Planning Commission Meeting   5/9/2023

I see 5 p.m.

I don't see enough planning commissioners.

We can still say what we want.

That's okay.

I've heard from two planning commissioners that are coming.

Do we need quorum?

Is that a concern?

You all don't have any notes tonight, but you should have quorum.

We have enough people who are supposed to be here.

Not released from being here tonight.

Pretty light agenda.

I think we've got some minutes to consider.

Anybody have strong feelings about minutes?

I wasn't there.

Fair point.

Mr. Stolzenberg, would you be willing to make a motion about minutes?

Turning to the non-formal agenda, what we've got.

We've only got one other, really.

Well, so I guess we could talk about that.

Questions about forgetting the address, the one thing that we have on the agenda.

Anything on that?

Is there any particular reason there coming to us for preliminary discussion for a five-flex?

Anything else on that item?

Could be in Miami right now.

Really?

You're going to Miami?

Yeah, sort of.

My dad is graduating.

He's getting a PhD or doctorate in business administration.

Credential.

Good for him.

So going down for his commencement.

You probably know, but please eat something.

No, he actually is now retired from being a professor of sports management, the whole tenure of which he was working on getting his doctorate.

And so now he doesn't really need it, but he's gotten it.

The important thing is that Gil Hodge is in the Hall of Fame now.

who originally wanted to write a dissertation on that and they said, no, that is not a dissertation topic, but he wrote it all anyway and sent it to the old timers committee and they let him in last year.

I don't know if there's a causal link there, but I'm pretty sure he'd like this.

Moving on from five homes to zoning broadly, we basically just got this as a, you want to talk about stuff kind of item?

Yeah.

So, I mean, maybe, I don't know if, maybe James has something that would spark a discussion.

I'm sorry?

I mean, I shared the schedule last time of where we are right now.

I mean, I'd reiterate that.

But honestly, we're like heads down focused on getting module three done for next week.

And then while we're

Yeah, that's being processed.

Yeah, it's working.

You're only there to see one person walk across the stage.

I can just dictate the email I should have written while we're here, because I'm incapable of writing emails, apparently.

But it does feel a little weird to have a real discussion with just five of us and no counselors.

Assuming there's going to be five.

There is.

Oh, okay.

That is everything I've got for this pre-meeting.

Does anyone else want to raise anything?

You can talk about anything you wish, within reason.

Is that a 23-minute break?

Can we start early?

Because it's not, nothing is... No, but when we start at 530, we don't have to stop.

It's delayed three-notched fresh beer club pickup night because of the power outage yesterday.

And so I had to like move all the way around and park in the garage.

Happy 5.30 p.m.

That is the Charlottesville Planning Commission meeting for Tuesday, May 9, 2023.

No counsel at this time, sorry to say.

No public hearings tonight.

So there will be no restrictions on public comment.

You can talk about whatever you like.

I'd like to start up with Commissioner Reports.

And Mr. Mitchell, would you start us off?

A couple of meetings.

The first meeting was Parks and Rec.

As always, they are very busy.

updates that relates to the projects they're working on.

The skate park retaining wall is, I believe that's just about done up and running.

Talked a little bit about the Tunza parking lot.

Talked about the Maplewood Cemetery retaining wall.

I think that's moving along.

The McIntyre drainage project, which is a DEQ problem, is still something we're working on.

The Riverview rest room renovations.

That is, we bid that, and the bid came back at 600,000 bucks.

That's because they've got to do a lot of boring, and they've got to do a lot of electric work, but that's a little more than we expected.

We're likely going to rebid that.

Interestingly enough, most of the projects that we're bidding are coming back in significantly higher than we expected them to.

And we, in fact, are having difficulty getting folks to bid on some of the projects that we're working on.

We also talked about the master plan.

The master plan update project is now out for bid.

So that's moving along.

Oh, Grove.

I sent you a copy of the Grove.

It's now open and available to visit.

We need to do a little bit of

but it's up and working and there to visit.

The objective is to make this a place to go and reflect and to think about city leaders.

People, an example of people honored are Drury and Mitch.

And frankly, I thought I saw Juan's name, the vice mayor's name on one of the plaques up there as well.

So they have Lionel Key, our planning commissioner Lionel Key is honored at the Grove as well.

So if you get a chance, I encourage you to walk over there and check it out.

The Lupec group met as well.

There are a lot of administrative and housekeeping issues that we work through that I won't bother you guys with.

But there was a presentation from UVA, their thermal energy study.

And this study is there to support the goal of being carbon neutral by 2030 and being fossil free by 2050.

Is that it?

Thank you very much.

Yes, sir.

Two meetings I can more or less consolidate of the HAC, the main HAC on the 19th, and a subcommittee on the 26th, the subject of which was Module 2.

Subcommittee pulled together some recommendations, and they were, I'm not sure if it went to the whole Commission and Council, but they certainly went to our Chair, the Mayor, and Mr. Freeze.

The general reception of that was there were some technical concerns about state and federal guidelines and conflicts and how that needs to be addressed specifically so we don't trip up over ourselves in the middle of a project.

There was a talk about the term of affordability and there is some sort of bifurcation between

home ownership and rentals and you know there's a suggestion that we go back to some of the language in city housing policy one about people based and project based just sort of at least for now to have sort of a reference then

There was sort of a form-based code matter about, you know, don't be so concerned about bedroom counts, etc.

And some of these needs to be sort of focused towards, you know, let the inside of the buildings be the inside of the buildings.

On the bonus density piece there was a discussion of the practicality of this 100%

bonus for 100% affordability and just that the math's not really mathing on it and then we look at as we discussed in the work session and then the in terms of the sensitive area matter that the hack put itself over this is a complicated thing to discuss and if you want us to pick it up

you know if the Planning Commission and or City Council and or both want to refer that to the hack please do so and we all wanted to talk about in lieu fees but no one had sort of a coherent argument to make at the time so we all decided we needed to talk about in lieu fees

and that covers that.

That was most of the content of that meeting.

And then the other piece I guess is that Charlottesville CPT is meeting on the 24th.

I don't want to steal your thunder on that exact time to be determined.

There's a poll going around.

Thank you.

My thunder is secure.

Thank you very much.

Let's see.

A couple weeks ago, I met with Jenny Keller and Mary Joyce Gala from Preservation Piedmont.

They just wanted to hear my thoughts on if there's any conflicts with the code and the BAR.

And I know they ended up meeting with James the next week.

With the BAR, it was a short meeting.

I think the one interesting thing is there is going to be a new restaurant use in the Amtrak station.

So they were trying to get a COA for a rooftop patio.

And then on BPAC, let's see, Ben here, so we do have a new bike ped coordinator.

I don't think they've started quite yet, but they are, I think they're contracted.

and May is Bike Month and next week is Bike to Work Week.

And if you go to livablesseaville.org, there's a little calendar of some of the events.

There'll be food stations set up at certain locations.

I think there's a little party on Monday.

at three-notched from four to seven.

I've heard rumors of a soft-serve stand on West Main.

Oh, I did not hear that, but that's a nice rumor.

The only meeting I had this month was the Downtown Mall Committee last Thursday.

We covered two topics, the fountains and the trees.

The tree situation was a little bit depressing, kind of coming to terms with the nature of mortality and that the trees will eventually die and that we need to figure out what to do next.

So we heard about the, you know, the

RFP out right now for a tree plan for both a plan for how to maintain the trees and what to replace them with in the future and how to replace them, whether, you know, taking a block out all at once and planting totally new things or just kind of replacing, you know, the trees that have to come down when they come down, you know, but those would have to be trees capable of growing under a canopy of oaks.

and then the host of problems with the trees at the moment, notably the great situation eating into the base of their trunks.

and yeah, all sorts of scary things that make you worry about all the trees disappearing at once.

And then the fountains were an interesting conversation.

I think originally the fountains were intended to be much more interactive than they are today.

And first the one in Central Place was roped off in the 80s and then of course now we have

fences around all of the other fountains for accessibility reasons, I'm told.

So, yeah, we had some interesting, if not entirely explanatory discussions on that situation.

Thank you.

Interesting.

Yeah, two kind of big things for the month of May.

Graduation, final exercises, obviously, weekend of the 20th and 21st.

And then right on the heels of that, on the 22nd, there's gonna be some major road closures over on grounds, the western portion of McCormick Road, starting around the physics building, going to the Alderman intersection.

that's going to be closed for the summer to do kind of finish the streetscape that hadn't been completed with Gilmer Hall because there was other projects going on and and timing wise we knew there was a second project of getting

low temperature hot water to across Alderman Road to the dorms to improve their energy efficiency and help meet those goals that Commissioner Mitchell mentioned at the 2030 and 2050 fossil free goals.

So the second part of that is the major closure of Alderman and McCormick intersection.

There'll only be one condition that you can get through there, and that is to loop around, like if you were coming off of Fontaine, you'd loop up O'Hill, come around, down McCormick, so you're going east on McCormick, and then you can take a left, yeah, a left, that's right, a left on Alderman to go north, and that's the only, you know.

Thank you very much.

As for me, I have nothing, but I received a detailed correspondence from Commissioner Habab about the Tree Commission, which met on May 2nd.

I won't give you all of it because it's multiple pages.

The RFP about the Duton Tree Replacement Plan was discussed.

Tree planning has been completed.

162 trees planted, mulched and staked, mostly around the schools.

I've seen quite a few of them actually, it's impressive.

Grant funding is being sought to conduct an urban tree canopy study in an urban forestry plan.

I guess citywide, I think.

There was discussion on the new draft zoning.

Hey, that's us.

Talking about tree baits, which was an idea from a public comment that we received to incentivize tree planting by private owners through a possible stormwater tax credit.

They had a presentation from Rivanna Conservation Alliance on their work, which is detailed.

and they had some information from the urban tree canopy using data from 2018 and planned out how to hit different targets.

If we want to maintain a 38% canopy in 30 years, we have to plant 2,500 trees every year, which would be expensive and difficult.

I don't know that we have that plan, but good to know.

And that's what I know.

Well, that's a lot of trees.

I'll start and pass it over to James.

So we're scheduled for a work session on our fourth Tuesday.

So that's May 23rd.

We'll be focused on

hopefully module three as well as a zoning map change request that we've received.

So pretty hefty agenda for that.

The steering committee is getting ready to meet again in May, getting geared up for module three.

Also just want to note for the record that Carl stole our thunder by announcing our bike pet coordinator position has been filled.

But that's all right.

We'll share it again.

We'll say it again in June.

It'll sound new and fresh then because that's when he's starting.

Schedule-wise, I think the primary milestone of course, well let me start with next week.

Next week we will have Module 3 out and the comment period I believe is through mid-June, right?

Missy?

Yeah, great.

So roughly a month comment period on Module 3.

And then really we're heads down focused on producing a consolidated draft

Zoning Ordinance, which we're aiming to have released by the end of July.

And at that point it is a baton handoff to you guys.

I'd recommend that when we

I would recommend that when we get to the baton handoff, we've got a very structured way of going about our deliberations and we organize decision stair steps so that we can stair step our way through the decisions as opposed to attempting to bite off the whole thing at once because otherwise, Mr. Chair, we won't get there.

I think that sounds great.

I think we should aim for that.

That's as much schedule as I got because really we're looking at three primary steps from the point of consolidated zoning draft released at the end of July, public hearing in action by the Planning Commission, and then public hearing in action by the City Council.

So, any schedule questions from there?

All right.

At this time, I would like to consider the consent agenda.

Oops, sorry, no.

Hopefully land use related.

Yes.

Or maybe not.

Okay, so we're going to run this how we typically run this.

We will ask for our in-person audience to see if anyone is interested in speaking.

each speaker will have three minutes to speak to the commission then we will rotate to our virtual audience and we will ask if anyone wants to speak and they'll have the opportunity to do so and then we will go back and forth between the two groups until everyone has had the opportunity to speak so I'll ask our in-person audience do we have anyone who would like to speak

Thank you very much.

I would like to move on to consider the consent agenda.

We don't need that.

You can abstain.

Can I see thumbs on that?

I see three thumbs.

I think that's adequate.

I don't.

That happened, right?

Only one counselor voted to approve them all because everyone recused.

But if you have a quorum, you don't need a majority of that.

That's how I remember that rule of Roberts.

I would like at this time, if possible, can we move ahead and consider 626 and 630 Capitol Avenue?

Okay.

Okay.

Oh.

Sure, let's talk about Mr. Freeze.

Let's talk about land trusts.

And the question, and again, I don't know enough about it, but I'm going to hand the ball off to these guys who know a lot about it.

And I understand that it's a pretty complex process.

You've got to get a land bank in place that's going to take work from the city attorney, and then you do the work on the land trust.

How do we do that?

And my objective is not to necessarily incorporate this in the comp plan.

if we all think it makes sense.

All right.

So affordable housing plan calls for the use of land trusts as one of the tools in the toolbox.

We have a couple operating in the city and around the city at this point.

the very basic principle is someone other than the homeowners a land trust or entity owns the dirt the improvements on it are owned by the individual this is in the financing world this is known as lease hold as opposed to fee simple the idea here is that if you're not paying for the land and the cost of the land that you're getting

a quote more affordable product.

The idea if we want to expand the use of land trusts that means we need to get the land to do it.

One of the ways to start that process without

being sort of in the middle of a running cement mixer of how to get it organized would be to put a land bank in place to run those bits of property through.

The land bank would take possession of it.

and could act as a land trust in and of itself, or it could spin them off place by place by place.

And there are several instances, and I've sort of been looking at this and noodling on this, where distributed land trusts might be happening, where you've got not necessarily a block of land, but a piece here, a piece here, a piece here, a piece here, all of them underneath the building.

as to where we are with the land bank.

Five years ago, City Council was presented with a virginal land bank ordinance.

It would have been the first in the state.

The way it was written was not well received by the public.

So the City Council requested that the HAC take a look at it and tailor it for being an affordable housing tool.

The HAC did that and then members of the HAC, which was Ridge and I, met with the City staff to sort of crunch that up.

We got it mostly crunched.

It did go to Council twice.

It was essentially ready to go before we were

as these things happen, distracted by other matters.

Can I ask, is that place the land bank in the, is that an entity of the city?

Right, well, it could, well, the answer to that is, it, the, the,

not being a creature of the city does not preclude the city from funding it.

So on its face, it is a Virginia nonstop corporation that stands on its own.

The way it is structured, the city manager or one echelon down designee serves on it, and one other

City employee, and there's a short list, basically, director of economic development, treasurer of a finance person, et cetera.

So how is this different from the land trust we have?

So the land bank has all sorts of powers that a land trust doesn't.

Anything it owns, it gets the tax revenue from it directly.

It can issue special warranty deeds to blow out old judgments and such and clean title.

It can issue its own bonds and raise its own money.

So there are a whole, and there are four or five other sort of varieties that are built for land banks.

And establishing one would make it easier to sort of take possessions of property and span them out.

I can see environments where, and also to hold land while there is movement around it, right?

They're not ready to build on it.

We're not ready to do this, but the land bank can take control of the property and hold it.

It also can spin off to other land trusts.

Correct.

Also, in our land bank ordinance is language about being able to chop up land specifically to protect critical slopes.

so that you can move neighboring properties, you can deal with neighboring properties with critical slope issues and having control over them.

But the purpose of the ordinance was to establish an entity to do this, a quasi-governmental?

A Virginia non-stock corporation, non-profit,

Nonprofit entity.

No, no, no.

Sorry.

Yes.

Yeah.

Who?

There are two that have done it.

One was down

either Danville itself or somewhere around there, and there's another one that I'm sure of that somewhere in Northern Virginia and I cannot for the life of me get access to that file at the moment.

I feel like I heard about something in Warrington, but... That might be it.

Could you, which is a town, I think?

Warrington, I think it's a city, but... Could you, like, send an email with a general idea and, like, the language from five years ago or...

So my reason to bring this up is, one, to give James a chance to let us know if this makes sense to look at as far as this body to look at.

Two of it makes sense to dust off the ordinance and have another look at that.

But my objective is not to slow down what we've done or hit the reset button in any way.

This is just something to complement it or think about.

Please note that land bank and land trusts are named in the affordable housing plan as tools to be used.

So, again, don't want to hit the reset button, don't want to slow us down, but what do you think the next steps would be relating to thinking about the land bank and land trust?

Again, not wanting to slow us down.

Right.

I appreciate that.

That other thing.

I mean...

It's a topic that I'm still noodling on coming out of our last meeting on sensitive communities.

Amongst the things that came up during that conversation was do we do a specific kind of anti-displacement plan that takes what we've talked about in the affordable housing plan and drills down a little bit into something that's more actionable, right?

So that's a venue for that space.

The other place where I've been talking about that type of drill down to actionable items would be to focus in on a tenth and page small area plan.

and try and actually apply it in a locale with lessons learned that we can then take to other parts of the city.

We have one and I just in fact introduced Commissioner Mitchell to him.

Oh, cool.

Just because we had some time to kill a moment ago.

As long as I want to plant the seed and get James to give some guidance, I'm comfortable with where it's landed.

Excellent.

Much appreciated.

Excellent.

Thank you, sir.

Thanks.

At this time, I would like to consider...

626 and Cabell Avenue, a preliminary discussion.

I believe I see Mr. O'Connell.

So this is a preliminary discussion from Mitchell Matthews Architects for 626 and 630 Cabell Avenue.

These are two lots.

One is developed with apartments, the other one is currently vacant, and they are zoned R3 and R2U.

And so for anyone who has looked these up on our GIS, our GIS is not accurate.

The property lines are correct.

However, the zoning is not.

So the property lines have been changed, amended a bit, but the current property is split zoned, R3 multifamily and R2 two family.

So the request being contemplated is a rezoning of the R2U portion of this lot to change both lots to R3, multifamily residential, and this is to accommodate a buy-right multifamily development, basically adding more apartments onto the existing two lots.

So I have two questions to consider.

One, is R3 zoning appropriate for this location?

And two, is there anything the applicant should consider as they move forward with their rezoning application?

I think they have questions.

It looks like they've already moved a lot of trees.

Well, I don't think there was any approval required for that.

And it's on a slope.

Any questions for staff beyond that?

Thank you, sir.

Welcome, sir.

Yeah, right.

Hi, everyone.

I'm Kevin Riddle with Mitchell Matthews Architects.

We're representing the owner on this project.

And I could go quickly through the presentation if we have it handy.

I'll be very brief.

I think it's mostly pretty clear.

As Dana was mentioning, it can be a little bit confusing on the numbering or the address of the parcel right now.

I think the city GIS map actually just calls it 630 Cavill Avenue now because what were two parcels have been combined.

So just so you're aware of that.

We can go to the next slide, please.

So here is the site.

This area is a little bit old and you see on the lower portion of the site there's a small house that was demolished some years ago.

And so what remains is the larger building, apartment building that has eight apartments in it on the north part of the site.

And the next slide.

Here it is with current zoning, so it is an R3.

You can start to see just the little sliver in this illustration that is R2U.

It's worth noting, I think Dannon has it in the packet in front of you, but if you overlay the proposed new zoning,

what are R3s here I believe would go to R3X and as well all of the R2Us that extend to the east on Cabell Avenue are proposed to change to R3X as well.

So in our minds this rezoning of this little sliver makes sense it's compatible with with the vision for the neighborhood.

The next slide.

Now we've zoomed in on it on a survey on the site.

North is to the right, Cabell Avenue is at the top.

And you can see running down the middle of the site on the left side is the property line that had been abandoned.

So the small squarish lot on the left was 626 and now it's been combined with the larger lot.

The next slide.

And here it is with the zoning overlay again.

So you see where the R2U just comes in a little bit in the site.

The next slide.

and here it's really called out and identified.

It's only about 1,200 square feet but changing it to R3 we think makes sense because then the zoning is consistent, density calculations as they are now can be consistently applied and it will allow the owner flexibility to have one additional dwelling on the property than he could have without this portion included.

The next slide.

Here's the site plan with the proposed building.

It's still very much in a concept phase.

I know you'll see illustrations later on that show things kind of figured out, but we're still working through it.

Basically, the new building proposal is intended to be by right.

So it's going to honor the height limits of an R3.

We had been considering proposing that the new building might align, its front facade might align with the existing building.

We thought that made sense, but as it turns out, there might be some complication in simply aligning it that the current ordinance calculation, it would be

set by another method.

So that may be something that if we wanted to do it, we'd have to get an SUP.

We're still weighing whether it would be worth it to bring it up just a little closer to do that.

You can't get an SUP if you get the rezoning and build it by right.

No.

If one is requesting an SUP, there is also the opportunity to request changes to setbacks.

Right.

Right.

But I guess what we're pursuing, what we're asking for here is simply a rezoning.

So it was our understanding that rezoning the sliver wouldn't carry with it an option to also ask for exceptions that you'd normally have to get with an SUP.

So if you request an SUP for density because you can't build five units, then you could ask for the front yard change.

But if you get a rezoning, then...

Yeah, I guess to avoid sort of getting into that conversation tonight, I think we're just going to go with, for the time being, the assumption that the face of the building on Cabell Avenue will be where it

should the rezoning proceed where it's supposed to be by the current front yard calculations, if that makes sense.

So all of that's just to say, never mind about that note up there about the front yard.

Sorry to drag that out.

There will also be proposed extension of the surface parking to satisfy current requirements if the five dwellings are constructed there.

And the next slide.

Here's just some views of the existing conditions.

This is the entry to the parking around the back of the existing apartment building.

And next, I'm sorry, to the left there, that's, you know, you see that that's where the sliver of land is located.

That's currently R2U.

And the next slide.

Above the wall or below the wall?

I actually really like how this property uses parking kind of tucked under behind.

right.

So this is this is roughly the location where the new building would be constructed where there was a small house, at least as probably some five years ago when it was demolished.

And the next slide.

Basically, just a slightly different vantage, but the same location, you can see the existing building there in the left.

It's shaded kind of obscured by the trees.

And the next slide.

So here, just to give you a little more information about what we've designed so far, there would be one apartment at the base level that would be accessible for disabled tenants, and then there would be a stair that would come up along the west side, I'm sorry, the south side to access from that level the kind of townhouses that are built above.

and the next slide.

This is a section through the building.

This is kind of how it would be working.

The idea is that if you were approaching the property from Cabell Avenue on the left, that you could enter one of the lower townhouses into the living and dining level and then go downstairs to your bedrooms.

Or you could go up a level to what would be the first level of the upper townhouses and then at the topmost level are the beds for those townhouses.

And the next slide.

Here's a bird's eye view.

Material choices, the whole palette, that's still a little bit up in the air, but this is a direction we were pursuing in the early going.

Plantings have not been decided yet, but we would be satisfying canopy requirements.

We look forward to finding room for at least a couple of large trees to be planted in the front, along with understory plantings.

and as well as some trees down there at the at the lower level, especially kind of close to the open courtyard of the the bottom most unit.

And the next slide.

And then just more of a street view of the building.

We would imagine there being porches on the front at the entry levels to each of those townhouses.

And that's it for the presentation.

Questions for the applicant?

The audience will be UVA students I'm sorry?

But it's not certain that they are, they're pretty generously sized apartments.

I don't know if the owners considered the possibility of them becoming condominiums, but there is the room there and the way that the living and dining levels are operating.

It's not super tight in the apartments, as you might find in some other student housing.

One other thing I did want to clarify is that I did get a determination from the city staff that while the slopes are quite steep, as you noticed, on the property, over 25% in places, because it is not within 250 feet of a waterway, they are not technically critical slopes.

So as I understand it, we would not have to seek a waiver to build on this property.

Yeah, I believe this was the site that engineering did the review on.

I did.

So their map is critical slopes.

Well, I think, I believe, I could be mistaken about this, but I believe that that color fill you see on the GIS map just identifies any contours that indicate 25%.

All right.

All I can say is that I did see this was reviewed with engineering and they confirmed that there wasn't a waterway within 200 or 250 feet of the area and the wording is more convoluted than that because the slopes have to be contiguous.

right so any slope even if it's more than 250 feet away if it's contiguous with a slope that is within 250 feet it gets picked up right and so my understanding is what was demonstrated is that the slopes on this property are not contiguous with slopes that were within 250 feet and that detail may not be something that was picked up on when that map was produced at the time so we always understand that map is subject to revision based on

an applicant providing specific evidence of, you know, lack of contiguity.

Thank you, sir.

Thanks.

Additional questions on this item?

We did have a question that was shared with us, was about whether R3 zoning was appropriate for this location.

Or vice versa, should it come to that?

What's the rush?

Why now?

That's a good question.

We've talked to the owner, and we've looked at the RX3 and the possibilities there, whether it comes to perhaps reducing parking, perhaps getting more dwellings on the site.

But I think he feels like at this time he would just like to, since it is a little bit odd to have that one sliver kind of out of step with the rest,

Go ahead and get it all zoned R3 because he may want to go kind of quickly on this or go forward with it and just not being real sure when the zoning could take effect.

I know we're hopeful that it will soon.

Fair enough.

I mean, I guess I would say

not so much about that but in general just looking at the site it seems reasonable to me that you could have more units there and or more height even or less parking all of which you can get through an SUP in R3 and you can get that front setback changed and the process for an SUP and I think there would be there's value in the new building lining up with the old building and not being weirdly

setback further.

And I mean, the process for an SUP is about the same as a process for a rezoning.

Yeah, I guess I'm just unclear whether we could request an SUP with...

Oh, I hear what you're saying.

You're saying just leave it R2U, but just the SUP on what's currently R3.

Yep.

No, thanks.

Or if you wanted to get a rezoning out on SUP for more than five units.

Right.

Yeah, you know, what you're saying brings up an interesting question regarding the draft zoning that's coming for Rx3 is that I believe the

that height limit is listed as three stories, isn't it?

And so I guess I just wonder in general, is everyone on the commission feeling like that height limit

Could it perhaps be pushed, you know, could an Rx3 go to maybe four stories?

Is that something it could accommodate?

I guess I'm thinking about what R3 currently is, which is 45 feet, right?

Yep.

And the three store and 45 feet, you can typically get four stories.

I know there's a bonus level I think that's potentially achievable and and so that that provides one avenue but just in general I'm wondering if if so many of these properties that would be converted from R3 to RX3 wouldn't benefit from from having one more story allowed than is currently drafted

Because that's one way this owner might actually have a harder time having the flexibility he might want to develop more housing here, right?

He could spread out more, so it's nice that there are those potential yard reductions coming, but potentially, too, for the sort of the proportions of the building and the allowance for more open space.

It seems sensible to me that you might be able to go up higher.

Also, he wouldn't have to construct as many footings.

So for people who have a budget they're sticking with, building higher can have some cost advantages.

So that's just a general thought I'm throwing out there.

I know you guys are discussing the zoning with each meeting, and it was something that occurred to me.

That and also RA.

I wonder if RA couldn't be three and a half stories instead of two and a half.

But this is maybe a conversation you all have already been having.

No, and it's interesting because the Fifeville neighborhood has asked about something between RX3 and RX5, and there isn't that much RX3 in the city, right?

And, you know, I have been thinking, I don't know if I put it in my first round of comments or if it's in this email I haven't sent you guys, but that this kind of

student area, lower ventable between 14th and Rugby should probably be RX5 instead of RX3, which kind of just leaves, oh, sorry, that's CX3 and, yeah, never mind.

Well, I was waiting for Commissioner Stolzenberg to come out and say it.

Well, thank you.

I believe in...

Feet.

I'm sorry.

Yes.

Us, Liberia, and Myanmar, we're the ones still using feet.

Here comes the public comments.

Mr. Palmer, you know a little bit about this area.

seems like an appropriate use of the site.

Beyond that, I don't have much to add.

Personally, I find the idea of having some space for faculty or staff very exciting.

Right.

I would say generally I think student housing is an appropriate use in an area with predominantly student housing.

That seems reasonable to me.

My general understanding from the comprehensive plan is that we want more student housing in student housing areas.

So I don't find height troubling in student housing areas.

Aesthetically there will be some differences, some design challenges.

But there's a lot of grade that can make those a little bit more manageable, I think.

I can't commit to say that all RX3 should be RX5, but broadly I see strong advantages to allowing more housing near the university.

Yeah.

And this is not a site that's fronting on non-student

housing of any kind, I think, on any border or across any street.

So it's interesting for me to have more.

Just cram them in there.

Yeah.

I mean, I guess I would say, even if you're just going for the five unit plan you're talking about here, the SEP makes more sense.

Right.

Because then you can get that front setback change.

Right.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Appreciate it.

I would like to turn back to the topic broadly of zoning.

Anything issues on that?

We talked a little bit about some related implementation issues.

I guess I'm just kind of curious where

I know we have been spitting out a lot of comments during our work sessions.

I don't think we come to a lot of consensus.

So I kind of feel like we're going to get the draft and it's going to be a bit of a surprise.

kind of figure out what got picked up, what didn't, what, you know, I know, I mean, it seems like the Code Studio has their own very strong opinions about how they want this to be done.

for a 15-yard loss.

I think there's value in that, but I think

so we don't try to put this thing together by committee.

I think I would recommend that Ms.

Creasy, Ms.

And I think it would be useful for us each to submit to the chair like what

Yeah, and I think, I mean, there's a lot in there, right?

It covers a lot.

Mr. Schwartz, I interrupted you, so I don't think that's your question.

I think you clarified my babbling.

I would just like to raise an issue.

I've been reading my email, and I've heard a great deal about RC zoning on Rugby Avenue.

And I've looked through the use table for RC.

And there is a potential issue.

I don't think that in my reading of RC, we're not going to get a Super Walmart on Rugby Avenue.

I don't think the math works.

But there is an item where commercial uses over 4,000 square feet are permitted by Wright in the current draft.

Well, I mean, I think you read that as an error.

I identified an error.

I flagged it and sent it on.

Yeah.

I mean, I don't think, as you say, I don't think there's any reason why we're encouraging commercial uses of greater than 4,000 square feet in the RC.

Let's put it that way.

The RC is not an appropriate location for that.

It struck me as an error as well.

I forwarded it on.

I'm going to keep using the term our team is kind of heads down just trying to hit the deadlines that we have upcoming.

So I'm not surprised that I maybe didn't get a response when I forwarded that on.

I think I forwarded on as this looks like an error to me too.

Okay, that's exciting.

Emails from Rugby Avenue area are still welcome, but we are working on that.

Any additional items on Zooming?

All right.

Okay.

99 years ago.

Everyone get comfortable.

99 years ago there was a beginning of a very long process of building a bridge across lower Tampa Bay from what is now Palmetto slash Manatee County and South St.

Petersburg.

This was, which would come as a surprise to no one in this room, this was being pushed very hard by a whole series of developers.

that did not really come off and they enacted a scheme to put together a ferry line and and then there was an approved bridge in 1929 but for some reason in late 1929 and 1930 there wasn't an ability to finance the project go figure so what followed from this from 1923 for the next quarter century is a

would be a gangster movie if there were more dead bodies involved in terms of portrayals left and right, let's build a tunnel, let's not build a tunnel.

The city of Tampa was furious because they had their own ferries and they wanted to capture that business.

So this went round and round until July 4, 1950, where everything was in place and they started building the thing.

It opened in 1954, became known as the Sunshine Skyway Bridge.

And Second Span was built in 1971.

It carried thousands of cars a day.

And I want to conclude that we all think that we're planning for the ages here.

But after this 40-year fight to build this bridge, on May 9, 1980, a freighter smacked into it and knocked it down.

I'm going to second that, but I don't like to put it that way.

Can I hear?

Hi.

Thank you very much.

Good night.