Board of Architectural Review Meeting   5/16/2023

I missed some of that conversation.

Has the VAR approved astroturf before?

I have these great

Everybody says you should do it, and you've got to know if you're a playless ball.

Ah, yeah.

We're working on cloning the basement last.

I don't know if I'm going to get there.

Where do you want me, Captain?

Did I not?

You get the Radke seat.

Radke.

Radke.

Radke.

Nice to meet you.

It was a, wait, last meeting?

But you were with us.

Oh, OK, I was going to say, Ron?

Let me get logged in, but if you wish, you can certainly start.

I'll start with our introductions and welcome.

Welcome everybody to the regular monthly meeting of the Charlottesville Board of Architectural Review.

The way this evening will unfold is that staff will introduce each item that is followed by the applicant's presentation, which should not exceed 10 minutes.

I will then ask for questions from the public, followed by questions from the BAR.

After questions are closed the chair, that's me, will ask for comments from the public.

For each application members of the public are allowed three minutes to ask questions and three minutes to offer comments.

Speakers shall identify themselves and provide their address and if you could help us out and speak clearly into the microphone so that those following along online can hear us.

Comments should be limited to the BAR's purview, that is regarding the exterior aspects of the project.

Following our discussion and prior to taking action, the applicant will have up to three minutes to respond.

Tonight the first item on the agenda are matters from the public that are not on the agenda or that happen to be on the consent agenda.

Tonight on the consent agenda we have the meeting minutes from March 21, 2023 and 485 14th Street NW a certificate of appropriateness application.

So is there anyone from the public that would like to speak on something that's not on the agenda or on a consent agenda item?

No?

and I assume no one online.

Just speak up if we do.

Okay, thank you very much.

Okay, so that brings us to the consent agenda.

Sorry, I have in the meeting minutes,

Yes?

Any opposed?

Abstentions?

Okay, thank you.

I'm getting used to my glasses, so I'm not.

And I didn't bring my reading glasses this evening, so.

Excuse me, correct.

and just, yeah, Molly had to go pick up her son unexpectedly.

The person watching them wasn't able to get him so everything's fine.

She just is, she's home laughing at us right now.

So this is a COA request for 180 Rugby Road.

It is within the corner ADC district.

It's the house just before you cross Beta Bridge on the east side of Rugby.

Constructed in 1929, and I was going to have Molly give the report so she could say Stanislaw Michalski, but she's not here.

But he was the architect and Georgian revival.

two and a half story brick structure.

The request tonight is to do some cleanup in the landscaping.

There's nothing that's of any concern except for the proposal to do AstroTurf in the front yard.

So there are some stone and gravel pavers, there's some lit bollards in the rear, some repairs to the bricks, trimming of the bushes in the front, and two brick piers which would be constructed there at the front sidewalk.

So we had, I said otherwise, probably would, except for the turf, would have been consent agenda.

A couple things just to make sure we clarify in the discussion.

No dimensions for the brick piers or the heights, so we suggest just get that clarified.

And if perchance the issue with the turf is

It leads to further discussion.

A number of things that I've outlined in the staff report.

You could exclude it, omit it from the COA.

If it seems that there's support for it, but maybe there's some questions about how it's worked into with pavers.

You could approve the COA and have some conditions that allow me some flexibility.

So those are my suggestions.

Is Ian here?

And do you all have any questions for me on this one?

I would, again, just say, as I put it in the staff report, I've gotten

several questions about this over the years and I've always said no, no.

But this so far this year I've had a couple so there is it's something that people are asking about and you all last month I was a little surprised that you responded with sort of a willingness to entertain it so

In the discussion, I know we're talking about this site particularly, but I also asked some questions because this is possibly going to set a precedent and it would be helpful for future requests if during this discussion you addressed some of those things.

Do you guys have any questions specifically about the proposed changes?

I do apologize for the lack of dimensions on the pillars.

You can kind of see the ghost of them where they were cut off in the PDF.

The intent was 36 by 36 by, I believe, 48.

Yeah, I actually added those.

OK.

You and I can bring it in.

Excellent.

36 by 36.

That's the pillars, yeah, the piers by the sidewalk entry.

That's accurate.

The piers you show in the example are 18 inches.

Or actually, let's say 24 inches, sorry.

That was 16.

Well, let's see if there's any questions from the public.

Is there any questions from the public here in the room or online?

Let me pull that up.

I know it was in the document.

I believe the height was an inch and 3 eighths.

It's not artificial turf quite the way you think of artificial turf, like for an athletic field.

It's more of a synthetic turf.

It's inch and a quarter tall.

And those little pellets aren't, they're loose, so they do, they could come up.

Yeah, definitely.

May I speak?

Absolutely, please.

I represent the property owner.

I have this turf around the swimming pool on my property, the same product.

Excuse me.

I wonder if you could speak at the microphone just because we have some people that follow along online and they can't hear.

My name is Garrett Smith.

I'm on the board of the property owner Woogland Company.

We have the same product at my house at a swimming pool.

It's not like the sort of artificial turf you see on a sports field where you have chopped up rubber that can fly up.

It's completely covered.

by the synthetic material, but it also permits drainage, and so there'd be a system beneath it.

I think it's primarily sand, at least at our property, and that's what we would ask the contractor to install.

It's also comfortable underfoot.

And do you have a detail or a cross installation?

My understanding is it's typically about eight inches or so.

And there'd be maybe a gravel layer below with piping to carry water away, sand above that, and then,

I just have a question about the intent.

Why are you choosing this over just a more durable material like adding brick on either side of the walkway or a stone caving?

I think this is more appealing for the students.

It's attractive.

Originally, it was a grass yard.

If you see it, these two halves of the yard are quite small.

And right now, it's just hard-packed clay.

packed dirt.

Mr. Bailey may have seen a similar has seen a similar material or actually the identical we're ordering it from the same people and so he could comment on that but the idea is to make it comfortable for students to feel like a yard rather than a parking lot or a you know a playground with hard

This lasts pretty long.

It's probably got a five, seven, eight year life before it gets kind of flattened out.

I see on the drawing also some landscape lighting or some pathway lighting.

Correct.

I was in some specs by Mr. Warner as to what they needed to be.

We have not selected a specific product.

The contractor was not specific about it, so there's still plenty of room within those guidelines.

And I think there's some confusion on the bollards.

They will not have lights on them.

I think the goal of that, the lighting, the landscape lighting is just to illuminate the stairs and make it safe.

It would be downward facing and would not project upward.

It's a form of Holley, yeah.

Our original intent for the peers was to add a gate, though that's not happening at least at this time.

I know when I initially reached out to Mr. Warner that was still the plan, but no longer is.

We've had some crime incidents on the front porch of the house, and so we kind of wanted to restrict access to the house.

I guess part of where I'm going with this is potentially maybe infill some of it with Holley and then you can get a smaller pier.

I think Roger was going down a path that I would follow that three foot square seems mighty large in proportion to this property.

Let's see, we'll go to comments if there are any comments from the public either here or online.

I'll just start by maybe saying, I think this is, I hope you guys understand that we don't typically, we haven't approved artificial turf frequently, if ever.

And so there's understandably some caution to considering it and making sure that if we do so, it's specific, it would be specific to this project.

I, for one, given that it's a new material and feel like I would really want to see a sample of it and also understand how it's constructed, I think you could understand

that one of our concerns is that it's appropriately, if it were installed, that it was appropriately installed for a durable installation, not gonna end up failing and detracting from the neighborhood and the house.

I think given that this is a pretty significant house by a noted architect, the front piers are really important to this.

And more so than just size, I think I would want to put a qualifier that we would want to see a drawing of what these look like.

because it's really character defining.

I agree.

It would be good to see a drawing.

and then I guess in terms of site design and elements under plantings.

Select mulching and edging materials carefully and do not use plastic edging, lava crushed rock, unnaturally colored mulch or other historically unsuitable materials.

That would kind of lean me towards the no side of the synthetic grass.

though I might be convinced that it's not a planting, so.

You know, I think I, I don't know.

Just curious, what is the name of the product?

It didn't have a web page.

It just said, web page coming.

That's all I got.

It was a LonMax 55.

I selected the product, we already have it in a location and I felt good.

It's also, I'm trying to remember, there's a historic home in the county that's a wedding venue and that's where I initially saw it.

It looks, you know, when you're on it, you know it's artificial from a distance.

It has a nice appealing look and the artificial

Strands of grass are not all the same color.

So you said you've seen it at a wedding venue.

My own house.

Your own house, okay.

Next to a swimming pool where we're having similar problem with really hard-packed Virginia clay and chlorine splashing all over it, killing everything.

I'm a little worried that the pictures of the existing conditions, there isn't even a weed in there.

I mean, it's just completely packed down.

So I know this thing has an eight-year warranty on it.

I think you said it's good for five to seven years.

My concern is that once we let someone put something down, we kind of hope it ages in a nice way, because we don't have a whole lot of enforcement to say, OK, that astroturf has just been flattened and is ruined, and now you guys need to replace it.

So I'm a little worried about that.

It's a really small yard.

Personally, I think it would be more appropriate if you just use pavers.

You can clean it.

If a college student throws up on it, it's not going to be there forever.

Not to be gross, but it is a fraternity.

In regards to the artificial turf, I understand where you're coming from as it feels nicer and would be much more comfortable to stand on for people that are in the yard and obviously there are going to be people standing in the yard and that's why we can't have grass growing there.

I for one think that it would look better than having the

Dirt that's there now and I think with the hedge in the front I think it's pretty well hidden from view so I'd be in support of letting the artificial turf be part of the project.

There are different degrees of the product that I'm more used to it in an athletic field suiting and have seen that it's supposed to last for a long time and

those rubber pellets do come up and doesn't last near as long as people have asked for.

So you saying that it's not the one with the pellets that would come up to the top is I think appropriate for this application, whereas the loose pellets would not be as appropriate.

May I address Mr. Schwartz's comments?

I understand the issue of concern that it might wear out.

The reason we're spending all this money is to make the place look better.

When it wears out, if we're not satisfied with it, it'll be replaced with papers.

whatever the best material is eight years down the road or ten years down the road.

It is our intent that this is not going to last forever.

We know that.

I think this house seems to be maintained pretty well but I think there's precedent in the area that unfortunately has got me worried.

Seems like a lot of houses get fixed up and quickly run down very quickly and are not fixed back up again.

I think my issue with it is just the location, the prime location and the fact, to Roger's point, that you're dealing with a really impressive house.

I mean, I think that, you know, in your case it sounds totally appropriate to have the turf around, swimming pool, you know, in tough places it makes sense, but here it's just

In the same way that the piers need to be well you can you can do a service to the building if you're if you design the piers appropriately and I think Same issue applies to the landscape and I feel like it's a missed opportunity in a way to just put the

the artificial turf down.

And particularly the fact that it's such a small yard, you could actually do, you're not dealing with a ton of square footage, so cost of the artificial turf versus the cost of a nice paver is probably fairly on par.

I agree with Mr. Schwartz over there that there's sort of an endurance of a paver no matter what happens to it.

and I think that a paver system, a really nice paver system can enhance, you don't have to worry about the turf fading, you don't have to worry about whether you've got three years out of it or five years, a good paving

plane is always going to look good.

It's always going to enhance that.

No matter what happens, no matter what they write on the walls or what is thrown on the paver, it's always going to be substantial.

When you walk down a city alley even, an old brick city alley, there's always sort of an endurance to an authenticity.

So that's just how I feel about it.

And my thought was, it's a yard.

It's not a parking lot.

And it's not a basketball playing area.

We didn't want rock.

We didn't want cement.

We didn't want pavers.

But if that's your decision, we understand.

I felt that the grass would be more similar to what was originally there, but what will no longer survive.

That makes total sense.

And let me just qualify what I'm saying.

I'm thinking of that sort of paved front yard as a yard in a way, a beautiful thing, not a parking lot.

I think I'm coming at it from the perspective of you put a couple of oversized planters, you can really soften the edges, you can make it a really beautiful space for what it is.

So that's where I'm coming from.

I think the applicant actually had a good point in that this is a substantial house by an important architect and the architect designed it

intending for there to be a grass lawn in front.

And the historic photos, at least the ones in the survey report, have a log fence surrounding it so you'd see it a lot more.

And I think to Tyler's point, the hedges would help kind of mask the artificial turf, especially if you were able to kind of close the gap some with up here and possibly infilling the hedge of the holly.

I think there's a brick paved surface there, but it's a lot of brick already.

I'm actually kind of leaning towards the AstroTurf.

Yeah, I absolutely agree that there's more information that's necessary.

I tend to agree with Mr. Whitney and Mr. Zehmer.

I think that the things going for it in this application is that it is very small and that it is screened.

I think that

I think it would also probably perform better for the kind of infiltration, not creating another additional drainage problems that could come with too much paved surface.

In fact, there may even be some zoning issues with having the entire front yard paved.

I don't know that that's allowable.

But that's also not my realm.

I guess I wonder, and I do think that if we're going to approve a product like this, we would need to see a sample of it.

I think that's fair.

I think also an installation, either a manufacturer's recommended installation.

I think we need to understand, not just from you, but from any subsequent applicants, that it's a material that's going to be

is not thrown down and is installed with the care that is necessary to make it perform.

But I also agree that those brick piers are super important.

They're going to be difficult to design appropriately.

They need a little bit of

to see how they relate to the house.

We don't want them to feel necessarily that they were from the original, but they should be complementary.

There is some guidance in our guidelines about how that gate, any gate or pier might be designed.

Are there, how many feel that, I wonder if we could do, to give them guidance about the grass.

If I wanted to submit a physical sample of the material, could I bring that to Mr. Warner for the next meeting?

I was just going to ask, in the discussion last month, it seemed to be that the turf, if it wasn't the prominent feature, so is there any thought to the turf but incorporating stepping stones or something such that it's not the predominant feature?

I was going to ask you all about that.

And it would be helpful if you're asking, because you can certainly defer.

They can as well.

But if the turf appears unacceptable, it would be really good to express that tonight.

Otherwise, if there are things we want to see, I mean, not saying you're saying yes, but if it's an absolute, it doesn't matter what the product is, I think it would be fair to let them know tonight.

So you want to do a straw poll?

I can live with the turf.

I think that there are, for many of the arguments that Brett made about this application specifically, I think it could work.

And just to be clear, I'm not against having peers here.

I just think they're a really important design element.

They have to be detailed.

They could have a larger base, they can corbel, they can do panels, they can have a mouse-toothing at the top.

I mean, there's just a zillion things you can do.

And again, without copying the detailing of the house, but that could be a positive.

Yeah, so it would be sample of the grass, installation detail, the lighting spec sheet, and a measured elevation of the proposed piers.

So if you choose to defer, then you have a little bit of flexibility about when, whether you come back next month or the month after.

Right.

So it allows you to bring it back when you're ready, essentially.

Bye.

You all would ask them tonight, you request a deferral and then it's when you're ready, you let me know you've got the stuff ready and we'll put it on the agenda again.

Let's do that.

All right.

All in favor?

Aye.

I'll let you know.

I'll fill you in tomorrow.

Garrett, good to see you.

Well, Molly put together some slides.

So this is 410 Second Street Northeast.

It's a wood frame structure built in 1896.

It is a contributing structure within the North Downtown ADC District.

And the request tonight is

COA for alteration to the rear.

I think there's a prior addition that will be removed and the new construction will be added to it.

Again, I apologize, Molly really took the lead on this month's staff reports and reviews.

I think the only comments that she had noted

One, she has the question about the discussion of the rooftop deck access, and that is in the sense that this is a screened-in porch, but yeah, it's still exterior, sort of, so I don't know whether door, window, however, if that's an issue for you all on how that entrance is done, but we otherwise

In our discussion, it reads as an addition and that's the goal.

Probably the only thing we would suggest is that maybe the siding be spaced differently just to at least allow that visible differentiation.

So with that, I know Annie is here and drove all the way over the mountain tonight.

I promised her a really interesting discussion about astroturf and rehabilitating historic science, so I'm not sure I delivered on the first one.

Hi, I'm Annie Mattot, architect with Frazier Associates and we're here representing Cheri Craft at 410, I'm sorry, 410 Second Street Northeast and Cheri's here this evening just in case we have any questions for her.

Okay, great.

So the existing house, as Jeff mentioned, was built around 1896 and it's a sort of Queen Anne style two-story frame house.

There is a one-story addition on the back, which you can see up here in this existing south elevation, and that was also constructed by 1902.

It shows up on the Sanborns then.

and so the proposal is to expand the footprint of the house on the rear just essentially filling in as far as we can go as far as the setback lines allow us to go but staying stepped back a little bit from the existing

So essentially that one-story addition would be increased to a two-story mass and then we would build out that footprint and there is a site plan that shows that footprint expansion.

well anyway yeah just coming out just almost to the almost to the south elevation of the existing house the the rooftop would be flat with as Jeff mentioned a new sort of dormer coming off of the existing roof that was set underneath the existing roof line and would have essentially a flat roof on it and be clad in a metal that would blend in with the existing roof and

and then on that roof deck the center section would be screened with retractable screens and then one piece would have a pergola over it and the other third essentially roughly third would have no pergola or screening so that would just be an open rooftop deck and that is the side that's facing the parking lot on the south side so that side is just a little bit more visible.

None of this is very visible from the street but we included some rear elevations just so that it would be clear what we were proposing and we've turned off the landscaping and the fence on there.

Of course you can't really see that rear elevation but that is what it would look like from the rear.

In terms of materials, we're proposing a brick veneer on the foundation and then cladding the frame walls with a composite siding.

We've requested just a smooth, you know, clapboard painted.

We can definitely vary the exposure on that from the existing or we can even change the profile up to, you know, a Dutch lap or something like that if we want to differentiate it a little bit more.

That one, yeah.

So that just shows it a little bit better from the street and from the side elevation.

So there's a little box bay on the side there too.

That has also a standing seam metal roof, and the idea is that that's pre-finished, mechanically seamed metal.

We did ask for a little bit of flexibility on some of the materials for the windows, aluminum clad or fiberglass as long as they are simulated divided light.

and their two over two double hung.

And the reason we ask that is just to, you know, in terms of lead times and cost, we just like to give them a little bit of flexibility if we can approve both if you're willing to do that.

Then the deck on the rooftop deck would, so the trim would be composite, also painted with a smooth finish.

The rooftop deck would, and again, we're kind of towards the end of schematics, we haven't,

launched into construction documents yet, so we've asked for painted or stained just to give them a little bit of flexibility as we make all these fine decisions going forward.

Railing, wood guard rail with wire mesh panels, we looked at a cable railing, but there were just some safety concerns with that with small children.

and I think that about sums up the materials that we've proposed.

Okay, do we have any questions from the public here in the room or online?

So there would already be a difference in material.

You've got an existing window, I guess.

One existing window it looks like on the lower level north side.

Is that actually going to exist?

The idea is that that addition stays and we build on top of it.

Structurally, we have not gotten into the details of how that will actually work.

We really have to investigate the foundation and the

You know load-bearing capacity of that whole thing I mean it was built by 1902 so and I have not crawled under that part because there's only a cellar under a small portion of the house, so You know from a zoning standpoint We that that that addition if we want to call it that it may be original to the house I don't know but um that wing I guess I should say violates the

current setbacks by just a bit.

So if we build up, we can stay.

As long as we don't go further out, we can stay in that footprint.

So the idea is that that stays as much as possible, and then we build up.

So the idea was that we could keep that window.

It's a nice, good wood window.

Otherwise, perhaps we could reuse it.

I'm not sure I answered your question.

The idea was that the siding would stay on that portion so we have that horizontal band across there where the current, you know, sort of roof cornice, you know, eave is so that that could stay.

Of course, you know, we're replacing a window with a pair of doors and then we're adding another window and actually there's a window there but it's offset a bit so we're actually moving that window so, you know, how much we're going to be

That makes sense.

So now I'm understanding the white band and the, okay.

Just trying to understand the rationale behind the shutters.

It looks like you're keeping the shutters in the existing window.

The idea was that they would be flat panels as opposed to the louvered shutters that we have now.

I think that you may be right that on the model we probably took one of those shutters and copied it over there, which would not be perfectly accurate, but they would be flat

Okay.

Okay.

As far as we know, it shows up on the Sanborn by 1902, which is the first Sanborn that the original house footprint also shows up on.

So it could have been a couple years later, or it could have been originally part of the structure.

We're not certain.

The siding matches pretty much exactly.

And so I think the windows are the same.

So as far as I can tell, it's the same.

It's been heavily remodeled on the interior.

That's the hope.

I just have one other question.

Yeah, we haven't settled on a color yet, but part of the scope would be to paint the whole house.

It's getting to the point where it needs it, so that would be the goal, yes, to paint it.

And I think that would probably look better to paint it the same color.

Could you clarify the new dormer that you're popping through the existing roof?

Well, it's either be membrane or metal.

I think it would be pretty much flat.

Again, you know, these are still schematic, but then we can get a headroom of about six and a half, seven feet up in there, you know, and come out of that attic space with, you know, a pair of double doors just to get, you know, just as much light as possible in that attic because that's, it's a pretty nice volume up there.

So, you know, that would be a bonus room space and then connect out to that.

to that roof deck.

So with the flat roof, we thought that tied in better with the, we looked at all sorts of gabled roofs and hip roofs and everything, and it just got really crowded and large looking, so that's why we stepped it back to the flat.

So we will need to work on the details of what that is exactly, but the idea is that it blends in with the roof material, so it's not

Got a question.

You had mentioned some flexibility with windows, and I didn't quite understand.

You mean, you mentioned both fiberglass and aluminum clad.

Right.

Could you say a little bit more about the wire mesh on the roof terrace and also you mentioned either painting or staining the pergola structures.

I think that with the metal mesh, the image that came up from the client was almost, I hate to use this description, but that sort of modern farmhouse aesthetic where you have the panels in between.

They wanted something a little more open than vertical pickets.

We looked at a cable railing, but because there are young children, they just, even though by code we're allowed to do that, they didn't feel comfortable having the horizontal

So this was a way, and so we haven't picked an exact mesh yet.

I mean, I don't want to bring to mind a hog panel when that's not really what we're going for.

It would be, you know, more refined than that.

But, you know, wood top rail and bottom rail and then a metal mesh in between just to allow some visibility through there since they're kind of looking down, you know, as much as they are out since they're up so high.

So we've looked at both painting and staining in the it's hard to see on the screen because it's a little bit washed out but in our rendering we you know we we sort of painted them a gray color to match with you know to go one shade darker than the siding but again we're still working on paint colors and things like that so you know I think the the staining might be a little bit less maintenance than painting but just aesthetically we haven't quite

pinned that down yet.

Any other questions for the applicant?

Okay, we'll go to comments.

Any comments from someone, anyone here in the audience or online?

From the board.

I'll just follow up on the last one.

I think that one of the concerns maybe about this project is just how tall that rear structure gets.

And so I think, from my point of view, I think it's fine.

I don't think it's going to detract from the neighborhood or the house.

I think that if it's done in a clean, contemporary way that distinguishes it,

probably a good thing and I think that the personally that a darker or gray tone not white would probably be less will be less visible and maybe mitigate some of the concerns about the overall height of that rear addition.

I'm not sure how others feel about that.

Otherwise, I feel that the addition is generally within our guidelines.

If I could just offer on colors.

Typically, if we have our guidelines for a certain period of house, a certain palette is appropriate.

So when folks will say I'm painting my house from light gray to beach brown, I say, yeah, that's fine.

I'm fully in support.

I agree with Breck about the colors I think but

Generally, I mean, you're doing some really nice subtle things to differentiate old and new.

I don't think you need to do anything special with the exposure on the siding because it's already going to be smooth as the existing wood.

It's, you know, the way you're treating the windows and the shutters and everything is really subtle.

Oh, lighting.

Sorry, that was on my mind.

We didn't talk about lighting, and when the previous agenda item came up, I thought, oh my gosh, we haven't talked about lighting.

Again, we're wrapping up schematics here, and if there are things like landscaping items and lighting and things that we need to come back with at a later date, the goal today really is to make sure that we're on the right path that we can move forward and not

kind of get to 95% CDs and then find out that there's a big issue.

So we can definitely come back with lighting.

I mean, we would definitely have some around the back there where those doors are.

Yeah, that's fine.

I tend to differentiate between if it's a commercial project, obviously lighting and all of that is a big deal and we know our standards and although we'll have to talk later about, I now hear 3,000 should be 2,700.

But for residential, you know, and I've struggled with this.

I mean, I put on my front porch, I don't put a light bulb in when I need it.

But it's

I think my concern is you're surrounded by parking lots, so it's a little bit doesn't really matter, but I think there is a neighbor to the north and just having something big and bright in that parking lot shining down on everybody.

You know, that is a good point.

I was thinking about the lighting down at the lower level there, but you make an excellent point about the purple lighting.

So we will definitely take that into consideration because it is up very high.

Well, yeah, and I would say the point is

I don't think we've ever approved the fixture.

That's never really been, it's primarily been a question about lamping and relatively simple to resolve.

I think where we had at some of the fraternity houses when they had those spotlights up high.

But I mean, again, it's another one of those questions for later.

We've looked at light fixtures on houses sometimes.

This is an interesting, unique situation where you're really up above the neighbor's yard.

Yeah, I can support this, too, especially considering it's not on the street side.

As far as lighting, it might be something as simple as overhead lighting that it might just be two sconces next to the door.

On the, I guess, south elevation,

So those have shutters, but all the rest of the new windows don't.

The homeowner really wanted shutters, not you, your daughter.

Yeah, it's vinyl we stay away from.

In fact, we even had a composite window back when Mike Ball was on the BAR, had some discussion about that he was comfortable with as a builder.

I don't have a whole lot to add.

I just think that somebody mentioned how you distinguish it from the old and making sure that there is a clear language of it being a new addition I think is important so it doesn't in certain places blend into the old.

Well, where is it?

Well, all right, I can do it.

Having considered the standards set forth within the city code, EDC district design guidelines, I move to find the proposed rear additions, rear alterations, sorry, at 410 Second Street Northeast by up to street neighbor.

satisfy the BAR's criteria and are compatible with this property and other properties in the ADC district and the BAR, BAR approves the application with the addition that the lighting would be administered and approved by Jeff Warner.

All in favor?

Any opposed?

Abstentions?

Okay, thank you very much.

We would if they came before us with a request.

if they were, for instance, doing, I mean, that would be where we have some, say, if it's not complying with the city's lighting ordinance, then it could be something that's sticking up with NDS, I would think.

Thank you.

We could take a look.

That's right, we're on channel 10, so we'll save it.

You just have to ensure that Bud will not be displaced by the construction.

Is everybody doing okay?

Take a break and let me find where she is because I don't think she's, I need to find her in the Zoom.

Let's take five, would be everybody want five minutes for a glass of water?

We're doing well on time.

Okay, we'll resume at 6.40.

My watch says 6.35.

Yeah, she's there.

She's there.

All right.

Can I elevate her to panelist?

All right, good.

I just have to paste something here and then I'm coming back.

There we go.

All right, while I'm doing this, so Lee is on the screen and this is a

This is only a preliminary discussion.

In fact, I think more of an inquiry, probably a better way to say it.

This is, and I got to go back to sharing my screen again.

That's a picture of me.

Okay.

So, and I won't belabor it, but just quickly, this is a house in the north downtown ADC district.

It's on the east side of Park Street, and the district ends just on the opposite side of the street.

It was built in 1987.

It is considered contributing to the district, but it's not listed on the National Register District for North Downtown.

In fact, not even on the inventory.

And as best I can determine, there was nothing here until this was constructed in 1987.

And Lee had contacted me about

One question was to replace the windows and the other was to paint the brick and I had to admit you know being somewhat familiar with this house that the windows have always bothered me so I'm a little you know enthused but I you know I'm not the designer here so I thought that painting of the bricks probably

That's a difficult lift.

I did look up and down the street.

There are some painted brick houses, mostly all the way up towards High Street.

So sort of between a Ferris and High is where they're concentrated.

So while painted brick is not on, you know, it's not typical, but it's not unprecedented on Park Street.

The windows

We're typically when we're talking about replacing windows, it's the questions are, does it need to be replaced?

What's their condition?

Can they be repaired versus replaced?

Unless you all have really strong feelings about what

You know, in 1987, you know, architecture is expressing I thought that you could evaluate this through the lens of a new construction or addition and use that to maybe determine something that

that gives the building a little more life.

So I you can tell me I'm wrong, but that's my suggestion.

So and really tonight, just to have conversation with Lee on those, if you have strong feelings one way or the other, all we have are the photographs.

OK, so.

Do you have anything?

Oh, yeah, no, those are those are great.

Thank you so much for putting that together.

So the windows, the existing windows are all casement and we don't love the proportions.

I mean, this is it's almost like this is a modern version of a Victorian vernacular structure and in

those cases of the historic Victorian you would see double hung, more vertical proportion windows.

And I think that's what we were looking

you know, to try to, you know, alter the look of the exterior by, you know, have more vertical window, like possibly taking down the pitch of the front porch roof so that that's possible.

um you know potentially doing a bay you see that a lot I mean I know it's we're not we can't create you know recreate something that was you know built 100 years ago but I think that the homeowner is just trying to get away from that you know sort of 80s uh look you know I mean the brick is not old and it's obvious um I think if we are you know altering windows and

creating a more vertical window, we're going to be patching brick as well.

And so if we, you know, painting it or, or lime washing, you know, with a, you know, a lighter kind of a topi putty color, I think would actually help the, the,

the look of the house.

We also talked about potentially converting the window that you're looking at right there under the covered porch into a French door, because that's the dining room, just so that the porch could be more utilized and open the space to the porch and make the indoor outdoor feeling more open.

So yeah, on the reverse gable ends, we would consider maybe bays, which is doing like a bay so that the windows could be a little more vertically proportioned.

I thought I had the photo there.

So the two views, this is actually from the front, but which is not facing Park Street, so the way the house is oriented there, Lyons Court Lane, I think.

Okay, well this is a preliminary discussion so this can be back and forth and try to give you some guidance.

Any initial questions from the board?

Yeah, just the structural bay of the window itself potentially.

You know, you see like, just like I was actually looking at that last project, how they have, you know, a three sided bay on the reverse gable end that is a, you know, kind of a historic feature for a Victorian home.

Oh, I had a question about you said you would lower the roof pitch.

Yeah, I think all the things you're talking about are going to be improvements.

And I don't know how you all feel, but painting that brick is only going to help it.

That's a really commercial looking brick.

And this is, we're talking about veneer brick with a vapor barrier and an air space and weeps, if it was done in 1987.

So there's no issue of painting masonry like there is in a historic

Last time we talked guidelines, I forget how long ago that was, I think one of my suggestions was instead of saying don't paint brick, it was don't paint historic brick.

And then for windows,

I forget which board member said this years ago, but they kind of made their differentiation between what's historic and not based on, I think, World War II.

So I know that's more than 50 years, but between something that was handcrafted and something that was created by a robot and a machine, I think that's kind of the difference we're looking at.

My response typically, because I do get a lot of questions about painting brick, first and foremost is, you know, is it appropriate here?

And the age of the brick then, and then even if it is appropriate, if it's an old building, then it's, then, you know, what's the material you're going to paint it with?

There is a right way and there's a wrong way.

but a big one also is, regardless of age, is reversibility and I think I learned a lot following what's been going on at the Farish House with that work where someone decided along the way, I don't want this paint on this brick building and really did a tremendous amount of damage to it, removing it, so there's that, I realize we can't,

you know, determine what happens in the future.

But that is something I just urge people to be aware of.

So, but I think for the mechanical properties of New Brick, and I think as you continue down Park Street on the east side, there are some painted brick buildings in there.

That's not part of the district, but they are more, and there's in the summary, you know, they're more 1950s, 1940s, 50s buildings.

So it,

Well, for all the whole thing.

I mean, if they want to, the house being contributing to me seems like it might have been a mistake.

That's not our purview, but if they wanted to completely

We do have precedent for approving buildings that are brand new that are brick that then want to be painted, don't we?

We've done that a few times.

Has staining ever come up in the BAR?

Like a lime wash?

You can stain just about any color, I think.

I think what's nice about it is that you're putting a surface.

on the brick that's then going to have to be repainted or it's going to peel in however many years.

I mean, you're dealing with a material that just gets absorbed by the brick.

And so the surface texture remains the same.

So you potentially don't have to do anything once you stain it, which is one of the advantages in my mind of brick is once the brick's up, you don't have to paint it or deal with it.

My sister always wanted a brick house.

She's jealous of my brick house because of that.

Every 10 years.

Yes.

Yeah.

That's my my initial thought.

So I think your inclination to have higher windows makes a lot of sense when you start thinking about tying into those Victorian Gothic precedents.

And given the fact that some of those windows had clear stories, you could almost start imagining replacing those big, chunky, 80s windows with clear stories with nice, long,

single double hungs, it could be a pretty easy transition.

And then I think also your idea of maybe helping out the upper windows by enhancing that verticality but maybe cutting out the sill makes a lot of sense too.

Mike Brady at his best.

Yeah.

Another thing they're talking about is doing, you know, a fence around the whole yard.

That's a totally different subject.

Philosophically, that is a

is a challenging thing to wrap our head around.

You know, it's things that are built now, one day will become historic.

So you have to kind of keep that in mind.

I tend to agree with Carl.

I don't know.

In looking at the map that was included in the staff report, you know, the next youngest house I believe is, you know, 1961 or something in this area.

Maybe one in 98 that obviously is later, but, um,

Right and also you know Kevin Riddle's little ranch house up there between you know up the street is contributing.

It was my understanding was that in downtown, north downtown, everything was called contributing.

Not to say

had nothing to do with the historic nature of it, I don't know, but everything was.

In fact, even down on Ferris and Park, that pool house.

So we have these in a few places.

I do want to say one thing.

When I talked to Lee first about replacing the windows, I wasn't envisioning changing the masonry opening.

Keep the porch columns.

Okay.

I don't.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you, Lee.

OK, thanks so much.

Let's see.

OK, I think this is over to you now, Jeff, right?

It is.

And let me reorient myself quickly.

So and I'm going to introduce you to Michael Kaplan over here.

I don't know, Mike, if you want to stand, you can pick up the microphone and sit it down or scoot your chair, whatever's good for you.

I was contacted by Mike last summer, and he can tell you his background and history in this community, but interest really in what

How do you create a buzz in the mall?

What are the things that we have that we can emphasize and get people enthused about?

And I think we've had a lot of discussions and some good ideas.

Here, just, there's three of them tonight that, and I just said, let's sit down with you guys, get to know Mr. Kaplan, and talk about the ideas.

I will say that the easiest ones, and I'm gonna just,

Stop this share and share this.

And I'm going to skip past this.

Please tell me it's here.

I created a bunch of images and they're not here.

Mike, introduce yourself.

My name is Michael Kaplan.

I was born here in Charlottesville in 1951 at the University Hospital.

My dad was a professor at the law school and we lived here until I was 10 and then we moved up to DC when he took a job in DC.

but we came back always all weekends in between and I came back here to law school myself and three years ago moved back here full time.

We live out off of Woodlands now and I'm absolutely delighted to be here and it feels exactly like what being at home is supposed to feel like.

I got here just at the start of the pandemic and I went down to Main Street, which is what I always do.

And for me, the Main Street is full of ghosts that I see things that nobody else sees.

They aren't there anymore.

But through my rose colored glasses,

I see the downtown athletic store where my grandpa took me to get a football and I see Young Men's and Boys shop where my mom took me to get my first blue blazer and I see Miller and Rhodes and on top of Miller and Rhodes was a place you could get a lemonade.

So mom got me this jacket and I put it on and we went up to the top of Miller and Rhodes and got a lemonade and I felt like a king.

So when I came back three years ago and walked on Main Street, I was stunned at how bleak it looked.

It looked, there were a lot of vacancies.

and there was a lot of deferred maintenance and there were no people.

And I thought, this is bad.

This is bad.

What's up?

So I started attending meetings of the Downtown Business Association and at every meeting they went through a litany of all the things that needed to happen downtown and why wasn't somebody doing something about it.

and I said, that somebody is us.

Stop saying it's him.

It's us.

So let's get going.

Let's make a list and get going.

And that's what we've been working on.

And we stood up a new nonprofit, Friends of Seaville Downtown, to get tax exempt status so we can get some donations, which we've been getting because everybody loves downtown.

And if you come forward with a legitimate idea, people will say, how can I help?

Which is one of the great things about being back in Charlottesville.

And so

The mission is to make sure it's clean and safe, to make sure the infrastructure is in good shape.

to make sure it's beautiful and alluring and inclusive and economically sustainable.

The merchants are remarkable in their fortitude and determination.

You know better than I do, it's been a rough sled down there for them all.

The foot traffic is way down.

Somebody told me recently that in 2017 there were 3 million visitors downtown and the most recent count is 2 million.

that's the demand for their goods and so it's a historic downtown and there's a lot of marketing that can be made of that and so we've been talking about so how do we raise the visibility of our historic credit and so

This man has been very patient with me because I run to his office every 15 minutes and say, what about this?

He said, no, not that.

And it's been great.

I mean, it's a great learning process.

And it's very charming to me that you all just let me come here and talk, which is small town government is accessible.

I was living up in Northern Virginia, and government is not accessible.

And so this is delightful that we could just hit the ball back and forth, and you help us figure out what's value add and what won't work.

Part of the historic cred is we've got this inventory of amazing old buildings.

And you can go into those buildings and talk to people who have been working in those buildings for 15 years.

They can't tell you a thing about the building.

And you say, do you know that this building was built in 1843?

They get all excited.

And you say, do you know what the prior businesses were?

No.

What was it?

It's stunning to me that they don't know.

In talking with Jeff, we started talking about how can we brand the buildings for their age?

and this idea emerged, this is a plastic decal that goes inside the shop on their glass door facing out or up in their transom facing out as they prefer and we're going merchant to merchant, offering it to them for free, it's only if they want it but the goal is to get a unified visual prompt that sort of helps on the bricks and up the side streets to connect to the bricks, get a unifying

Artistic value that sort of lets you know you're in a district and every one of them says historic downtown and every one of them will have the age of the building it's on.

So with Jeff's help and other people's help, we've been assembling the circus for all the buildings, some of which are easier than others.

And we're working with Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society to put together the backstories on the buildings and to ratify the dates.

With your phone, with your phone, your phone will tell you what building you're looking at and on your phone you'll get the backstory of the building, including old historic photos and the story of what went on there.

And there's some wild stories as you know.

And so like Miller's Drugstore is a great example

Millers has been a drug store since 1875.

That's pretty cool.

Do you know CVS has always been a drug store in that building?

Since 1895 it's been a drug store in there, one after another.

And somehow it ended up being a CVS almost by accident, but it's a continuation.

That's part of the charm of downtown Main Street has really not changed that much.

and so we were talking about metal plaques and Jeff explained there's a real process behind metal plaques and in the meantime, we can put up these decals which you can take, they just, they peel and stick really.

And you peel it off, you can read it from both sides, you peel it off and you stick it like that and whether you're inside or outside, it looks the same and it tells you the date of the building or standing in.

and just in getting these approvals, the joy and pride that it triggers is a fine thing and it fortifies people, it excites them.

And so, and that's all part of you may have, hopefully you've noticed that there are flowers all over Main Street now because friends of downtown said, you know, we gotta beautify this, have a competition.

And everybody threw themselves into it, staff arranged for there to be a flower market so the merchants who don't have 10 minutes to spare for anything, because they only have one employee,

and if the employee goes to the market, they have to lock the door and you can't have two employees because the profit margin is too slight.

We put a flower market down there.

Everybody got flowers and it's all over the place now and it's a different place and it's a great thing and we worked with the schools to put the kids' art in the windows and the kids are coming down and they're loving pointing at their art in their shop windows and so it's all little bits and pieces of things.

Some of it is small change but it adds up.

It adds up.

You know, we'd love to re-point the bricks.

You know, that's like a million dollars or something like that.

We've been talking about the, you used a word earlier and I've forgotten already, the luminosity of when you change a bulb and you change the wattage.

By just changing the lamping in the existing lights on the side streets that feed into the mall, women's sense of danger at night could be eradicated at about the cost of about $300 a pole.

And so we're talking with the suitable people about that and finding out how to get there.

And so another one of our historic assets

is the ghost murals.

I'm going to hold off on that one because that's going to be a big discussion.

And I wanted to say the other piece, and this is what's fun when we have a conversation with Mike, is we actually run out of paper to write notes on.

It really is, and I think it's been infectious even within NDS

The other idea about these bronze plaques is that these would be attached to the exterior of the building.

Of course, then it would fall under our purview.

get a design, decide on something that we approve and whatever you cast, you know, then you keep putting it in.

But then he and I were talking about like, well, you know, how much do we put on there?

Well, when a building got in some of what I mentioned earlier tonight, you know, how much can you put on there?

And, you know, just some of the I think this shows some of the

No, no.

At your suggestion, I thought, you know, that can wait, because that campaign

First of all, they're about $300 a piece, plus another $50 to install.

So you can't do but so many.

So he built a list of 20 buildings that he knew the back story and the purity of the current architecture.

this is one of them and so that's why we started toying with well what might the plaque say because you see a lot of plaques that say George Washington slept here in 1776 and then he didn't and you can't really do that in this day and age nobody stops to read them and it gets more expensive the sign has to get bigger in order to say it and really with cell phones now you don't you don't need to put that much content you could put a you know one of those codes

Is that alright?

So is it, are the decals just like a placeholder?

It does.

Where it becomes a little...

The place where the brass plaques become more relevant is when you get off of Main Street.

You get up on Jefferson and Park and down on Water where they don't have.

Part of why we got to these is because on Main Street, the front of everybody's building is glass.

You couldn't even put up a plaque.

and so it found itself in a way.

So it's better on the bricks that we use this, but if you want to really, when you get around to really fortifying the historic walk and what are you passing by, you know the oldest house up on Court Square deserves a plaque that says something about its age.

And so on those properties they would make, the places where we have the washed out slate signs now.

It might be suitable for new brass plaques, I don't know.

So the decals, these would be placed on the inside of the windows?

Yeah, inside out in part so they'll last longer because they won't get wet.

They could go either side.

In one of the stores, in Killwinds, we have to put it outside because they've boxed in the back of their transom and you can't get to it.

But it's under a cover so it's not going to get wet.

I think, you know, I love the enthusiasm and all the things that you're bringing to this work.

I think that it's, you know, obviously here on this committee and those that follow this, you know, share that joy of telling stories.

And getting anything that helps clue people into that is going to be a good thing.

I think my only thought as a designer is that most of these will be seen from a pedestrian level given the scale of the downtown mall.

They seem plenty big and I wonder if they end up starting to feel too large.

I think the one

Let's say, for instance, if this was successful and they all turned into, they seemed too large for a brass plaque.

If it was going to be a brass, if like that same thing became a plaque, it might end up starting to be too much.

You could see one on Timber Lakes, for example.

Right.

Because they have brick out there that you could anchor it to.

Right.

Or if they were, they could, you know, getting smaller.

I think there's something nice about the decal that maybe is a little disarming, maybe a little bit more contemporary, and not making it feel like we're walking around in a museum.

I think we need to balance those issues.

We want to tell the stories, but it's also a living, breathing city that's changing all the time.

So I don't think we aspire to feeling like downtown Alexandria or something else.

That was some of the tension is there's a story to be told.

I mean I think at times I've envisioned around the city I've looked at the census data so often it's like I can just see you know where you have

who's resided there, how that house's building's been occupied.

But you want to invite people to ask questions, but you want to provide enough information.

And that's where we got into that, all right, well the building was built here, it burned down, got rebuilt, got this, oh shoot, now we got five dates and it was eight different things.

Can we use six font?

So you're right, it's how do we invite that storytelling and how do we communicate

some of it.

But I think I was enthused about the decal because it gave them freedom to develop something that merchants liked and that they could do and it didn't require approval from us.

And as to the size, part of it was triggered by walking along the wall trying to find people's houses numbers, which you can't.

Or they're done in 75 different ways.

But there's a certain size at which you can see it.

And below that size, you can't see it anymore.

You have to walk in the doorway to see it.

So that's where this elevation came from.

And the font sort of echoes a lot of the old fonts.

Some of them still have their original numbers on them.

So you know the only thing I just thought of, Mike, make a note, probably talk to the fire department folks about they like to have that identifier on the building so make sure everything, there's no confusion created.

So the other piece, and I've shared this with some of you, we discussed this last summer and I very honestly, I asked Mike, please don't do this because it's gonna, we're gonna, there'll be, it's gonna be a coin toss on how

the preservation community responds to it.

But it continues to sort of percolate out there and I've actually talked with some other preservationists in the community and I was a little surprised at how they did not respond exactly the way I anticipated.

but the point being is we do have these festive signs in a lot of places in the city.

The opportunity to and I would not say restore but to rehabilitate and the definition being there sort of

improving it enough that it maintains its viability sort of thing.

You're not restoring and not reconstructing it.

And so this is, I think, the 1914 Koch sign.

It's like Jack Brown is off to the left and Oyster House there on the right.

The idea, and this is what the artistically possibly looked like originally, that would obviously be a faux representation of what's there and the

The artist that they're working with, I can't recall her name, has been involved in this type of rehabilitation work and it would be to kind of touch it as lightly as possible to bring elements out and make them more visible.

So that's, and you had sent

Oh, shoot, you'd give me that image, but either way, this is sort of the idea.

I want to make very, very clear, you're not being asked to approve anything tonight, you're not, but it's a discussion that has been coming and here it is.

The one big thing about this is that when I first looked at it, I said, this is a sign and per our sign ordinance, it cannot be repainted.

There are differences of opinions in City Hall.

I don't have an official determination but the conversation with zoning was that under the circumstances they would not view this as a sign but as a mural.

So I don't have that formally yet but for purposes of the discussion I'm just suggesting

Assume this is not controlled by the sign regs, and this is a historic element of a building that is being proposed for rehabilitation.

You can think of it as a mural or an architectural element, but don't for tonight worry about it being a sign.

I think we've all been looking into different thoughts about this in the preservation community and examples of where it's been done, concerns about how it's been done.

I'd open it up for conversation.

I have a question.

I think we got an email today or yesterday, someone said they were adamantly opposed or something like that.

But they didn't have any, it was just they didn't like it.

No, they had a question as whether they had a chance to voice their opposition.

Got it, got it.

Is there any, Remy, is there anyone attending online that would like to speak to this?

If you'd like to speak, you can click the raise hand icon or press star nine if you're joining us via telephone.

Are there precedents of something like this?

So as Jeff said, this is a hotly debated topic, because there have been towns where they bring them back to full.

And they didn't achieve what they said they have to do.

They did not salute and celebrate the historic story that's right there on the wall in front of you, telling you about what happened 100 years ago.

They just changed it into sort of a garish thing.

and there's a firm out of North Carolina and I learned about them reading the National Trust for Historic Preservation magazine because they've been following their work through the small southern towns.

They have developed their own special technique which, as Jeff says, they do not give you 2023 colors.

What they do is they study the original color and then what would have happened to that color if it was bleached out.

And so what they put back is the original color as bleached.

So it ends up looking like that after they're finished.

And what they've done is they've preserved its legibility.

But they have not undercut its historic legitimacy and the magic of the story that it tells.

and I have a handout for you and in it there's a prompt to this article in National Trust and they've got photos from all of these towns and you've seen the signs.

They all make me smile, you know, Sloan's Liniments and the hat stores and the women's handbag stores.

The cigar stores, we've got cigar signs all over town.

I found one on the side of the consignment shop.

Old Henry Cigares.

And you have to stare at the wall for a really long time and then you start to see more than you realize you can see.

And so the artist's name is Scott Allred.

So what Scott does is he stares at these things and then he does these computer simulations.

and this is the entire wall.

This is the wall that's there right next to the Oyster House antique.

And you can see that the grocery store to the far right did get painted over when they freshened the Oyster House look.

But it still says seed, hay, and mill on the side.

And the woman who runs the Oyster House tells me that people are taking photographs in front of that wall all the time.

And they love it.

They come inside and they ask her, so tell me, what was the story here?

She didn't know any of the stories, so I gave her a whole sheet of the story.

It's mighty, it's a powerful thing.

It's over 100 years old and it's a time capsule of that moment when this is the dawn of American marketing.

There weren't marketing geniuses until Coca Cola figured this thing out.

And the way they did it, and you probably know this, but all over

So they were born in Atlanta.

The first painted building is just outside of Atlanta.

And then to show that the product was spreading in availability and to raise awareness of it, they started painting in all the small towns throughout the South.

And what they did was they would go to the South, they would find a prominent building, and they would tell the shop owner, we will put your thing on the wall for free if you'll let us put our thing on the wall.

and that's how they all happened.

And a whole class of artists was born that were taught the craft of free handing these gigantic things on scaffolding.

a number of small towns have reported that in restoring these things they have increased tourism because people come just to look at the signs but they don't look modern, they look old, they still look like what they are and you know I bought Coca-Cola for five cents, many of you did I suspect and so that alone makes me smile and when Scott taught me that below the Coca-Cola sign it says owl cigars I hadn't seen it until he told me but I stood in front of the wall today and I could read it

and there's an owl to the left of Owl Cigars.

And so before I bothered you about could we have permission, I had to persuade Coca-Cola to give us the money even though we were not going to paint a billboard.

because they have done this in other places where they see an opportunity, they put a brand new 2023 hot red billboard like the picture he showed you and they had to go all the way through the corporate chain and they decided to say yes because they got it.

For a certain age person there's a charm in seeing that five cents and they realize that it's just as powerful

in its true original sense, even though it's not painted to full saturation.

So when they told me that, I called up Scott Allred, the artist down in North Carolina.

I said, OK, we got over the first hurdle, which is we got money for this.

Now we've got to get permission.

Can you give me some computer generated stuff?

And so he did this on his time.

and he said that should we get to yes, when he gets the lift here he goes up and he's looking, there are a lot of dots and he's looking at the dots and it's dictating how he attacks, there's green, well you can see it on this one, if you look at the old wall you don't know there's green there but if you look really closely you can see the green dots and he builds from that and it's his, he's an historic preservation guy so his whole thing

is to not destroy what's there, just to preserve it, make it more legible and then there's a whole prep of the brick before he starts with something that stabilizes what's there and then he comes back with this and I've got a description of the paint here and then he seals it with a matte finish varnish that protects it against the sun going forward.

and so I don't know how familiar you are with that second street walk by Jack Brown's, but it's a little dead and it's got great potential and it's this double wide street and it's a natural gathering place.

Some day when Jeff's not looking, I'll put a cafe chair and table there and I'll invite him to lunch, but it's essentially the gateway to the downtown mall if you park at the Ward Street garage.

So in this rendering, all of the patina of all the different ads are all amplified so we can read them a lot more than you can currently.

Is the intention to restore, to rehabilitate all of them or just the Coca-Cola one in the middle?

You haven't said that, but if you asked all of them, because that's the story of the wall.

So when I asked Koch, I patted the number, because I knew what the cost would be.

And Koch approved a number that they think is just the Coca-Cola sign.

But when I go back and do full disclosure, I'll say this is consistent with how you all started this whole wall mural campaign.

In the olden days, you put up the other people's stuff in exchange for the right to put yours.

And it's still, I mean, I'll be frank with you, the budget, the artist told me that to do the whole wall, you can do it for $30,000.

You'll move down here for a month.

with his assistant and go up and down that thing.

What does he use?

No, the paint he uses is exterior professional grade acrylic, custom mixed to achieve subtle and muted colors that match what is now and some of what was on the wall.

slowly layered using his technique to recreate how the colors of paint really age, preserving the charm of the original and rendering the faded sign more legible.

So it's honoring what's there and making sure it stays there and then giving it a little more power by raising legibility.

And it's like controlling the brightness on your screen.

He can go up and down.

Well, right.

It is the same color, distressed.

He starts with what the color is.

but his idea is to recreate what was there so he has to distress it because whatever was there is distressed now.

So it's authentically what that paint would be if it hadn't been all baked off.

Yeah, I love it.

I mean, he's not going like this.

So the direction I got from the, when I even talked to Richmond, so there was a, you either support it or you don't, but the people that did or that were seeing it done, the criteria was that it's not a false representation, you know, that it is a

and I think you used the perfect language.

We're preserving the legibility of a faded sign and so that's, that seems to be where the preservation world kind of is finding it acceptable that it's not, we're not repainting it to look old.

pulling out what's there, it's not fake, and make that legible.

I know that's a very fine line there, but that's how I read it.

Yeah, I feel like from a preservation standpoint, if you don't do anything, it's going to do nothing but continue to degrade to the point where it's gone.

Yeah.

I mean, I'm really fascinated by the conversation in the community.

And when I read the different scenarios, I definitely

I feel like where I am is that there are places where this makes sense.

I thought actually the Park Service brief, even though it didn't get into a lot of the specifics about painted signs, it offered some good guidance.

into how to think about this in terms of whether or not the sign was, you know, did it represent a particular local business or was it tied to the use of the building?

Was it something unique to that location?

In this case, for me, I think that wall is unbelievable.

It's really interesting.

Yeah, there's a lot.

And it does spark your curiosity.

I have real concerns that

This would obfuscate that or make it difficult or bring some things up over.

There's two or three signs just in the Coca-Cola sign alone.

And part of the joy of looking at that wall is seeing those different layers simultaneously.

and I guess came thinking that this is primarily about the Koch sign, which is one, sounds like there are like 16,000 of these across the US, so not necessarily distinct or one of a kind example or nor a particular local business.

So I think that, for me, the story of architecture downtown is present in that wall because you can see the changes over time in all of its different iterations.

I feel like it's not the best.

I don't know.

to both.

But you know we lose it if we don't do anything.

Right.

Well, I mean, yes.

I mean, our city is constantly evolving and painted signs do fade.

I mean, it'd be one thing if there were still sort of a tradition of this.

It feels funny to freeze it at a certain moment in time.

Well, and that's another aspect that is pretty unique about Charlottesville is that we are not a town of billboards, generally.

That was not always the case.

This was certainly a period, but currently today,

We are not bombarded by a lot of commercial signage.

And I think that's a good thing.

I think it has led to a more humane pedestrian scale experience in most of our city.

It did seem like we had someone on the call with a hand raised.

Is there someone there?

Yes.

Michael, you're welcome to make a comment for three minutes.

Can you give your name and address, please?

We're not hearing you.

Ah, there you are.

OK, good, good.

I'm at 887 Locust Avenue.

I've been down here for 25 years.

I'm an artist in town.

And I absolutely love that wall exactly the way it is.

I think it's a natural effect that's been happening to that wall.

I feel like if any paint is applied, I understand a restoration idea.

or not a restoration but a preservation idea, but any paint being applied to that wall I think would just be terrible to be honest.

It's a recorded document of time passage and I feel like you put any paint on that wall and it's just going to become something artificial and not representing

what it is and giving it like a 2024 upgrade.

It just would not be the same.

Excellent.

So as I said, we can brighten and dim it.

if it were the sense of the group that too much saturation undercuts the whole reason you're doing it then I can tell Scott show us another version and he can at least let you see same thing minus 20% of saturation whatever the right thing is because it's completely in his control.

I said I need something for tonight and this is what he sent me.

With this feedback he can because

I agree with Mike Pitt on the phone.

I mean, it's a fantastic wall, and the longer you spend in front of it, the more you love it.

And quite frankly, to your point that, particularly in the Owl Cigar section, there are several other signs.

Yeah, I'd like to see that.

Just for discussion's sake, it would be helpful.

I want to go walk down there and look at it some more.

And then I also would ask, sounds like you spend a lot of time walking around downtown, which is fantastic.

Is there perhaps another wall where we've got just a singular wall sign, ghost sign that could possibly be preserved where you don't have the multi layers of all these different signs covering each other up?

There are pieces of signs.

like the old A&P sign.

I mean, there's so many around town.

Is there another candidate that doesn't have the conflicts of the collage effect here that you've got layers on layers on layers.

In our preliminary or pre-meeting discussion, I brought up the point, well, the wall itself has a history of layered signs.

Slap a brand new sign.

Fresh paint on top of all those and you'd be honoring that wall just fine because that's what that's been the tradition.

You know, like somebody said, Oyster House Antiques, they could just paint a big oyster on there with some antique chairs, whatever, like, you know, and I wouldn't be necessarily opposed.

I like the patina better, but I think, you know, just from a

Oh they're totally psyched.

They think it's great.

And they also didn't know the history of their own building.

So with your permission, because this was just supposed to be a discussion and nobody

settle in on any point of view quite yet.

I did a handout that just described Scott's work a little more, has a prompt to that article, has a picture of this for you to have, and I will tell him tomorrow that as part of the ongoing discussion with no promises, because when you look at his work, he's done all over the, and he's a sign painter as well, if you're doing your oyster house, he can do you an oyster house.

So he's got that full skill set.

There's, I guess, a formal proposal to do this.

It would require a request for the BAR's approval, obviously, with any action by the BAR appealed to city council.

So that's the fun part of it.

But again, you all don't have to make a decision.

The conversation was

Pretty much as I kind of anticipated, it really is teetering on that.

There's a very, very, very fine line here.

And Michael Pitt said it well, you know, that preservation, OK, if we could freeze it now.

But the minute we start to enhance it, to him, that's an artistic alteration.

So I don't

I mean, so I don't know how to leave Mike with a, hey, go do this.

And I'm certainly not, I don't want to leave you all thinking that you've made a decision.

But best I can say is we kind of continue to explore this.

And if I could say what I heard is that it is that, you know, how close to that line of preserving legibility and sort of increasing that visibility without

falling over into, oh, we've repainted the side of this building.

That's what I've sort of sensed.

Well, just as an observation, I walk down that street fairly frequently.

I go down to the gallery and to the live arts quite frequently.

And the truth of the matter is, I've glanced at those signs before.

They don't stand out at me, and I didn't know the history of it until just now.

So while I understand some concerns about preservation and so forth, for most people, they're basically not there.

They're illegible.

And I'm struggling with this as well,

I like the notion of drawing attention to what was there, and this process seems like a way of doing that to me, at least initially.

I would like to see if the artist, the sign painter,

Okay, I'll do that.

You know, the first couple of times I walked up and down Second Street and looked at that wall, I thought, man, this looks terrible.

It looks like peeling paint on a brick wall that's just looking run down.

But then I started studying and it's like discovering

a rabbit's hole.

And so, right, being able to read just a little bit of it draws you in.

And I'll get you other drafts.

I mean, it's a good challenge for him because this, as original as this conversation is, it's not that original because every town has to answer it their way.

And some of them go back to full bleed.

They go back to 100%.

Brown's Derby.

And it's sort of carnival-ish.

Some of these towns are really bleak and so it's the most exciting thing there is downtown.

It'll look like this.

Alright, thank you for your hospitality.

Hey Mike, thanks.

You know, one thing I mentioned to Mike too last summer, and I'll toss it out to you all, is we have, and this came up last year with a discussion about that window over near West Main Bridge that they wanted to put movable panels in, or maybe it was a couple years ago,

We have some storefronts of the mall that are pristine.

I mean, they're really in just remarkable good shape.

The details are there.

And so it's that idea of, all right, what are those

You know, just like this wall that we all walk by and never really, although I would have bet you a hundred dollars earlier tonight that that said Coors beer at the bottom.

Yeah, there's a big seat.

There's two.

I'm just saying, so my last thought was just, I'd really invite you to look at them all, look at some of these buildings and really take them in and let's begin to elevate the visibility and awareness of some of these that are, you know, they may seem sort of

Benign, but when you look at them, they really are, in their point in time, well-preserved, pristine in some ways.

So I think that'd be great.

It's a good opportunity here.

There's several.

I just pass this one on the way home all the time.

I love it and I don't want it to go away.

I don't think anyone's going to pay money to paint a building on 8th Street off of West Main.

8th Street, Northwest?

Moving along quickly, just to give you the update next Wednesday evening.

We have the, as you know, the nomination for the National Register of the Downtown Law.

That will be going formally to the Virginia State Review Board in June.

We will be having a community meeting next Wednesday.

in this room in city space starting at five o'clock.

The consultants will be here, representatives from BDHR to sort of summarize their findings to anyone who's interested.

But that's just part of the process of the public outreach going into that state review meeting.

And I didn't know if you all had any questions about that, but I wanted to put that on your calendar.

Other thing, and I was not able to put as much into this as we wanted, so I'm really just going to introduce it to you and share with you something that

I'm sorry, I'm not going to spin my wheels on it.

So one of the things we have is, and Carl you'll probably be seeing this before most of us, this is, I don't know when you're, the next section that's coming out really gets into the BAR process and operations, but

I had gone through, kind of said, all right, new zoning regs in these different corridors.

And I apologize again for it not being very clear.

But there are, for example, the

Some of these, if you see the like 15, 10, 10, so in some of these places where, for example, on East High Street, East West High Street was an example that I raised.

We have, come on.

So you have the buildings with a somewhat established typical setback, two, two and a half stories.

The zoning particularly that's proposed for High Street would really alter that.

And so that's

I was going to work through with some of you some of the examples and things that we've seen now but I said I don't I'm not ready to do that but this is a discussion that that's that's coming at the larger level I'm just not able to evaluate everything but it I did say you know like if you if we came in here and suddenly buildings have to you know are five feet from the you know setback and there are five four five stories tall

that really alters this how the BAR approaches design review and we needed some clarity on that.

I mean similarly Rugby Road while a conservation district and residential so it's not necessarily falling into where

the zonies suggesting something problematic.

But it's a good example again where those deep front yards are typical.

And so if something were to come in and say, oh, no, we now want buildings up on the street and tall, it begins to alter how the design guidelines, what you all are able to do.

And so we're still trying to get some clarity on that.

In that process, I've asked Molly

to try to create a map tool that we can, just like we did with Third Street down here when we said, all right, what's the typical height in this neighborhood?

How far back?

What's the spacing?

So she's began to create a database that, you know, it's not perfect, but it offers some kind of a, all right, what are we, in this neighborhood or on this street, what are some typical things so that we can,

anticipate some of these zoning questions because I'm most concerned we're going to adopt the change and it's going to be, oh no, what do we do on High Street?

So, but I'll share that with you and said Molly, again, her background, GIS, and that's what's been really

She's brought to the table as knowing how to create these maps and the tools that we can use.

So that's something positive.

Maybe it's a question more than anything.

I think we're getting module three very soon because we have our work session next week, I think.

I know we have a work session next week, so I think we're getting module three, which is supposed to cover overlay districts and things like that.

James, I believe,

Are we going to be able to continue to operate like that or is counsel going to overrule us?

Well, so that that's that that's the what I understand is will be clarified in and from what James had said to us and I think that's from a statute point of view.

It doesn't worse doesn't change the way that at least until we see this and maybe the the new the new ordinance but

It doesn't change the way we operate.

I don't understand necessarily how zoning works, but wouldn't zoning ordinance basically overrule our guidelines in a hierarchy of laws?

No, the guidelines, they are an overlay on top of zoning.

So for example, on the downtown mall, zoning is recommending 10 stories with like a bonus of 12 stories if you have all affordable housing of a certain percentage of AMI.

Now the understanding though is that we're probably not going to let them demolish a bunch of buildings on East Main Street to create ten-story buildings, but maybe we'd allow something like if the landmark was finished, something like that.

So it's trying to get an understanding of

are we allowed

Yeah, the complicating factor is there's no way to not allow an applicant to appeal.

And sort of taking the argument to its absurdity, it would be, well, we want the council to promise not to overrule us.

say, all right, where do we see problems so that we're not going what if, what if, what if, that we're able to say, all right, here are some concrete examples of what we're talking about.

And I mean, it's sort of like the solar panels on a slate roof.

I know we have others that are coming to us.

Should I

should I waste their money with an application fee?

I mean, that's, I don't know.

And I don't mean that to sound mean.

I don't know.

I mean, if it has a precedent been set.

So I think if we can get ahead of this a little bit and be able to illustrate and explain where we see some conflicts.

And I said, I think Molly's putting together that data set that will be helpful.

But Carl, yeah, there's a lot of,

Good thing you lift because there's going to be a lot of weight on you.

I have already read what you will be reading.

I hope you rest up.

Because I think this is imperative for all of us to help tell the story better about the service that the BAR provides to the city.

in the, I think that there's many examples in the last few years of the time that I've been on the board where the design discussion with these major projects has, we've helped use the leverage of the BER to not only get better buildings but actually generate better public space for the city.

Thinking of like some of the, like the pass through at the code building or

the application of some of our guidelines to modulating the street wall to street improvements to provision of bigger canopy trees.

All of those things are really helpful.

And if we end up in a situation where the most expedient thing for an applicant to do is to bypass the BAR completely,

I'm definitely not as eloquent as you are in this but I have tried to explain that you know we're pretty accommodating when it comes to exceptions to our guidelines and when it comes to you know taller buildings and bigger buildings than would normally be allowed and yeah making them be better buildings so I'm hoping they get that.

The last three appeals

We've had three appeals recently, but I consider every single one of those a special case, a weird case.

Before that, counsel always upheld our appeals and usually, or upheld our decisions, and I think the appeals that came before were, you know, we had

neighbors upset that we approved an apartment building, an applicant upset that we didn't approve a surface parking lot, neighbors upset that we approved a condominium.

A comment was made last night.

Michael Payne in the discussion about the 2005 JPA said that

He said the design review process has produced a building that's so much better than what had originally been presented.

And so he was really enthused.

It was a positive statement about the result of that process.

So I think it's helpful.

You know, Breck and I, in conversations after the last couple appeals, what I've said is I just haven't done a good job of communicating to counsel what we do.

I mean, when I've, you know, we're like, well, this is the BAR.

No, that's, we're not the ERB, and so I've got to do a better job.

All right, last question, and this is actually me asking for help, and so you all, this is

I'm sure you know the building.

There's Levy Building.

This is Redland Club.

This is not Swan Tavern.

I have told more people in the last three months that is not Swan Tavern.

And actually, the sign out front says that Jack Jewett operated the Swan Tavern.

He did not.

His father did.

But what I

I want to jump ahead.

So when I was in grad school, and Breck, I'm hoping you might remember who did this.

When we looked at the old poorhouse out there behind the JAG school, the law school, someone who was a landscape architecture student said, well, I can kind of, I do a sketch of what I think you're describing.

And so it's really effective.

So I've been playing around with this is what I was doing the other day instead of listening to my wife.

And I just started sketching like, all right, well, we know what was at Swan Tavern, a two-story frame building.

We know where things are because of, and I'll show you in a second, some of the things that Ben's been able to uncover.

So I just doodled this up with this in mind.

took, and this is incomplete, but it's an early field report of what they were finding, where the flags were, you know, all those things, and it's very preliminary, you know, you remember the thing that's on the side, the well's not even shown here, but, sorry, the cursor is misbehaving, but we know that Swan Tavern came out to about this point here, because we have some old drawings that

Insurance Strong to show this and then where that Sally Porte is evidence of another structures there and so I kind of took that Ben's drawing and kind of said all right well that's spatially where I see things and I said just my really crude sketch to try to

Shea, this is what that site looked like given the information we have.

And my ask to you all is, do you know anybody that's like good at drawing those kind of things?

I mean even if I, I don't know, to me it brings that site to life.

And when I've taken folks up there and walked them around the site when

you know, before it was covered up with gravel.

They don't realize the extent of it that, you know, how much was going on there.

And so I just feel like some sort of sketch or illustration would help.

I just don't know who to ask, so.

There you go.

If anyone knows someone or wants to volunteer someone or willing to give it a try, call me.

And that's the end of my thing.

Other than tonight, we're halfway through.

Our next meeting is on Wednesday, June 21st, because of the holiday.

So make sure you make note of that.

and B.A.R.

dinner.

Make sure you talk to James.

And any questions about that?

Anybody?

The architecture is, they are finished at the site.

They will be there as when demolition, when it begins, and when excavation begins, the archeologists will be available.

I think they're

they want to continue to monitor whatever they can at the well site but active excavation at the site for artifacts is over.

What we now have are Ben said he's got thirty five-gallon buckets of stuff.

I have requested some state funding in a grant that would contribute to a

hopefully at minimum $20,000 to at least initiate some of the analysis of those artifacts.

And we're talking ceramics, animal bones and parts, personal items, buttons, pipes, things.

So the cost of a thorough artifact evaluation is close to $80,000.

So I'm going to

I'm going to see what I can do to seek some funding to get as close to that.

So the county did that initial excavation, the archaeology on the site, and now we've got an awful lot of stuff that we

One thing Ben can do is say, I found things at this site that date from the late 1700s to early 1800s, probably associated with Swan Tavern.

We didn't find any graves.

Here's your report.

What we'll hope to do now is say, how do we interpret these artifacts?

How do we understand them?

And another one is to get some understanding of what sort of repository, how should they be kept and managed so that they're accessible to people.

So it's really exciting.

I think there's realization that this site can be, that story can be told, but that gets into that.

but the funding to do that evaluation that contributes to that interpretation.

So yes, if you know an artist, call me.

And that's all I have.

Thank you all for your patience.

Thank you for meeting Michael.

Like I said, it's hard not to, the guy's energetic and enthused.

It's a nice feeling to walk on the mall and feel some excitement and enthusiasm to, I gotta,

I love getting pats on the back and things getting thrown at me.

Good night.

Do you have a motion to adjourn?

So moved.