Board of Architectural Review Meeting   12/19/2023

It's high, you can read it into the record, but I can't read it.

There it is.

I'm not sure what the point is to answer those questions, but there they are.

Holly's not Buddhist.

I don't know.

Okay.

It's my 16th one, which may be a confession of mental illness, but Dubai is, the first impression of Dubai as a place is a lot of good infrastructure here.

Thank you very much.

And the global stock case, as far as I can tell, is what are called the nationally determined contributions that all the countries made.

Most of them have not been fulfilled since 2015.

The United States, strangely enough, is well on the path to doing so.

most of the rest of the world is not.

The EU is.

Sounds like most climate initiatives.

Sorry?

I was actually at the Earth Summit so I've been following this for 37 years now.

How you doing Jeff?

I asked because in my home markets the district has been referred to as the border since the turn of the century.

My grad says with increased train traffic on the tracks.

I think that's what most people think of when they hear that phrase.

There are a few questions.

James, I had a similar thought and just the fact that we've always been saying 50 years has cut off the world since we're historic.

It's now the 70s.

I just bought an avocado green Olivetti typewriter from my daughter from the 70s.

It's pretty sweet.

It hasn't arrived yet, but.

You could designate it.

All typewriters.

I don't know why she wanted a typewriter.

It was bizarre.

On the Lexington and High Street project, there's talk of Taylor Walk and the Taylor House.

Do we know which house?

So there were so many emails that were flying around just related to the conversation on the different districts.

I think what the plan is is that we're going to take stock of kind of where we are time-wise when we get to that and set some kind of

parameter around how much discussion we want to have.

And I'll take friendly suggestions at that point.

We'll see.

But we want to give it enough time to get it all out on the table, but not so much that we have too much conversation or get too long-winded.

Justin, it's a big section.

Last night, James, Ron, and Roger were all reappointed

when we discussed the courts this evening.

I know there's been a lot of conversation, but I had a conversation yesterday with their panel.

That's where they really have a lot of long lead time.

The gray, there is gray opponents.

Another thing, just kind of saying it, I'll repeat it, but we are being a certified local government every year.

I have to prepare a report on our activity that goes September to October.

And that includes updating any training that you all have done.

You don't have to do an hour.

and so it has to be prior to October 1st of this year and it's, James once wrote down that he read the Secretary of State but it's a, they haven't challenged me on it yet but we have not always had everyone complying with that so I'll send out another reminder but that has to be completed.

I had a couple questions on

that have come in this week.

I can ask now.

I can ask later.

Well, my preference was to not discuss it on Channel 10 because I felt like that.

You know, I don't want someone to go, oh, they didn't vote me in, you know.

It's not inappropriate for you all to discuss privately, so I figured that would be more such.

And it doesn't have to be done this year.

The items on the agenda tonight, there's the consent agenda item at 112 Park Street, then there are, then there's the

the discussion about the city county courts expansion at Levy discussing the color palette.

Then there's the discussion of the requested tent on West Main and I'll say I know I

There's a lot of information that I provide, in some ways you could say, for just a tent.

But tents are not the simplest thing that I've had to deal with.

There's really no, there's no ordinance on tents.

So any, I mean, there's requirements of, you know, certain, and it's really,

if it's like as long as it's of a certain size the fire marshal inspects it and stuff like that but they're really the

And so the reason I have a lot of information in there is that we're sort of the deciding body on these things.

There's nothing else to look to other than what the BAR has discussed and produced.

So that was a little explanation of why there was so much stuff in there.

And then there is the

informal preliminary discussion about 915 East High Street.

We are not required by code to have preliminary discussions for projects in conservation districts.

But given the scale as I thought, I, I urge the applicant to do this.

I think that it's

I don't know where we'll be when we get to that in the evening, but I think it's perfectly fine for you all to say we're going to allocate x minutes to this.

I suggested to the applicant that they come in sort of prepared to talk and ask questions and not, you know, need to be told.

about the project.

The information is here.

But again, it's in a conservation district.

The design guidelines, depending on how you look at them,

you know can be they can allow a whole lot of interpretation or they may you know you can look at them very narrowly and I the only example of a project that in a conservation district of this scale that you all reviewed was the Tarleton Oak project back in 2018.

I'll admit that was my first couple months and I

I sort of stumbled my way through it.

But did you have any questions on that project or how?

What's the goal of that discussion?

I think we just

I encourage them to have a brief presentation.

Right, and as I said to them, I'm going to put it in the staff report to me.

The three primary questions were that height at the northern end, you may agree or disagree.

The other is some sort of break in that long wall, I just don't know necessarily where.

And then there was

you know while this is not replicating and not intended to replicate anything in the Martha Jeffer neighborhood we do have the character defining features that the neighborhood did identify so you know how those might be incorporated or not but that's why that's in there and then at the beginning of the meeting we can have the election of the chair and vice chair you all can dive into it immediately or let you know

We can have the new people start in January after hazing initiation.

On any of those, did you have any questions for me?

and we haven't gotten an application for it.

And Maya has one up.

Maya's is down.

Oh, is it down?

Yeah, but it's nothing in there when I drove by.

Of course, this is the one that's right next to it.

But either of them have any content on it and meet them up.

I guess my question was the awnings, the canopies.

I mean, there's not much in here, but does that at all apply to tents?

I've got, for example, in front of Random Row Brewery, they've got the little 10-foot pop-ups.

I don't know.

I know that in front of a contributing structure or an IPP,

or at least one West Main, a contributing structure, the BAR's discussions in 2013 concluded that they recommend they not be allowed.

Anything that is non-contributing is a, you know, they come in, they get their, they get a permit, but I don't review that other than to say it's not contributing, so the BAR is in a purview, sort of like demolition of a non-contributing structure.

I think that there are enough questions swirling about this, and that's what I said in the report.

There is a building science component to this.

I mean, having designed tents and permanent shelves, canopies, there's a really significant difference in the kind of planning and engineering that goes into a permanent structure versus a temporary structure.

And I don't think it's that fuzzy of a boundary.

So, the two angles on this one would be, I think, and maybe the best route is approve it with conditions and precise time, if so, you know, and back when Lisa was here and we were talking about the tents, you know, I said we can establish a timeline reasonable.

and it used to be that seasonal tent was during that winter period and then it came down.

But it is something to think about and look at and discuss and understand.

I think, I don't know, I have two minds.

said in the report it's removable but yet it's there and we have to account for it.

So during that time, Craig Fabio and I actually rode out, you know, pulling kind of a Frankenstein monster, all right, under these circumstances and with these conditions.

And we put it out there to the city manager to sign it.

And what, we have two tents on the mall?

So sort of after all that, no one will let us, no one will let us.

Still only a couple of people did it.

But I do think there's, you know, for example, I said to my boss the other day, I wish we could figure out how to activate the roofs of our buildings.

You know, like the Commonwealth Bar here.

What's wrong with them using that, you know, that roof that's...

Yeah, and so I do think it's worth revisiting and thinking it through.

But if we're going to recommend to someone, do it permanently, to have that as part of the policy.

But I don't know if you want to get into it tonight, except for when you have something with this where you possibly will make an exception, then in that discussion and in the motion, that's

That specificity is necessary just to sort so it stays inside a box.

It doesn't become just about anything.

Marchesa really doesn't apply that.

Let's, can we stick a pin in that and come back to it?

Go ahead and get started.

All right, everyone.

Welcome to this last monthly meeting of this 2023 for the Charlottesville Board of Architecture Review.

We have a few items on the agenda.

Staff will introduce each item, followed by the applicant's presentation.

which shouldn't exceed 10 minutes.

We'll then ask for any questions from the public followed by questions from the BAR.

After the questions are closed, the chair and me will ask for comments from the public.

You'll be allowed three minutes to ask questions, three minutes to offer comments.

Please identify themselves and here's my regular reminder to speak into the microphones.

We do have people following along online.

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 Okay Tonight the first item on the agenda are matters from the public for those things that are not on the agenda or if anyone wishes to speak to the consent agenda, which tonight is the approval of a exterior deck at 1-1-1-2 Park Street

Are there anyone from the public?

Anyone online?

No?

Okay.

Did you just ask?

No, that's item A1.

We will get there.

So I think I was the nominating committee this year and approached two people who have agreed to stand for us nominating them.

James Zehmer has agreed to be our chair, and Tyler has agreed to be our vice.

And I didn't poll the rest of the board on that, but hopefully everybody is pretty much on board with that selection.

I think I've made it pretty well known that I wasn't climbing up the ladder to chair, so I felt it necessary to fill some seats.

I agree.

Any discussion?

All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Congratulations and condolences.

Excellent.

And then I guess we'll follow up with a question.

I think I'd rather wait till January.

All right, excellent.

OK, well, I'm super excited.

I think we have not only good candidates, but a great board.

And I'm glad that also we can confirm that we had Roger and Ron and who else got renamed?

James got re-nominated.

So we have a good consistency and a good working group headed into next year.

You know, for the record, the officers of the BAR include the secretary.

And some of you asked me about that earlier, well, maybe in November.

But per your bylaws, essentially it's, well, my boss, if he chooses to be, or delegating, and it's sort of a

I would note that our bylaws don't have the following position, but our new chair has agreed to continue to serve as a social chair.

Excellent.

Okay, next item on the agenda tonight is the consent agenda.

As I mentioned, it's the approval of an exterior rear deck on 1112 Park Street.

It's the only item on the consent agenda.

All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Abstentions?

Okay, thank you.

So we approved your project just now with no discussion.

Yes.

You're welcome to stay.

So this is as discussed back at the November meeting

This is a request for the courts expansion project at the leading site, 350 Park Street.

And for folks who aren't up to speed on it, we had approved the design in August 2022, omitting the color palette, essentially the brick selection and the color gray that's going to be applied to certain elements on the building.

So at the November meeting, Mr. Antman and the design team presented samples of the gray color.

They had brick samples, and this brick panel has been at the site for several weeks.

I had phrased it back in 2022 that this would come back and be approved as a COA, so that's fine.

But I don't really have much to offer.

You all have looked at it, reviewed it.

I think I laid out in the staff report that I know there were some questions about what had

been previously reviewed, etc.

But it seemed that we had started in, in August 2022, really had decided we're gonna, we're gonna look at samples and determine what the color palette will be.

So and now it

If you have a problem with this and its compatibility with the building and the historic district, I certainly understand that.

But the fact that it differs from what we had discussed two or three years ago, that's not the question before you all.

So Mr. Antman is here.

I think Steve is available online if necessary.

Jeff gave a pretty great summary, and I presented it last month.

It was a matter before the public at the time, but now we're back with the formal COA.

So I'm really here just kind of to answer questions or give a quick recap.

It's all tailor brick.

The lower part, which is below the water table, is wire cut, so it's a little bit rougher.

and a blend of two colors, the red and the Patriot is 15% brown blended in.

And then above the water table, which isn't built into the mock-up, but where you can see the brick changes, also Taylor brick 317 red smooth, so it's the same color, just looks a little lighter because it's smooth instead of wire cut.

Anyone online?

I don't know the name, sorry, but it's in the mock-up panel.

It's slightly red.

So we were doing that instead of like a buff color to distinguish it from the historic structure next to it.

And I'd send a question to Jeff a couple weeks ago.

Yeah, there's no cost savings involved.

It's all the same manufacturer.

It's all

above the water table, smooth brick, so it's not a cost issue.

It was an aesthetic decision.

We looked at some other colors to be blended in and felt that, you know, this was the way to go.

Historic brick is not a blend of different brick colors, so the color range results from being in different positions in the kiln.

So slightly different temperatures, creates slightly different colors.

The salmons are usually in the inside, towards the inside of the pile of bricks where it's a little bit cooler.

They don't bake quite as much at quite a high temperature.

The blacks and purples are the ones that are furthest to the outside.

They're the hardest.

to get the darkest and kind of in-betweens where you get the reds and the browns.

So sometimes that effect is attempted to be simulated by taking manufactured brick, which are much more uniform, and sort of blending the colors to kind of create that look.

We felt that was appropriate below the water table where we were going for a heavier, darker tonal color.

Just decided not to do it above.

Any other questions?

Okay, we'll move to comments.

I'll start.

Walking once again in Court Square, I was struck again by how so many of those historic structures are very consistent in their brick color.

And when comparing it against the panel that was supplied, I think the top portion, which has been a subject

The conversation actually I think is in many ways more consistent with the district than below the water table.

For instance, the brick pattern below the water table were what was proposed, it would be significantly different than its context for better or worse.

It would be very different.

I feel that this is fully in keeping with the spirit of the project and I think we're going to have differences of opinion on this board.

I feel like this is within the realm of aesthetic preference and probably not something that our guidelines would say is either acceptable or not acceptable.

I also worked around Court Square and I agree with Brick in terms of the brick that there are a lot of

I guess monochromatic might be the right word.

Brick color in a lot of the buildings.

I think where I'm struggling some is with the mortar color.

I think most of the buildings in the Court Square District have a buff color as Mr. Annan pointed out.

The levee building itself

If I'm not mistaken, I think it looks like it's had a red wash.

And so that's giving it that appearance of sort of the whole wall is red.

And I also don't necessarily think the Levy Building is a great example of fine brickwork.

And so that's I guess just where I'm struggling.

I'm actually okay with the brick as submitted.

I'm wondering if coloring the mortar to match the brick is really the right answer here.

in keeping with the district.

I understand the intent to try and differentiate and kind of if there's a concern of oh if we made the buff buff mortar then we're trying to too much to try and match the historic buildings but I think the design of the building itself is a clear departure from the historic buildings in the district and so I don't think somebody's gonna

accidentally think it's an old building.

And I also think the smoothness of the brick lends itself to that modernity that they're looking for.

Other comments?

I think the sample as submitted is approvable.

Looking at buildings in the neighboring context, I think the roughness of the differentiation below the water table, I think, fits with some of the neighboring sidewalls.

But, agree, I wouldn't want to see the darker brick mixed in across the whole face.

And think that the monochromatic above the water table

will fit nicely with some of the neighboring contacts and think it'll be a good addition on the project.

I just took a look at the guidelines, and there really isn't much in the way, you know, for masonry on new construction.

Really no guidance at all.

Yeah, which just means it's aesthetic

I think I would tend to agree that a more neutral color instead of red.

The mortar, I just, as many times as I've, this is just across the street from me, so I happen to walk by it more than probably other people on the board, but I haven't really noticed that the mortar was reddish before.

So, just to respond to that since it's been mentioned twice now, Mr. Zehmer's correct, the levy building did have a red wash on it originally, which is sort of like lime, but red instead of white, which was actually kind of a common treatment at the time.

The Eagle Tavern also had the same thing, hasn't been redone in so long that it's based on Court Square, on the south side of Court Square.

It's just basically washed off.

So we're not trying to simulate that effect.

However, the intent of those kinds of historic treatment was to make the brick appear more monolithic and less unitized, where there was a real color contrast difference between the brick and the joining.

So it made a more, I'm going to say, stone-like with heavy air quotes on it.

So not trying to mimic that, but with the

Smoother face of the brick with a sharper edge to the brick and then a closer color tone in the mortar.

The intent is to do something different that's not quite so much like cream colored mortar, red brick.

It's intentionally being different to appear more monolithic as a surface rather than sort of a unitized assembly of small parts.

It's a subtle effect, but that's the intent.

So there was purpose behind it.

There was an idea.

It's not just, let's do a different color.

So there was an idea to have an aesthetic effect.

And different is good.

You can walk around new construction all over downtown.

a very prominent building at the south end of the mall that's made of thin brick, panelized with metal dividers, like not historic, right?

Was there an intention to the color or mostly the color selection come from?

Well again, red brick being sort of complementary but then also a little bit different and we were going for a little bit of a range in the lower water table combined with the texture being rougher to again suggest rustication.

Oh no, they are.

So the coursing and the Norman brick length as opposed to modular here and then the one-third head joint pattern as previously approved in the COA.

You just can't get the full range of colors available in the Norman brick size.

Yeah, there is.

So that's correct.

It wasn't built with that.

I think it's five to one, so five courses of brick, and then one recessed.

I have the exact number, not quite right.

But that is correct as drawn.

I'll just muddy the waters a little bit.

I'm going to abstain from this, because somehow I have skipped out on every single discussion we've had on this project.

But my only comment would be, the polka dot effect on the base

where you've just got two colors of brick and you're interspersing a darker one periodically.

It is the flashings, not artificial.

Again, that's resulting from the historic process when the bricks are stacked basically in like a

Beehive patterns are sort of like a cone and they're stacked like this so they're touching each other.

I guess I would, if you're going to use a variation of tones on the bass, I would rather see something like that.

You also have that rustication you're doing

which I guess to me it almost seems like I don't understand.

I would almost rather not see the kind of polka dot effect happening.

But again, I'm not going to vote on this.

I just have to get my two cents in.

But I mean, generally, yeah, I think it's not a big deal.

I would like to approve as submitted.

Having considered the standards set forth within the city code, including the ADC district approval design guidelines, I move the proposed material palette, including the colors of brick and trim, for the City-County Courts expansion project that the LEED site satisfies the BAR's criteria and is compatible with the North Downtown ADC district and that the BAR approves the application as submitted.

I guess the specifications of the brick and the mortar will be part of the record documents, correct?

Mm-hmm, sure.

Just want to make sure, because that's why we asked about who does pre-present it.

Okay, I will call the vote.

Mr. Whitney?

Aye.

Mr. Timmerman?

Aye.

Mr. Zehmer?

Aye.

And I vote aye as well.

The mission carries.

Thank you.

Of course.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Have a good holiday.

So, excuse me, this is a COA request for property at 65 West Main Street.

It is currently the El Barco restaurant.

The request is for a seasonal tent to be installed in the front patio.

The reason this is before you all is because the building is a contributing structure.

in the West Main ADC district.

It was originally a single story service station built in 1935.

The second story was added in the 1970s.

And then there were a lot of alterations to it in the 1970s and 1980s.

I'm sorry, the second floor was added in the 70s and 80s.

It had been a non-contributing property when the district was established in 1996.

But in a 2013-2014 review of the design guidelines, the structure was included as contributing.

Therefore, that's why it's here.

So there have been some questions of yes, some tents had got up there in past years.

A lot happened during COVID, as we discussed earlier, but some had happened when this was non-contributing.

So in the request, I have a 30 foot by 60 foot, I don't think the 30 foot is correct, but given the space there in front, our design guidelines recommend against locating tents in front of contributing structures.

So that's, from the guidelines, that's about all we have.

We have seen certainly since COVID and during COVID a lot of interest in outdoor dining and we have seen businesses being outside is important to them.

And some of this is a carryover.

I think some of this is an indication to me West Main Street is becoming a busier place than it had been.

So while the guidelines

as a recommendation, recommend against in front of contributing structures.

I think that under the circumstances and that being

We are in the winter.

This would be a seasonal tent and that you all, and this is guidance that the BAR was given back in 2013 by council, a legal council, that you all can apply limits to the period at which a tent is up.

And including, and there are some recommendations here about conditions that

that's not come from the guidelines, but that you know, they it's a single color, no signage, no logos, but anything that you all felt might need to be added.

Now, I will say I did.

I spoke with the roster manager a year ago, and I had

I urge them to look at a space on the side where they have parking and there's space in the rear of the parking.

I realize that takes away from parking, but that was a suggestion.

And just to carry on our earlier discussion, the challenge here is that at what point does a recurring tent, seasonal tent, however, go up, come down, go up, come down,

that we essentially should treat it as a permanent addition and then you would apply the guidelines for new construction and addition which is somewhat obviously more stringent but that would be one idea that

We certainly can discuss at a later date, and I think the remedy would be, if you all are inclined to approve this, is to establish a time limit at which it must come down.

My recommendation would be through graduation.

You certainly can ask the applicant if they have something else in mind.

But otherwise, if you all were to deny this, it is a request, in the event of a denial, the applicant can appeal that to the City Council.

Well, we did have some language barrier.

That was interesting.

Are you here for this?

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Would you like to speak to the project?

Can I, I'm sorry, can I ask you to speak at the podium, just so, if anyone's online, they can hear us.

Sorry.

Hi.

My name is Irma.

I am the new manager at the Mariscos del Barco.

I have just one week, the manager, so I am new.

Well, I'm coming for the carp, for the patio.

I really would be needing for it's rain, it's cold and everything.

And we have customers coming with our family, with the pets or with dogs or anything.

And we don't get the pets inside that restaurant.

So we need the carp for the hems.

and it's more good for the, we have more space for more costumes.

Okay, thank you.

We'll have time for questions first and then time for comments and we may ask you some questions.

So questions from the public, please just let me know if there are any questions from the board.

We have with a car, I think, the November, October, November, and it's good.

But in the time, the hot time, and it's July and August, it's fine.

We don't need it, but it's hot.

But this time we need in the car just for the cold in the Rivanna, yes.

Okay, thank you.

Did you take it down recently?

Because it's not up, it wasn't up today.

I'm sorry?

The tent, it's not up right now.

No, we don't have it now.

Okay, it wasn't?

Yes, no.

Just a picture of a previous?

Yes, it's now.

Okay.

We removed after, I think so, in the first day this month.

Any other questions for the applicant at this time?

OK, we'll move to comments.

I think I would be fine approving this.

on a continual basis, not having to have this come back each year, but just approving and saying every winter they can have their tent up for a maximum of six months, starting from the time that they want to put it up, although it has to come down by June 1st of each calendar year.

So if they put it up in January, just to kind of set a cap on that.

And just say the side panels may be clear, then let staff handle that.

I also think we need to reconsider whether this building is contributing.

Yeah, I kind of echo what Carl was saying.

I think six months is a good time limit because I think, you know, you could argue that any more than that starts to become permanent because it's more than 50% of the year, right?

I think that, I know Cheri asked about awnings, but I do see a difference in that awnings are typically attached to a building and therefore become more permanent.

I think that, you know, from a preservation standpoint, you know, tents are reversible.

it's not a permanent structure that in the long term of a history of a building it would go away.

I think it certainly does a service to the city to allow for this type of structure so that the use of the building and the district is more popular.

I think the thing we do have to sort of struggle with is the one

a guideline that says tents are not appropriate in front of contributing buildings, which Carl's pointed out.

Does this really count?

Yeah, I do think this is a very specific use and not necessarily applicable everywhere if we were to approve this.

I think that the terraces in front of those buildings lend themselves to essentially porch-like spaces, but I wholeheartedly agree that it brings more people to the district, more life to the street, like this inclusion of a transparent

side or no side so that it contributes to the life of the street and doesn't become an opaque wall.

And I think the suggested six-month time frame is also a good one.

I don't think tents are beautiful but I think you know we're kind of used to them at this point and I think it is beneficial to everybody to let more patrons use these restaurants year-round.

You know especially in front of this building I don't have any issues with letting the tent

going to use I guess looking at maybe we do still need to look at a case-by-case basis there's a verbiage about the tents aren't allowed on the downtown mall and I do wonder if someone wanted to you know how we would treat that differently than West Main Street but in this application yeah I don't

Don't have issues with it.

I think that makes a lot of sense.

If anyone's considering much, I just want to offer one thing I'll say is when they asked me in the interview six years ago for this, one of the questions was how do I see economic development and historic preservation?

Carl, you mentioned allowing recurring

Yeah, yeah, I actually would be okay with administrative approval in perpetuity for the tent at this location.

Except what criteria would I apply?

Good question.

Under the current B.A.R.

I think there's a differentiation there.

They may be the current owners of the restaurant, but are you the owner of the building?

I was going to say I would actually extend beyond the current business.

I mean, I don't know how this restaurant or any precursor restaurants are any different in their need to use that outdoor space.

It's handsome outdoor space.

It's always been used.

So I guess I wouldn't want to limit just to this business.

And also, you know, businesses come and go.

As long as there's no change to what we approve that can have administrative approval, be it,

a tent with no marquees writing on it, clear or no sides, and a minimum of six months, excuse me, maximum six months.

And do we want to specify white?

I mean, what if it were a different color?

That came up during COVID.

People in the law had asked could we use clear tops.

Maybe to address the constraint would be maybe simply reference the current terrace design placement.

I guess I'm thinking if somebody built a building there that was completely new and five feet from the curb and said, hey, I'm allowed to put up a tent.

Okay.

I don't know if we want to restrict to clear or white necessarily.

Color to be administratively approved.

Are you following what we're saying and does it make sense to you?

Are you okay with a six month limit for the tent?

I hate the new Adobe reader.

Having considered the standards set forth in the city code including ADC district design guidelines, I move that the proposed seasonal tent at 625 West Main Street satisfies the BAR's criteria and is compatible with the West Main Street ADC district and that the BAR approves the application as submitted with the following conditions.

We approve a

This tent to be installed annually for a maximum of six months from the time of installation.

The tent must come down no later than June 1st of each calendar year.

The side panels facing West Main Street must be clear.

And the color of the tent shall be administratively approved.

Second.

I want to make sure that the suggested conditions all get included, including if I could offer the addition of tent installation will not alter the landscaping or site features or be anchored to the historic structure.

Yes.

Yes, yes.

I might add one other thing.

When you look at the images on page 100, there's a tent that appears to be a tent on some kind of a panelized box system.

that should cover it.

I know public actually put a solid door in their tent.

It doesn't seem that awful, but it's not a solid door, but it's an actual door as opposed to a tent panel.

I guess from my point of view, the solid panels can be a little bit more of a safety hazard.

The plastic screen, if it's blown away, then it's blown away.

But the solid panels, well, there's also an aesthetic issue, too.

But a solid panel is a solid panel.

It's not going to be blown away.

It's going to be coming down on somebody.

That image feels more like a mobile home with a 10 on top than the others.

So I think, just to Cheri's point, a 10 is not just a 10, I guess.

I thought about whether they put windows in there or not, but I think, I mean, it seems like it would be simpler if it was just clear, but just the side facing West Main Street.

I think they do that, right?

I think that would be, I would like to ask for that.

I wouldn't distinguish, because that corner is very... All side panels, entirely clear, also acceptable without panels.

and then the additions that Mr. Castillo referred to.

That's right.

But this is part of the discussion.

Why only the panels on the street are clear?

Because the panel on the side, the parking side for a lot of better word the access to the public

the park and the public parking behind.

Well, that's what Brett just said.

I think we just switched it to all the panels.

Thank you.

I was listening.

Sorry.

Sorry.

I also feel like you can see through and see the building.

Yeah.

Do you have them all?

I accept all those.

Right, I mean, he could determine that.

Any further discussion?

All right.

All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Any abstentions?

You wouldn't think a piece of plastic would be that complicated.

I don't know, I think like the first couple of weeks here it was out all night.

I don't know, I don't know what, and then there's a temporary tent, there's a seasonal tent, there's revised guidelines, there's still copies of the old guidelines floating around.

So not the muddy of the waters, but I am curious about the two restaurants that do have tents up.

Are those permitted?

If it's not contributing, then it is up by, as in, what was the last one?

either a temporary tent or a seasonal tent.

It's between the quirk and shenanigans.

Usually people are pretty good about telling me about pets, so I don't know.

What?

Public is.

It's actually not for the public, it's in the building next to it, which may be a newer addition or something.

Up on the screen is what is contributing.

and Dan's here and Dan will take the mic and again I know we don't want to eat the clock just saying what's unnecessary but this is a development within the Martha Jefferson Historic Conservation District, somewhat different

a set of rules and guidelines that you would have for an ADC district or an IPP.

And the challenge there is that while the guidelines go from several hundred pages for an ADC district to two pages for a conservation district, it's, I think the most important thing is to, one, look at this design and in context, this isn't, this is,

This is, and I told Dan, this is a tremendous amount of work for preliminary discussion.

We usually don't get something this solid to start from, but it's still sort of to at least have something on the canvas to begin to talk about.

For example, the design guidelines would say, they say you should be, new construction should be the prevailing height.

Well, that would suggest

I will say also this gets into where the new zoning, which was approved last night,

once everything sort of gets put in place would allow a 10-story building at this site.

So it's not a single-family detached house.

This is a building within a neighborhood of single-family detached homes.

You all in 2018 reviewed and approved a 240-foot long

I think it was three or four story residential project across the street over on Maple Street.

When I say across the street, I mean across Lexington from here.

As I mentioned earlier, the three things I raised were that height of the building immediately adjacent to the historic single-family homes on Lexington.

The second being the break in the building somewhere, and in fact, the new ordinance

will require a maximum building with 175 feet.

So there is that whole idea of not having a monolithic block, that there's some break there.

Now, that would not necessarily be a break that goes all the way through the locust, but some discernible break in the facade of the building.

And it may simply be back to the parking garage, which is contained within the building.

and then the third piece is to look at what are the elements that the Martha Jeffs neighborhood identified when they established the district and I think it's important to state that.

The historic conservation districts, the character defining features came from those neighborhoods and Martha Jeff was the first neighborhood to, the whole reason that conservation districts were created was because of their effort to do this.

they have identified some things that are character-defining and that they request be considered or incorporated into design so I felt like the idea of porches and standing seam metal roofs not saying to mimic them or you know something phony but maybe in some way that gets considered

And then the other piece is the landscape.

Now, these are set back from Lexington Street, so they maintain that streetscape.

There are overhead power lines there, so street trees, you know, we're not going to see giant trees there.

There are landscape elements that are prevalent in the district.

There's a lot of those low stone and concrete curb walls on the sidewalk.

So not just the buildings, but the landscape.

And last is to say, as far as design elements, comments on that, what level of or what types of just any other project, what information would you like to see presented so that, you know, you're able to evaluate it fully as a when it comes forward?

It does have a face, you know, in the conservation district.

We only look at what you can see.

There's an element facing High Street, although the project is primarily oriented towards Lexington, but I don't want to forget about that.

And then I know Mr. Gaston, I shared with him there were some questions from a resident over there that he can review for that discussion.

So with that, if you have questions for me, I can answer them.

Dan is here to answer your questions and he may have some and I don't know is

Is she not on the call?

Did we have a problem tonight with the link going out?

Because I think everybody did.

But I do worry.

She might thought we were a little bit ahead of schedule.

Well, if you're ready, it's certainly welcome to introduce us.

We have reviewed the materials, but it'd be great to get your introduction to the project.

Yeah, absolutely.

Thanks for your time tonight for a preliminary discussion on this.

I'm Dan Bracey.

I'm a partner at Two Street Studio.

Coincidentally, me and my two partners were both born at Martha Jefferson, or three of us were born at Martha Jefferson Hospital, and two of us grew up next door to each other on Northwood, and our parents still live there, so we're

very much in the North's downtown community.

You know, our aim with this building, it's a complicated site.

It's, in a sense, sort of a dead zone along Lexington from a pedestrian experience.

Not great.

I mean, parking lot.

separated with landscape from the street, long stretch, the other sides of the cemetery.

So we're not on the long Lexington facade.

We're basically in a dead zone there.

And one of our big goals with our design, particularly on the landscape front, is to sort of create a much more activated streetscape along that side of the building, and also maintaining

Two of the three current vehicular access points for the building and also fully hiding the parking structure inside of the building.

Yeah, this is a good spot here.

Just pointing out, you know, Jeff's report had a really, obviously a very thorough rundown of the historic contributing structures, but more thinking about this building from the scale and surrounding larger buildings, just pointing out

a couple of things that weren't super clear in some of the material, which is that the former Mark Jefferson buildings, four and five-story buildings on the north side of the site, including a parking deck, are all immediately adjacent to single-family residential buildings.

These aerial images don't show the new Sentara building on the corner of East High and I guess 10th Street there.

the relatively recently approved three- and five-story office and residential building across Lexington, also flanking the southernmost four houses on Lexington.

920 East High, which is the Centauro building I mentioned, and 820 East High, which is the building that Bushman drives.

And then, of course, the existing office building in Patterson Wing are all sort of buildings in a scale that we're trying to stay either

very close to or lower than in height.

The building itself, 192 residential units, associated amenity and support spaces, and a single-story commercial space facing east high.

And all of that is fully wrapping a

multi-story parking deck that's going to serve, the idea is that it will serve both the residences and the office building in the old CFA building.

Jeff, if you could go to the site plan, I think it's page five.

No, a couple more slides.

Yeah, keep going, thanks.

These images are just showing some of the juxtapositions of larger and smaller buildings already existing in the area.

I think the next slide, Jeff, will be maybe one more after this.

One more, I think.

Just so that there's a site plan.

I can speak to some of why some of these images are in.

Yeah, that's great.

So, just sort of our initial thoughts on landscape.

So one is almost all of the ground floor units on the Lexington Avenue side have exterior porches with stairs down to grade, and then we're terracing down the grade to create flat sort of front lawns with walkways out connecting to the Lexington Avenue sidewalk.

One thing that's not clear in this plan is the buffer between the street and the sidewalk, but it would be in our intention in sharing a later revision.

And then providing as much sort of planting buffer as we can on the north side of the building.

Our current design, our building is 73 feet from the single-family residence on the north side.

There's a, in the other site plan,

separately owned property that's sort of the other half of the Walmart Jefferson site, the north half, also has a strip of property that runs to the Lexington side, which I think is the Taylor's Walk sort of piece of that property that is already currently very densely vegetated.

So there's quite a landscape screen existing, and we plan to add to it on that side.

concepts on the Lexington side is to try to break down the scale both in landscape and in the side of the building to feel pedestrian friendly and also be referential to the single family homes that continue down Lexington.

On the east high side, the five-story portion of the building comes back at a 90-degree angle, and then the one-story commercial building follows that diagonal line and provides some pretty significant relief on the facade on the east high side.

also creating an outdoor patio space for potential coffee shop restaurant use on that side to further activate the East High stretch.

And I just might say, we can get back to some of this stuff in questions.

Sorry.

First time.

These are just images of some of the landscape inspiration and sort of very schematic section showing what we think the street section out to Lexington would look like.

Yeah, if you can just move to

Well, I kind of hit most of these dimensional points, but this is just showing some context in section two surrounding buildings.

They're lower than the existing buildings on the Mark Jefferson sites and providing pretty good separation, horizontal separation from other smaller buildings.

These are just some precedent images for our facade design, which is taking a rhythmic grid and breaking it down and punching for windows and balconies and then providing various types of fenestration and treatment within the grid to break those down to a sort of very human scale.

and then using natural materials, largely brick and different textures and colors and patterns.

I think, Jeff, you can just keep flipping through these.

Our current design for the facade is breaking down the building both in scale with our fenestration and with doors and windows and brick colors and patterns and textures to not make it feel as monolithic as a building of this length could potentially feel.

Sure.

Okay, thank you.

Assuming that there's still no members of the public, I would read into the record an email that we received from Paul Miller, which does include some questions, Dan, that you might be able to shed some light on.

So from Paul Miller,

Hello, BAR.

Due to the holidays, I'm not able to attend the meeting.

Three comments and questions regarding the proposed development on East High Street at former CFA.

Number one, what is being done to protect Taylor Walk and the historic home of Fairfax Taylor on the Lexington adjacent to the property?

Well, I think

I think we'd certainly, if we have a landscape area near where Taylor Walk was, the actual Taylor Walk is not on this property.

Fairfax Taylor's house, it's my interest to hear somebody speak and speak up a little bit.

I'm sorry.

I didn't notice they're on Lexington, so I will look into that.

So it's fair to say that both the house and the walk are not on the property, but it'd be good for us to know.

I'm not familiar with that or what all is signified by that walk, so that might be worth having a little more information on when we see the project in the future.

sorry, continuing with Paul Miller's email.

I guess, you know, first from our roof is part of the amenity space, both over the building and the garage.

and there will certainly be some planted area on the roof that will capture some rainwater.

And third from Paul Miller, does the NDS or city have any update on High Street Lexington intersectional realignment?

It's been discussed for years.

Related, how can this new development contribute better to pedestrian and biking options along High Streets in Lexington?

We look forward to plans that will enhance this great location.

Thanks, Paul Miller.

I think I read a comment of his on a Facebook post related to this today.

I think there is, I would say, maybe a not great turn into the East High access point for this property.

It's sort of at an angle and near an intersection.

I think there's some relatively simple site plan things we could do to improve that.

Thanks.

All right, questions from the board or discussion points?

I have a question for staff.

and I should know this since I'm on the Planning Commission, but I'm not entirely sure all that got approved last night.

How much leeway do we have in adjusting setbacks and things like that?

The only thing I know of that was discussed as far as Council establishing some parameters was related to height.

That's what I thought.

And in my discussions internally, I

Very often said that, you know, I'm using East High as the example, those two story buildings set 20, 30 feet back.

If you set something back and appropriately spacing, you could put five stories in there and you wouldn't notice.

But you could build a single story up the sidewalk and it would look like an eyesore.

So there are nothing changed last night.

that I know of relative to that.

And I think there is some language in there about that, that sort of prevalent setback.

But I think it's something that's going to have to be explored now that they've evaluated or now that they've approved the ordinance.

I'll just say that staff, we kind of got to the point where, well, let's see what they approve and then we'll go back in and become experts on it.

I have a question for you about the, it's a 30-foot setback?

The setback for the zoning for this site is, I think, I have to pull my document up, but I think it's between zero and 15 feet, but what we're hoping to do is

I'm assuming that 30 foot is the sort of typical that the rest of the houses have?

No, but if a projected front porch or some sort of feature like that, that would occur in that lot and be separate from this building.

What is the, in the elevation and in the plan, there's a suggested sort of depth to the apertures, the punched openings within the brick facade.

When you say a front porch, are you talking about something that's totally covered or a part of the building that sticks out?

Yeah, that comment is sort of more in response to having read Jeff's comments on having a projected front porch, which from our initial designs didn't really feel sort of stylistically correct with the building.

I think there's a lot of the, related to that, a lot of the precedent images are really attractive and I think they are at their best when there's really quite a nice depth to that that gives a lot of additional shadow and given that this is a west-facing facade

that depth would be welcome anywhere we can get it even if it means sacrificing some of that 30 feet.

I mentioned that because we've seen a number of projects in the past come forward with aspirations of having a deep facade and it just seems like as the design advances and the costs come in and it just gets getting shallower and shallower and ends up quite a difference from where we initially started.

Yeah, I mean I'm really encouraged by the strategy and you might even, I mean I would be accepting to think of the front porch as part of the landscape itself, right?

It doesn't have to be a, I mean if you don't feel like it works with the architecture.

Being able to designate a special exterior space as a front porch is wonderful, really.

Yeah, we're sharing this, so.

I also think that the willingness to reflect the rest of the street is a really good thing because it's such a strong street and you want to continue that.

that pattern as much as you can.

I think that that location lends itself to a place where you should be able to find some really interesting meshing of sort of the commercial district and the residential.

And so I really look forward to seeing how that gets reflected in the architecture.

My criticism would be that I think looking at the building itself, it looks pretty monolithic to me.

And while the precedents were very intriguing, the sort of depth of the windows, the oversized windows, and some of the different, I just caught glimpses of the brickwork.

and the differentiation that was being set up through those material ways.

The elevation just appeared to me very blockish and not of that language.

So, look forward to seeing it.

Other comments from the board?

Go ahead.

I'm going to go with David on the Lexington side does seem it's extremely long, which I think is you've got a lot of things working for you on that.

But we'll see what zoning does to it.

I don't know how it's going to work.

It's a very interesting thing that you've done with that 30-foot lot that it didn't pick up on.

So I'm not sure what that's going to do for how you

are required to break down that facade as far as zoning is concerned.

But I think with, at least from my point of view, I think the

depth and the variation of materials and colors all seem to be doing a whole lot of really good things but because it's repeated so many times it just it still becomes a very long building so if there's some way you can try to break that down so that it's not one giant building that feels maybe I know you're trying to make it look like three buildings but if there's something else you can do to make that work

The greenscape you have between the building and Lexington I think is going a very long way in helping you with that.

But yeah, I just would like to see some way of modulating the building a little more.

I also just, and I know you guys are, it's conceptual at this time, but

just paying attention to the sidewalk on East High.

And it's currently very small, and it's alphables in the middle of it.

And I don't know if that space that you've provided in front of the building is a privatized space, or if it's going to be blended with a sidewalk, but just kind of thinking about that as a future, more pedestrian-friendly public realm.

Yeah.

My big comments on that.

I think that you've got 50 feet to the parcel line, 73 feet I think you said to the building that's north of this.

You've got a, it looks like a heavily landscaped buffer in between.

To me going from two story house to four stories with the buffer.

I think that feels appropriate to me.

So I think I'm okay with that.

Five stories, yeah, okay.

So I walk by this site pretty much every day and would be quite excited to see a new project go in lieu of the parking lot.

There's quite a few taller buildings along High Street right there and do not think it would be out of character for the mass.

The one facade on Lexington is quite long in comparison to really anything else in the city, but I think there's been a lot of talk of that setback and I think you've done a lot with

pushing the building back, and it's really pretty well aligned with the neighboring houses to the north.

So I think it's in the right place.

There was talk of the overhead power lines, but I'd say that street has pretty good tree coverage right now.

So everything you can do to continue that, which I think you have set in the schematic plan of in that setback in the front porch area, keeping the trees there and planting anew, I think would do a long

way to break down that massing of the building.

And I think the reality of the situation is that nothing is going to get built in the cemeteries so that it's not going to feel canyon-like like it might on Main Street because a good amount of that long facade is going to be open on the other side.

See, I think everything that I see in the schematic design does a good job of trying to break down with the deep porches, with the granulations in the facade.

Thank you.

Just a question.

You all showed a lot of different bricks in terms of range of color and orientation of the brick.

Is that your intent, to really shake it up that way across the whole facade?

Potentially, yeah.

I mean, that's sort of our first pass.

We've seen a lot of projects that come at this stage.

We've got all these different color bricks and everything, and that always gets VM down.

And so I think I applaud you for

I'm in agreement with all those comments.

I think it is a really long building and I think we're going to continue to look for those strategies that help break down the masses.

One, maybe slightly counterintuitive one, but I think that could be appropriate is actually adding height on High Street if that was

Any other questions that you want to make sure we weigh in on?

Thank you.

Okay.

Excellent.

Mike, Dan, thanks.

Someone had asked me about Fairfax Taylor's house a month or two ago, and I'm trying to find a folder of it, but it's at 528th Street is the Fairfax Taylor House, so it's the northwest corner, above the northwest corner of Maplewood Cemetery.

and there was a Taylor Street pencil line in some of the old maps, so the Taylor Walk.

I think that's the major part of our agenda.

I'll turn it over to you.

I do.

If you'll allow me, I want to... A couple things that I needed to... Sorry, I know some of us work with multiple screens, and when you only have one, it messes with my karma here a little bit.

Let me open these two docs so that I can share my screen and ask you two quick questions on that.

Coming up here, this is 410 Second Street.

Most of us, most of you know it, Bill Lucci's house.

It came to you all a couple months ago and here on the left

is what was approved.

It was to build that addition on the back and it was going to have that pergola and porch on the roof deck above.

So I've got this would be the south elevation and the east elevation, which is at the back of the house.

The architect called me the other day.

those I honestly don't have any problem with and more than happy to you know that's a when something's in addition and they remove elements of the addition I don't have a problem signing off from that the other change

Another change was there's a vent at this end in this gable here.

The question was to replace that vent and because this space is I assume being developed for use, put a small window in the place of the vent.

My response was that it's

and more that stayed within that space sort of fit within the existing trim.

I was willing to consider that.

The other piece

sorry there's a thing on my screen but not yours so right where this purple is they want on both sides of the house and this is on to the existing roof install skylights

I would suggest to put them on the backside, but I don't know.

It's not intrusive.

I'd even consider putting them on mine if I could.

And then there's just some slight variation down at the bottom here with some of the railing, and I think they've added a transom over the door.

They're looking to submit for their building permit and want to know whether this had to come back to you all.

I don't think they need to show skylights on their building permit, but certainly the change on the roof line would want, you know, I wouldn't want them to

to submit something.

And I don't think replacing a window into event opening has to be shown on the building permit drawing.

So really, the big question would be if you all are comfortable with the elimination of that deck and pergola above and the changing of that gable on that new dormer,

But... Concerns?

I just think it's funny that the two things that I probably wouldn't have noticed are the two that are of concern, but yeah.

I mean, I could see the skylights, if they would function on the rear facade, that would be preferable over that.

That facade is quite visible from the street.

Actually, there's some significant landscaping in the back that, for all the accolades we had offered it, an awful lot happened in the backyard that I wasn't aware of.

I'm quite comfortable, these are the sort of

It's an addition.

They're value engineering it.

This is not controversial.

I'm OK with these.

I just wanted to clear that with you.

All right, thank you.

The other one that I need to ask about.

All right.

I'm going to be 61 in two weeks and I'm so frustrated with how confused I am by technology.

It's really starting to bother me to have Breck walk me home and make sure I get into my house.

There it is.

So this is an interesting one.

And actually, it's next door to Melanie.

So some folks just bought this house.

When you zoom in, it's beat up.

It's not as rough as the condition my house was in, but it's pretty beat up.

Just about everything they've talked to me about on it,

Removing the vinyl siding and adding hardy plank, replacing the windows.

These are clearly replacements.

I'm working with them on that.

Put on a new roof for the conservation district.

I have no idea what this was.

I assume it used to be metal, but it honestly looks like tar paper.

So the question they had, the two things I wanted to ask you all.

I don't know if you can see right here, there's a chimney.

They want to drop it.

There's from the front.

There's nothing really in the conservation district that talks about

what to do with a beat-up old house and how to address it.

So the guidelines are really written, again, in the sense of if you want to build a new house or do an addition, something to think about.

So to me, I mean, if nothing, you would look to is this a character-defining feature?

I don't, in a conservation district I would say no.

The other question they ask me is can we replace the railing?

Absolutely.

Please, I'll come and help.

What I advise them is, but

You don't have to do a custom fabrication of anything.

There are some similarly aged houses nearby.

Pick one, find an appropriate, working with me, find something appropriate.

Does that sound reasonable to you?

And then this feature here, they actually think might have the spindle work.

It might be buried underneath plywood.

We can only hope.

But what I caution them is, well, if it's not there, my question would be,

I looked at, there are 20 1890s houses, sorry I know I keep flipping back and forth, there are 20 1890 houses in the district.

Only six of them have the spindle work, so I can't say it's prevalent, but, so if it's not there, and no evidence of it, what's that?

So the question is, one, like some of the other houses have brackets, but some don't.

But I said to them, if you pull that off and the spindle works there, great.

But if it's a mess, the possibility it is, would we

If this were on High Street or Second Street, it'd be a very different evaluation of restoration and preservation.

But if there's evidence of what's there and it's in lousy shape, I'd be comfortable with, you can find things that are available and at least representing it.

I kind of feel like that's the thing with this being a conservation district is it makes it hard for us to tell people what not to do.

I mean, if they wanted to put cable rail up on the front porch, you know, I'm not sure we could say no.

And if they wanted to cut out their own gingerbread scroll work, whatever stuff they want to put up in there that has nothing to do with the style of the house,

They seem to be doing too, but I have, we're just, it's a, some of you all may know the city now has everything online, you can file everything online.

Molly and I are still catching up with that.

This was one that kind of came in and, oh shoot, so I haven't had much of a conversation with them, but they appear willing to work, you know, they're really interested in doing it right, it sounds like, but they're also

They're taking on a lot here.

I think Brecht's right.

The Secretary of Interior Standards, you know, outside of any sort of historic district, are still best practice when you're restoring a historic home.

And I do think that they would probably discourage conjecture

and putting something here that wasn't there, that you don't have proof was there.

I think that with a little bit of investigation, scroll down to the next, to the other properties, slowly, next one maybe.

That's it.

Yeah, okay.

So my point is, you know, there's a decent chance you're going to see, potentially see profiles in the paint ghosts, if it is indeed underneath there.

So it's certainly worth some investigation.

That's right.

But we also I don't think we should encourage them to replace it with something different.

I trust Jeff to be

It would be.

Tax credit projects are not simple, and the reason I wasn't able to take advantage of them.

And I'm in this field, so they're not the simplest tool out there, but I certainly can speak with these folks about it.

I think, you know, having experience on my house is a lot.

I can help them with replicating or duplicating or representing a feature that's not there now.

So we're good on the fireplace.

What I'm going to say to them is open that thing up and let's see what you got.

Can you go back to the image one more time of 524?

So the most interesting existing element I find in this is the transom over the door and I don't know whether

I don't think that that trim, I'll call it a trim, on the porch is original.

Because you wouldn't necessarily want to cover up a nice transom like that.

And it would also be there for light reasons as well, to let light into the interior.

So I have to say that I don't think that it's original.

I don't know what was originally there.

But I mean, it could be that there were different posts entirely there.

I wondered that the posts

Well, spindles would allow the lights through.

That's what I'm saying, yeah.

But looking at it, it looks like it's just a board.

Which is odd, usually you rip stuff out and not cover it up.

But that's what they believe they are beneath that.

That's right.

I didn't see anything...

anywhere that has this sort of depth of a beam, if you will.

All right, thank you.

Yeah, let's keep going.

So we can do a time check now about how long you guys want to allot to this.

We have eight districts to go through, and then perhaps some general conversation afterwards.

Previous emails suggested kind of five to seven minutes apiece.

So that puts us at five minutes.

at certainly 45 minutes.

Well, 30.

The goal being, you know, and Brett and I talked briefly, and I know we've all had a lot going on, is, my thought was, all right, well, I'll have to kind of give everybody, each group of whatever team,

say, hey, come on in and tell us what you see, what you think.

Just sort of establish some ownership, maybe.

But what I really, really, really, really would like to do is discuss with you all, hear from you all, using this format that I've come up with, that we've come up with, what's the best way to

talk through them to other things missing.

What would we suggest?

Ron goes first.

It's the long farewell of what I've been saying.

As soon as we do our presentations, we can leave.

There are snacks and libations.

Will that still be available at 8.15?

Yes, there will be.

Well, what I thought would be helpful would be for each person to go through and describe very briefly what the current description is, what's either correct or wrong with it, and major changes that would be necessary in an improved depiction.

asked for brief additional comments.

Does that sound okay?

Can we get started, Jeff?

It doesn't.

We don't even have to have any screen up or I can pull something else.

Let's go to downtown.

Forget the map up.

Actually, can you tell me please?

I might go long and I really did bullet points.

How many minutes do we want?

Four at three?

And the idea being, you've got a description.

It doesn't matter what's on here.

Really, what did you all see?

What do you all think?

And as Brock said, what's there that's not expressed in the guidelines?

All right, well, so the first thing with the downtown district is I think we need to work on the boundaries of the district.

The Main Street sub area, F, needs to be with West Main Street.

The northern boundary of the Market Street sub area

doesn't seem to make any sense.

I think I understand the logic of what they were doing, but I don't like the logic.

It either needs to just cut halfway through the block north of Market Street or just cut through halfway through Market Street, one or the other, and give the rest to north downtown.

because it leaves out the block that has the second yard and the wine shop, which that seems very much tied in with downtown.

And library, I think they were pulling institutional things out so they didn't have to talk about deep setbacks, but again, I think it's important that we recognize that the park is part of Market Street, that the library is part of Market Street.

And then,

I have a whole long list of buildings that I think we need to make non-contributing, but the problem with that is I think the reason they're contributing is to extend our disparate doubt.

For example, in the Vinegar Hill section,

The only building, I think, in there that has any historic value would be where the livery stable is.

We've already approved the demolition of the Artful Lodger.

The Omni isn't historic, the courthouse isn't historic, the brutalist thing at the Polk Bank building, I know we've got some people who love brutalism,

Well, we did.

But then if we end up, what does that leave us with?

Absolutely.

And there are, I mean, there's all stretches of West Main that are contributing.

So the idea is that it falls within your review for

My concern is you end up with a large swath of land that doesn't have contributing structures in it.

Is it still, so just to make sure that's not a problem, but that is, that would be my suggestion is everything that's in the Avondra Hill sub area

is non-contributing.

Similarly, a lot of stuff on Market Street.

We've got Guadalajara and the Lucky 7 are listed as contributing.

City Hall, this parking garage, same thing with the Water Street parking garage.

Why are they contributing?

Well, Carl, you had raised this before.

The ordinance said everything in the district was contributing.

The ordinance now will say what's contributing is what we establish on our maps.

So I think that the idea that the VAR has purview is that idea of good design and design is complementary of that district.

So, I think we need to have discussion about what is our... Do we have a cutoff where we need to look at buildings and determine whether they're contributing?

I would say, I mean, right now, we've got the 50 years, or do we say 1950?

I'm not saying everything...

after that has to be non-contributing, but I think we need to at least look at them all.

So Market Street, I think the way we describe it is going to depend on how we end up actually setting the boundary, because they do feel like we need to move the boundary.

The library, the park, the second yard, they all contribute to the district, but they're currently not part of the district.

Well, great.

Let's see.

Yeah, I've got some things that we can add to each of these districts.

Like the mall, we should talk about the lighting.

We should talk about the pavers and the fountains.

West Main Street, the street trees, the consistent pedestrian lighting.

Generally, I think we need to focus these descriptions on the contributing elements.

So there's things listed in a lot of these descriptions that are things like the parking lots.

A way to think of this, I go back to something Tim Moore said a couple times when we had, and I think Workman Street would be a good example, he said we should, before we even start reviewing it, establish what are the design elements that are important, what are the preservation elements that are important,

Any other components that we want to make sure would be part of the future homework for North Downtown that weren't mentioned yet?

I would say the park, the description of open space.

And I would even go so far as to say that it's not just the library and the park, that maybe it's that whole block that gets contained.

Even if it doesn't go north of Marcus Street, we also have some institutional buildings that have some green space around them.

North downtown.

I think that's me unless somebody else also did it.

North downtown has I think an odd description to say the least, but I think the most pertinent description pieces of the description are that they were

They served as the earliest civic, religious, and commercial center.

There's a lot of architectural integrity remains.

And though I don't just agree with maybe the sentence, but which could be updated today, this represents the socioeconomic and architectural evolution of the original town.

There's a lot of

I think missing that there's in the in the descriptions they talk about in some of the sub areas that there's a mixture of quote-unquote a mixture of styles which isn't really helpful language I think we there yes there is a mixture but it's not an infinite mixture I think it would be helpful to describe some of those styles that are present or that repeat

I think they may have been suggesting that maybe the future development would allow for a mixture of styles.

I think that's still possible in the description.

There's very minimal description of the landscape elements that are important to this district.

I think that we could add more description to there.

I think Court Square is really underserved as described as an area.

And I think in the same way, I think that the boundary of the sub area should be redefined to better reflect the Court Square as a district, sub district.

And there's no mention of, I included Market Street Park or Court Square Park.

Those are clearly significant features within this district that bear some description.

Yeah, I can't think of the one.

The towers?

But not Altamont 511, Northwestern.

Altamont's just called Altamont Circle, I think.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They're non-contributing.

I could see where the towers would have any work there would have a significant consideration on a historic district.

The two down on McIntyre, I don't see what impact they have.

And lastly, I think in this sub area is Altamont Circle and Altamont Street may, I don't know enough about the history of those streets, but they seem like they warrant some description and they're kind of left out.

I thought it would be nice to note the impact of power lines on the tree canopy and the district has been significant in north downtown.

Well, I thought that some of that might be the redefinition of the square part of that.

It doesn't have the two large churches.

Otherwise, it's residential.

Park, which is Presbyterian, actually some even across from there.

The Arc is there, Hospice of Emon.

Oh yeah.

So you've got a lot up to, almost, really up to Hedge, almost, I think.

Well, we probably ought to distinguish between what the architectural character is.

The business's use may change over time.

OK.

I think North Downtown is one where more sub areas, but it certainly has distinct pockets that could be better explained.

And in part of this, and it's certainly longer down the road, but it's a recommendation to Council of these boundaries.

Are they appropriate?

And so shifting some, you know, moving something, moving boundary line is within, you know, what this, your purview to make a recommendation on.

So you don't have to make everything fit.

Well, it's a recommendation that it occur.

Council makes the decisions.

So at some point, what

What's next?

All right, it's me.

Just like North Downtown, I thought the Ridge Street intro description was odd.

I think that's probably the best way to put it and cut off the mark.

It's basically three parts.

It's referred to primarily as a residential street and I would not necessarily describe it as such.

Most of the intro is a history that seems vague and kind of off the mark.

It just felt like it was written by somebody that didn't have enough time and they were just putting something in.

and then the last line says homeownership and infill are current trends and this seems outdated you know especially given the new elements that were put in on the corners as well as the you know the sub-district C.

The recommended amendments I'd make on just going strictly with Brecht structure, I have got three or four points.

I'd suggest the most important feature of the district is being the distinct nature of three subparts.

A, strictly residential south of Cheri.

The area is cut off from the main thoroughfare due to the street reconfiguration.

I think it's important to note that.

The subregion B is heavily trafficked.

You've met well-preserved context and texture between ridge and dice.

I think that's really the key.

The heart of the whole ridge street is subregion B. And then there's C, the predominantly commercial nature of north dice.

My second sort of general recommendation is change the first line of the description from residential to something along the lines of this thoroughfare originally primary residential street predominantly

predominantly as a residential street now works as a residential commercial hybrid, but with the majority of its structures at the residential scale and filled with many architecturally significant residential or small-scale structures.

So that kind of gives a nod to its varying degrees from residential to commercial makeup.

However, a description of the district would best be served by understanding the district's particular sub-region, given each region's distinct and very different use field and scale.

The third point I have is more study on the brief history presented in the intro, which I'd be happy to do and be interested to do.

It was the first time I've actually walked along Ridge Street, so it was just kind of a learning experience doing that.

We're off the bat.

A wealthy landowner's street, they say, moved out of town, houses became rentals.

Anyway, it seems like the history just is a bit not distinct.

Three minutes.

Okay.

Let's see.

Yeah, this seems outdated.

One, because of the nature of the three districts, this is not really relevant in the commercial district.

It does not seem relevant in the South of the Cherry section either.

And then the second reason is that the current nature of the Ridge Street to Dice section seems much more rich than this.

There's a lot more going on.

I think just in walking up and down those two blocks, you notice that.

So maybe the current trend is a combination, we might say, of single-family residential, structural preservation, small commercial adaptive reuse in historic houses, as well as new commercial intel.

One other point that Carl brought up about the church on the corner, I almost consider that being part of West Main, I almost consider that being part of Ridge Street to sort of solidify that sub-regency.

And then the fourth thought I had was I think it's important to draw attention to the fact that the reason the street's three distinct regions involve some significant factors, North Dice being basically right in the city, also the rerouting of Ridge and Cheri, just noting these are sort of

big factors in its current makeup.

The fact that one side of it's right downtown and the other side of it was completely rerouted or was completely blocked off due to the rerouting of the street.

Just some tweaks to the subregion A, I would make.

I wouldn't call it a quiet neighborhood necessarily.

Maybe better described as a le trafficked and dead-end street due to the rerouting of the register affair.

and I would say it's currently described as having small to moderate but there are some pretty large nice larger significant houses a couple come to mind so I would change that and then for a fairly consistent setback and it would texture and then the sub the tweaks the sub region B is just call attention to the fact that this portion is so well preserved I think we want to really

illuminate that and highlight that as a kind of a gem of the districts that we're dealing with.

Especially given its close proximity to downtown and I think we really want to make sure we try to put any kind of language we can to preserve that one stretch.

and then just call attention not only to the architecturally significant houses on that stretch but also the consistent setbacks as well as the older street trees and the older walls that exist there too.

I think one of the things we'll see

Now, curiously, at the north end here, I think these two houses are some of the oldest in town.

They're dropped down below the road.

They're really east.

One is vacant, and the other one isn't in the yellow money.

It's not really below the street.

The only one that's below the street

The one that's- Yeah, like GNNEs.

The GNNEs seem to live all over town.

And I think there's the realization that certainly we know the change that's happening at Salvation Army.

This is obviously a piece of land that's all of this here.

So one of the questions is, again, thinking in terms of not

what the new zoning will do, but that when you see places that we know are going to be under development pressure, then what guidance do the guidelines offer when something's being considered there?

And the difficulty is you've got this really unique late 1800 tomes down to the other end,

How do they inform design guidelines for the new buildings that might know where Nolan's is?

I'll just make one quick comment.

Topography plays a big role in this district.

It's happened several places in Charlottesville, but it makes for an interest.

You're right that the setbacks are consistent on each side of the street, but they're very different on the opposite side of the street because of the topography.

And it's a ridge.

And I would also offer that Oakwood Cemetery and Daughters of Science Cemetery might be considered as extensions of this district somewhat the way Maplewood plays into Martha Jeff.

Who's next?

West Main Street.

West Main?

So I get an F on the homework because I left the back of my office, but I did try it, so riffing off of Carl's copy.

But, you know, interestingly, and I'll tell myself,

This district, it's basically a quarter, as you know, on a few adjoining streets, but it is not that challenge except for at the train station bridge.

It's not that challenge by topo.

It's a relatively flat street that's the old three-notch that connects.

I don't really have a problem with any of the descriptions, although the last sentence says

The character of this historically mixed-use quarter exhibits much variety in the type-age scale.

You know, it's one of those throw-in things, like, has lots of different architectural types.

Who cares?

But I also think that mixed-use in

within the context of certain one property means different uses, you know, residential and commercial in one.

I think what it's trying to say is that there are lots of different uses, but it's just kind of like a misnomer word in there.

So this last sentence I think should be redone or thrown out.

As far as sort of a survey of the three sub areas, A is that from 10th Street all the way up to 14th Street at the far left or west.

And interestingly, this area closest to the university has changed probably the least of all the sub areas.

There's been an addition of the Lark,

We already had the draftsmen in these photos, so the draftsmen already existed, but there aren't a whole lot of new structures in that sub area, interestingly.

I mean, it encompasses sort of the far

Easter part of the corner.

So not much of that has really changed up to 10th Street.

So that part is not all that different.

It's a mix of those, the Dinsmore, beautiful homes, the Baptist Church, the Pavilion 1112.

It looks like something from the lawn.

I don't know the name of it.

The bank.

The bank, University of Virginia Credit Union.

But much of that is the same except for the addition of lark.

But you get into sub area B, which is the middle area, and that's the area that is the canyon with the standard on one side and the flats on the other.

Wide sidewalks that have been required probably by the city of the developers

but very few street trees, very little vegetation, you know, just a bad street wall, like it really makes you kind of to drive from A to C, I mean, psychologically when you're in that canyon, it's really depressing.

And then you finally get to the point where there used to be a bakery shop, that's my two minutes, three minutes,

Anyway, the big parking lot on the north side right before the train bridge next to what used to be on the other side of Litchwall.

whoever I think, I won't mention who the owner is, but that's the big vacant, that's a very large possibility of big vacant space there that's still, you know, considering the development in that sub-area.

B has not happened yet, it's just still sitting there vacant.

And then you cross the bridge, the railroad bridge, but also you have a train station, and then

Subarea C is also like A, there isn't a whole lot that has changed.

I would say the Quirk is a major addition to that area.

And as we get closer to Ridge McIntyre, I noticed a lot of the properties are vacant, which means like we talk about the train station, the Centel building, CenturyLink building has now gone to another company.

the old quality cable Xfinity building is vacant.

Just a lot of maybe waiting for redevelopment on that far end.

And I know that's nothing in here, but it's just an observation that I had.

As far as the descriptions for the sub areas, I think A is fine.

I don't know what Cobra Head lights are.

I didn't see any in A, but I might have missed them.

Oops, sorry, yeah.

Sorry, that was in C. It's me.

Yeah, yeah.

I don't think, I didn't see anything.

That's in C. B, the description's fine.

I don't, you know, I would say that

I think the description in B has to be changed to note that there's very little vegetation.

I mean, it's just a canyon.

At 2.30 this afternoon, there was no natural light in that area, in the street at all.

I really regret being on the Planning Commission and

voting for that zoning ordinance in 2003 and 2005 to make the flats possible.

I will say that is my biggest regret of my service career, to be honest.

But it really illustrates the tension of, OK, when the next thing comes, what is it about this landscape that's going to inform the design review?

And I think

in a lot of ways just the most difficult place to write something for.

You said something I absolutely agree it was the on the NC it is that reuse of older buildings haven't changed much and I think you're right but we're seeing them adapted

because they're not right for redevelopment yet.

I think that will be one of the threats of how we are able to take these buildings and say, how can we allow continued use versus removal and reconstruction?

And one of the things on West Main, as we go forward thinking about it, a lot of that is UVA property doesn't still need to be included.

I mean, UVA is not going to sell it back.

Well, I think I hadn't thought about it until you described it in this way, but you know, when you have a whole sub-area that barely has any contributing buildings, you're like wondering, and really, to be honest, the reason why West Main Street is a district is because it's connect, it has, well, the street itself has history and it's connecting the significant historic resources of the city.

And it could be maybe part of the description is like what happens when that historic fabric wasn't protected.

This is a kind of an exhibit of what happens.

But it still has a role in protecting both the university and downtown and serves as a primary corridor of the city.

The question I think came up here is something Carl had asked me many times.

When we approve somebody gets built, does that make it a contributing structure?

So how much do those buildings that were approved there in this work, in other districts, how much does that contribute?

However, new construction that was constructed under our guidelines does at least meet a certain kind of standard and has been reviewed to be in keeping.

I have 15 minutes of power left.

I think this was the one that Brecht had said you and Kevin were going to do.

So I didn't do it.

Me?

Well, I will then, let me just say my observations for this.

It is on the National Register.

Our contributing structures don't correspond with the National Register contributing structures.

That could certainly be revisited.

I think that

I'm concerned that this is going to be where we see that 25 if you save 25 feet of the building you know you can build I think this is where we're going to see the greatest pressure for that and so we have we still have the historic buildings are still there but the

The sense of that place has changed because of the scale of the buildings and the modern buildings behind it.

Now, we have shown with 1301 how the new and the old can be worked together, so that's something to look at, but I think this is one that would be ripe for reevaluation of the boundaries.

and we really need to think about you know what's at risk here maybe it's here and in Venable neighborhood as much as anyplace else.

In terms of the introduction paragraph, I am curious, we talked to the free meeting a little bit about the term turn of the century and what century that means, seeing as we're closing quickly to the end of the first quarter of the 21st century.

I want to do a little more research on the history of, like, that it's been referred to as the corner since the turn of the last century.

You know, I was looking at a map that's from 1825 that there's a dot there that says something's corner.

I can't tell exactly from the script, so it's curious just in terms of the nomenclature.

Yeah, I know, I need to look at that.

I think the overall boundary is really well defined.

pretty much can't really move because of the streets and the railroad track.

I think that there's a little bit of room for adjustment in the subdistricts.

Mainly, you know, Sandy Hall faces both Madison Lane and Chancellor Street, but probably should more properly be in the Madison Lane district, subdistrict.

You know, I think that in terms of the descriptions, the corner itself description is pretty good.

I would probably remove colonial revival styles on the retail strip of the corner itself.

There's really not that much colonial revival there.

And then possibly add like inset entryways.

In terms of Ellywood, the parking structure, where is it as a feature?

I don't think it's something we necessarily want to highlight.

Residential converted to retail I think is probably the strongest descriptor of the Ellywood district.

the Chancellor Street description I think is pretty pretty solid though it does say no sidewalks come up partially raised sidewalks so that can be flushed out a little bit more and then Madison Lane I think is is a good description I would add hedges

is a pretty predominant landscape feature along Madison Lane.

You know, I do think in terms of our ruling on COAs, I think that in this particular overall district, really looking at them within their subdistricts is important.

You know, I wouldn't judge something on Madison Lane like I would on the corner.

And I think this is part of a National Register District that's also combined with Rugby Road, if I'm not mistaken.

Yeah, it is.

Yeah.

So, yeah, I don't think there's too much room for improvement on this one, but we could do some better refinement.

Oakhurst Gildersleeve.

That would be me.

Important things.

The description is pretty bare bones in the book that we have.

If I had my address, I would draw the boundaries somewhat differently.

Oakhurst Circle now is completely dominated by the Oakhurst Inn, which, by the way, makes the rest of the place look nice because he's really fixed it up.

as compared to what the other houses in the area are.

It's a very disheveled area, basically.

It's mostly student housing at this point, and a lot of the houses, except for Gilda Street would, but on Valley Road, it's almost all student housing of some sort or other.

The parking is in the front yard for most of these places.

There are no sidewalks along Valley Road at all as well.

I suspect that that was malice and forethought, but I wasn't here for that decision.

Because the university is building right up to the boundary.

I mean, right there.

which also changes the character of that neighborhood.

In any sense that you're thinking that it's a residential neighborhood, all you need to do is look up these giant brick buildings in the background there.

and as I say, most of the housing along Valley Road and certainly along Maywood are, again, disheveled student housing.

I think the buildings may have had some distinguished past at some point or other, but they certainly don't show that now.

Again, on Maywood, almost, you can park on Maywood, but several of the houses, the tenants park in the front yard.

It's just the way it is.

There's this wonderful description of a magnificent Tudor revival home off of JPA.

You look at it.

It may have been magnificent at one point or other.

Again, the yard is a parking lot and it really needs substantial maintenance if it's going to be revived in any way, shape, or form.

So basically the character of the neighborhood except I mean the Oakhurst and Gildersleeve Wood are

are still, as far as I can tell, mostly, other than the Oakhurst Inn, are mostly still single-family homes and are fairly well kept up.

But the rest of the area is actually pretty disheveled.

If you were thinking about it, I mean, just a person walking up to me, what would we do with this?

Well, you know, I would go, well, maybe some redevelopment could help here.

And in any case, I don't know if I'm glad to suggest redrawing the boundaries, but I would certainly get rid of the data in a portion of Valley Road, which is up to me.

And focus on preserving Oak Ridge Circle, and a loosely wood portion of that area.

So those are my particular thoughts on that.

Though I've described what's there in my homework,

just so people would have some sense of what it is.

Most of the housing is asphalt, single roofs, that kind of thing.

I'm waiting to see what makes it special.

As I say, Gildersleeve and Oakhurst, I can see what that is.

They picked this as opposed to picking Montebello or yes, yeah, exactly.

But that's the question.

Does that make it, therefore, something worth preserving merely because somebody decided that they wanted to come in the university in some way or other?

Well, I think there's some significance to

Some of the preservation along there, I think it makes sense just to tell the history of what that neighborhood was in the same way that we preserved the houses in front of the Quirk and in front of 600 West Main.

If we can just say, West Main used to be very different from it is today.

I think it's an area that we just need, you need to know more about that history and that is also for the National Register District.

There's a lot of work that came up in the conversation at the Stone House, so there's

I think to some extent there are portions of this neighborhood that may have been, and this is one of the more recent, not recent, but more recent ADC districts that was established, but I know that there's that concern that by being an ADC district, the city has some leverage to require maintenance and repair.

We're just simply not staffed to go around and

to find all the violations of things.

The Google Street View, you've all probably noticed, has been updated to this past summer.

So, you know, driving around, you are getting a very recent view.

And I agree with Ron, there were some places I couldn't, I kept having to check if I was still in the district.

Just wasn't quite sure what, back there, what the reasons are.

So I'm not saying there's not good reasons,

So what's left?

What's next?

Last district.

Rugby Road, U Circle, Venable.

That's me.

The district is quite large, but I would say that the breakdown that they have actually makes a lot of sense.

And the descriptions are pretty accurate.

The first districts you circle, which is a pretty well preserved district.

It's two and a half story houses predominantly.

There's some larger

apartment type buildings or institutional student center type buildings, but that it's got some pretty nice character in its wider lot.

The next sub-district is Rugby and Grady.

It's referred to as the Rugby Grady Greek area.

Interesting mix of, you know,

Large houses and some really articulate four-story apartment buildings that mix in.

The Preston Court, or I always call it a graduate court building, is also in this district.

Between Grady and Gordon, it kind of has a different feel than right up on Grady, but

I think it's a good mix of that area has maintained a decent amount of character and what's marked on the map as contributing.

And then behind that is the next sub-district is pressed in place, which seems to have maintained its character as actually being residential and not as much student housing.

And then the next district is 14th Street, 15th Street and Virginia Avenue.

There's been a lot of infill along 14th Street, so that one really doesn't feel like it has as much.

Cohesion as a unit.

Virginia does to a degree, but even there it's getting a lot of infill.

I don't know.

The description doesn't even mention Venable School, which is kind of surprising.

It is marked on the map as contributing.

But I'm not sure what to do with a lot of those houses on 14th.

I mean, they're older, but I wouldn't say

It necessarily feels like a neighborhood or like that they are tied together in much a way.

Maybe some of that's from the topography that they don't feel all right next to each other.

I don't know.

And then the E sub-district is called the Gordon Institutional Area, which is kind of interesting amongst all of more of the housing to have

The institutional scale buildings in there, those seem to have been preserved pretty well.

The F sub-district is 15th street high density and is now the grand mark and the V, so that kind of stands on its own.

and then there's a little sub-district that's G that's right up on 14th Street.