Planning Commission Joint Work Session with City Council   4/25/2023

Absolutely.

I will get many complaints about it.

Or was that, no, that was a verbal complaint.

That was an email complaint.

I see 5 p.m. ?

One, two, three.

I thought that was an interesting change.

Thank you very much.

In terms of just the way to frame our talk about module two, I was hoping Mr. Fries could give us a little bit of structure.

Surprise.

I'm happy to pause there if anybody has any questions about schedule or move right along.

At what point do you want us to make a recommendation to Council on the document?

To what extent, I don't know at this point, but you guys will deliberate, and then you'll make a recommendation to council with regard to adoption.

So the one thing we don't want to have to do is re-educate a commissioner and or a counselor.

If I could make this go quicker, I absolutely would.

Mr. Mitchell, what were those dates again in the

All right.

But is the deadline or is the end of the present term August 31?

where they're going to do this.

Ready to go?

It's coming, yeah.

So basically it's allowing for the idea that you can put an addition on the back of the house, but the bonus comes for preserving that kind of entire front structure.

The first 25 feet of the structure.

Does that count?

You can go up after there within the bounds of what's allowed within the district.

Well, so you're saying like a second-story addition, but I'm saying could you take that existing one-story house, add a floor to that part?

Not as we've written it.

If I do anything other than the last foot to change the first 25 feet, I don't get the bonus.

Now you can, within, you know, the lot overall permitting, space, buildable area on the lot permitting, you can extend further than your current 26 feet.

Sure.

Right.

If I cut into my existing house by even a foot or a foot and one inch?

Foot and one inch, yeah.

Okay.

This is purely a preservation of the exterior in order to qualify for that bonus unit.

Including the roof line that's sloping down in the back.

Right.

Okay.

It helps me understand it to think about something that I know.

All right.

All right.

You want the people occupying those units to be part of that community and not viewed as coming from the affordable section.

So indistinguishable from the outside?

you've made a decision to keep that person that household in but now you're responsible for another affordable unit you don't want to have to move them because that's your designated unit it's much easier just to shift the unit that's an affordable designated unit and just do that with the city so one sort of ambiguity there

Do we have guidance on what that is?

Not at this point, but, I mean, you know, those are the types of things that we just have to work through.

Yeah, and I think it's a problem with our current regulations, too.

Make a unit both with one and a half, right?

On that same topic, I think we brought this up before, if somebody does phase out of their AMI percentage, I think you mentioned last time they have three months to find a new place.

That makes sense.

So that person can get up to 100 and they'd still qualify for that.

They tend to go back and forth.

hopefully always forward so if someone were in a unit and their financial circumstances increased but I had another unit that was vacant could I flip that to be the affordable unit in order not to affect my current

So if somebody, now you can imagine they're probably going to let them get all the way to 100% of AMI, but say they get up to 101% of AMI and the landlord makes the decision that they want to keep them in, which I hope they would do, they can basically designate a different unit.

Okay, all right.

Part of this program is going to be an annual monitoring where we're going to need to get income verification on the tenants, verification of the rent that's being charged, and some form of, if not inspection of every unit, every year some form, some inspection schedule so that we can verify that the terms, the requirements of the ordinance are being maintained.

Why would you do granite in those of upper incomes and something less than that or your particular fixtures and things in the unit be less than that?

And the manual that comes with this section is essentially owned by Office of Community Solutions.

Okay.

not make it onerous in the future for the owner to, like, change a fixture and then, you know, have to, like, something's out of stock and they didn't get it and now they're in a situation where one unit is different, but... Yeah, I mean, I think from their perspective, that's the management considerations they need to be making is do I really want to maintain two standards within units and have to track that?

And there shouldn't be.

I mean, that becomes difficult to manage in some respects.

But I think we'd want to encourage those units to be there, rather.

At that level, they just pay .

So, for example, if the reason why this apartment is being treated as affordable is that nobody's getting in there and fixing the toilet, you know, is that something that we have the ability to oversee or would want to?

I want to say yes, but I want to follow up on that and make sure I know it.

Right.

If it doesn't meet HUD criteria, demand fixes within 30 days.

It might be easiest just to have the same standards apply here as would apply to the HUD inspections.

Is there any kind of timeline in which the request or idea of kind of the need for the staffing to support this new function would need to come online?

Thank you.

CRHA is exempt from the inclusionary zoning ordinance?

So that's one that's on my list to follow up on.

Right.

Will the focus be something different?

Thank you.

Are we adopting this manual at the same time as the rest of it?

That would be the idea, yeah.

Right.

The fee in lieu offers you an option that allows both the project to go forward and to get the benefit of those dollars.

I mean, these guys want to build something at UVA and maybe a fee in lieu would be better for us in the city than building housing that's affordable to the students at UVA.

My understanding from reading it is it's the same as our current formula with a 3% annual increase, or was that incorrect?

No, it's not the same as our formula.

Well, I'll definitely need to double check that because that concern may be solved.

It's not exactly the same formula that was used to arrive at the 2005 JPA but it's similar.

I feel very strongly we have to be clear about that.

Right.

Right.

That's kind of outside of... Do we get that in, what, a resolution of council?

That's a pathway.

It would still have to get implemented every year.

Right.

There's no way around that.

Yeah, I mean, really, it's a hard commitment because you can't find future councils, but I think it does help to have it in writing as the policy.

It's targeted in that way of the idea that if you've got many of these a year, that we can actually leverage some of it.

But my recommendation would be that over the course of the next however many years and decades that this is an effect that you may want to preserve some degree of flexibility as long as the funds always go towards the objective of affordable housing.

But would Mr. Cain's suggestion allow for that flexibility?

Yeah.

Wouldn't his suggestions allow for flexibility?

Yeah, I mean, I'm very open to different languages as long as the goal is we're not basically short-thrifting our affordable housing commitment.

Did we get any more detail on why there's a difference in the fee for rental versus owner-occupied housing?

Okay.

Now, that does lead that if you're building a unit that's going to be owner-occupied, that opens up a problem with our 99 years for owner-occupied and home ownership units.

And we got, and I don't recall if this was in the formal recommendations from the HACC or if it was simply in conversations with HACC members, but I've got some language that I'm now going to be working from.

I mean, that could be a ticket to the litigation bonus.

I much prefer having clearer language than simply discretion.

Yeah, instead of connect the dots that the zoning will follow these guidelines or something that's pretty specific.

Right.

Or else we're just going to get beat up and sued or threatened to be sued if the zoning administrator isn't doing what the bill wants them to do.

Right.

Because I see that as a non-spark for ownership.

For ownership is where we're offering that flexibility.

So is that flexibility going to be, it's not 99 years, it's something else?

Right now, we've simply got it consistent with the comprehensive plan, but we can get tighter than that.

Which isn't a bad place to start.

That's part of what's been submitted to me in that space.

This whole table's a little weird, but I'm sure we'll revisit it before we adopt it.

Which table was that?

It's figure one in the manual.

Okay.

Anything else on this portion of the affordable housing bonus?

I think it would be nice to add a little section explaining how that process works.

You're building two affordable payments.

You're not building that.

Yeah, you can.

Not without 100% of them being affordable.

Does it make sense to be at 100% for all of those bonuses in all zones?

I don't have a parking requirement when the building comes down either.

That's what I tell everybody, they've asked me, but they still act like they're confused, so I feel like just getting it in there.

That's what our consultant's analysis arrived at.

So you're saying that no one would build it?

10 is our number.

Yeah, I guess I'm arguing something slightly different, which is that you would have to do away with the all units must be affordable for the bonus, but you would say all in excess of a base would have to be, and that would allow the cross-subsidy, which would apply

But I'll say that that analysis was never run on that double density proposal because that didn't come out of our affordable housing analysis.

It is for the PHAs and habitats and folks like that.

Those are the only... But they're still looking, they would still be looking for cross subsidy by having a mix.

So you envision a situation like this where a habitat partners with a private developer to put in a couple three units.

Right, so maybe three and three.

Anyone?

I think it's eight or ten.

Your vision would be that this could be available in R, A, B, and C, something like this.

just a little bit, but certainly R.A., probably R.B., I don't know about R.C.

You're wading into some politically challenging waters.

Should we go to the next slide and wade into said politically challenging waters?

Which will also I think help for updating in future years.

Absolutely, yep.

It's a 40th percentile, recent census, plus some other methodological quirks.

The height is only in the RB and the RC.

So can we use that to get at

Certainly I have my set of preferences.

I don't have an answer.

We can't possibly shoot ourselves in the foot because we'll always have the opportunity to come back and add to the zoning ordinance as we learn more and as we put together different financing mechanisms or other programs that support the creation of more affordable units and capital A affordable units.

I'm not sure how you do that on the financing side.

because this is complicated and I think box canyons are funny, I'd like to box canyons into going around on this issue.

The first way to look at it is simply financial.

So my point was, why are we trying to insist on something that is highly, highly unlikely ever to be built?

You also have, let's say the total

Well, you can do a scattered site LIHTC project if you had a bunch of these sites across the city, but that would obviously require a fair amount of assembly.

So I'm just interjecting, I'm not sure that that financial analysis is, I don't think there would ever be an expectation that the city would be paying 100% of the cost of every unit.

They make a small positive cash flow on it, and we move on down the road and re-spend that money.

and maybe beyond the scope of this meeting.

We just don't want to do anything in the zoning code that kneecaps something like that happening.

and I will find out on Thursday where I'm wrong.

They'll have some way to make up some of the Delta.

And so the debate is polarized over something that, say, I don't think is ever going to get built.

That's pretty much a by-right development, isn't it?

Yeah.

So you and I talked about that briefly a couple weeks ago as well.

So a special use permit or a special exemption?

Something where council and the Planning Commission would have to make a recommendation that council would have to file a rubber stamp.

It's a legislative action with a recommendation from the Planning Commission and action by the City Council.

I think that's going to be a mighty hard vote for any counselor to make.

Well, I note we just recently did that with MACA and Park Street.

Not in a million dollars for eight units.

So.

Does that make sense, the question?

I don't understand how that works as an incentive.

fewer projects but 100% affordable, so fewer affordable units total.

Yeah, so to frame it, we might be putting in a system to provide for the building of a whole lot of affordable units that are never going to be built as opposed to an engineering circumstance where we'll actually get the units built but not in the blocks we are hoping for.

is more important to me that some of that get built than that we have something out there which if it ever really got built, we wouldn't like.

So I guess that's more of a big picture.

Is that what I hear you saying?

Yes, and anyone who's making, you know, $39,000, $40,000, $50,000 a year has some benefit from this process.

I was just asking you, that's what I thought I heard you say, but the reason I asked you

Because, I mean, that's where these things are going to, that's when you say where those doors are going to get shut, they're going to get shut there.

It's your typical black household in the city, and I'm very concerned that if we're not intentional about that, we do leave them out.

And your first suggestion addresses that at 50%, but not at 60, right?

I'm just looking for something that accomplishes that goal, I guess.

To get back to the concern about that in the RA, that it might be that tool.

I think it's one of many but it at least provides an opportunity for that kind of housing to get built.

And by we, I mean you guys.

I'm not sure that's practical.

or feasible, much less than being able to understand the process.

So I mean, I'd be happy to throw together a memo on how I got the program.

And that was sort of what I saw as the deal.

I don't know, maybe that's one way to get there.

I mean, it's one thing with an 80-unit process or project like those, right, like for an eight-unit project to jump through a specialties permit and a year of sitting on a house or buying in advance not knowing if you're going to get it seems so onerous as to mean they're probably not going to happen.

The point being just recognizing that a special use process introduces a degree of risk into the projects and a larger project has a greater capacity to afford that risk.

But also to run a foul on it, too.

Sort of?

This came later in the process.

It's the medium intensity residential, yes, MIR, yeah.

The RB and RC zoning districts are the medium intensity residential.

Is that?

Yeah.

I think it's something we have to think about.

You can't have 16 units in something that looks like a house.

That was medium intensity residential as proposed.

And when you go above three stories, too, just by the nature of how building codes dictate floor plans.

that's a different character of things because the overall concern just as a purely political matter that I'm seeing over and over the complaint is what you're talking about is much bigger than or it would allow for many more much bigger buildings on my street

I don't even think that people are thinking about the bonus.

on the street, and then before you know it, you're talking about a very, very different looking and feeling neighborhood than what you started.

there is there is not a configuration where that's going to be the rule it's just this rare that's theoretically possible and I think that's that's kind of a scary thing what's going to happen I guess I'd also point out that we do have these massing requirements in there that that are going to restrict that to smaller seeming buildings right like that 40-foot width requirement

But at least we can, with knowledge, eliminate that political flashpoint.

Thank you.

There are ways to meet in the middle and make everybody unhappy, but at least make it tolerable for everybody.

I mean, you know, it's like, oh, okay, well, I live on Grove Road and I'm going to have 30,000 units.

I'm not an architect, but I can count to 16.

If you don't do that, then what have you done?

Here's my side elevation, here's my front elevation, according to what is being allowed now.

And, I mean, it takes time, and it takes resources, and I don't know if there's... The bandwidth.

So we're looking at doing a video where we actually kind of run through, here's the factors that go into an RV lot and give you an outcome.

and you know we want to be somewhere in the range of within that scale we're creating as many affordable units as we can and so we're somewhere in the middle of the triangle and I think if everyone agrees on that the triangle I spent a lot of time on this and I think we can we can work on tweaking the program to make it make more sense but I would like to hear from Councillor Wade yeah what I'd like to

And another side note that this house is going to probably be an Airbnb.

The $1.2 million Airbnb Oh yes, I just stayed in one a year ago and it was more than $1.2 million

So taking it all in.

What are we talking about?

No, I mean, there's more information in there, but it's not, it's not, there's a table that talks about the data that they compiled to come to their conclusions.

It's a 52-page report that includes their economic analysis, but the challenge is myself not being an economist, I really don't know what to make of it.

I read it, I spent a fair amount of time trying to figure it out, but it didn't get anywhere.

Yeah, but I know, I don't know what AMI level are doing, but it is interesting, Albemarle is discussing 20%, not 10%.

You know, a tax exemption for these affordable units or something.

They're proposing to layer tax incentives on top.

And utility hookup exemptions, too, which is, I know, a major cost.

I know.

And then the double would be 16?

Yes.

normal, typical RC lot, what would that be, 12?

So if I were, again, pulling one out of my ear, I would go with 12 because that's what we said in medium intensity.

And if that's the case, maybe we start from that and then go from there.

I don't know, but.

I say we do that and move on.

that actually happen in every neighborhood to an extent.

somewhat smaller apartment kinds of places would be a whole lot more attractive than having fewer numbers of potentially four-story buildings in the middle.

I'm wondering if, I don't know what chapter we're on, but it's...

Patrick, slide.

So people that are afraid of huge change in very built-up, older and larger, more expensive neighborhoods is not as likely to see that.

They don't want to hear it.

It's not terribly good at the opposite.

Oh.

Absolutely.

The answer is yes.

There isn't really a zoning solution for me there so much as if we're going to focus attention there, we need to do so kind of strategically and in conversations with

And I think there are zoning changes we can make in specific areas which will make that less likely that could happen.

I mean, is that unreasonable though?

It takes the pressure off.

If I were the property owner, I might feel that's unreasonable if I was the property owner.

is increasing fee-simple home ownership.

I don't want to go down the answer.

Let's fight about that later.

Yeah, and if I could ask maybe in the interest of time, focus in on reactions to the zoning proposal that we're putting on the table.

I thought there wasn't going to be any difference in the zoning and that you're going to focus entirely on these things on this slide.

I will tell you that we have been back and forth on this issue considerably.

So, I mean, my, I would prefer that you didn't limit it, that it's the same as the other districts, and instead we focus on the issues on this slide.

And are you saying it's limited because of just the lot size?

It just doesn't seem like we're solving any problems by limiting the growth.

If somebody wants to sell a house, you can't make them have a penalty because they live in a sensitive community neighborhood.

Yeah, and if you're limiting the unit number, what you're actually doing is inviting gentrification so that someone can come in and say, I'd be happy to build, to buy your 75-year-old worn house, tear it down and build my $100,000.

I think oftentimes the high-value single family is going to win that option decision tree.

Yeah, yeah.

No more than one additional unit from existing conditions.

Would there still be a bonus for affordability?

I suppose there could be.

But what do you think people want?

There are also people who say, hey, the idea, if you can figure out the financing, and that's a big challenge for a lot of people, if you can figure out the financing, they weren't opposed to the notion of, you know, an accessory dwelling unit in the back where there's actually space.

I mean, my sense of some of the conversations I've had is that

monstrosity so I don't know I don't want to speak for that community but you you certainly know a lot of the folks over there and I would say we would want to err on the side of conserving those conserving those neighborhoods I like the idea that Miss Russell mentioned of a conservation district or some sort of I don't know

Yeah, yeah.

And that is what I think the sensitive area is kind of trying to do is to sort of put a halt on outside freshers.

20 years ago I had a lot of activity in Prospect, Largedale, Biceville area where I had come to me a large number which I mean more than five or six in a year

You know, if I lived on Prospect in 2004, I wouldn't want to either.

They're in Charlotte or D.C.

Can someone remind me with the flume, what was the mechanism around the sensitive area?

They make just too much.

So what would be the, I'm sorry if I'm missing the clear logic here, what would be the issue with just making that area the same as R1 or RA or RB now?

That's exactly what we're talking about.

The idea was to try to prevent the gentrification that's occurring specifically in those.

I see.

I want to just say, like, when we say, you know, we want to kind of relieve development pressure, you're also talking about less value for the person that wants to sell it if they want to sell it.

So it's... That's the flip side.

kind of impose this on people that do want to sell that, you know, it is kind of an injustice in the other way.

I think there is an element of neighborhood preservation in the sense of areas.

I will say that when Jeff Warner tried to do the, he did a historic survey of Tint and Page, there was not just a lot of push, there was a lot of pushback towards the survey itself, but my understanding from listening to my neighbors was there was very little appetite for any sort of conservation district or historic district.

Sure, and that's because of misunderstandings around presentation and, you know, limitations that would require more education.

It could be, but I think people, too, often help us to advocate for their own financial well-being, and maybe that's the other thing that's happening.

One person's gentrification is another person's recognition of family wealth.

I think that's the challenge that Mr. and Bob

I mean destroyed black wealth in our country and I don't really see this approach changing that dynamic in terms of the conversation being that this will solve that problem and I think and I see no protections for low-income renters who aren't in subsidized housing.

I'm just going to say that I don't think zoning is well set up to offer those protections.

And I'll say again I think zoning is directly connected to the strategies that will.

The only difference is that Cambridge didn't put a cap on that unit count.

Outside investors will come in, snack it all up, and flip it, and it will just be student housing, essentially.

That's what I think will happen.

So that's happening under our existing model because that's what the market is doing because particularly 10th and Page, 5thville, Ridge Street are the most well located neighborhoods in the city.

guard against speculative developers pushing out existing low-income renters, but at the expense of capping equity gain for homeowners.

That's right.

I don't know where the realtors have been in doing that because that's their job, but they're not doing great.

building up the capacity of people who live in those neighborhoods or formerly lived in those neighborhoods to take advantage of that is one way to use what we're doing in zoning to build wealth within the Charlottesville black community.

Yeah, and my impression is also like if the house is going to be flipped to something other than it is now is it better for it to just double in price and stay the same or is it better for it to become a few smaller units that will be naturally cheaper and I mean that seems like an easy one.

That's a big thing to talk about, and we can't even begin to talk about it until we're actually talking to people in the community.

Could you cap dwelling unit sizes?

Could you say, if you're going to build a new thing, you can't build anything more than, you know, 1,000 square feet per dwelling unit on that lot for X number of years.

Right.

you know that effectively you're putting a really small house on that or you're building a four unit of 900 square foot of 900 square foot apartments on it for example can we do that yeah we can drill down and we can do that in a way where they can't just consolidate the four units in the building into one big one that is larger than that okay so I mean

That's another avenue to try.

Zoning is one.

Who's deciding on that?

That process, figuring out.

Yes, and Commissioner Russell is making a really good point of why I keep coming back to the community.

Yeah, and that is not a vast term.

Yeah.

There's a much more detailed step to come.

I want to use the word fair, but I don't know what other word to, you know.

So I'm not sure what body starts the conversation to push out to the community to get that in, if that's something that maybe solution starts, is that something that gets pitched to the hack to start, is that something that, I don't know.

But I'm not trying to be annoying, but I mean.

Like there might be some places like the mobile home park that I think that is a bigger issue on.

on the other hand I wonder if that would be even legal I mean I can see where it might be legal if you're talking about yeah in other words essentially we're saying that you can't you you can't extract as much value it's this problem of the the one versus if you look at one individual versus the impacts it has over a whole community what might make sense from one

Capital, Power, Time, start to think about zoning as a way to try to fight rezoning, you know, upzonings, right?

And it's going to be primarily homeowners who want to do that, not renters, but I'll stop.

Would that be this kind of a recognition?

One additional unit and these existing programs and whatever we can do in the meantime to strengthen these existing programs.

If the status quo is, you know, try to keep the social makeup of the community more similar to today than otherwise, then I think that does the opposite.

Cross your fingers for a recession.

My personal view, as a temporary measure, which I think is the right way to think about this, I see support for the smaller approach if there is still the overlay to allow affordable housing, because we don't know how temporary temporary is.

Yeah, I mean, my great fear about the temporary is, you know, that falls also into the category of bandwidth and this gets pushed and punted and then temporary, as you point out, ain't really that temporary and we're stuck with this sort of half an installation that doesn't really work and doesn't really do anything that we wanted it to do and nobody's happy and it's 18 years later.

I'm sorry when you say the overlay is one unit over existing conditions or existing zoning existing conditions

Like, if you're saying that, like, the seven plex on dice can be built under this into an eight plex.

Still within the limit of the RA.

All right, but, I mean, you're still giving the most development rights now to the small plexes that are renter-occupied, and suddenly those are the ones that are attempting to redevelop, to tear down and redevelop instead of.

For one additional unit.

Well, it could be one, it could be a much nicer additional year in all cases.

Well, still up to three is still your max, four if you preserve the existing building.

Or you can go from four to one and you're back with a single-family residence in the same threat.

That's happening anyway.

I guess I'd say I really don't like the idea of the non-conforming plexes getting more development rights than everyone else.

So leave the non-conforming plexes out?

Then now you can build, if it's a, you know, a relatively small duplex with relatively rundown and therefore naturally affordable units, you could build, you know,

which is not a perfect example but it'll be like what happened with Belmont Apartments and they are all left the city no one's there anymore they'll never afford to live in the city again yeah I mean that particular scenario seems great anyway

So is there a proposal?

I'm sorry, we're talking about this existing thing, meaning it's as proposed in the rezoning, the RA, not existing conditions, not current zoning, and then plus one, it's RA plus one.

He was saying RA, but only up to the current number of units on that property plus one.

a two-unit can add one unit.

But I don't think either of those is a terribly good idea.

I mean, what you just said basically is to not do a sensitive community overlay of any kind, just to, because if it's plus two, you're at three, and that's RA.

I don't think that's a good idea, I just think it's a bad idea to treat existing non-conforming flexes differently.

Fair enough, fair enough.

And if we could formalize that, I mean, I guess, I mean, are we essentially nowhere on this?

I would like to hear from Commissioner Mitchell, who is not checking.

And so that's a way to get in the game.

I mean, what did, because when this was discussed, who even knows how long ago, kind of, from what I remember as part of, like, the affordable housing plan discussions, I guess my understanding of what it would evolve into is something where there would be, what?

I'm back to the overlay as well.

I thought well over like two years ago at this point probably that that's where this would be headed.

The affordability bonus is basically that housing overlay.

But I thought it would be something stronger on top of that.

It's just a conflict all around.

buildings are buildings and I mean there's going to be difficult decisions that have to be made and I think if we had to choose between do we want a city that you know residents low-income residents and diverse residents can continue to live in or do you want a city that has the old buildings I'm reading the small area plan and I'm saying and I'm reading that residents would like to see preservation of existing housing affordable housing for generational families to remain but they would not like to see huge apartment buildings

You don't even need to massively increase the height or base density, you're just creating a scenario, or at least in the interim, it's more likely the investment that comes in.

And that's definitely not zoning.

And what will also happen is we will continue to see the single-family flips because we can't restrict those at the end of the day.

And at the end of the day, you know, several of those things are not going to happen because those are all mutually exclusive.

And then they get to sell for the top dollar.

Exactly, and I think everyone agrees that the current trajectory here is bad, really bad.

Or they just flip it.

like they are now.

a house that looks the same and I don't know that we can prevent.

But, you know, those aren't really choices on the table because at the end of the day, like the cat's out of the bag, these flips are happening pretty much 100% of the time.

is more than a minority player that's tipped to this and that there are other things that have to move.

These other programs do with people.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

as potent and as lethal as possible on this with the minimum number of unintended consequences.

Do you see that being a tool that has any utility still or is that kind of in terms of achieving any outcomes barking up the wrong tree?

It's a practical issue.

I mean, let's get a little more specific.

So he's talking about an overlay, and we, many years ago, talked about the board of a house and overlay for these sensitive zones.

What were they?

Not all, but there's that.

And so there would be no incentive for them to do anything because their best bet is to stay non-conformant.

Yeah, I mean, they could tear it down and build fancier triplexes, but it's probably not worth it.

They could fix up the existing units, but that also is still the case today.

Right, and so I lean towards Commissioner Bob's view of the costs to adding those extra restrictions outweigh the benefits, and we need to focus on the non-setting tools to help those runners, because there's no easy answer.

Whether it's parking or student housing issues or noise, whatever it might be, I think we can be a good partner as much as we're able to understand what the problems are.

and that's, I think at this point we probably need to move on pretty quick.

and sort of flip it on its head.

And most basically, the more of that you do, the less the need there is for these bad things that we think are happening.

I'm not certain we've helped, James.

I mean, is that like the large trade-off we're talking about, or am I missing?

And I don't think that we are going to answer that.

So I would continue on where you are with this knowing that we may iterate down the road.

Where this is the non-zoning recommendations or the overlay concept they were saying?

Okay.

I mean I think this is yeah we haven't concluded anything but we've raised all the fundamental issues and from that from that perspective we are well prepared to

Can we get some broadening input from outside of, I think we need some broader input on this, and if possible, we need some community input and some other thoughts, and I'm not sure what the instrument is to do that, but maybe council can give some direction to, the hack is one idea to sort of talk about this and stretch it out, I'm not sure, but just so that we're not...

Maybe we get in the top part of the Fifeville Neighborhood Association agenda this time instead of the last five minutes.

There always are.

Are we asking the questions to get the answers?

And I can tell you, lots of communities are wrestling with this issue at larger and smaller scales.

As an overlay, right, we know that zoning can't solve everything, but can the framework of the overlay help form these other things like housing rehabilitation programs or

I'd point to the comprehensive plan which already identified sensitive community areas and you can tag anything like this to those identified areas in the comp plan and say here's where we want to focus our attention if that's appropriate to do.

It might be worth revisiting exactly where those look.

Because again, yeah, as you note, that line was drawn for a specific purpose that then is susceptible to questioning as we've done here.

I don't think I'm happy with any of it.

you know you're not really allowing much additional massing but you can divide those flipped houses into smaller apartments and I think the scale of change that would happen between now and making that plan would be small in the size of the neighborhood and potentially gather interesting data yeah I think those are very fair points

There's another slide.

There's like 10 more.

I'm fine.

This is a very long, difficult conversation.

Smart.

Should have started with the easy ones.

Take one in order.

Yeah, we burned out by the time we got to Harvard.

So overall, that's what this section is all about.

Yay.

Okay.

The blocks are roughly similar to like a downtown block?

Yep.

Great idea.

So this is the provision that gets us out of negotiating for new street connections when those properties redevelop and instead is just, it's a base requirement.

I think I saw some exceptions.

But I think stribbling would actually easily meet many of these requirements.

You're some common sense.

So that was anticipating exactly this type of provision.

in a neighborhood where there's already an established street pattern.

It's really aimed at filling in where there's gaps or where there's a subpar streetscape.

Does that mean that you would have buildings set back a little further so that later on they could be filled in?

looking at and going to be talking with our legal counsel about is whether we can build in a kind of BAR exemption broadly on rules where if the BAR approves a project under their guidelines, it can be exempt from provisions like this where that's necessary.

Does that get an exemption?

I would not say it gets an exemption, no.

Is that how that works?

It might just be how it works out, yeah.

Are we talking about, sorry, just to clarify, is it when the sidewalks ride up against the street is the issue?

But, right, I mean, where there's no, one of the objectives here is to establish that screenscape zone.

Would the greenscape zone move to the other side of the sidewalk if you can't fit it between the road and the sidewalk?

Well, the idea is that the entirety of the greenscape zone and the clear walk zone would intrude on site.

Maybe.

Yes, the exemption is built to kind of recognize the existing pattern of the greenscape.

Requiring your design standards?

Okay.

There we go.

Absolutely.

or you can run them in a certain way to allow for the street trees to actually be planted there.

Apologize.

They're saying the spacing requirement can change based on where they are, and then if they're overhead utilities.

That's probably trying to deal with utilities that are coming off the site, connecting to a utility that's usually in the street.

And then if there's overhead utilities, we're allowing understory trees.

Thanks.

One of the things we're doing is establishing clear standards for all types of drive-throughs, which I'm not sure that we have entirely today.

Unless otherwise expressly modified by the zoning administrator, off-street stacking spaces must be provided as follows.

Oh, interesting.

So usually that kind of language is about reducing the standard for the extenuating circumstances, not necessarily increasing it because you're selling chicken.

You can just make fried chicken a separate use in that table, I think.

I mean, it's a restaurant.

I don't know.

It's not a maximum.

I just heard must be.

It does say must be provided as, oh no, it says min in the table right now.

Thank you.

On parking, I noticed that the size of parking spaces is a little bigger than we currently have in our ordinance.

Like, if we want to, if I want to build an apartment building parking lot that only caters to people with small cars and not giant trucks, like, why is that illegal when I don't have to even provide parking at all in the first place?

I don't have an answer.

In the new ordinance, they're the same length, but I assume they should be shorter, and then you can make a line of them to make a parking garage a little smaller.

Got it.

Like what if one office is 75% of the office building?

Can you read the whole line again?

And then I guess if you have a three bedroom, then none are allowed.

Cool.

I feel like those would make sense if we had parking requirements.

Yeah, maybe.

No, wait, like more sense.

Yeah, more sense, definitely.

This is primarily aimed at not parking garages, but garages, and the standards limit the degree to which they project in front of, forward of the front facade.

if there is a side or rear, you must.

It's not clear.

I mean, I guess you could be 15 feet behind for the garage, but it seems to be... I guess the idea is if you're parking in front of the garage, yeah.

It's to keep the tail of the car from blocking the sidewalk.

I don't know.

Which is an ADA issue.

Yeah, I mean, that's important, certainly, yeah.

I just want to kind of raise that as a question for everyone.

Yeah.

We can't just have that without any kind of criteria or, yeah, by fiat of the zoning administration.

I think about the litigation issues, like, oh, he said no, so now we've got this and all that, but he said yes over here.

Which is why there needs to be a clear intent and criteria.

I think we probably, I would lead to having loading zones.

It seems like, I mean.

You'd want to have loading sites that are dedicated for that.

And I mean, on street two, it says loading activities are not allowed on a street, on a public street, which like... Hold on.

What was that?

I think a big part of the loading conversation is how we manage our on-street parking lanes.

Now you've kind of put a limit on what can happen in that unit because you can't solve for that issue because it's really a street management issue.

Would it be a loading plan then?

I mean, I think it comes back to this conversation around maybe getting some, not maybe, getting stronger criteria in there so that we can direct that it's more of a requirement where it's possible rather than a blanket requirement that ends up having unintended consequences for our many more historic commercial districts.

A loading demand management plan.

because that segue couldn't be resisted.

A year or two, is that?

Last year.