Planning Commission Meeting   6/9/2020

We are now ready to begin our June deliberations.

Oh, wow.

I get to go first.

Well, first of all, welcome back to everybody.

It's good to see everybody.

I don't want to take up too much time, but I did have a few things.

of interest.

Just first in terms of UVA reopening, as you probably all know this, but for now we're assuming fall semester will begin on time in August and any in-person instruction will conclude by Thanksgiving.

There's a lot of logistics that need to be worked out, and you can be sure that the experience will be highly modified for the classes

dining, housing, and athletic events, if there even are any, and all the other kind of gatherings that go along with that.

So stay tuned.

In terms of meetings, there was last week a June BOV meeting was held virtually.

There wasn't a whole lot of business, but of note, there was the renaming of Ruffner Hall to Ridley Hall in honor of Walter Ridley.

the first African-American to earn a doctorate in education.

I mean, that was what he earned it in, but he was the first one at UVA.

And that happened in 1953.

And in addition to that, they're still discussing whether to change the name of the actual Curry School, but they haven't made that decision yet.

And then current projects, I'll just go through a few of the ones that you probably see if you've gone around grounds at all.

Alderman Library, it's undergoing an extensive renovation and it's currently in the demolition and abatement phase.

If you go by there, you'll see them demolishing the more newer stacks on the back of the building.

And they're removing that and we're gonna replace that with a new addition better suited for today's academic needs.

That construction is scheduled to continue through 2023, so that's a pretty long project.

Over on Brandon Avenue, the Green Street is utility-wise and stormwater infrastructure-wise is largely complete.

And then the Student Health and Wellness Center is going up, and that should be completed in not this summer, but next summer.

and with the whole pandemic and everything, they've been reevaluating the interiors to kind of see how they can use that building to better serve potential needs for testing, isolating students and providing vaccinations and stuff like that.

So when it's done, it'll be 156,000 gross square feet, which their current facility is much smaller than that.

and it'll include space for general medicine, gynecology, counseling and psychological services, student disability access services and health promotion, amongst other things.

Sorry, this is a little bit long winded, but there's a few more that I wanted to talk about.

You probably heard this too, that the hospital expansion project,

was altered due to the pandemic and accelerated in some cases to provide isolation units for COVID-19 patients onto the upper floors.

That's in addition to the newly open emergency department.

So that was kind of an interesting pivot that they made there.

And then finally, I did wanna mention the Memorial for Enslaved Laborers.

across from the corner.

It's substantially complete.

There's a few things that aren't done yet, such as lighting and tree planting and stuff, but you can visit it.

And the water feature, there's a water feature, but it hasn't been turned on yet because

UVA, or we promised the descendant community that it wouldn't be turned on until they had a private ceremony.

And that was supposed to happen a month or two ago, but with the pandemic, we haven't been able to do that yet.

So it's not completely done, but it's definitely being used and visited most visibly last Friday by the medical school community who held a vigil there for George Floyd.

and I'm sure other contemplative ceremonies since then.

So if you're walking around, it's worth checking out.

It is good to see you all.

It's been a while.

Lots of stuff happening in this great nation of ours since we last met and hopefully we are moving to be just better people.

So hello to all of you.

It is good to see you.

A couple of things.

We have been meeting virtually with the TJPDC

We had a May meeting, which was one of those things.

Ironically, the TJPDC meets with Louisa Fluvanna, Nelson, Greene County, Charlottesville, and Albemarle.

And with everyone at home, one of the things that TJPDC discusses a lot about is rural broadband.

and so it has been very evident that we need to continue moving forward with rural broadband while we are having these meetings and having the sound of dial-up as we are listening to each other speak which was something I haven't heard in a long time so we're kind of fortunate here in Charlottesville.

We still have some work to do but it's interesting to see here the

the tone of the dial-up in the background.

Both of those meetings, again, we did have some discussions about rural broadband and rural transportation smart scale projects and then discussing some of the other what we're submitting for in the smart scale.

The city of Charlottesville doesn't have anything obviously in the rural area, smart scale funding, but there is something that the county has submitted for which is at 5th Street is connector trail from the 5th Street station area to connect into the some of the city trails.

So that was interesting.

That is all I have.

I also, I've went to the university and I agree it's a pretty amazing exhibit that is there that we got to see and have our children take a look at over the weekend.

Yes, thank you.

First, I want to thank Missy and Joe Rice and Brian Wheeler for their attentiveness to bringing people up to speed on Zoom and the protocols for doing a public hearing online.

I think that that was a good effort and time well spent for me, so thank you.

I too want to say hello to everybody.

I have been able to see some of Rory

as we share balcony looking out on Water Street and the back street.

It's been encouraging all through this pandemic with Main Street completely a ghost town.

We've been able to watch the construction on three buildings start right behind us and it's been rewarding to know that people are working and those buildings are going up and

It isn't a complete ghost town downtown even though the retail and the restaurants have been boarded up.

I too spent some time at the university as it's a great place to walk when there's nobody there and watching the memorial come up and

That's a real encouragement, especially when we see such discouraging things and images coming across our news feeds.

And finally, I just want to say, since the last time we met, I've moved into the at-risk group.

I'm over 60 now.

So yeah, so I'm in the at-risk category.

I don't know how many of the rest of us are, so we won't be gathering when we're in that demographic.

Ms.

Well, once again, hello.

I know I've already said hi to everyone, and genuinely, it is good to see everyone again.

I do not have a report at this time.

I do want to make a statement, though.

I do want to say that the issues that we're facing, not only here in Charlottesville but in the world, these are not new issues, but I am so proud of our young people.

who are our new future planners who are making a difference.

This is a movement and a different type of noise and I'm so glad to hear it and I am just very proud to know some of the leaders at the forefront.

And that's all I have to say.

Keep the spirit going.

If you have not gotten on the bandwagon or you still have questions about Black Lives Matter, do your research.

Don't ask a Black person, look at some movies, read some books and get educated.

Times are changing.

And so I'm hoping that this planning commission is going to do its job and recognizing that and helping to bust up some of these systematic oppressions where we can.

Affordable housing is real and not an 80% AMI over.

Education has to follow with that.

While we're having all of these public meetings and forums, we need a comprehensive forum where

Ms.

Rosa is in the building, excuse me, I'm sorry, the superintendent of the Charlottesville City Schools.

We need to plan and commission the city council, because if we're not moving in one way, then we're just wasting time.

So thank you for that moment.

To our young people, keep the faith.

Thank you, Ms.

Dowell.

Been a very busy time.

Very pleased to not be the first person to say Black Lives Matter.

Thank you.

Wonderful.

Black Lives Matter.

Comprehensive plan.

April 7th, had a meeting.

We reviewed housing data.

There was a standout quote, racial equity underlies every data point we look at.

It just keeps coming up over and over, no matter how you slice it.

Race, Race, Race, coming up.

The Housing Advisory Committee met on, boy, May 26th.

We are moving everything in the housing fund to emergency relief spending.

We're losing it all.

It's all gone.

No more LIHTC matching, no more projects, no more nothing.

It's just going to all emergency spending, trying to keep people housed as long as we can.

And we don't have enough even for that.

It's very grim, it was a tough meeting.

So, you know, that's happening.

Comprehensive plan meeting, June 2nd.

They surveyed the comprehensive plan sort of steering group, which I think is like 35 people, something like that.

The top issues that came up on housing, racial equity, number one with a bullet, rental affordability,

Access to Opportunity, Housing Supply, Housing Stability.

There were a bunch of others, but those were by far the leaders.

Also received a call from Dan Rosenzweig from Habitat.

He indicated support for a Flint Hill proposal coming up tonight and shared some data that I thought would be important for others to hear and I didn't write down.

It missed you.

You are muted still.

Still muted.

I'm sorry, but I lose my cursor going from one screen to the other.

And I have nothing to report.

The Board of Architectural Review and the Tree Commission, neither of those committees, commissions, boards met since the last time we met.

And Lyle covered very well the Comprehensive Plan Steering Committee, which I serve on also.

So thank you.

Right.

Well, once again, it is wonderful to see you guys.

I, above and beyond what Taniya and Lyle said, I have nothing to add.

As it relates to the social commentary, none of the boards have met that I serve on.

And you guys know as much as I do about what's going on in Parks and Rec.

That's all been in the media.

And you guys, I think, know that we've got a new director of Parks and Rec.

And his name is Mr. Todd Brown.

And he'd actually been working as the interim director for a little while.

So not much to talk about.

So with that, I will toss it to Ms.

It's OK.

You're right after Lisa, right?

I'm going to Frostedias.

That's all good.

But I don't have a lot.

I think that was very well said by Commissioner Dowell.

Black lives do matter.

And I hope you all remember our part in making change and in changing the system.

And remember why this planning commission exists, why our zoning laws are the way they are, and what the history is behind that.

Beyond that, the place has not been meeting, but we have had a couple MPO tech meetings.

Nothing hugely groundbreaking, but there are several smart scale applications that are currently in the pre-application phase.

So they've kind of gone to VDOT for like a preliminary review.

and some feedback there.

The interesting ones for us are Fontaine 29, Hillsdale Drive South, which will connect Hydraulic to Angus, or rather to Holiday Drive across from Angus, where like the Econolage and Szechuan are.

and then there's an Emmett Street multimodal phase two, there's a Preston Grady, West Main Streetsgate phase three, Ridge Street multimodal which will go from Cherry up to West Main and those are the main ones that are in the city and there are a few others around.

And forgive me for skipping you.

No problem at all.

Oh, yeah.

All right, Ms.

All right, well I'm going to be very brief because we have two guest speakers who are going to provide some reporting to us.

We will hear next week whether we're going to be meeting for July.

Council authorized us for the June meeting and so they'll be looking at whether we'll move to a July meeting.

I have a feeling we will.

So we're going to be moving in that direction behind the scenes.

We anticipate they'll be looking at other boards and commissions getting moving again.

A lot of

Still a lot of question marks as to how lots of things are going to be moving forward.

The city will reevaluate on before June 21st as to what next steps will be, though we have a few things going on to kind of begin those discussions.

Next week, folks have the opportunity to pay tax bills in person.

for a period of time.

A press release went out on that about a day ago and we currently have a drop-off on Fridays to facilitate folks getting materials into our office.

A lot of behind the scenes work going on and we'll let you know when we know different things.

But first we're going to turn the time over to Jennifer Koch from RHI and they're the consultants that are assisting us with the Charlottesville plans together.

program, and she's going to give a briefing on the comprehensive plan process.

Some of you guys are on the steering committee, but this is kind of a snapshot of where we are and available for questions.

And then following Jenny, we have Dr. Denise Bonds with us from the Health Department who is going to give us some information on general information on housing and the COVID-19 situation.

and just some food for thought as we're looking at applications to come.

So both Jenny and Dr. Bonds are prepared to speak you know about five minutes each and then they'll have some question answer time.

I do want us to try and be continue to be conscious of the clock because we have hearings starting as close to six o'clock as possible.

It'll be a little after six.

And before we get to that, we have our matters from the public.

So just things to keep in mind.

Thanks, Missy.

So I'm Jenny Koch.

I'm with the consultant team working on the effort that we're now calling Seaville Plants together.

We've been hard at work since we last met with you.

So I'm glad to be here to give you all a brief update.

Let's see, I'll wait for the slides to

Great.

Thank you, Joy.

You can go to the next slide.

Great, thanks.

So as you likely know by now, Seville Plans Together is the name for this process.

It's an opportunity for the community to actively participate in updating the future vision for the city with a focus on equity and affordability.

I know you all are pretty aware of what we're doing, but for others who are on the call or just to remind us all what we're doing, I want to go through quickly what these outcomes are.

So first,

and foremost we're working right now to update the city's comprehensive plan building on the edits that you all began in 2017-2018.

As part of that effort we are completing an affordable housing strategy and we're calling it out specifically here because it's a big focus of this effort but it is part of the overall comprehensive plan process.

And then once the revised comprehensive plan is approved, including that housing strategy, and once we work with you through those edits, we'll work to revise the zoning ordinance to ensure that it reflects the goals and strategies in the newly revised comprehensive plan and that it receives other necessary updates.

Part of this process, we know we can learn a lot through data.

We know a lot about what sort of historical context is, but we also need to work with you all and the community, city staff, and others to identify what needs exist in Charlottesville in terms of equity, what it means for housing to be affordable, et cetera.

And like you all have been saying, this is not a new issue, but there's new light being brought to these issues and how they're all tied together.

So there's an opportunity here.

You can go to the next slide, please.

This is the schedule for the process, which is currently planned to extend to the end of next year, 2021.

Green is the affordable housing strategy.

You can see that feeding into the dark blue, which is the comprehensive plan update.

And then light blue is the zoning.

This is our schedule as of the beginning of May, and I would anticipate there will be some tweaks to this, particularly with the community engagement points.

You can see those little orange bubbles at the bottom are the approximate points for community input.

Those don't just represent one meeting.

They're a set of activities.

So, sorry, one second.

We also, I want to stop here, obviously, and talk with you a bit about how we plan to interact with you all.

You know, collaboration with the Planning Commission is an important part of updating the comprehensive plan.

And so we look forward to scheduling a meeting, work session, you know, with you now that you're meeting again in the relatively near future to

especially discuss the findings from what we're hearing in this current stage of public input, which I'll get into in a second, and what that means for the comprehensive plan as we look at the overall vision, direction, and the goals that are in there.

So if you go to the next slide, I'm going to give an overview of our engagement process to date.

It looks very different than we originally spoke through with you all.

We, as you know, came into this process committed to really

focused community engagement, meeting people where they are in the neighborhoods in Charlottesville, going out to people to seek input, and obviously starting that process in March.

It couldn't happen like that.

So I'll go through what we've been doing instead, but I want to know.

We do intend to get out as soon as it's safe to do so and meet with people.

But so through May and June, we've been

We started our engagement May 20th.

And what we've been focused on is getting input on goals and priorities for the future.

If you see what we've listed out here, I won't go through these all in detail, but we started with three webinars.

They all had the same information.

They were recorded as well.

You can find them on the website.

And what we did in those webinars was we gave an overview of the process.

We talked about what is the comprehensive plan?

What is zoning?

You know, what, what do these things mean and then what do we hope you all can help us do in this process.

And so those were those were good discussions.

We had a good Q&A sessions with all those webinars.

We've had five small group discussions and there are five more scheduled.

We've had anywhere from four to up to, you know, 17, 18 people in those events and

We've learned a lot from those.

We've also had, besides those five and now ten, open discussions where anyone can register.

We're also doing some focused small group discussions with certain groups of people to pull them together.

Those have been great as well.

We've got a survey out right now.

It opened May 20th.

It was originally scheduled to run through June 10th, and we've extended that to June 27th.

When I last checked on Sunday, we had 324 responses, and we're working on some ways to build that up, but I'll talk about those in a second.

As you heard, we had a steering committee meeting on June 2.

It was open to everyone.

It was conducted like this on Zoom.

And that recording is also on the website along with the presentation document, which talked about housing tools.

So you may be interested to look at what was discussed.

And we've also been engaging with the media and distributing flyers and surveys and having a lot of conversations with different people.

So this is what we've done.

We've got other upcoming conversations with some small groups, and then we're working on getting more input on the survey.

Next slide, please.

So our goal with this is to get community input from people who are representative of the community in Charlottesville.

And we've been hearing from a good diversity of people.

But for example, when we look at the survey responses, the respondents, the proportions aren't really representative right now of the community in terms of demographics.

They're not terrible, but they're not there yet.

And so we know we need to hear more from people at the lower end of the wealth spectrum, for example, you know, more certain neighborhoods, we need to hear from people and people who don't identify as white or Caucasian, you know, there's there's people we need to hear from and so

To that end, we've got some strategies here that we're working on to reach those different various areas.

We're coordinating with some of our community partners to get flyers and paper versions of the survey into people's hands.

You can see on this slide, according with the Housing Authority and Habitat, FAR, Cultivate Charlottesville,

So what we're doing with that is both just trying to make sure people know what's going on, but also that they know that they're wanted.

We want their input in this process, and we hope that they're able to participate, whether that's taking a paper survey at the market or going on the website or joining a discussion.

I also want to know, we planned a utility mailing for July.

We couldn't get an earlier mailing, but that'll be going out.

So hopefully, we'll be able to share information with people so they can get involved in the future phases.

and, you know, we're doing continued direct outreach to other organizations, neighborhood associations, et cetera, and encouraging people to push things out.

So, you know, I'd welcome other ideas for engagement, you know, especially given COVID constraints, if you have any ideas or insights, you know, from lessons learned, we know you all have been through this process too.

So, you know, we'd love your help in thinking through that and your help also, and just sharing this information with communities, your connections, your neighbors, we'd welcome any,

help that you can give in that area.

If you go to the next slide, I just have the contact info here.

We do have a website, SevillePlansTogether.com.

I've shared some links to the survey in both English and Spanish.

I'll note one thing I haven't mentioned yet, we do have social media, but we also have a toll-free phone number people can call.

They hear a message that my partner Latoya recorded, so you can sort of hear a voice and talking through an overview of the project and leave comments in a voicemail.

So

We haven't had a lot of usage of that yet, but it's out there.

That is all I had.

So questions.

I've got one question.

I guess I'm a little unclear on how we as commissioners are supposed to interact with the project.

Like, should we be dropping in on these meetings?

Are they recorded and we should watch later?

Sure, so we recorded the webinars, but we've been recording the small group discussions, but we've been explicitly telling people they're not being posted.

We're going to summarize findings from those.

But you are welcome, and I would encourage you to sit in on a conversation.

They're really interesting, and they've been really enlightening for us.

And we'd welcome you to sit in.

Thanks, Rory.

Jenny, you mentioned providing focused small groups, meeting with focused small groups.

So what kind of groups?

Are these neighborhood groups?

Are these political groups or civic groups?

Sure, yeah, thanks.

That's a good question.

It was decided

We've been doing additional outreach to people, to groups we have been hearing less from.

And what that has looked like is we know, for example, we wanted to make sure we were hearing from people in the 10th and Page neighborhood.

People have been around for a long time, for example, and one of our steering committee members helped us organize a group of homeowners in the 10th and Page neighborhood.

We've also reached out to

groups, Java.

We had a conversation with Java because we wanted to make sure we were hearing from folks in the sort of aging adults and thinking about needs related to aging in place.

And we know that that group is often very connected but may not sign up for a discussion separately.

We've done outreach to

Let's see, churches, we've done a lot of outreach to churches, and I believe we have a small group that's been arranged with a faith group in the coming weeks.

So I won't go into all of them, but really it's just been, we know we haven't been hearing from people, or where we've heard there's good methods to get out to people.

The churches, for example, we know people have church networks often, and so that's why we've been reaching out to them.

So we're open to if people reach out to us and they want to have a discussion, that's certainly something we're open to.

I think, you know, we encourage people to sign up for the existing open discussions when they can because those have been really interesting too.

I'm sorry to please don't take, but I feel like we're hearing the same thing that we went through as far as outreach.

I don't feel like we're doing anything different.

I mean, we went to the market, we reached out to church groups, we reached out to Java, we reached out to all the, so I'm not sure, so I know you're asking us, and please don't, all the work you're doing, I've been on the website, I've looked at, so I appreciate all this, but

You know, the problem we were having is the outreach to the folks that you still have an outreach to, based off of what we're hearing from you right now.

So my question is, you know, obviously we're out of ideas, you're there, and so I'm not sure, you know,

I would love to know.

I mean, we went to all these places and had these surveys.

Is it a bigger, I mean, I don't know the answer to the question.

I don't, sometimes we don't know the answer to the question, but is it more outreach social media?

I mean, clearly we have a social media presence in this town.

We've had thousands of people get together in the past week, pretty much, you know, at a, you know, spontaneous moment.

So what do we need to do to do something different?

Do we need the city's permission to reach out?

I mean, what is it that we need to do?

I think it sounds the same.

Well, Lisa, I'd like to reiterate that.

I couldn't move fast enough to unmute my mic.

And that's not part of any of your work, Ms.

Jenny, but I said this at our last meeting session.

Some of the ideas we came up with, we've done this.

My question to you before Lisa asked was going to be, who's showing up to these meetings?

Are they the same people that were showing up to the quorums or forms that we've already had?

Sure.

So to address both of those, if I forget to address any element of what either of you has, please just plug it.

But yeah, we had a very different process in mind for this.

We, as we've talked about with, you know,

COVID threw things off for us.

And I won't totally blame it on that.

It is difficult to do engagement for a comprehensive plan and reach marginalized communities in any case.

But we have been seeing

with our small group discussions where people can sign up on the website and come to them.

You know, obviously I can't speak to whether it looks different than the people you all talk to.

I don't know, you know, we don't have lists to compare or anything.

But from what we're hearing, it's a mix of people who are very well engaged.

They come out to things a lot.

But we've also been hearing from others who seem to be newer to the process, who maybe we go through a bit more explaining what a comprehensive plan is and whatnot.

But my take on it is that

There are some new faces coming into this and we're not seeing the same people over and over again in our discussions.

We haven't had any overlap.

So we've met with all different people, but I would just reiterate overall, I mean, we are committed to Whenever we can getting out there.

Our vision was to do you know these

This type of small group discussion we're doing, but where people are, having food, bringing people out to sit together and see people's faces and talk through these things.

And that is something that needs to happen when we can do it.

But it's been rewarding when we can do it virtually too.

So I think you're right, Lisa.

We're doing a lot of the same things that you all were doing.

And we're pushing out on social media.

I think we're getting some new people in that way as well.

Has this been part of this Seville 360?

I mean, I'm not sure, maybe Joe can tell us how well that's attended.

I mean, it seems like something that, and just advertising, NBC 20, I mean, I think we need to get out to the media.

I mean, maybe I love Seville.

A lot of people seem to watch that.

I don't know, but those are just ideas.

Yeah, no, thank you.

We were on Seville 360 too.

And we have the media, you know, it was COVID not only threw off our ability to meet with people in person, but there was also its shift in focus, you know, or maybe not a shift, but a direct focus.

And then with recent events as well, rightly getting a lot of attention.

You know, it's, we're sort of competing for people's time and attention, but especially recently, I think this is such an opportunity for people to really weigh in on these processes locally and look at what land use, you know, looks like on the ground and what that means for equity.

And what we said was, and what Lyle had said earlier is, you know,

making these changes, and I think Rory mentioned it too, making these changes to this land use plan, these comprehensive plans and into these housing plans.

I mean, that's part of this movement, Tania.

I mean, we've got to get a movement on the needle for this housing.

We are running a little over and we've got one more speaker and we've got public comments.

So, Missy, who's our next speaker?

Missy, you're on mute.

Thank you.

Thank you all for having me on today and to allow me to give you a bit of an update on COVID-19 and the impact of housing.

So just as background, and I'm sure most of you are aware, COVID-19 is caused by an RNA virus.

It's transmitted from person to person by aerosolized droplets.

That is when we talk or cough or speak or exercise,

We expel droplets out, and if we're infected with COVID-19, those droplets can carry the virus.

Right now, at this point in time, we have just under 52,000 people in Virginia that have been infected by COVID-19.

Many of those, most of those have recovered from the virus.

We have had 1496 deaths in the state.

Here in the Thomas Jefferson Health District, we've had 649 individuals that have had confirmed positive.

I will say that the number of individuals who have been infected by this virus is probably higher than this.

Early on in this pandemic, we didn't have good testing available.

And so we often just had people with classic symptoms stay home and isolate on a presumptive diagnosis.

Here in the district, 77 people have been hospitalized and we've had 19 deaths.

In Charlottesville, there's been 141 individuals that have had a confirmed diagnosis and three fatalities.

We are seeing improvement in loss of metrics for COVID-19.

Our rate of positive cases in looking at the total number of people tested is going down.

If you look at the curve on the VDH website, there's a definite drop.

Our hospitalization rate is also decreasing as is our death rate.

So things are moving in the right way.

And I think that you see that reflected in the governor's releasing of the stay at home order and opening up of various activities in the area.

That being said, we still do not have a vaccine at this point in time, and we don't have significant herd immunity.

That is, enough people in our population who have had it to really protect those who are most vulnerable to having a bad outcome.

So there are ways to mitigate the risk to any individual.

The easiest way to avoid getting infected is to stay at home, which is how we get to housing.

We consider a risk, a close contact risk, someone who has been within six feet for 10 to 15 minutes.

That's a close enough distance that you can breathe in some of those contaminated air droplets.

And that's a long enough period of time that you could get a sufficient load of virus to become infected.

We consider people who live in the same household as cohorts.

So if you live with your family, with a roommate, whoever, you all are sharing risk.

You're all sharing the same surfaces that have been touched by those droplets.

You're all sharing the same air.

And so that's a cohort group.

And that's the highest risk group living together.

If you are living in an apartment building, though, your cohort doesn't include the person who's in the next apartment over.

So if you're in a townhome or some other housing unit that shares a wall, it's only those individuals that are within your four walls, as it were, that are your risk cohort.

People who are next to you or above you or below you have walls separating, and so the risk of aerosolized droplets actually reaching them is pretty low.

Now there certainly are risks from going out and going to the mailbox, but that risk exists for people who live in single family dwellings too.

Lots of other people touch your mailbox at any one point in time.

There is somewhat of a risk if you have a shared heating and air conditioning system that is, particularly now when it's hot outside people run their air conditioning and what that does is recycle air.

But again, most apartment buildings, most condominiums, many high density housing have individualized units that provide the air conditioning for those units.

And so there's really no additional risk in a high density housing situation.

From a health point of view, there's very much a huge risk associated with people who are experiencing homelessness.

Individuals who don't have stable housing situation either move from friend to friend to friend.

And so they are experiencing lots of different risk situations from that movement or they're living on the street and they don't have a stable housing situation.

We do have groups that work to house individuals at night, places like Potsham and the Salvation Army.

But again, those are large conjugate housing situations.

And what we've seen in this pandemic is lots of risk of infection from people who are sharing those quarters.

And one person becomes infected, and then we see lots of people in this situation become infected.

So this is really just a plea that high density housing is

the best way, one of the better ways that we can get affordable housing in our community.

Housing has been identified by the community in our most recent community health assessment as an area that we need to focus on.

That document is available on our website, tjhd.org.

If you go over on the far left-hand side at the bottom, you'll see the map to health.

That is a community-led process where we assess what our health priorities will be.

We just completed that in 2019.

It's been signed on by both of our major health care systems and by over 100 nonprofit and community organizations, including many government organizations.

So I would urge you to go look at what our health priorities are.

I, again, am always in favor of improving housing and more affordable housing for our residents, particularly in the Charlottesville area.

This is a really challenging area for people who are under resourced or low resourced to find affordable housing.

And I think the more that we can do to support that, that will lower

The health risk for COVID-19, but it will dramatically improve the health of those people who get permanent, stable, supportive housing.

Mr. Stolzenberg, thank you very much for insisting that we get Dr. Bowne's loan.

I think this is very helpful, so thank you.

Questions, questions?

In The Daily Progress, there was an article about possibly rearranging some street space to allow safe social distancing on city streets.

Anytime that we can get people out and active and moving around, that is absolutely a benefit.

Again, being outdoors is a safer activity for COVID-19 than being indoors.

When you're outdoors, we have air current that's dispersing those aerosolized droplets in a much more efficient fashion.

When we're indoors, we're often in an air-conditioned area and we're recycling that air essentially, so those droplets get to move around over and over again.

particularly for exercise.

I think one of the big risks for gyms is that when you are exercising, you are expelling lots of air and lots of aerosolized droplets.

And so I think to the degree that we could get people out and exercising because they have a safe place to bike or to roller skate or to just go for a walk in a physically distant fashion is great.

I

I spent a lot of time in San Francisco early in my life, and they used to close the major street of Golden Gate Park down for rollerblading every weekend.

And it was fabulous.

And everyone came out and had a really great and safe time.

So any questions?

All right, well, Dr. Bonds, thank you very much.

That was very helpful.

Thanks.

There you go.

Sorry, you actually all disappeared for a minute.

Thank you for inviting me.

I'm always happy to come and talk about the impact of housing and how we plan our cities and its impact on health.

It really has a significant impact on the health of the community and individuals.

Ms.

Well, I think we're good with the NDS report.

All right.

So yes, I think we are ready.

If there's anybody in the lobby waiting to speak, Joe Rice will recognize you and bring you in.

Please keep your comments to three minutes.

You may actually get cut off automatically.

I'm not sure how that's going to work.

If you can't keep it to three minutes, we may lose you.

Chair Mitchell, hello.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

OK, fantastic.

Yes, we've got 40 attendees in the lobby.

One person is raising their hand.

That is Dan Murphy.

And Dan, you have three minutes to speak.

Dan, you're on.

Okay, thanks.

Can you guys hear me?

Yes.

Alright, thanks for giving me the opportunity to speak.

I wanted to voice my support for the Flint Health Housing Development Project.

My more general interest is in supporting density wherever possible within Charlottesville.

Have you guys, I've heard it discussed here before,

We have a housing affordability issue.

Anytime we can increase the supply of housing, that's going to help the problem.

And this seems like a relatively high density project in otherwise unused land.

So, you know, I would fully support a high density development there.

That'll lower housing costs sort of around the area.

There's an even more direct effect on low-income residents in the sense that there's a set-aside for affordable housing units.

So there'll be even more direct cost reductions for residents that need it the most.

And then in addition to that, it's an integrated housing community with people of different income levels, which I think is another thing that the city's trying to support.

So with those things in mind, I first wanted to voice my support for the development project.

And I also want to add a note of caution.

So my own research, I'm an economist at the University of Virginia and I do research on issues related to gentrification.

And one of the things that we see in the data is when interest rates fall, like we see right now in the low interest rate environment, gentrification tends to accelerate.

The central bank, the Federal Reserve has recently lowered short-term interest rates to zero, mortgage rates are falling.

Within the next two or three years, we're going to see an even quicker acceleration in

And so whatever issues we've had are only going to become worse, and I think that projects like this are exactly what we need to help rectify the problem.

Thank you very much.

And once again, we're looking for comments that relate to things that are not on the formal agenda.

So if you want to talk about the rezoning that we're going to talk about in a little while, wait until we get to that item, if you would.

Joe, who else would like to speak?

Yes, sorry about that.

I had to unmute myself.

Let's see.

We do have one other.

We have John Bugbee.

John, you have three minutes.

Welcome to find a commission.

John, can you hear us?

Can you hear me now?

We got you.

OK, great.

Sorry about that.

Yeah, great.

So I have just two questions also touching the Flint Hill development.

Let me interrupt you, John, if you don't mind.

Two things.

We really like you to wait until we get to that part of the agenda to talk about that.

So if you don't mind getting back in the queue when we get to that part of the agenda, that would be good to do.

I think we'll be focused on that.

That's fine.

I didn't understand.

Yeah.

Very good.

Thank you.

Yeah, that's fine.

Ms.

Rice.

Alrighty, then we will move on to the consent agenda.

Are there any questions or issues or concerns about the consent agenda?

I just have one small issue.

There's an item in discussing Barracks Road

where I'm recorded as saying that I want more traffic on Barracks Road.

I want less traffic on Barracks Road.

Got it, exactly.

Would you like to make a motion?

It was not.

Is it related to the smart scale application?

Yes.

Okay.

Oh, and people?

Aye.

Any abstentions?

The consent agenda is approved.

Right.

We will move into the second public comment session.

And there is in fact only one item that we, one major item that we need to review.

That one major item will

We'll have to make two recommendations to counsel regarding this one major item.

One will relate to a steep slope, I am sorry, critical slope, and the other will relate to a rezoning

We will deal with the, the vote will be on the critical slope first, and then we'll vote on the rezoning, but we'll treat these things together as it relates to the presentation by the applicant, presentation by staff and the comments from the public.

I'll talk a little bit briefly about the rezoning first since that's the most, the longest.

The rezoning is ZM20-0001.

We refer to that as the Flint Hill PUD.

The property question has frontage on two unimproved planet streets.

That's Flint Drive and King Court.

The applicant is seeking rezoning from an R-1S district, which is low density small lots to a PUD, which is a planned unit development.

There are two proffers related to this application.

The first proffer relates to density.

The density will not exceed 60 units.

The second proffer relates to affordability.

15% of the units will be affordable, accessible to our residents who are between 25% and 60% AMI.

The affordability is guaranteed for 30 years, and that would be via a restricted deed.

So once again, we're talking 60 units, but they will be mixed.

There'll be townhouses in this development, and that could number between 34 and 44 units.

And there'll also be condominium-like units in this development, and that could range between six

The density is going to be six units per acre.

This is a little less than the actual density that's recommended by the land use map.

The land use map suggests that the density should be 15 units per acre.

There will be 5.1 acres of open space associated with this development.

Now note,

Under RS, I mean R-1S zoning, condominium style units and townhouses are not allowed.

So hence the need to do something different here to make this work.

The applicant is also looking to build a street to support the development.

In order to build a street, council will have to go along with it or approve the vacation of the planet locations.

The planet locations that Flint

Flynn Drive, and King Court.

We have to advise council as to whether such a vacation is consistent with the comprehensive plan.

So I believe Mr. Althe is managing this application.

All right.

Thank you, chair, commissioners, city council.

It's good to see everyone.

As the chair said tonight, you are going to be holding a public hearing.

on a rezoning, and you'll also be recommending making a recommendation on a critical slope waiver.

These are two separate applications but all connected to the same development.

As the chair stated, this is located on undeveloped land over off of Longwood Drive.

There are two platted streets, King Court and Flint Hill.

which are platted for single-family homes.

The developer in this case which is, go back up here, which is the applicant in this is Belmont Station LLC.

The commission saw a very similar application a year ago.

We have newer city councilors, so this application they have not seen in a course during

Questions from commission and council.

I'm happy to point out any differences in what was seen last year and what's in front of you tonight.

Some key features from the report is the proffered development plan, which in your package should be attachment A, which is would be the proper development plan.

And then there's a supplemental information.

So in the proper development plan, you're looking at

seven rows of townhouses in the general approximate location depicted within the PUD development plan.

These would be three stories, 35 feet max height, plus two multifamily dwellings in the general approximate locations depicted within the PUD development plan.

There's also a proper use matrix which would allow residential and related uses such as single-family attached townhomes

family day home, residential treatment facilities up to eight residents, non-residential uses such as house of worship, ball fields, and swimming pools.

The use matrix prohibits such uses as nursing homes, animal shelters, and gas stations.

The proposed use matrix would allow multifamily dwellings, which is something like apartments or condominiums, single family attached, which are things like duplexes, single family detached, which would be

single-family homes, townhomes, and duplexes by right.

Separately, the PUD narrative states that development will provide both single-family attached and neighborhood-scale condominiums.

Also within the PUD development plan, it states that an architectural review board will be established by the homeowners association to coordinate architectural styles.

Part of this development is also proposing a private road to access the townhomes to the northeast of Flint Drive.

These lots would be landlocked as they would not have frontage on any city-maintained road.

One note in this is that street requirements cannot be altered through PUD, so you can't change, say, the width of a street because of your PUD.

You need to follow all the subdivision and street standards in the current code.

Having said that, private streets within a town home development are allowed.

There's one thing to correct in the report.

I believe on page 17 of the staff report, it talks about not having sidewalks on the private street.

The applicant has provided sidewalks, a later version, and that's on the development plan.

You'll see sidewalks are provided on the private street.

The 5.1 acres of open space

a sheltered five-foot sidewalk located along King Court and Flint Drive and the private street plus nature trails in the open spaces.

On-street parking is also being proposed in this development.

One keynote is all the parking for the two multifamily dwellings would be on-street parking.

The applicant is not proposing any on-site parking for those

to multi-family development apartments or condominiums.

The layout would be a teardrop with a large kind of center feature.

This is different than what's there right now.

The streets that are platted there right now is a cut-through street from Moseley to Flint and then a cul-de-sac on King Court.

The applicant would alter that slightly but be in the general location.

The preliminary landscape plan, this also needs to be clarified and the applicant can speak to this during its presentation.

In the supplemental application, the applicant's providing eight trees in front of the apartment buildings.

In the proffer development plan, there's only four.

And the applicant has talked about correcting that so that the right amount of street trees are shown in the development plan.

This would have been looked at if this rezoning

The applicant has indicated that there is no phasing of this development plan.

It would all be completed in one phase.

And one thing I wanted to mention before I started is we also have the city engineer

Mr. Jack Dawson is at this meeting and also our housing coordinator John Sales is at this meeting to answer questions because one of the things that I believe Planning Commission City Council will want to talk about is the proper affordable unit of this.

And one thing to bring up in a non phase development is the code requires all public improvements need to be completed before the issuance of the first certificate of occupancy.

So the applicant has indicated they're going to complete all public improvements before they request a CO.

So when you have multiple developers, which in this case, you could have both the developer and habitat, that's something just to keep in mind is, again, there's no phasing.

So before they would even request a CO, all public improvements would need to be completed.

The other thing I want to point out in staff's report is the applicant did hold a community meeting as required by the code.

That meeting was held January 22nd at the Cherry Avenue Christian Church as part of the

Fry Spring Neighborhood Association monthly meeting.

Quite a few people were out of that meeting.

Some concerns that came up about this development at that meeting was that some of the members who attended felt the density was too high, the city does not have the infrastructure to support more development, i.e.

roads, sidewalks, traffic will increase, parking would be a problem, and the development could change the character of the neighborhood.

Also, Planning Commission and City Council, you've received emails over the last few days that came out after this report was written.

A lot of those were in support of this development.

Under staff's recommendation, so staff is recommending denial and the denial is basically based off our current comprehensive plan.

As we heard before this, you know, we're in the middle of trying to update the comprehensive plan.

But until that's updated, staff is using the comprehensive plan and the tools we have right now.

And as part of that, this area of the city and the land use map has been designated for low density residential.

And that low density residential is any density 15 DUA or lower, but it's also a type of housing.

And townhomes and multifamily development is not considered low density residential under the current comp plan.

So from that, moving to the critical slope.

As part of this, when part of the rezoning, the applicant has also submitted a critical slope waiver.

And that has to be heard at the same time as the rezoning.

And again, you'll be making a recommendation to city council on the rezoning and the critical slope.

The

Critical slope application was reviewed by both the planning department, the city engineer, and our environmental staff.

The planning department, the general land use plan of the comprehensive plan calls for the subject property to be low density residential, which I just talked about.

To achieve this,

The proposed development would have a DUA of approximately six and preserve over five acres of open space.

To achieve this level of open space and stay below 15 DUA called for in the comprehensive plan, the development needs to be clustered and will impact critical slopes.

As part of the PUD request, the applicant is also pursuing to close Flint Drive and Keene Court.

If granted, the applicant would replant the roads in almost the same location

to meet their needs.

The majority of the proposed buildings and parking are outside of the critical slope area.

The majority of impact to the critical slope comes from some sanitary sewer placement, stormwater management, and the grading for lots.

Alternative site layouts may reduce impact to critical slope areas but may also impact other development factors such as overall building arrangement, offsite parking density, or housing affordability.

The site layout of the current proposed development is dependent on approval of the previous noted rezoning application and road closure by city council.

When engineering reviewed this, their recommendation is denial of the critical slope waiver.

And this recommendation, again, the city engineers in this meeting, and I don't want to get into the technical aspect, questions can be asked of him, but there's not a lot of information that is being provided in the application.

that engineering can hold the applicant to.

And that is the main reason that the recommendation is denial.

With that, I'm going to open myself up and other staff to questions.

Any questions from the university?

Ms.

So I have a question about when you said that this is not consistent with the comp plan.

The staff report on page 11 of 22 says that staff finds the proposed rezoning is consistent with the comp plan for density, but not consisting of housing types.

Yet there's an adjacent, and I understand the comprehensive plan, but we're talking about the character of the neighborhood, the adjacent, there is an adjacent PUD that does have duplex in townhomes.

That was approved.

So that was approved as a PUD that wasn't compliant or wasn't consistent with the comp plan as well.

Okay.

Then I have a question about, and we just received an email about the engineering and we did see something from this back, I don't remember, last year at some point we saw this project come before us, but time is crazy right now.

It's similar.

So one of the main things when Planning Commission saw this a year ago, as part of their critical slope waiver at that time, they had a preliminary stormwater plan.

And in that preliminary stormwater plan, the applicant stated they would treat all water on site.

New application, the applicant

is not promising to treat all water on site.

The interpretation that I get there is that they're leaving the door open to use nutrient credits.

All right.

Yeah, I've got a couple questions.

Commissioner Green kind of asked them, but I've got a couple follow ups on them.

Could you, first of all, point me to where in the Adopted Comprehensive Plan it recommends against, or specifically where it says single-family detached and single-family attached only in low-density areas?

I'm control-effing for townhome and can't find it.

But I did find that the housing chapter starts off with city neighborhoods will feature a variety of housing types, housing sizes and incomes, et cetera, which kind of contradicts what I assume that other part is from the land use section, but maybe not the abbreviated one that we publish as the comp plan.

So you have the land use map.

and in the land use map, this area is yellow, which is low density residential.

And then there's a one page sheet, bear with me, I'm looking through the report, that calls out what is considered low density residential.

I see.

It should be in the report.

Typically when the land use map's quoted, typically staff will put that, you know, if it's low density residential, we'll put what that definition is.

If it's mixed use, we put that definition because the definitions come from that page.

I'm just trying to, it's typically in here.

I guess the other question with regard to stormwater, so you answered why it's different from last time.

Is the reasoning behind that, and maybe this is a later question for the applicant and not for engineering, is the reason why it's not possible or not being requested to manage 100% of stormwater onsite now because the stormwater impacts of the additional multifamily units are more significant?

I'm not sure I can answer that.

Jack might be answering that.

Yeah, I saw where you could paraphrase it there, but I just simply could not find it in the comp plan.

That said, I had a hell of a time even finding the comp plan with the new website.

Okay, thanks.

Well, I will say from our our several years together working on the comp plan, our comp plan needs to be a little more work together with these chapters.

And we definitely have some

This is Jack Dawson, City Engineer.

If I could just speak to engineering's review of this, just sort of in comparison to the last year's and just some comments I've heard.

The plan is not a whole lot different when you look at the plan that was presented.

Our issues last time, and this is from a year ago's memory, but essentially what happened last time is that the applicant said 100% of stormwater would be treated on site.

We had some technical concerns about if that was feasible and proclaiming this at such an early stage and those sorts of things, which is I think why we recommended approval.

Currently, what it states is that as much of the stormwater on site as is technically and economically feasible as determined by the applicant.

Not that I don't trust the applicant, but what's economically feasible shouldn't be determined by the applicant because $4 might be too expensive for the applicant.

Again, I'm not trying to make an ethical judgment on the applicant here.

It's just a statement regarding our ability to enforce some measure here.

The other issue is that we don't have the authority as a city to approve

And Lisa Robertson can sort of weigh in on this if I'm misspeaking here, but we already have a program that's approved by the state.

We as the engineering department execute the Virginia Storm Management Program and regulate it on behalf of the state.

It's in the state code and without improving, we can require more rigorous requirements than they do, but the State Water Control Board has to approve those things.

So it's hard for us to say, well, in order to protect the steep slopes, you have to do this.

So the other thing I'd like to address is that this is a concept level plan.

I'm not speaking for the applicant or the engineer, but I think it's pretty clear that this is not a final plan.

It takes a fair amount of time to do all the comps and all these things here.

So it's a little bit troubling to, it's not troubling, it's kind of a goofy situation to say, hey applicant, you're at the concept stage in your planning zoning layout of this, please present a thorough engineered plan to show how you're going to protect the critical slopes which gets into all this future quantity issues.

And so

our perspective public works engineering based primarily on the report that was provided by the applicant and not the plans based on what's in there.

Essentially what they've said is we're going to do the best we can and we're going to follow VSMP guidance which is sort of the bare minimum and there are some other issues in there that speak to specifically threats to the critical slopes which is a little troubling to me.

I'm not saying this is totally not going to work

All I'm saying is that the way this process is set up where the applicant, the onus is on the applicant to demonstrate technical compliance on an engineering aspect that usually is done later in the process.

It's extremely hard for us to say what they're saying makes sense, but it's not shown on the plan that this is actually what's gonna happen.

And then it's further harder for us to sort of, well, here's some conditions that you should place based on my impression of what their plan will likely turn into.

And so if you look at the report, if you look at staff's report, my biggest complaint is when I referenced essentially the sheet flow.

So number four, that's my primary concern with what we're dealing with right now.

And so I'm not saying none of this will work in the future.

Cool.

So I got two quick follow ups to that.

The first is, so I guess I said that condition they proposed was to the extent feasible with a minimum of 75%.

What does it mean for it to be 75%?

75% of what?

Correct.

In the state of Virginia, there's a little spreadsheet called the VRM spreadsheet, which calculates the amount of nitrogen that leaves your site, which is the target pollutant.

And so you crunch in the spreadsheet, and it says you have to treat 0.4 pounds per year, or 0.3 pounds.

In Virginia, unless you have impaired waters, which we don't have impaired waters for nutrients in the city of Charlottesville, you cannot say, hey, you have to treat this on site.

There's a whole list of things and most of them, the trigger for not being able to purchase offsite credits is size, which we don't have any five acre sites in the city, we don't have any five pound nutrient generating sites.

So per code, you're allowed to buy nutrient credits.

I'm all for, me and Charlie did speak about this, Charlie Armstrong about sort of, we've been, he does a lot of work in the city and so we've been talking about these things.

And we, I agree with him that 75% is a perfectly reasonable goal that they should be able to hit that if something happens they could find 3% over here you know with another feature and everything will work fine.

The issue goes back to, I'm not totally sure that we have the authority, we being me and the Planning Commission, to say we're going to lump on further requirements to the state code.

I think that's a good idea, but the way that the state, that's really more of a legal issue than an engineering issue.

But I do agree with Charlie's.

The 75% threshold that you probably saw through Charlie's email or what have you is a great idea.

Again, my concern is because it's critical slopes and critical slopes, water quality does not affect critical slopes.

Water quantity affects critical slopes.

And that's our concern here.

And unfortunately, those are things that are developed further in engineering plans where I could say, oh, here's how you do that.

And then that's further complicated by our limits on our authority to require further metrics and the state provides.

Again, it's hard when this is essentially a planning and zoning process that's wedged into a totally separate stormwater regulatory compliance.

Yeah, and that's a perfect lead into my other question actually, couldn't have been better.

What is the typical process here?

Like PUDs by nature are concepts like zoning level things, and obviously far from a final site plan where you need to do this technical analysis.

So what does the city normally do when it's considering a PUD in an area of critical slopes, which I imagine is a significant portion of PUDs, given that that's part of why they exist.

So I can only speak to my experience here.

I think Public Works Engineering has unanimously recommended denial of all these things because of this goofy process.

And, you know, there's certain ones where there's some obvious things that can be done there, especially when it comes to erosion of control, which is more something you can lay out now because it's not as complex and routing and all these things that stormwater is a little more dependent on.

That is a good question.

I'm sure every locality that struggles with putting front-loading engineering conditions struggles with this very thing, whether it's in Virginia or other states.

This is just part of the engineering and planning don't always work together.

I'm sure there's a bunch of planners on the 70 things.

I'm not going to talk too much about focusing just on two dimensions, but it gets complicated when you do that sort of thing.

So I don't have a good answer to that question.

Let's follow up to that real quick.

Mr. Dawson, does that mean that the plan won't necessarily work?

No, so it's two parts.

The plan, there's not enough detail at this preliminary stage to demonstrate that the engineering side of it will definitely work.

And I think the applicant and their engineer will say, yeah, this is, again, this is a concept level.

We're throwing large numbers at this thing, which is how the process works.

The other part of your question, it's essentially, I'm not saying this is not going to work.

It's just hard to detail at this time how precisely it's going to work.

And then when you guys in 15 minutes asked me to give you a paragraph of how we're going to ensure all this stuff works in the future, that's extremely hard for me to do.

And it's very hard to do because

For example, when you do what's called the energy balance, what the applicant says they're going to do here for the primary piped outfall, it's just an equation that says here's your peak discharge in existing, here's your future peak discharge, and you multiply that by a ratio to get what you have to reduce it by.

It would be, in theory, it would be adequate to say I think we should use an improvement factor of 0.8 instead of 0.9 on the site.

But I don't think that I have the authority as city engineer to go above what the Water Control Board has already approved us to do in the city.

And maybe me and legal have talked about, we can sort of make a little bullet that says, any special exceptions we can come up with, you know, but currently as it is now, that's the issue.

Yeah, so what I'm gathering from what you're saying is the primary reason the staff is not recommending is the application is not complete because the engineering is not there to make a recommendation.

Yeah, I wouldn't argue with that statement too much.

In defense of the applicant, again, obviously from a business standpoint, if they got to design 90% plans before you guys give them the okay to do this, they're not ever going to do that.

So they are in a hard place and, you know, stormwater constantly changes.

In five years, I'd expect the same team to have a lot more sort of buzzwords and thought process of after working with us through this process and the next process that these things will get ironed out.

Stormwater always changes.

Not being a local, I'm a little hesitant to say this, but Virginia is a little bit behind the curve in regards to keeping up with storm management, erosion sample control, and sort of the minor standards.

So we're playing a little bit of catch up here.

I do, I'm not saying that the applicant has totally disregarded their obligations here.

They're doing what they can and trying to

Again, I understand what they're saying.

What they're saying in some of their texts is not demonstrated on the plan.

It's not impossible for that to happen.

But when you say, oh yeah, take their word for it, I'm just an engineer, I'm sure they'll make it happen.

Mr. Sol-Yates.

No, Ms.

Dowell, Ms.

Dowell, Ms.

Dowell.

Ms.

Sorry about that.

I think overall, I don't really have too many questions as far as I like the fact that we are getting more housing, but I do feel that we have some still some kinks to work out.

Thank you.

These were good questions and it's been helpful to understand where we're at.

Three big questions.

We've gotten a lot of public feedback about parking, surprise.

As I understand it, this proposal will be fully parked to city requirements, though we've got some differences in how on-street and off-street are managed.

And I don't have a clear idea of current on-street parking demand.

There is some on-street parking.

I would say the development, especially Longwood to the southeast, has not had a parking issue.

Those townhomes and duplexes have been fully parked.

The applicant is providing, again, parking for each unit and some on-street parking.

Staff does have concern that, again, all the multifamily parking would be in public right-of-way.

There would be no

on-site parking.

And like I said, concerns during the community engagement meeting parking did come up.

What is the concern with on-street versus off-street?

The main concern is that parking then becomes controlled by the city.

So that's going to be a public street.

So any change, so say you live in that unit and the city decides to remove the parking.

Thank you, that's helpful.

Hey, can I ask you a quick question?

Maybe it's that, because I'll forget.

The parking will be parking on these streets that the developer is going to build.

Yes, so the developer is responsible for building all the public infrastructure.

So they have to build the public roads, the public sewer, public water, and the park.

But we're making more, I mean, the developer is making more area available for parking.

So they're putting the parking in place.

The only concern that I think staff is bringing up is once that becomes a public street, that becomes public parking.

You know, that's no longer part of the quote unquote development.

I'm sorry, forgive me for interrupting.

These are good questions.

Thank you.

The dwelling unit per area and housing types, we've been digging through the comp plan 2013.

It is defined in the glossary page nine, though it's actually different from the land use map because nothing is the same in the 2013 comp plan.

There's a different DUA definition and there is some housing type definitions there, but it's very vague.

So that's what I see.

I do not.

I mean, I don't.

Page nine of the glossary in the comp plan.

So it's actually not in the text itself.

It's in a separate PDF on page nine.

And it's residential, comma, low density.

And there it says 12 DUA, not 15.

Well, what point are you missing the point?

I think that was my question about where it's okay to have up to 15 DUA, but they absolutely have to be single family detached and attached in the 2013 comp plan came from.

Yeah, as far as I can tell, that's the basis for the recommendation for denial, which is, you know, we've got what we've got.

The last question, state versus local, do we know that the state can't do their job?

Do they have a track record where they mess this up?

I don't know.

Is that a question for Chek?

I'm sorry, you're talking about the Virginia Storm Management Program?

Yes.

Okay, yeah, so

Charlottesville is an MS4, which means we have a municipal separate stormwater system, which means we are required, we do not have a choice, we are required to administer the VS&P program for the state.

So the state, you cannot ask the state to come in.

They'll say, no, you're MS-4.

You're not doing your local duty if you're not doing this.

So that's, and David Frazier may have spoken in front of this, the planning commission before.

He's the, the Roach Stone Control and VSMP administrator that works for me.

And that's what he focuses on is he deals with the state a lot.

And this is what your guidance is.

This is how we're interpreting it.

This is how we're executing it and those sorts of things.

Okay, so we're following the state's protocol.

Yes, correct.

Mr. LaHindra.

A question for Mr. Alfell.

Matt, after reviewing this application, does staff think that this design is an effective use of

So I don't think staff can give just a straight up yes or no to that.

There are elements of this design from an urban design standpoint that we do feel meet some of the criteria of the PUD.

The homes on Flint are an example that front on the road have rear loaded parking

So you have a better pedestrian experience than other portions of it.

So I don't, in the report that's pointed out that, you know, there's elements of this that are really good design.

And then there's elements that staff believes is not as good design.

I mean, of course that's up for, the applicant's gonna, you know, would argue with that.

He feels the whole thing is good design.

But as stated in the report, this,

type of design probably could be achieved through an R3 zoning as far as townhomes, multifamily are both allowed in an R3.

So I know that's not a clear up or down, but those are kind of the, there are elements that staff feels are good.

And then there's elements that staff feels do lack a little bit.

And the

Landlocked parcels were also a point of pause for staff, just because in typical townhome developments that say have a private street, that private street might be rear-loaded alley access, but they still have a front on a public street.

This, they would have no public street access as far as the lots themselves.

What about the integration of

So that that is an element that yes I mean you're getting a denser development that's setting aside more land but that comes down to a less DUA so yes there's that that element I believe staff would say is a good element and that's pointed out I think more in the critical slope waiver that you're preserving large swath a larger swath of

Swath of land than you would a buy-write development.

Taskively, you have trails to help integrate it.

There's the new trail from the end of Longwood, what's called Longwood Park.

that would connect to some of these wetlands that are at the bottom of the slope.

But there's not necessarily in the application from last year, there was some more open space to the northeast that some of these newer townhomes would be in that location.

So there's no programmed open space.

It's all passive open space.

I believe that's also pointed out in the report

You don't have any programmed open space.

That is right.

So the PUD development plan is proper.

So that attachment A,

That is the proper development plan.

Not only do you have the affordable housing proper language, the density language, but the plan itself is proper.

That's why it talks about in the staff report the general location, because you can have a little room to move, but your plan at the end of the day needs to look like that proper development plan with the amenities, with the off-street parking, with the nature trails.

No, just in that's, again, as a body, just to make a recommendation, the proffer development plan just calls out nature trails.

And so there's no, yes, we as staff would love to have more detail in these proffers.

And again, just as a reminder, proffers are things the applicant is proposing, putting forth, not things that are being requested by the city.

And so yes, to have a

A really good detailed proper statement is always helpful if we had trails that we built to X standard.

Matt, a couple of questions.

Well, one question for you and maybe a couple of questions for Jack.

On page two of your report,

You worry a little bit about the impact on accessory dwelling units on the account at the end.

Certainly.

So the application has a use matrix, which calls out internal and external accessory dwelling units, but it also has a cap on density.

So 60 units is their cap.

So if you had, in theory,

I'll address that one, thank you.

Possibly, but only if a resident who purchases a house wants one.

It's not going to be something that we contemplate having as part of the first construction of a house and we had not contemplated doing any of those as affordable units.

In theory, yes, it could affect your overall count.

In practice, I don't think it would, I don't think you're going to have, again, 30 units do in a townhome type development, do an accessory dwelling unit, especially internal in a townhome.

And also there's with the with the slope in that out.

And then the applicant can speak to this too, as far as his

History of building townhomes.

Question for Ms.

Robertson.

So in my opinion, the answer to that question is no.

And Mr. Dawson alluded to the reason why when he was addressing you.

Under the state's stormwater statutes and regulations, there is a process for determining when and to what extent

offsite measures can be used.

And it's not entirely prohibited, but as you go through the stormwater planning process, the applicant has to demonstrate that certain criteria are satisfied.

And if they satisfy those criteria, then offsite measures can be used.

Within our local ordinance,

We haven't altered those criteria by drafting something more restrictive and getting approval from the state to implement it as part of our local ordinance.

So what we have in our, what we have going on here is a critical slopes waiver that process that sometimes doesn't feel right if you don't

have the ability to require people to implement more than the bare minimum of erosion and sediment control or stormwater management measures, but a state statutory scheme in which while you're allowed to require more than the minimum, you have to do it within an ordinance that's approved by the state.

So it's sort of, as Jack noted, it's not a process that's working well together because you want to impose some requirements that'll protect the steep slopes, but you're choosing

Okay.

Question for Mr. Dawson.

So at what point, at what point would you know whether this works for you?

I mean, whether the, whether their water management, stormwater management plan works for you?

Yeah, so it would probably be, and they're not required to do preliminary plan, but um, so if they submitted a preliminary plan at that point we generate comments says, this looks okay conditioned on this, and then at the final plan we work through all those final details.

Again, I have one outstanding issue here, which is, I think they're item three or four about sheet flow, which is my primary concern.

About sheet flow.

So if you look at a report,

It's under engineering.

I referenced their numbers for listing their claims and it's number four.

So what they stated was the African states water will sheet flow from behind the townhouses immediately adjacent to steep flow barriers.

That's not feasible, and that's something that we usually argue about these things during a review.

That's not insurmountable, but with what we have now, it's hard for me to say this is how you fix that problem.

I'm not saying it's unfixable, but it's hard as an engineer to look at a preliminary plan and project how all these things get done in the future.

I'm not saying it's not doable.

It's just at this level of detail.

So that is the one thing that gives you the greatest heartburn.

Yes, correct.

At what point can you veto this or can we veto this?

I don't think so.

The issue with that is capturing sort of our projecting future standards or future metrics at this stage is just very difficult in engineering.

Looking at this plan,

So to mitigate my concern with the sheet flow, I'd sort of be appropriate with some kind of condition that says all impervious surfaces must drain to a structural conveyance and therefore be treated in a structural way instead of sheet flowing.

That sounds reasonable to me.

I've been in this profession a long time, and I've done it long enough to know that in 15 minutes I'm going to just realize what was real stupid about what I just uttered just then.

And that's my concern with doing this on the fly.

I'm not sure how I can tell you.

I think that this project could work, but it's not demonstrated here.

And I'm not sure how this process honestly works if there's some point where, you know,

I'm totally amenable to moving this project.

If it's possible, I'm personally totally amenable to moving this project forward and ironing out these problems.

Lyle's got it.

You're the man.

No, again, I think mostly, and I haven't read it in a couple hours here, but mostly it all makes me feel better.

It's just the things that are omitted from that letter.

All right, are there any other questions for the staff?

Thank you.

I've got a short presentation, and some of the questions that came up tonight will make it a little bit longer.

I'll try to keep it as brief as possible.

Hopefully, I won't go over the 10 minutes that you all recommend.

But since we're addressing both the rezoning and critical slope waiver, I might ask for a little leniency on that if we need it.

I'm Charlie Armstrong.

I'm with Southern Development and Belmont Station LLC.

And good evening to everybody here, commissioners and counselors.

Also here from our team are Dustin Green from Roudebush, Galen Associates, and Dan Rosenzweig from Habitat for Humanity of Greater Charlottesville.

This is not the first time you've seen this, obviously, and we've kind of been over that.

And we can go to slide two.

The recap of what you all looked at last year has been made pretty well by everybody else.

I'll just kind of close that recap with last year, Mr. Solla-Yates made a motion to approve it and Ms.

Dowell seconded and you all

unanimously recommended approval to council.

When it got to council, council had some concerns that were probably more political than planning, and those were that the affordable housing proffer was not enough units, and it was not a long enough term of guaranteed affordability.

Another counselor or two were worried that the proposed park that we're going to donate to the city could become a city liability for maintenance and not as much of an asset as we as the applicant thought it would be.

And another concern was that there was only one housing type proposed at that time.

It was townhouses last year.

So since you've seen this, we've gone back for the last year and tried to figure out how to resolve those concerns in a way that still made a viable project.

We've held additional community meetings and done a bunch of additional outreach.

On the next slide.

The first change that's different from last year is we increased the proffered affordable housing to a 15% minimum.

Last year we were at about 10% or five units.

So that's a pretty big change and we are proffering it at a 60% AMI cap there to reach lower income folks than is often proffered.

Those will have a 30 year deed restriction on them.

To make that work, we increase the total number of units to a maximum of 60.

You'll see that the plan doesn't show 60 units, it shows 53.

That's what we think we actually will get on the site.

We don't think more than that fits, but it does provide some additional density for any owners who want to add accessory units.

since that was talked about.

That's pretty rare in a townhouse unit, but it is possible.

And I think it would be a good problem to have if we've got more people wanting accessory units than we have density here.

But I seriously doubt that.

In my experience, we would never get close to that.

The additional homes there you see in blue, we added those were not on the last proposal.

Those are served by the private street.

I call it an alley here, but it functions more like an alley, but it is technically going to be a private street.

So it's a dedicated right of way access.

For the general user, they won't know the difference between that and the public street, but it will be maintained by the homeowners association.

So that serves as the vehicle access for 14 of those 37 townhomes.

Next slide.

We also changed what were two rows of townhomes to two condominium buildings.

These are small condominium buildings, eight units each, to provide more variety of housing type here.

Architecturally, the goal is for those to be indistinguishable from the architecture of the townhomes.

That's not really reflected in this watercolor because the architecture for those buildings has not been fully resolved yet.

But as we've done with working with Habitat, we've made sure that all the units, both affordable and market rate, are almost indistinguishable.

I'm proud every time I go through Burnett Commons, for example, where you just can't tell the difference between what's affordable and what's market rate.

Next slide.

And this highlights that we removed that park donation proffer, but we maintained essentially the same area as preserved open space that the Homeowners Association would own and maintain.

It would still be trails through it.

Our goal here was preservation.

There's some sensitive areas there.

There's steep slopes, there's wetlands, and there's the bank of Morse Creek.

We want that to be preserved and

Whether it's a city park or privately owned open space with trails through it, it doesn't really matter to us as long as that preservation is accomplished.

If we can go and leave this slide up, go into the critical slope waiver

concerns that staff has.

I regret that I had to send you an email today about this.

It seems a little bit like Groundhog Day, both with this proposal and with throwing things at you last minute.

And I think I hate that as much as you do.

Unfortunately, the first time we saw those comments was when the Planning Commission packet came out.

So it surprised us since last time when this was before you, there was a recommendation of approval from staff.

So we just weren't expecting anything different

and so I think we've worked together with engineering over the last couple of days and hours really to come up with some things that would resolve those concerns.

I sent you those in an email.

I can also paste them here to chat so that they're there for the record

and for you all to read if you like.

I'll go ahead and do that now.

The sheet flow concern is one I haven't addressed here.

I'm not an engineer, so some of this is a little bit above my level of expertise.

But I know that no matter what you do here, whether you approve this with or without conditions or whatever you do, it does not change the fact that we still have to meet all the erosion and stormwater codes that exist in the city and the state.

I think and I hope that this is the case that

Those regs don't allow any water to discharge over that slope in a way that would be erosive or would damage that slope.

That's not our intent, certainly, but since the backyards of those houses are below the road, it's hard to get that water back up to the road in a storm.

So

If roof drains need to somehow be routed around to the biofilter or some other solution come up with, that's technically difficult on a townhome.

But either way, we would not be producing erosive velocities or quantities of water going down a steep slope.

I don't think that would be allowed, and it's not something that we would engineer or design.

And to reiterate,

and VSMP plan approval process after this.

This is step one of a long approval process.

It does come back to the planning commission for site plan approval.

After all of that work and engineering is done, you have to look at it and decide whether the site plan you're seeing meets what you approve prior.

So hopefully that can give us a little certainty.

The other thing that came up is the trail.

For the nature trail, those are sensitive areas back there.

The trail would be intended to weave among existing trees and not clear any paths for trail.

So it would be a mulched trail or some natural surface like that.

Anything more intense than that would require grading and filling to create level spaces or going through wetlands.

and that's not what we're proposing.

So hopefully that gives you an answer to the nature of the question.

If you have further questions on the sheet flow issue, our engineer Dustin Green is here and you all can ask him directly in the Q&A after this.

He is the expert.

I'm not on that particular issue.

And now I want to turn it over to Dan Rosenzweig of Habitat for Humanity for a couple of minutes.

They are affordable housing partner here.

And I'm sure Dan or I or Engineer Dustin can answer any questions you have after that.

Thank you, Charlie.

And thank you, Chair Mitchell for giving me an opportunity to speak.

I'll keep it quick.

My name is Dan Rosenzweig.

I'm the President and CEO of Habitat for Humanity of Greater Charlottesville.

And we're really excited about this.

We got involved.

We watched from a little bit of a distance.

when this originally was proffered with only five units.

We also saw the same applicant, the developer across town at Murray Avenue have a proffer that would not frankly result in a lot of affordable housing.

And so we figured if we got involved, we could leverage the proffered conditions of affordable housing and actually double the amount of affordable housing on site.

So although the proffer is for eight

units.

We have a contract that's pending approval of rezoning that would have us build 16 habitat homes there.

We're excited for a lot of reasons.

This is a neighborhood that actually lays out very much like Delmont or Burnett Commons 3, where 18 habitat families own homes and they love it there.

It works really, really well and the layout is very similar.

We love it.

because we're excited about the opportunity to pioneer a new housing type.

So, in case you all haven't noticed, there's not a lot of flat ground in Charlottesville, and there's not a lot of developers who are just giving away land for affordable housing.

And so this, we're experimenting here with an up-down townhouse, basically front-back townhomes, and we've seen other site conditions like this across

the county and the city where we think we could do the same.

So a place like Old Trail, for example, which has extra allowances for density, but there aren't housing typologies that allow them to utilize that density.

We're experimenting with that here.

And this is after many years of conversations with our families, finding out what's really most important to them.

And what's most important to them is that they can walk out.

People don't want to buy a home by and large and live in an apartment.

They want to be able to walk out and have their own earth and sky.

So we actually think that this is pretty future forward design.

The actual design of the building isn't done because until the rezoning is passed, there's a limit to how much we can spend on architecture.

But we've done test fits and we know it'll work well.

We're excited too because we have been working really hard to push down the average AMI of our families by intentionally going out and trying to find families with poor credit, long-time issues of persistent poverty.

And so the average AMI of applicants to our program that will, assuming you pass it or you recommend approval and council passes this, is 32% of area median income.

They're all going to be homeowners.

The homes will be protected with actually 40 years worth of layered deed restrictions that preserves the city's interest in longer term affordability.

Families gain equity at the end of the 40 years, they will have realized every penny of the equity on that home.

So this is leveraging Southern's two projects to get significantly more affordable housing at a much higher quality for people of lower incomes where they can earn equity.

So we don't just enter into any project, we actually enter into projects that we think are going to be really great for the families who purchase.

All right, thank you.

Ms.

Green.

No, no, UVA.

No, I appreciate Dan's explanation and I have no questions.

Ms.

Green.

I couldn't, like Mr. Leandro, I'm having trouble with the dual screens.

So I have a couple of things.

First off, just a comment.

It is council's purview to be able to look at something in a political,

I do have some questions about the reading of this architectural review board that is part of the project and I worry about the add

for affordability as with the Architectural Review Board.

Specifically, what we find is folks after living there 5, 10, 15 years, if there's an Architectural Review Board, how does that work with folks that are in the low-income housing or more affordable homes if they don't have the monies for those repairs for an Architectural Review Board based off of aesthetics?

So I do worry about that.

I do.

Thank you for the question.

We actually have, for all exterior maintenance, either that's covered 100% in HOA dues and usually is in condos, or we at Habitat establish a maintenance escrow fund.

We basically take a smaller first.

It's essentially Habitat subsidy.

Okay and then I have a question for Charlie.

The park that is not a park anymore but

the preserved area.

Theoretically, yes, but the Rivanna Trail doesn't go through that area right now.

It would be able to connect to the adjacent Longwood Park, which goes over toward Jackson Via

And of course, the nature trail also connects up to the new Flint Drive that we propose to build.

Parks and Rec has a goal of extending the trail from the Jackson Viya area all the way along Moores Creek to connect to Azalea Park.

But, and I can't speak for their progress since I've last spoken to Chris, but

Thanks, yeah let's actually follow up right on that last question.

I'm trying to understand why previously that was going to become a city park and now it's not but it's preserved open space and how we as a city can guarantee that that

Malt Trail is maintained over time if we don't own it and whether it's accessible to the public.

You mentioned easements to the Rivanna Trail.

There certainly can be.

Our initial goal with donating as a park was so that the city could do whatever the city wanted with it.

I'll admit I was a little surprised that that was viewed as a potential liability by some of the decision makers last time.

We're open to either one.

So to be clear, you're not donating it because the city asked you not to.

That actually gets at kind of what my confusion was because I figured giving it to the city means you don't have that cost yourself.

No, I would say, I don't know if the city directly asked us not to give it to them.

That was reading the tea leaves and interpreting some comments from city councilors last year when we presented this to them, was that the concern that that really didn't have value to the city as a park and that there was concern that they didn't want to take that on.

Again, we're open to either.

If trail easement is what the city wants through there, great.

Let's do that.

If the city would like to own it, that works too.

We've done that in other places.

We developed a small PUD not too far from here and donated parkland that would have otherwise been PUD open space to expand Forest Hills Park there.

Yeah, I mean, to me, it seems strange that the Chick City wouldn't want that, especially because anyone who follows the Rivanna Trail Foundation a little bit has probably heard about the recent catastrophe, where a major segment of the trail, the whole Dunlora neighborhood,

decided to suddenly revoke public access to their trails.

And I would not want to see something here, especially because I have heard of, you know, notional plans to eventually connect that Longwood Park area onto Pitt Street, which I think would be a really useful trail.

So I hope that by the time this gets to Council,

You all can work that out.

I also had a question about the Architecture Review Board.

I believe that the application or the staff report said something about it's going to be architecturally a mix of traditional and modern architecture, which seems like all architecture.

And that's what the ARB, or the BAR in the city, of course, is the BAR, will be enforcing.

Why is that necessary?

Is that just to fulfill that PUD requirement?

And I mean, my biggest worry with the HOA BAR, sorry, I keep switching my acronyms there, is they historically, as we saw in a recent article in the press, block people from installing solar panels on their house, which seems pretty messed up to me, but it's something they do.

I'm glad to speak to that.

There is a section in the PUD ordinance that encourages architecturally compatible designs, and I can't remember the exact language.

Matt may know it better than I do.

So that was a goal to get at that.

Also, the intent here is we want to make sure that the market rate and the affordable houses do look compatible.

We want to make sure that there's a requirement and that we can govern that one type of unit doesn't look like the other.

That's never been a problem for us in our history working with Habitat.

We've hardly even talked about it, I think, as far as

What would be required?

Habitat standards are very high for what they build.

And to your solar panel point, I actually think that's illegal.

I'm no attorney, but there are certain federal laws that are in play there unless certain very stringent requirements are met by the architectural board.

We encourage them on every development we've ever done.

Drive through Burnett Commons, I keep mentioning it because I love that place, but drive through Burnett Commons and look at also solar panels on the roof.

Great.

And that's good to hear.

I will tell my coworker who lives in an HLA that is very mad about that at the moment.

Last thing, as I recall, one of the big objections from the council, the previous council, when they reviewed this, and one counselor in particular who seemed to be leading the charge, I believe made the motion to deny, was the, I think what they called the suburban character, where there were front-loaded garages, as I recall, was the big objection.

So do you feel that this proposal and maybe the modifications to the proposal since last year make it a more urban or suburban development relative to what it might otherwise be?

I definitely think it makes it more urban with the additional unit types and having small multifamily included in there.

Also that private street access is a more urban character, not having the traditional public road frontage is a little different.

It's something that works.

It's something that we know will be popular.

I think those homes will be among the first

I think it's a more urban design than we had last time.

I have some philosophical differences about this being a suburban layout with that former counselor, but that's neither here nor there.

Yes, but did raise a new one.

So I think Matt mentioned that now there are sidewalks on that rear alley, your private street.

But from the initial plan, it sounded to me that it was the concept was that it was to be something of a Wunder style street where cars kind of intermingle with pedestrians.

and I guess critically, where the street is designed such that cars won't go fast down it.

Obviously, they don't have very far to go, but are there any design elements of that street, for example, stamped concrete instead of asphalt, something like that, that would

The idea when we first proposed this change was that it would be kind of a mixed space where it's just impossible to go fast in a vehicle on there.

And it could double as a play space for kids, a place to ride bikes, obviously, skateboards, whatever.

And that the driveway and semi-private spaces adjacent to the houses would blend with that semi-public street.

Unfortunately, city code requires that any townhouses on a private street that is not negotiable, it can't be an alley.

That's what we were trying to do in the first place was an alley and we didn't know code well enough.

And the city code also requires private streets to have sidewalks.

and that's not negotiable either.

So we had to add those in a later iteration, which is what you're looking at now because of code.

Okay.

Cool, thanks.

Yeah, I really hope that we're able to pass on to the council something that they can work with.

I agree with Lisa that it's a better proposal now than it was last time.

I feel like with the staff recommendations, I'm hearing a lot of mixed messages.

So the only questions I would have for the developer is in your redesign, was all of the design features that you put in in response to the council's feedback to you or

Did you discover ordinances that required what you had to do?

That's a tough question.

I wouldn't say that the additional density that we're proposing, going from a max of 50 to a max of 60 units, I wouldn't say that was directly in response to Council's discussion, but it is what enabled the increase in affordability to be proffered.

So indirectly, yes, but that was kind of our solution, our way to make it happen.

The design of the private street that serves those additional units there is

It just is what it has to be.

It's not specifically in relation to any comments we've heard from council or planning commission.

It's just designed as required by code.

Ms.

I don't have any questions.

I do want to reiterate that our city definitely needs affordable housing.

So I do want to say that I am definitely still in support of this plan.

One of the concerns that we've already addressed, I just want to be transparent, is also the water quality issue.

Mr. Solliot,

Two questions.

First off, I was surprised to see a change in how the water management is in this proposal versus what we saw in the last year.

Can you help me understand why the change?

Was it a structural issue?

Yeah, some of it relates to an experience we had, again, with Burnett Commons Phase 3.

In being required to do everything 100% on site, there's a risk that we're exposed to.

I'll give you the example and hopefully this explains where we're coming from.

At Burnett Phase 3, we got to the very end of the

All the houses were built, all the roads were built, everybody was living there, and all we were doing was closing out the performance bonds with the city and getting roads accepted, making sure everything precisely met what the plan said it was to meet.

And in that process with engineering we discovered that quite literally a couple of the downspouts on some houses weren't discharging exactly where we had planned for the discharge in the stormwater plans from before the first house was ever built.

So that meant that the water, instead of turning right and going to the biofilter that was supposed to go to, that water from that downspout turned left and went somewhere else.

So the calculations got thrown off and we had to redo all the calculations for water quantity and quality for the subdivision.

And it wasn't a problem for water quantity, but it did mean that we had to buy a fraction of a pound of credits for brunette phase three.

Great.

Question about affordable housing.

More typically, we think about rentals.

We don't think a lot about affordable home ownership.

What are the meaningful differences?

Well, in Charlottesville, in every municipality, you need a whole range of housing alternatives.

It's not just apartments, and it's not just the typology, but it's the ownership type as well.

If there's no opportunity for people to move from rentals to home ownership, then you have stagnation and lack of dynamism in the system.

I'll give you an example.

Of the 50 some odd families, I think there are 54 families right now working their way through our program, but 36 of them are in public housing at the moment.

And so by having homeownership opportunities for people to move through public housing, it actually opens up space in public housing, which begins to solve that logjam as well.

The other piece too, which is why I'm at Habitat, has to do with the racial wealth gap in the country and in Charlottesville.

Just like in the country, African American wealth is one tenth that of white neighbors.

And that almost all has to do with homeownership.

The rate of homeownership, African American homeownership has dropped 25% in the last two decades in Charlottesville, while it's risen by about the same amount for non African Americans.

and so I'm a little concerned that we're under investing in home ownership and rehab.

As you said in your report earlier, because of redirecting money to the COVID crisis, probably rightfully so, there's no city money in the budget last year or this coming up year to support affordable home ownership.

Anything else?

Anything else?

So a couple of questions.

Yes.

Did I skip you?

You skipped me this time.

The density, the affordable housing, I'm

All that is good for me.

I have a concern that I wanted to express to Charlie and it's the core of why I hesitate about this plan.

One of the advantages allowed by a plan unit development is the fact that you can cluster buildings to allow then open space.

And the purpose is for that open space to be an amenity for those clustered buildings.

The connections between the buildings here

and the open space seems to be hanging on one tenuous nature trail.

And in my experience with constructing nature trails out of Camp Halliday trails, very mountainous area, kids use the trails.

It's not a matter of putting down some mulch.

I'm glad to know that you're wanting to preserve the features, but trails can quickly become nothing more than channels for directing water downhill if it's not constructed properly.

And right now, that's the only connection.

I'm sorry to see that the plan does not provide more

connections between the buildings, the housing, and the open space so that it can be used as an amenity, and it's a convenient amenity for the residents.

Instead of something that's down the hill and really even unseen,

Anyway, that's the concern I wanted to express, that I really wish this plan unit development took advantage of what's allowed by the regulations.

If I may, I have a couple questions related to that.

So I know this, the inside of the teardrop is a biofilter.

Is that also usable space for like neighboring kids to throw a ball or is it kind of not?

I mean, what is a biofilter?

It depends a little bit on the surface treatment.

We have built some biofilters that have a grass surface for water to go through and in dry times it's usable and wet times it's not.

Other ones that I think are more common are mulched and planted.

Biofilters do require some plants that kind of keep the soil media that's below grade to, it keeps it alive, keeps it doing its job.

So are there options there?

I'd like it to be as much usable space as we can.

It depends a little bit on how large the facility will need to be to treat stormwater and then also on the surface treatment.

And Mr. Alejandro, I see your point about the

a large open space and wanting it to be accessible and used.

What we ran into was any attempt to do that in a more programmed way really compromised environmental goals that we had way too much.

It's more of an environmental amenity to the community at large and this new neighborhood too but to the community at large than it is a

Programmed amenity for people to go and play soccer or whatever, because of all the wetlands, the Jason C. DeMorse Creek, and then the steep slopes.

The steep slopes are what prompted us not to provide multiple points of access from

the end of the teardrop, for example, because in order to do that, you have to build a staircase down those steep slopes.

I'm pretty sure Mr. Dawson would not have liked that proposal.

And I think it would have impacted more slopes than is necessary.

So it's only half a block to walk up to where we propose to connect the nature trail at Flint Drive, and then walk down the gentler slope adjacent to Longwood.

I don't disagree with your desire for that.

So once again, a couple of questions.

That's a little bit tougher because there's so many details within the ordinance, but the R3, my impression of the R3 is it's more oriented toward a multifamily only kind of use.

Not exclusively, it does allow townhouses and other housing types.

But it also has a lot of other restrictions that would not have allowed some of the creativity.

And this is a debate that Matt and I have had a couple of times in the past.

But it's different setback requirements.

R3 has much more stringent and significant setback requirements than can be arranged with a PUD.

That was the first thing that turned us toward

the PUD.

It's also up to 21 units per acre.

And so I feel pretty confident in thinking that staff would have said that does not meet the comp plan for the area because it's too high of a density.

And question for you and for Dan.

There is a little gnashing of teeth regarding the phasing.

And we've got two developers attempting to do this.

And you want to do this all in one phase.

Go ahead, Dan, if you want to.

Well, we're actually experimenting with something a little different here too because it's such a tight site and because our goal now that since we're moving into Southwood is to actually double our production in the next few years.

We are actually gonna contract with Southern Development and they're gonna donate all but overhead and do at least the shell of the buildings and hopefully we'll be able to come in with partner families and do sweat equity on the interior of the building.

but it's a tight sake to have a couple of different builders and we'd like to be utilizing volunteers and our staff to be building elsewhere at the same time that these are being built.

You really feel good that you can do this all in one piece?

Well, as I said, the vast majority of our units are going to be built by by Charlie's guys.

And we'll come in, we hope, with an opportunity once the unit, once the buildings are built, to bring volunteers in to and most importantly, partner families in to do some of the interior finishes

because sweat equity in your own home is a really kind of an important piece of our program.

I had a hiccup.

I didn't hear.

The trailer's going to do all the work, most of the work.

And some clarity is one phase does not mean that all the buildings get completed on the same day.

Good question, and I'm just asking clarity purposes.

Okay, and I love the Habitat program, but in moving forward, I think it would be very socially conscious of you to remember that people need affordable housing that aren't just in the Habitat program.

You know, that is one source.

So I still support your program and definitely love the Habitat program.

I completely agree with you that the one thing that I like about at least the word thinking is thinking of building wealth, and this is an opportunity to build wealth in a community that needs to begin building as well.

One quick question, and I'm confused a little bit.

The plans that I looked at online, well, that we were sent, did say that the middle of the teardrop is open space.

And maybe what I just heard the question answered about that

is that it may not be usable as open space.

Charlie, can you clarify that for me?

To clarify that it may not be 100% usable.

Agreed.

I think partially it will be occupied by some storm water facilities, including that biofilter.

I don't know exactly how much and I would like the surface of that biofilter to be sawed if we can make that work throughout the whole thing.

We want to have places that people can throw frisbee or just sit and picnic or that kind of place.

But so tell me what I missed when I read this.

When I looked at page or exhibit attachment B for the plan.

Let's see.

It specifically says open space.

That is not a terminology question.

We look at open space and we think open space.

A biofilter is not open space.

I mean, that's something that's an engineering term for water.

And I get that.

But I'm sorry, that is not a terminology.

When we look and we're looking at open space, it's clearly defined.

Lisa, I'm with you.

When I think open space, I think that's somewhere where kids and adults can go out.

They can play, especially during a time like this.

Just for clarification, open space does have a definition in a PUD.

So as used within this article, the term open space shall mean land designated on an approved development plan for a PUD as being reserved for the use, benefit and enjoyment of all residents of the PUD.

Such open space may consist of common areas owned and maintained by a developer or nonprofit corporation or

Yeah.

And I guess I have a question because open space is already, sorry, also defined in the general definitions in 34-1200 as land or water areas left in undisturbed natural condition and unoccupied by any building lots, buildings, structures, streets, driveways, alleys, improved parks and sidewalks and other improvements.

Is that overridden by the PUD requirement or PUD definition?

They're going to use the PUD definition for you.

I guess I'm just looking at it and I look at all of these and I get the definition where it said it can be but I'm looking at all of these exhibits.

Only one and the beautiful renderings and I'm not seeing anything but where somebody could go out and have a picnic or

Play with your kid.

And Tania said it best.

I mean, here we are in this time.

We just had our health department lady come and talk to us about how important it is for us to get outside.

And that's the healthiest place to be.

And I don't see where that is anything but usable.

open space, not drainage.

So I'll end there.

I'll save the rest for my comments, but I'm a little disappointed through these questions.

Right.

I got one last one, sorry.

Does the trail connect through to Camellia via the one lot that's on Camellia?

Because I see it's a half mile to get to Azalea Park via Moseley.

We did not have any plans to connect a trail up through that lot.

That lot, when you're driving along the road there, it looks just like every other house and yard in there.

And it's got a very steep backyard to get down to the lower open space.

Technically possible, I suppose, but it didn't seem like a natural connection point.

All right, Mr. Rice.

Anyone in the lobby that would like to speak?

Chair Mitchell, we do have two, actually now four attendees that would like to speak.

The first will be Jason Halbert.

Okay.

Thank you for the public comment session.

Hi, everyone.

I'm Jason Halbert.

I'm the co-president of the Fry Springs Neighborhood Association.

I'm speaking tonight on behalf of myself, not as co-president.

I support this proposal and concept.

I think you've highlighted some of its shortcomings, which are process-related mostly because the applicant is not going to develop full drawings and plans at this stage of the process.

I agree that's a shortcoming of our process.

I think you're spot on with the stormwater.

If you've ever seen a biofilter, you can have a picnic on.

You can take a look at some here in town.

They're not picnic areas.

I think the city should take the land.

I think that would be a mistake.

They took the land in Fry Springs here and made it a park and it's now a great trail.

The connectivity from this neighborhood to Azalea is perfect.

It's right in line with what the neighborhood is trying to do and what the Fifth Street VDOT corridor study is looking at as well.

The density is great.

I think the partnership with Habitat, it's awesome.

You guys should be applauding this and supporting it and pushing it through to city council.

I think that covered

everything.

Yeah, I think it's great.

I was really impressed that the average AMI will be 32%.

If Dan's numbers are correct, that's impressive.

I think you guys should approve this and push it forward to city council with noting the stormwater issues.

Thank you.

Thanks, Jason.

Good to see you.

Mr. Price,

Chair Mitchell, we have six attendees with their hands up.

Next to speak is Latita Talbert.

Good evening, Latita.

I'm sorry.

Keep me off.

Put them back on.

First, I'd like to thank everyone who's in support of this low-income partnership.

It's hard to

Get people to understand or feel embrace low income situations or persons of that situation if you've never been in that situation.

Being overhoused or paying high rent and barely making ends meet.

I think that this is something that you know you guys should approve.

COVID just pushed through.

the surface like a black head or a white head spilling over and showing us that it's a really, the need is greater than what we think it is.

You know, we have so many people that are struggling right now with rent situations that can't make ends meet $1,500 and $1,200 and you know, with the COVID virus, you know, it's really, really hard out here.

I was one who went through the Habitat program and I didn't struggle as much as my neighbor may have struggled because my rent wasn't as high as my neighbor's, I mean my mortgage wasn't as high as my neighbor's mortgage.

And so Habitat has a plan.

They're not just giving away

It's a process that you go through.

They teach you budgeting.

They teach you how to save your money, clean your credit up.

You got sweat equity.

You going out here and you working on your house.

You're putting something of yourself into something that you're going to own for the rest of your life.

It's creating integrity of people.

I just want you guys to just think about all of the people

that are low-income, that's running from slum landlords.

I want y'all to think about how people are paying $1,250 monthly and homeowners are not doing any work on the houses, how landlords are

Renton for $1,100 a month, and people having to deal with roaches and infestations and things like that, or homeowners that's intentionally renting to Section 8 voucher holders, and they know that there are things going on in the home.

This gives a new homeowner the opportunity to live worry-free.

It gives them an opportunity to be able to say, this is mine.

There's a need in the community.

And if we can't supply help for the community, then what are we doing?

So the gentleman said earlier that going forward, amendably, I think that sounds good.

I mean, even if you have to go forward with a memo of understanding or even both, I'm supporting it.

I think you guys should approve it.

It's a great opportunity.

It's going to build a great relationship.

You're servicing the community.

You can't do it all by yourself.

But just think, I think it says 16 houses that's going to be built.

That's 16 people of low income that we don't have to worry about that's going to become homeless.

Or 16 people that we don't have to worry about educating that's not going to go out here and buy a house without the education that Habitat provides for a homeowner.

And so I just hope you guys think about that as you move forward.

It'll be a huge burden lifted for the community that six people can say, I'm moving forward in home ownership and this is going to be mine.

And I mean, it leaves an influence on the community.

Very good.

Mr. Rice.

Sorry, I think I'm back.

I think I'm mostly going to be preaching to the choir here, but I think it's not a bad thing.

So a phrase that we heard a few times during this discussion and at every discussion like this is the character of the neighborhood.

And I was thinking about that and the character of my neighborhood.

I live north downtown.

And it's really beautiful here.

There's trees.

There's parks.

We're close to the library.

The character of the neighborhood is really nice.

And after living in an apartment here for a few years, I thought maybe we could sort of settle down here and buy a place in this neighborhood.

And I went on Zillow.

And I started looking at home values.

And I was like, never mind.

In my neighborhood, just to buy a vacant lot for a pretty modest family home would cost right now $400,000.

So it's great to have neighborhoods that are pleasant, but the question always is, pleasant for who?

And I make a good salary and I can't afford to live anywhere but an apartment here, which by the way, nothing wrong with that.

So I think we can

We should always prioritize a neighborhood whose character is judged by who gets to live there, not by what it looks like when you drive past in your car.

A few things have already been said, but I just want to emphasize about this development.

The affordable units are great.

I've come to a lot of these calls, and there's a small number of units that are affordable at four-fifths AMI, which that's a lot of money.

I don't know if I've been following this kind of thing for maybe a year now, and I don't think I've seen anything catering to people at below 60% AMI in the city, maybe hardly at all.

I think it's unique, and it's great.

We should do much more of this.

and then I think I read that the development is close to one or a couple of bus lines and again this is great people always complain about parking and traffic because no one likes not being able to park or being stuck in traffic and if we can house more of our community next to transit and close to in walking distance of downtown that's fewer people in cars who need parking who are clogging up the roads

I can't speak to the to the water issues but I think we can work those out.

I think we should we have to try and work them out and overall I think it's a great project and I hope you can approve this and get it to council in a place that they can vote for it.

Thank you very much.

Okay, up next we have Dan Murphy.

Dan, good evening.

Okay, thanks for letting me speak.

I think I'll be reiterating to some extent comments I had made earlier, but just to go on the record.

From this discussion, it seems to me that everyone understands we need density.

I want to commend the developer for putting forward what looks like a really good faith effort to meet the needs of the community.

My hope is that the city will see this good faith effort and put forward their own good faith effort to do everything that it can to push this project forward.

Hopefully we won't let the

Perfect be the enemy of the incredibly, incredibly good.

I also want to speak to, you know, I get the sense that we all understand we need more housing in Charlottesville.

That's going to make things affordable for everybody across the board.

But the situation is indeed incredibly dire.

In the following sense, we're in a low-interest-rate environment.

When interest rates are low, gentrification tends to accelerate.

If we want Charlottesville to be a place where low-income residents can continue to live, we need to do something about it.

And not only that, I think this project is unique because it focuses in many sense on homeownership.

There are a couple of conditions that tend to lead to acceleration of gentrification in a low interest rate environment.

One is when low-income households don't have access to credit, and another is when low-income households tend to not own, when they tend to rent rather than own.

What that means is that when interest rates fall, it's people that have access to credit and have the collateral, the wealth to be able to purchase a home.