

I don't know if we're kind of getting there.

Do you want to respond to some of that?

I think to provide just some context on the mapping, you know, with the first draft, we fully recognize that there are

a handful and perhaps more than a handful of areas that considering the existing context maybe don't make a lot of sense.

But what we wanted to do in the first round is have a really high level of rigor and applying essentially a one-to-one of here's the comprehensive plan, here's the land use associated with it, and here's how we want to funnel those into these various zoning categories so that we as the planning consultants

weren't making those judgment calls.

So we wanted to put, that's the version of the math that you have now.

And it really was setting up the framework so that we could have the conversations about these areas that you're pointing out and have those conversations more communally rather than us picking and sort of deciding off the bat, which of those areas need to be looked at a bit deeper.

And I think that does include the small area plans that should

continue to move forward.

And I don't want to say override the comprehensive plan, but should be taken into consideration in conjunction with it.

And in areas maybe where the small area plans are too out of date and aren't really aligned with current policy.

So I that's part of the conversation that we certainly want to dig into with mapping.

And hopefully that gives a bit of context for what we're thinking.

It was sort of a step one, here's really just an initial conversion with a level of rigor without any of our

judgment calls being overly on top of that.

Well, I guess what you could add in is one of the things referenced is about the issue of, I'm going to call it human scale amenities in those commercial corridors and how the ordinance is proposing to accomplish those.

Yeah, that really gets into, you know, a lot of what we are thinking about and controlling with the standards is dealing with that ground story.

There are a couple ways that we can add additional requirements on top of what you currently have to get at that human scale development pattern.

One thing that we are already talking about and figuring out for downtown is not a setback, but a step back, which is essentially stepping back the massing.

It still allows for the same number of stories and height, but it's stepping back the massing after a certain number of stories.

Usually it's around three stories and then that massing gets stepped back, you know, 20 to 30 feet and the height would continue on from there.

And that

is one tool that we have that communities want to see along certain corridors.

You know, it doesn't have to be everywhere that that tool is applied, maybe at certain areas that it makes more sense than others.

And it's not something that we have currently proposed, but it's a tool that we very easily could add in.

If that's something that, you know, particularly when you're getting above five stories, if it feels like it may be out of context and, you know, the

there still wants to be an allowance for that level of height, but figuring out a way to make it more contextual, that street step back is a way that we can achieve that.

And in module two, there are requirements in there for the transition sort of on the back of the property where it would be a lower intensity district.

So that helps sort of on the back and those shared property lines.

Yeah, and I think that gets at some of it.

And once I read through Module 2, you know, I get better sense kind of the transitions and how that affects the human scale.

But I mean, that gets at kind of what my concern is.

I guess to kind of distill it down, you've got an area like Preston.

You've had a development there recently, like the Dairy Central Building, which had

Many different thoughts from the 10th and Page neighborhood.

And in this plan, you're doubling the height of that building along that entire corridor.

And I don't know.

And I will add that the heights we really did, you know, sort of similar to the mapping.

We really took those straight from the comprehensive plan and we gave it a few more flavors.

So, you know, in the corridor areas, for example, you know, that went up to five, eight, ten stories in some instances.

And so we tried to apply those flavors where we thought it made sense, but it's

very possible and probable that we misapplied some of those.

And maybe, you know, there's a flavor of a district that doesn't exist that needs to that we don't currently have sort of in your toolbox.

So it's an observation that we are looking for more feedback on.

Excuse me.

I am decidedly not getting into the weeds with you all, but I have spent a lot of time recently discussing with constituents the broad issues here.

And one thing that struck me is that folks, I'll be a little bit overly classifying here, folks on the right and folks on the left

have the same basic concern.

When it comes right down to it, they don't know what is going to work, and they don't know whether any of this is going to work.

And they are so concerned on one side that it will work and on one side that it won't work that the debate intensifies over that uncertainty.

So that, for example,

for the folks who are in the R1, current R1 neighborhoods, the prospect of having four or eight people, four or eight units on a present R1 slash RA lot.

The fact that you'd get to eight is a problem.

In an RB, you'd get to 12.

And on the other hand, folks on what I'll turn the left of this debate will say, well, of course, that's the whole purpose.

And the problem is that, as I've done the math and I've checked with a number of other folks, the way this proposal is set forth can't possibly work.

because the construction costs are always going to exceed the rent that is available.

And the only way that it makes sense is if the city is going to be subsidizing each individual transaction, each individual 8-plex or each individual 12-plex.

That gets to the point that I think was made earlier today, earlier tonight, which is basically there's no way this is going to be an option for anybody other than PHA or CRHA or Habitat.

And when the original concept was being floated, it was with the idea, number one, as Mr. Freeze noted early on, it was with the idea that things, that what was going to be built was going to be house-sized.

that it was going to feel like the house in the neighborhood.

And while it might be, say, 50% larger, it wasn't going to be 300% larger.

And so particularly for folks in the single-family neighborhoods right now, they really feel like this, and the terms they would use are bait and switch.

that they were promised, and I will tell you as one who tried to sell people on the future land use map two years ago, I believed what I was being told.

I believed that we were going to end up with basically a form-based code-ish kind of development scheme here where the places that were being built in the current single-family neighborhoods were going to look and feel kind of like what we have now.

And clearly that is not the way this is moving.

And clearly it's just not.

And so if we're going to end up by saying

that what we're really expecting is a few duplexes, a few townhouses here and there, and then every couple of blocks, maybe a 12-unit apartment complex, what we end up with are a bunch of sore thumbs sticking up, that it will have destroyed the character of the neighborhood, or at least the consistency of the neighborhood, or if you wanted the term homogeneity was used earlier.

and maybe that's a goal.

to destroy those neighborhoods.

I suspect it's not.

I suspect nobody would articulate it that way.

But that's probably what you're going to end up with because it's not going to be possible unless PHA or somebody else is able to get the capital and the funding to put it all together, which is probably going to require a subsidy from the city at $30,000 or $40,000 or $50,000 per unit.

And if we're really serious about getting to 3,000 affordable units built,

That effectively means we're looking at $150 million worth of city money, and we don't have $150 million worth of city money, which leads to the broader question, I guess, is do we have a goal?

a numeric goal, a point where we would say if we hit this marker we know we have done what we intended to do or is it simply we've got to keep building however many units we can knowing that we will never solve with mathematical precision what that equation really comes out to be.

I ask the question because when we start looking at the specifics and I'm just mentioning some of the specifics that seem to get people particularly concerned I'm wondering whether the specifics like

cutting a lot size down to 2,500 square feet in some districts, like the maximum coverage, lot coverage kinds of numbers, like eliminating parking requirements.

These are all things that the metaphor was used last fall

that what the consultants were going to do is to give us like a control panel with five or six different knobs and all of them could be turned up to three or to five or to ten or if you're a movie fan turn it up to eleven.

But that the idea would be that we could turn some of them back if things seem to be going too fast.

We could turn something up if it seemed to be going too slow.

and the sense that I'm getting is that we are committing ourselves more and more to turning all of them up to 10 to start.

Now, again, maybe that's the goal, and maybe the problem is that we don't have a way of understanding when fast enough has come.

How fast do we want to be doing what?

I've looked at the rate of expected change analysis in some detail, and the first

The first question, I had sent a number of these questions to Mr. Freeze and some of them he answered and some of them I think we're going to be consulting with the consultants to ask.

But one of the first questions I had that gets to this rate of change is

I can't tell from the rate of expected change analysis whether they are expecting an annual increase of 431 units or whether 431 units is the number intended over a five-year period, which is what the page kind of references.

But obviously it makes a huge difference because if you're talking about

a rate of change analysis that is going to produce 400 new units a year.

Now we're at 2,000 units in five years, and, gee, suddenly we start thinking we're stopping this problem.

I strongly suspect that's not what it means.

and I think if we need to know that's one of those questions that we kind of need to know.

There are a whole lot of pieces of the analysis that are the various sort of promises that we had been made or arguments that have been made to us that I feel personally responsible for because I repeated them to constituents.

when people talked about the metaphor of the volume control and that we weren't going to start with everything turned up to a maximum level.

Or when I talk about the form-based code aspect of things, because that is absolutely what we were telling people we should tell people two years ago.

And that's what I did tell people.

And now people are quite rightly coming to me and saying, what the hell?

this is not what you were talking about at all.

And the best way to try to figure out whether we are really planning or rather we're simply throwing everything at the wall and hoping that some of it works

would be the questions I've got in the rate of change analysis is whether that analysis is finely tuned enough to tell us whether any of these particular changes have any particular expected results.

It may be that it's not a fine enough tool.

and that's fine, let's be honest about it, if that's what the situation is.

So I feel a broad sense of frustration that the debate has gone in a direction that is I think not sustainable, but we don't know.

and I wonder what we can do to find out and get some of these numbers to know whether we're headed in the right direction or whether we're going overboard or whether we're not going far enough or just what.

That's my overall comment on things.

I would add that a number of people on both sides of the debate have asked that we look at the example of Arlington and I've heard comments about Arlington from time to time and the process that they're involved in the middle of.

And I would love to have our folks, not just the commenters from either wing, I'd love to have our team here give us a sense of whether they think that the Arlington proposals make sense, whether it's something we ought to emulate, or whether it's something we ought to run from.

Those are my broad comments.

You answered some of my questions in ways that I found very helpful, by the way.

Absolutely.

Are you looking at me to speak broadly to the policy direction?

I mean, I think what we have started from is attempting to accomplish the things I think that Mayor Snook is talking about.

We started from the idea of introducing a code that

looked at the issues of house scale and looked at compatibility with existing neighborhoods.

And I stand by this notion of dialing up, dialing down.

I think that's a very good analogy.

I don't think in our proposal we've dialed it up.

I think a lot of the conversation, and maybe this is what you're referring to, has been talking about how we dial up further from where it is.

But we're not trying to start at a dialed up standpoint.

And I do think the

the code provisions we're proposing, particularly in the RA, RB, and RC, but across all of it are attempting to look at, are attempting to address these issues of scale and compatibility.

As far as the Arlington code, I've been tracking it very, very closely.

And technically they are done.

They're no longer in the middle of their conversation because they voted and adopted their proposal last week.

Their proposal is more aggressive than ours, on the one hand, in terms of the base allowance.

But I think that's appropriate to their market, not necessarily appropriate to ours.

But they're allowing six units on every lot within the county.

on the other hand when they got to the point of adopting in the course of that adoption they put an annual cap on how many units can be built per zoning district and that's certainly as far as as long as that's legal and I haven't heard the I haven't heard an argument that says it's not and they did it that's something that you may want to consider as well so they rather than trying to

I don't know the number off the top of my head.

And I know 2020, I know the dollar figure because I've been working on budgets.

We're more than approaching.

You have an appropriate number.

We're fully staffed in building permits.

I mean, I think- Well, what I'm suggesting is that

Yeah.

That's reasonable?

But I think that's not going to be the governor of the governor of how many units get built isn't governed by how many permits we can issue.

Well, I mean, I was thinking in terms of these larger, you know, three and four unit buildings.

Do they meet?

Do they match?

I mean, I think initially people are trying to figure out what the hell they're going to do, too.

I mean, it's a lot of

So I was suggesting that there would be a natural throughput restriction.

No, I think the restriction is going to be on, I think initially we may even see, we may initially see an uptick because I think there's a lot of projects kind of waiting in the wings that are either already in the planning stages and are planning on going forward under the existing zoning ordinance or under the new one.

They're just, but they're anticipating a discretionary process in the existing zoning ordinance.

And then it'll level out from there, but it's all going to be based on the critical factors are going to be demand and the availability of land and lots.

And we know the greater, both of those are significant restrictions, right?

You know, the answer on the question of the market analysis, right?

The rate of change analysis.

So it says 430 units.

It's meant to say 430 units per year, but why I didn't answer your question right away is I don't know whether they meant five years or three years because in the conversations I've had with them, they said, we are reluctant to predict beyond three years because there's so many variables at play.

Your sense is that it is intended to be the 430 new units per year, whether it's for three years or five years remains to be seen, but that's the figure.

So we're calling at least 1,300 units in the next three years, supposedly.

It's kind of a major, several major caveats in the report, one of which is that that's a supply-side analysis, which basically says, theoretically,

And the other thing I wanted to add is when I talk to developer folks, they tell me that one of the constraints that they've been working under and they still believe it to be a problem is getting permits and getting inspections and maybe you're getting very close to having solved the problem and maybe they're giving me old news.

They're feeling it.

I shouldn't speak for them broadly but where our data is on building permits, we're turning around the vast majority of those.

More than 90% of the building permits we're receiving now are being turned around in about two weeks.

And we're scheduling inspections next day but what you're referring to are site plans.

Yeah, that's true.

And 12 plexes and so on would involve site plans.

Yes.

But I wanted to be clear about that distinction.

So Lloyd, I'm having a little difficulty keeping up with the UI.

My intellectual throughput is not quite as big as yours.

Your question is more process-oriented than I'm thinking.

My question is, my issue is that every time I get a new round of emails from all of you all, it's another way to turn the knob up more.

But we don't know what kind of action we're going to get out of the knobs we've already turned.

and we don't know whether we're going way overboard or whether we're not going far enough and that's why my question was whether we have any way of guesstimating even whether just as an example whether the lot size thing is going to matter in our B and our C if we're cutting back 2,500

That's one issue that I don't understand well enough to be able to discuss the subtleties of, but I will also tell you that in talking with people who are reading the plan and trying to make sense of it, when they look at the notion that, for example, my neighbor down the street who's going to be an RB can divide his lot into six lots

and each lot as I understand it is not limited to one unit but rather could in theory be 12 units and you start talking to people and they're saying 6 times 12 is 72 units and what the heck.

I doubt that you could ever build 72 units on that parcel but if you start, you know, part of my overall concern is that we have gotten ourselves into a position

where we are ending up with an increasingly divided community over this, but a lot of what they are divided over, I think, is illusory.

I don't think it will actually work either as well or as poorly as either side thinks, which is why I'm prefacing my overall question in terms of do we have any way of knowing or even have a

a vague guess as to how any of these things is actually going to work, is actually going to affect the market because it is certainly possible to come up with sort of scary thoughts of how many units could be built and certainly I've been getting emails about people like people on Grove Road

who write to me and they say, thank you, my microphone seems to be doing funky things, people on Grove Road who write to me and say, well, there are 45 houses on Grove Road, each one of which would be large enough that we could actually have 300 separate units.

on Grove Road, 300 separate lots on Grove Road given the size of those properties and then they start talking about 300 units or 300 lots and how many units per lot and we get the same sort of question and I don't know what to be able to tell them

I don't know what's reasonable.

I don't know whether it would be possible to say we're looking at the 431 units and yes, how many of them are going to go on Grove Road?

How does this figure?

So your frustration is with the vagaries of what the outcome is going to be.

We don't know what tomorrow is going to look like.

Well, that is a frustration.

The other frustration I've got is the very distinct and admitted change in the rhetoric about what we proposed two years ago and what we proposed two years ago with house-sized developments in RB, or we didn't have RB at the time, but house-sized developments in the more intense uses.

I think it's still three floors with a bonus and the base is two and a half floors in the RV.

So I think in a way we're still using the form-based code to try to make it match that neighborhood scale.

But when people look at density, I think they might have a kind of like step back from that.

But really you can only achieve so much if you subdivide your lot into this narrow lot with one frontage on the road.

You can't get that maximum.

Yeah, I think in addition to that, in addition to height, when you're talking about house size, you're talking about the dimensions of the house, right?

And so I'm looking at this random lot I picked on Grove Road, 1448.

The house is 60 feet.

It's frontage, right?

The maximum width we're allowing in our massing is 40 feet.

So actually, that house is 50% larger than the width of an apartment building or fourplex.

or single family house that we'd be allowing in RB under these rules.

I think in a lot of ways, the massing is reduced from what's currently allowed.

And similarly, if you just look at the lot size requirements, you can divide a very big lot by

that amount.

Well, if it's RB, you would have to be affordable.

And personally, I think it does make sense to have massing bonuses as part of that bonus.

But no, I mean, I think you could fit a 12-flex within a 40-foot width, like within the massing we're specifying here.

But that presumes that there's going to be an enormous turnover very rapidly in one area, which there are genuine concerns about that that Michael brought up earlier, particularly in these sensitive areas, particularly when you've got out-of-town landlords who are like, hey, that's a ridiculous amount of money, I'll take that.

you know I just got my I just got the plumbing repair bill for this quest piping I'm more than happy to do this or whatever but that I think presumes a pretty really aggressive turnover in these neighborhoods that there's only so much that becomes available theoretically we could get to 431 in theory

So, you know, I mean, I can't imagine in these former R1 slash RA districts

that the majority of the turnover is going to be for the purposes of implementing a higher unit count.

And Greenbrier in particular, it has the highest percentage of owner occupancy for medium.

91.4% of Greenbrier's medium intensity lots are

owner-occupied.

So at that point, you get the sore thumb approach, where you get nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, sore thumb, four stories, whatever it is going to be.

But there is no four stories.

Twelve plex, however you want to view it in terms of what could actually be built there.

I question, and I don't know the details of the

the height requirements and so on and I don't know where the bonuses kick in for what but what is what folks who live in that area are concerned about and I will freely admit that I am not expert enough to rebut their concerns

is this notion, again getting back to the question of both sides operating from a position of they don't really know what's going to work.

and we don't know, apparently, all we're saying is, well, it's probably not gonna work the way people fear that it's going to work and it's probably not gonna work the way the proponents of it want it to work.

And I'm just wondering if there is any way we can get any greater degree of certainty other than we're throwing it all at the wall and we're gonna see what works.

Oh, sorry.

It was 845?

No, 8.

We got an email saying we had a hard stop at 745.

Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know that.

So I just want to, I said, I think that that's where I am, Lloyd, some of the questions that, you know, we had some great comments, you know, I have received, like, a lot of comments on both.

and you know from the HAC and the low income housing coalition and from residents just they just don't know you know and I think you know just with anything with the fear of the unknown you will you know a lot of looking at the worst case scenarios and and I think that as we go through this process and we try to you know answer those questions and and I'm still compiling my comments so that's kind of you know

where, you know, those just kind of general comments at this point.

I think, Lloyd, you kind of summarized a lot of the kind of where I am on this.

It's like, you know, I wasn't part of the original, you know, comment, I mean, debate over this because I wasn't on council.

I thought I could use my

My planning background from UVA to help with this, but this is going to be straight up politics with this, and I believe so.

This is good discussion, but I think when it comes to council, a lot of it's going to be politics, what we think is best for this city to address.

I was walking with a constituent today through several neighborhoods.

We started the free speech wall, and it just kind of meandered through just talking about another issue, but you can see

the changes in, you know, Star Hill, Byfield, and other neighborhoods where they're just, you know, the house is small at the beginning as it is and just blowing up in the back.

It's huge.

And you can see the changes, you know, all throughout the city.

And I know that, you know, one of the neighborhoods we were walking through was Fightfield.

And when I was a student at UVA in the 88 to 90, one of the things we were told was, don't go into Fightfield.

And just some quick final thoughts, you know, the regional housing partnership, there was a panel with Arlington participated on where they talked about what they had recently approved, and it was interesting, one of the big differences between them and Charlottesville is in terms of what they were allowing to be built by right on lots, it was more aggressive and more than Charlottesville, but they didn't

do anything close to inclusionary zoning requirements, intentionality around affordable housing at zero to 30 percent AMI, 30 to 60 percent AMI.

And it was interesting in that conversation how different those approaches were.

And kind of one of the takeaways is density was necessary but not sufficient to get to zero to 30 and 30 to 60 percent AMI.

and that Arlington's approach, again, unlike ours, was much more purely market and supply side focus.

And I think a lot of what we've done has been to try to be intentional about that zero to 30 and 30 to 60 percent AMI level.

And I just hope we don't lose a focus on that.

Over 50, over half the people who live in our city are at 60 percent AMI or below.

When you're talking about 60 percent AMI,

You're really talking about a family of two nurses who work, two teachers who work, firefighters, the people who serve us in restaurants, work at UVA, work for our city and serve us.

And I just hope we don't lose sight of the fact that our status quo right now isn't working.

And one of the risks is, you know, one of the things at the conclusion of the regional housing partnership

The Chair of the Regional Housing Partnership, Ned Galloway, and Albemarle remarked on how at the UVA panel discussion, UVA said about their proposal at North Fork, you can't please everybody, and they were just going to build market rate units there.

And Chair Galloway's response was he was really taken back by that statement of you can't please everybody because who is that everybody we're talking about?

And in their case, it was the nurses, it was the firefighters, it was the teachers.

And I just hope we don't lose sight of that.

And it is complex.

I share fears in terms of, you know, just getting a 10-story luxury office space or luxury apartment complex that, you know, won't

trickle down to benefit affordable housing.

But I think it is clear that duplexes, triplexes, allowing affordable housing developers to build affordable housing, like we approved at Park Street in MACA,

is critical if this isn't going to become an exclusive community that's only affordable to the rich.

And I know we all share that goal, and it's hard to get there, but that's what informs my thinking on it, is what is going to help us accomplish that goal while acknowledging there is a lot of uncertainty.

And I think particularly when you're talking about a 10-story building, there's some questions in terms of depending on where you build that, is that really going to help?

I have some thoughts on where I'm thinking about this.

Part of it was the rate of change was a big disappointment for me personally.

I know a lot of people were excited because it meant very little change over time, but I was hoping for some change over time to do the things that we say we want to do.

But that was before the interest rates shot up and all the prices effectively doubled, which made everything so much worse.

So that scared me, and I'm worried about that.

And I don't know when that gets fixed.

Well, one of the questions – a series of questions I had asked was about whether the new economic conditions affect the rate of change that's being suggested.

And that's, I think, one of the questions I think Mr. Friese was going to duck to the consultants.

Different – true.

Different consultants.

Yeah.

Additional discussion?

I would also entertain a motion at this time.

I have a motion.

I'm glad to know that.

Second that motion.

I hear a second.

Can I see thumbs?

I see thumbs.

Good night all.

Thank you.