Joint Planning Commission and City Council Work Session   7/5/2023

Well, I understand the issue, I don't understand the resolution.

We will get there.

Okay.

Which is a terrible answer, but that's my answer today.

Okay.

Your concern is coded in there.

. .

He went to go get something good.

That's a thing.

You saw me walking around.

And I met him recently around the corner. talk to you soon.

The city didn't have fireworks, but it sounded like there was plenty of them.

Yeah, we had fireworks out at the lake.

Thank you, everyone.

Thank you for everyone coming today.

I'm Missy Kruse.

I'm the Deputy Director of Neighborhood Development Services.

This meeting is work session style, so we're not going to have a verbal comment from the public at this meeting.

We do have cards and pens available in writing.

as well as emails that come in throughout this meeting will be part of the record.

But it's just an opportunity to allow these groups to have some dialogue at this point in time amongst themselves.

So I'm going to come around and pass out pens and cards as needed.

And that's all the logistics I have.

Good afternoon, everybody.

Glad to see everybody.

right fresh off a holiday.

And we had gone through a number of topics already in that map, the errors that we had identified in the zoning map, those places where a map change might be made that would be

Our objective for today is to look at those changes that we've had comments on that would not be consistent with the land use map in the comprehensive plan.

In our memo on this topic, we refer to this as requiring a comprehensive plan amendment.

I want to correct that a little bit and recognize that those changes that we might talk about today that represent an increase in the allowable density on a site relative to what's on the land use map, those would require us to go back and make an amendment to the comprehensive plan.

Those changes that would reduce the intensity of use relative to what is on the land use map

So if in this conversation there is a conversation around phasing or anything like that, that is something that we can do without going back and making amendments to the comprehensive plan.

I say that also because I just want to note right here at the beginning, one of our concerns is making changes to the comprehensive plan, making amendments to the comprehensive plan at this point as part of this process is also going to bring an element of complication into this process.

And I want to

What's a tab in this spreadsheet should we be focused on?

I think it's two.

Flum changes?

Yes, two flum changes.

We did the latter ones.

Mr. Cronzio has been kind enough to already submit a request.

Sure.

Are we going to put the map up on the big screen or what are we doing here?

We do have the map on the big screen.

We have the map on the big screen.

Okay.

So I started to talk about this one.

This is designated as item four.

It is actually kind of item one on the plumb changes map.

That would be hydraulic

So Cedar Hill,

This is not really a through street here.

You can only enter from this direction, because we've got a triangle here, and you cannot enter from there's a light there.

The issue here, of course, is that that is put in there to stop Cedar Hill Lode, which tits itself all the way down, and then

for all single family or two family residences.

They were occupied by a couple of small-time landlords.

And this is the Meadows here, which we've identified as a sensitive area.

So my argument is that if we're supposed to go to CXI, is that what we're supposed to do on this?

Yeah.

That we need to look at keeping this as some sort

organic for the housing do right now.

And zoning it up that way is a typical advantage.

Do you have a specific one in mind?

I would say that we look at changing this to RA or RB, depending.

I mean, more inclined to RM.

I think leaving the stuff inside hydraulic itself is fine.

But down Swanson and Cedar Hill, it's off those first blocks.

They're residential properties now.

Within the realm of possibility.

It seems reasonable that over the course of the next five to ten years, that will become a roundabout, just like the roundabout that's in front of Whole Foods.

that's planned to be there at Whole Foods.

So what that will do is it will let people come in and out of that part of the neighborhood from all directions.

Well,

To speak to that, also the current triangle there that's in front of the is actively preserving the residential character now because it makes it, I don't want to say undesirable for commercial, but it's awful for commercial enterprise to be there.

Hey, how do I get there?

Well, you can't turn left to that light.

You got to go down to the next one, turn and make a U-turn and come back and get into this commercial spot.

And that, I think, of course, is preserving some of that as residential housing there now because of the practicalities in the grounds of the highest and best use.

If we're going to have a change in the thoroughfare there, we've got essentially affordable housing that's organically occurring.

to get to developing it.

I think that what you're going to see is there will be more traffic coming down that road, not less.

This is commercial.

This is commercial.

This is commercial.

So we have two families just on that.

So these are four duplexes.

This is an office building.

Okay, what I'm saying is according to that hydrology, which is the office building, we obviously leave it, that's in the multifamily, that's there, but these two units are one of both stretches on both Swanson and Cedar Hill, and I think there's a one in the area, looks like a one in Cedar Hill, it might, I don't know, we're on the east side.

The east side.

So you had suggested RA.

Wait a minute, Rory is helping me.

Yeah.

Right.

Correct.

with the roundabout in the current configuration.

Okay.

They're not turning into a straight-up commercial.

Okay.

Okay.

I understand now.

Yeah, well, that would be what I'd add.

I mean, the stuff that's on hydraulic is commercial now.

Part of my concern is that I would hate to get to a situation where

We are so determined to maximize housing that we don't allow for commercial uses in places where commercial uses make sense.

Because one of the things that will happen if you take away that sort of what I'll call naturally occurring commercial use, it's right across the street from the shopping center, is that if you intend to have commercial uses permissible in our BNRC, you end up

giving people no other place to have a commercial use other than an RBNRC.

And I'm not sure that that's a good idea.

I agree.

I'm applying heightened scrutiny to this because

in affordable situations.

And I think we ought to leave hydraulic facing absolutely alone.

I don't see any point in doing that.

But once you get two steps back from hydraulic, you are in a quietly suburban type neighborhood.

And I don't see the use in putting 45678 lots of

that kind of hits the high to medium here.

And so on the left side, we have four duplexes, right?

And on the right side, we have an office fronting hydraulic, two duplexes and a house.

So those top two duplexes on the west side are going to be demolished, though these lots probably won't be completely unusable.

So VDOT will sell them off or give them the city or something.

Maybe we can build port loud.

So if we just kind of scooch that RA up two lots on the west side to cover these two duplexes that won't be demolished and three lots on the east side, we leave these two on the west side.

the one fronting hydraulic on the east side, which again, egress is going to be hard, but maybe if it were combined with this big office building, you could build something new there that's together.

And then, what about Swanson?

Swanson.

Oh, on the other side.

Yeah.

Yes, here.

So I guess it would be these buildings.

But on Swanson, we have a commercial use, a small apartment building behind that, then a fourplex and a single family use on the one side, and then multifamily house, duplex,

I think that's pretty reasonable and we're talking about like four blocks are pretty small.

Okay.

I think what's being proposed makes sense.

So change the lots that are further away that are currently residential.

Maybe the bottom two to make it even, but I don't know how necessary that is.

You know, we've got some commercial use in apartments, but there's a couple down there that are low density residential and you remove those, I guess.

That's your proposal, am I right?

That's my proposal.

Okay.

There's approximately, let's say, seven watts.

Okay.

And they would stay that way even with the roundabout, correct?

We don't need a motion on this.

Mr. Stolzenberg, you also emailed me a proposal.

Can you share that, please?

Yeah.

So mine is number...

102.

This actually doesn't require a future land use not change.

I had a typo there.

So go up to the map.

Right south.

Little north or pull it down.

I don't know, go to Southwest. Okay, so this is like, you know, the student housing area, locally known as rugby, not to be confused with all of our other rubbies. This is kind of that university medium density area that was developed in the 80s. And these are kind of your denser, older student housing areas. And then 14, we had, you know, pretty big upsetting there by 20 years ago. So this is the whole scenario we have with our students.

presidential in the current map.

And that is either RX3 or RX5.

And I propose it be RX5 in the kind of general philosophy of, you know, fitting as many students, existing students' areas as we can as they stop spreading out.

That would just leave a little bit more room to fit them in.

I think five is also fairly consistent with

There's some new development along Virginia Avenue.

There's four stories over there that, you know, is obviously higher than three.

There's a lot along 14th Street that's taller than that.

Of course, this is Grandmark, which is a, you know, pretty tall building.

Does it run a circle around every in the entirety of what you'd say along all of this?

What?

Effectively, this area.

Okay.

And I have sent an actual circle around that.

But basically where the students are now.

I kind of also want a different suggestion because a few tweaks for around here to take some owner-occupied houses out of the Rx3 and move them into the RV that everything else is.

And I think over here, maybe there were a few.

Yep.

Right.

Exactly.

We've kind of done that along JPA, but we kind of didn't do it so much in this one.

Okay.

So they'd be here, but they couldn't go like that.

Has anybody attempted to give any thought to, I know this is such a hypothetical question, I'm sure nobody has any actual numbers on it, but thinking about what this notion of fitting more students into a student area looks like.

For example, to take that particular vicinity, do we know how many students live there now?

Do we know if we were to double the number of students, how many more students we're putting in there?

I really believe that one of the things that Charlottesville needs to do, first of all, I think it is unlikely

personally that UVA is going to actually take all second-year students on the grounds.

That's just me trying to read tea leaves.

It's not any inside knowledge.

And if it happens, it's going to happen probably at least five years from now anyway, and maybe more like 10.

Who knows?

By that time, we'll have a different board of visitors.

We may have a different president.

We don't know.

So I think that that's probably, although I would love to see it happen for some reasons, I don't think it's something that we should be counting on.

And I would like to think, okay, if we assume that the university is going to continue to grow at its roughly 1% a year and

That's what they have tended to do.

I've been told by leadership over there that they actually do have a plan for growing at about three quarters of 1% a year, that that is their expectation.

That would work out to roughly a couple hundred students a year.

My own experience with the university has been that when they get around to

giving admissions decisions, their math is usually off.

And so 200 may turn into 250, may turn into 300 a year.

But in any event, if we assume we're going to get somewhere in the neighborhood of a couple hundred more students a year, and if we assume that we're doing this zoning plan for the next 20 years to have in mind, then we ought to be thinking about where 4,000 more students are going to go.

And they won't all go in the city.

and the university may house some of them, but if we figure that we're going to need to house another 2,000 students, in any case, half of the expected burden during that time, where would they go?

Who is anyone?

Just to say, okay, we've got X number of students there.

That helps define the magnitude of the problem.

or to say we've got so many students in the JPA area and are we talking about doubling the number of students there?

What are we thinking about?

I just have a problem in terms of new construction around Virginia Avenue, the four-story building outdoor staircase, to my eye, buried that trees in front.

What is the density?

How many students are actually there by number?

Yeah.

You know, it is, Lyle's pointed out, they do a parking lot on 14th Avenue, where we've got, I know they happened a while ago, but is it, yeah, 15th Street.

You know, since I've lived in this town, a bunch of small houses have been torn down in this area, and they've all kind of popped up as larger apartments.

I think experientially, there's imaginable, there's obviously more of that.

This area

because you have an elementary school, you have a library, you have nearby Perks.

It's set up as a neighborhood, but it is almost completely owned by students.

It's not going to be a bunch of civil houses in some world.

But for me, I think, you know, south of Grady makes sense.

East of Campbell makes sense.

I'm a little

I think the idea is a great one to make sense.

cautious about it for a couple of reasons.

And when I get my turn of the draft, I'm going to ask about this.

And it's less about density per se than it is about the road network and just how many

We're assuming a lot of things about vehicles.

We're assuming a lot of things about the road network.

So where rugby comes into Preston, just north of there, essentially in an area that has been, for better or worse, residential for many, many years, that's going to become essentially like a hub as we're looking at it.

I have some real questions about whether that's really feasible, what that would look like.

In terms of the suggestion here, would you say, Rory, that kind of the average building there now is sort of an RX3 in terms of, I mean, I'm not very good yet at like translating

Yeah, I mean, like Carl said, there are a lot of kind of older single family house type buildings there that have been split up into like an eight bedroom house, which is technically illegal to have more than more in a bedroom or in a house.

But anyway, yeah, there are a decent number of taller buildings there.

I also probably should have mentioned

This whole area is zoned either UMD or UHT now since the 2003 zoning, and that is zoned for 55 stories.

So really what we're proposing in this map is a down zoning of that whole area from what we allow there now.

And then when we translated it to the map, we went with the lower one for whatever reason.

And that's why it's kind of coming out now.

And these zones are a little bit broken in that they have all these weird requirements that come along with them that make it really hard to do, especially in a small lot, because there's a certain amount of open space and amenity space.

The current ones.

Yeah.

But the intent in 2003 was to

kind of fit more students into those areas.

And down on the lower part of 14th, you definitely see a fair amount of development under that, you know, under that zone.

So first point, there are a little over 2,000 students in this area and roughly 2,000 in JPA area.

And I think what we want to do is to provide the capacity to have a decent amount more.

And really, we should be outpacing the university's growth in this, right?

Because they're already sprawled out in Johnson Village and Fayetteville on the page, and we want to pull them in, which means we need to get that student housing built faster there.

And so if you have more spare capacity, more lots have that kind of opportunity and viability to redevelop and

If UVA ends up shrinking its enrollment, you still have all that student housing there.

That just shrinks all that student putturn a little faster than you were going to do.

I think we also have to keep in mind what I understand.

I wasn't part of the decision making at the time, but what the later population data suggests is that when in 2013, 2014, we built those apartment complexes or we allowed folks to build the apartment complexes on West Main, that that freed up a lot of housing in the immediate neighborhood, Tenth and Page, Fifeville.

and suddenly the way we know this is because the school enrollment, the public school enrollment jumped by 250 or 300 in like one year, which caused everybody to then extrapolate that that was going to continue ad infinitum when in fact it was just a one-time flip.

But the point being that we know that it happens that when you build more apartments that students are likely to want to live in,

they are likely to choose to live in those.

And to just add to that, we often talk about pulling kids out of the historically non-student neighborhoods, but I think it also applies to pulling students out of these single family houses in their student areas.

So like, you know,

We build this apartment building on JPA, and certainly the construction is going to be disruptive, but then suddenly, you know, there are a whole lot more apartments there, which means, you know, students aren't necessarily filling, you know, every single house along Washington Ave next to 5 JPAs, currently students.

You know, one of those landlords, a guy who lives in Erie, Pennsylvania, and was suing the city, now has listed his duplex on the market because probably the prospects for future rent are not as strong as they were now that we have all the competition across the street.

which opens it up to potentially be bought by a non-student homeowner.

So, Mr. Palmer, you've been unreasonably kind and patient.

I mean, I think in that area, it's reasonable to go up to the RX-5 for the reasons you stated.

Generally, what we've found in surveying students is for undergraduates, especially, they just want to be as close as they can to UVA.

No shock there.

I will say this area and JPA are both well served by our UTS transit and very walkable.

You know, you could exist there without a car, though we know from walking or driving through there that there are a lot of students with cars there.

So I think you build more.

And if there's no parking minimums, we're going to have to manage that with maybe more.

Like some of the roads have like parking decals from the city.

Some don't.

But I think that makes sense.

I do agree.

The single family homes that are in this direction would still be protected.

Yeah, like, yes, going more towards

because, you know, you've got some single-family homes in there.

Some of them are owner-occupied, but I know some of them are single-family, but they're rented.

Do you mean like east of 14th Street, like closer to downtown?

Yeah, that's all cut out.

Okay.

So this is, yeah, this is Venable Elementary.

Okay.

Okay.

So now going, going, come, come going towards Preston.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Do any of them... Oh, gotcha.

Okay.

Oh, the draft thing.

I think we talked about just about everything I wanted to talk about in the first meeting.

The big deal for me was Wright's scrapyard, and I think we landed the plane on that, that we would move from residential to urban center, residential center to urban center so that we could accommodate...

A light industrial commercial in housing.

This is Wright, right across from Beaver Hunt, the scrapyard.

And the current thinking is to make it a commercial, I mean, a residential center.

And my argument was that we need more area in the city for light industrial.

We need another, that's a great ideal place for more commercial.

And we can also do some mixed use and build some residential in there.

So my argument was to make that more like the downtown mall, which is designated urban center.

Currently,

No, it's not currently.

I'm not sure what it's currently designated.

I mean, the current plan is to make it residential-centered.

So what was the land use model?

Let's say NX5.

These NX5 are visible.

Sorry.

They're both in the same category, but I'll start with number 99.

Look at 99 and 26, and they're the church properties.

Right now, it's what is the return?

S1 and B1.

And I think the South First Street development across the street is RX3.

to me makes sense to make it RX3.

It's right on Elliott.

Mount Zion.

And repeat that again.

Say that one more time, what you just said.

The lot of their lots.

The parking lot.

The parking lot.

Is to increase it from RA to RX3 to match the other side of the street in case they wanted to have a project in the future or whatever they want to do with that lot, they have the opportunity to do so.

Like the proposals that have come before us recently.

What I'm going to note is this is one that would, unlike the last one we were just talking about, this one would require us to come back, as I understand, come back and make an amendment to the comprehensive plan.

I just...

I generally want to put on the table that I do have a little bit of concern about what complications that brings into our process as we move forward.

I think we should just keep a list of all those things that we're going to do that.

I'm just saying, there's advertising that comes with that.

So it's very easy to, I'll say it again, we can take what's on the map and go down from there in intensity, right?

Because

that's still consistent.

But if we go the other way and we make it more intense than what the comprehensive plan shows, then we're on stronger footing if we then go in and make an amendment to the comprehensive plan as well.

And acknowledging, Rory, it's not impossible.

I'm just saying it is introducing another layer of complexity because we've

But if you did what Mr. Mitchell suggested, we wouldn't have to go through all of that.

Yeah, let's make a list of all the things that are going to be upgraded.

I mean, I'm downgraded and get through this and then, you know, then make a recommendation for the downgrades.

Let's do one purpose.

Okay.

Let him keep going.

Keep moving.

It's the first Baptist church on Park Street.

Right now, they have a huge property with a giant parking lot.

I feel like it makes sense to up that a little bit as well for if they want to use something in the future, kind of like what we've seen.

And the other church that was listed here was the Transformation Greek Orthodox Church, which is at

So at Mount Zion, you're wanting to increase that density as well?

And this thing at First Baptist?

First Baptist on Park Street.

and it goes on that list that Mr. Mitchell was talking about.

All three of your churches go on his list.

We got it.

Thank you.

There you go.

I'll go quickly with the City Yard.

Sorry.

I can't.

I don't know why.

I'm sorry, I'm obviously not super prepared.

I agree, sensible, but not sensitive.

No, I don't have anything to raise.

I think that campus sounds make sense.

I did have one question, like, if, say, the university were to acquire a property in the city that's got to

already have a zoning.

I think it's kind of a moot point.

I will say one of the things that we're talking about is an annual cleanup action.

That's a plan.

Question.

Hypothetical question.

I will skip my turn for now.

Yeah, I'm not sure which tab this is on.

So if I'm in the wrong spot, tell me I can talk later or some other time.

And maybe this has been discussed at length in other places, but I'd be interested now in having a quick conversation.

So the Meadowbrook 250 Walker CHS, I'm

around the high school.

I'm talking number 18.

I guess, yeah, I'm sorry.

Over to the left, please.

This area, or like this is Walker.

The RC area is what number 18 is talking about.

Well, there's also another item that I need to search it.

Dairy and gentry and all that.

I thought what they were referring to is right there at the intersection, the north part of Walker, where you have all of that going on and then the bridge going across.

I guess, I mean, have the conversations happened at an earlier stage

state or stage.

I mean, how do people feel that that intersection is going to work with specifically in terms of traffic and just the practicalities of students getting through there?

Even if the zoning map logic is correct in terms of where you've got RB and RC,

practically speaking, do we think that that makes sense?

I would think generally, you know, RC listening to eight units, right?

So

An eight-unit development isn't going to have much appreciable impact on this road that has assumed the range of mid-thousands of cars per day.

It's going to have an impact on that intersection for sure.

I mean, I don't have IT tables memorized, but what, maybe a couple trips an hour at peak?

Does that seem right?

Where?

Coming out of an eight-unit development?

You know, I'd also add, it's kind of a little bit tangential, but like this here is, you know, one of those really good bike facilities I've mentioned.

Gets you, except for short-standing down the sidewalk, which are technically not allowed to do with hydraulic, all the way to Seminole Square.

And then over here, you come through CHS, you're going through McIntyre Park and down the Greenway, pretty much all the way to downtown.

It's one of those very few areas where you can be on a totally low-stress bike

is jobs in stores through almost the entire stretch.

In reference to the ITE, that's how each project has come in.

challenges.

Zoning is just one piece of everything that has to be accomplished in order for development things they have.

That's where we would... I hear you.

But if you're the average person who's trying to get in and out of CHS through that, or Walker for that matter,

to tell someone that the number of units isn't going to impact that.

I guess theoretically, I can make sense of what you're saying.

And I also can appreciate that when you get down to the site plan development, that's when the brass tacks discussions happen.

And so maybe this is all just theoretical.

But a person that comes through that intersection every day

Can I add that that also speaks to our larger efforts in transportation planning generally.

Because we're building a body of regulation.

This isn't a building plan.

It's insane.

So, you know, as, and probably it's overdue right now in terms of what's happening out there.

What are we doing to actually shift the modes of transportation towards how people get to school, elementary school or in particularly the high school?

So, I mean, thinking about the other side of that equation and saying, do we have to live with a condition where there's bad traffic around the high school to start at school day every day?

Yeah, I certainly think we should be looking to address it.

And I also understand that this is creating a sort of envelope for the future.

It's not prescriptive.

But if our envelope is basically saying that, hey, we could have three units here of the size that have been mentioned right around this node, which is

Again, if people come here and cross 250, it's people getting into CHS, folks getting into Walker, and have similar concerns, I know I'm using too much of my time, similar concerns at the Rugby, the Rugby Road, Rugby Ave, all of that.

I mean, that is an incredibly narrow street.

So I guess, you know, I know that you've already been doing this, James, in terms of like laying out our infrastructure plan and

But somehow we're going to have to, and this goes to parking as well, really along with this effort, we need to make sure we've begun talking about what a parking system looks like, what our concrete plans are for these kinds of things, because it's upsetting to people, and I understand why they would be upset driving through there every day.

It's like, really, you're going to add more to the space?

I just looked at the numbers.

So by the traffic engineer trip generation tables, which are, I won't comment on that, but it's for 24 units, it would be at the PM peak hour, about 13 trips for that whole hour.

So about one every four minutes or so, four or five minutes.

And about two thirds of those would be entering the site, which is usually not so bad for traffic.

And that, I guess I'd say, you know, he's pretty big lots, like 130, 150 feet wide.

So you think you'd put the, I mean, this would be a site plan thing, but you put the entrance and exit far from the intersection.

So it's, you know, mid block and not as disruptive to the intersection.

Any additional decision on the side?

You dropped an item.

Thank you very much.

You're welcome.

Well, to sort of follow on the last discussion, I've been concerned about, and it turns out about five different numbers in the spreadsheet, number 18, 46, 64, 71, and 141, all bear on, to some degree, this

intersection or the area between Grove and Kenwood Lane on Meadowbrook Heights Road.

And the particular thing that strikes me about it is that we're proposing, this proposes RB up to Kenwood and one lot beyond Kenwood, the other side of Kenwood, going through the pinch point that is, to me,

One of the primary reasons why I really don't want to increase density right there unless we're going to solve the traffic problem.

And that gets back to the question that I've been asking for a year now, which is what responsibility do we have if we create a greater degree of intensity of use there?

What responsibility do we have to fix the traffic problem ourselves?

We can't require the developer to fix it.

We can't require the neighbors to fix the problem.

The only way we're really going to be able to solve that problem there, I suspect, is to buy up at least one of those houses and straighten the road and run it through what is now somebody's driveway and

and so on.

And so we get back to the fact that I'm not averse to increased density along there.

And certainly there is possible an awful lot of that area to widen the road.

In some cases, you know, there's only sidewalk on one side, if that, not at all through the pinch point.

So we would be making some improvements, but they would be improvements at city expense, which could be rather expensive.

I mean, we're talking, you know, it could be a million dollar sidewalk through that one block because we'd have to buy up at least one, probably $600,000 house in order to make it happen.

So that gets back to this question of, you know, what obligation do we have now?

to sort of go on record as saying, we want more density there and we are willing to pay the price.

Related to that is my overall issue, which I think would be a good issue for that block of Meadowbrook Heights Road,

I don't think that we really want to have an entire block of even RB apartments along there.

But I do think there ought to be some way to have some RB apartments in there.

It doesn't offend me to have some.

I think the neighbors are absolutely right when they say, number one, it just changes the character of the neighborhood, but number two, it changes

It changes the street.

It changes the traffic and the sidewalks and all of those other issues.

And when the folks who are saying, oh, go slow, go slow, go slow, you haven't figured out the infrastructure implications for a lot of this.

And I think that that criticism is true for certain pieces, for certain areas where we can look at them and say, you know, there is going to be an infrastructure problem there.

I don't, I don't, I'm not concerned citywide.

I think citywide, the city infrastructure is probably in pretty good shape to handle most of what we're going to throw at it.

But there are going to be some problems that I don't know.

So I think leaving aside the general

I'm not, as you know, I'm not generally somebody who moves on traffic first, but in that spot, Kenwood and that is literally a pinch point.

I mean, it is a, it is like it's, you know, it is a very tiny intersection in every sense.

And I think

I don't know what example is going to take the four lots around the corner and take them out of your RV just so that if nothing else, you're not having RV traffic up at that, but it's pointing down towards the broadcast.

Also, that's a spot where the defining characteristic is the narrow street, the too narrow street.

Well, particularly the intersection of Kenwood and Meadowbrook Heights Road, where the pinch point going north from there takes it between two driveways, one on either side, and there's a telephone pole right smack in the middle there.

And...

Not since I've been traveling that route.

Take those four out.

So at least whether you're moving the higher vents of traffic is not going to be originating from these four and you're going to be driving them.

Say that again.

Yeah.

Then the RV traffic doesn't really interact with this.

I think the site specific to that better.

So, I mean, I think the two on the top is after Kenwood gets narrow, and that makes sense.

The two on the bottom seems to be where it's still not super narrow, and they're pretty wide, so you get an entrance pretty far from the intersection, so I don't quite see how big a problem it is.

You don't get the full impact.

The Portland student housing or the affordable housing project DBA is doing.

I'm aware of that.

I am so confused as to what spreadsheet, what sheet.

Okay.

Bear with him, be nice.

It's the back part of that parcel, yeah.

So what's the maroon zoning on this?

Because you have two different... Also, zoning, whatever project happens there, the future will have to meet either...

So it's kind of like the church situation.

Although I guess it's a little more immediate.

Yeah.

I mean, I guess what I'm saying, I would add an eye if you changed it, if it was changed, you know, from the university's perspective.

Yeah, there's, that's one where we've looked at it where the project line and the lot lines do not match.

Because what's going to happen is that big CEM line is going to get cut and not in half, but the back part won't be.

Isn't it?

And that kind of is adding like extra complexity difficulty for whoever they award your E2 to do it, right?

Whereas if we just made it all CX5, I mean, for the Stacey Hall part of it, you guys don't have to adhere to the zoning anyway.

You can do whatever you want.

And that solves the problem for whatever.

Yeah, that's the part that's going to matter.

If they want, that way, if we change our CS5 now, then they can get the part that they keep rezoned to campus later, I guess is what I'm saying.

In that annual cleanup.

I mean, I feel like it doesn't, yeah, that obviously wouldn't be a problem.

The nice thing about this is it's like recognizable that that's UVA.

Yeah.

Yes, I'm a little confused as to why we're extending.

built out everywhere.

Well, they're kind of large, downward-sloping backyards, especially on the east side, that have been seeing a lot of additions lately.

And I'll say, you know, I originally thought, I kind of agree with you on this, back when we were talking about plum, but lately I've been, you know, traveling by scooter on those two streets quite a bit.

And locust is kind of awful to bike for you to walk on.

Whereas Lexington is an adequately wide street with decently low enough traffic and a complete sidewalk network set for right around the little bend on the inside.

I think if I were someone who wanted to live in an apartment up there and commute to downtown, it's actually quite a bit easier to do that via non-vehicle means, non-car means.

I think you could remove it kind of around the top of the bend.

You know, that's a concern, like visibility or as you make the turn.

I would propose.

Can everyone on Park Street?

It sounds like.

The practicalities, what happens if that gets changed?

I'm not sure.

That's one thing.

And is Lexington appropriate is another thing.

I feel like it is odd that Lexington goes up.

I mean, what is the zoning map logic for that?

Has it?

The Lens at one point had it, Lexington connecting from the park, all the way through to park.

And it was, it was walked back for a similar reason, actually, as we were just talking about on Kenwood, because there's a distinct pinch point in the roadway.

And so it was, it was walked back.

At one point, there was a conversation about reconnecting at Lyons, but the Lyons, I think, or

something up that way.

But in any event, it was just walked back to that point.

And I apologize.

Right now, I cannot remember.

Well, I'll just say that going back to the discussion from a couple of years ago, which still has some resonance, if you go from Evergreen and then you turn left and then you go up and around the curve, then you come down on Lexington, it's up around the curve where you get more of the problem

with trying to figure out why it would be a benefit to have more apartments all the way back there.

I kind of get the idea that maybe from the curve south on Lexington would be, for many of the reasons that Rory mentioned, a very good spot for some degree of additional density.

around the curve, the main thing that strikes me is how narrow that road is.

So one thing on Locust is that the sidewalk does kind of cut off on the west side, about halfway up.

That might have been part of why.

So

I don't know, you guys probably can't see this right now, but I do think it might make some sense to on Lexington at the curve.

Oh, I messed up.

So I think there might be value in developing the inside part of the curve, because that's the part of missing sidewalks, and you

you're then you're developing it.

And there might be an opportunity for an alley sort of in there.

It almost connects now that would let people kind of traverse it without going through the curve.

But then the outside of the curve is where I can see there'll be problems with traffic trying to enter while people are kind of speeding up around, which I assume they do.

And so I think there might be some value in removing

D and lots around the outside, which I can send out to you guys.

These are my module two notes I never sent.

I mean, I do feel like the road is wider than you think and has a decent sidewalk network.

It's a pretty decent road.

This just doesn't seem to go anywhere.

Sure.

Here's a kind of minor one, but really important.

Hedrick, can you zoom all the way out?

Oh, here we go.

Okay, so we are getting rid of a few of these, obviously, but we have a few that we already

They centered on everything. We've got Huntley Hall over there. I don't know, 10 something units. I think historic houses, just to let you know, all PUDs will be able to continue to build under their vested rights. Those are vested rights. They build under their PUD rules as they exist today.

You know, I think it also makes sense to maintain a zoning that is relatively in accord with what they would be.

The other, I mean, the big one, there's like Amherst Commons common area, it should probably be green over there, that doesn't really matter.

You guys probably remember a few months ago, Lachlan Hill came to us and said, hey, can we build a bunch of single family houses here where we said in the PUD that we would be building

they have to be apartments and now we are turning it into RA basically saying actually we do want you to build single family houses which is the opposite of what we said kind of undermines the mix of uses part of a PUD it gives them an out to just

interview.

Currently, that is marked as NX5 stories.

There was a request to make it NX8.

Well, I am told that there will be a further discussion of this next time, but to sort of tee it up a little bit, one of my concerns about the RA and RB designations and RC in particular is

is the commercial uses that are permitted.

And one of our strategies seems to have been to go from to have more RB and RC uses near schools.

I was struck recently by I just started driving around at the proliferation of vape shops and smoke shops and CBD dispensaries and so on.

And I'm wondering why it is that we would want to enable those sorts of uses in our neighborhoods and particularly near our schools.

And my broad thought is that I don't think we should allow a commercial use in an R.A.

lot, and that maybe we want to scale back the commercial uses permissible in RB and RC, which would allow buy right with use restrictions over 4,000 square feet of retail space.

I just don't understand, and maybe I don't understand the way it is being conceived of

these commercial uses as being consistent with a residential scheme, but it is particularly in areas adjacent to schools, which are particularly the areas where we have wanted to increase the amount of housing and more affordable, more nearly affordable housing.

I just...

Well, so first off, the over 4,000 feet, we were told was a typo.

That shouldn't be in there.

It should be only unbearable 4,000 feet.

So why is that line even on

I got you.

All right.

Well, that's at least somewhat reassuring.

You know, with all the discussion about vape shops lately, and there's been a lot, it seems to be the bogeyman for commercial uses, where everyone wants to think of nice cafes and corner stores.

I almost wonder if we should break vape shops or tobacco-oriented retail into a separate category and ban those?

It can mean anything from dimensional, further dimensional restrictions, right?

Like the under 4,000 square feet, but it can also mean excluding these particular set of uses.

Yeah, and some of them are problematic.

For example, in R.A., we have discussions about two things, and as far as I know, there are only two businesses, which are

and I guess I would make the argument some other sessions, this isn't one, I'm supposed to talk about in depth here, but eliminating both these provisions about the number of their detailing, garden dealing, and beauty shops and numbers of cars that can be there, numbers of shops, a number of chairs in the shops and things like that in R.A., R.B.

and

that is a situation with any commercial use where maybe the standard applies a little more amorphous, which is the activity that's happening at that site reasonable for a residential area or that residential area.

So on the one hand, well, how busy is that?

Well, if it's a proverbial little old lady who just goes to church and store a couple of times a week, there's hardly any sort of movement around there.

If it's a married couple with four children, three of them are in high school and they've got a bunch of activities and wide friend groups, well, and four of them drive, well, that's a hell of a lot of activity, but still reasonable.

So I think it's sort of using those new standards.

There are presently regulations that govern sort of home businesses like that.

I don't remember the details of them, but are we in effect superseding those regulations?

We're expanding on top of that, I think.

The home-based businesses section is coming in pretty much wholesale from what we have today.

This is a different type of thing.

It was really focused a lot on this idea of the accessory commercial space and allowing a range of uses there.

Home-based businesses are...

I think it's a step above a home-based business.

It's allowed to have presence.

Home-based business is meant to be completely invisible in a sense.

I've been getting, I expect all of you all have, emails bombarding us with graphics that have only slightly deceptively shown what would happen if you put a 7-Eleven next to your house.

But it does raise a significant issue for a lot of folks who would say, I don't mind having one of those in a box.

I don't know that I want to have the entire block that way.

And that gets back to the question of whether there is some way to ration these kinds of uses

so that we don't I was thinking in particularly about the in particular about the area at the intersection of Rose Hill Drive and Rugby Avenue, where there is a cross that is suggested of RC and RB continues on.

And I was thinking about it, particularly, frankly, with the notion of over 4000 square feet being permitted in RC, but I'm told that's not the case.

And I'm sitting there thinking,

So residential neighborhood, we're still talking about the scale and form of the buildings.

And is that

And it can't be auto-oriented in that way, right?

I would say those graphics were pretty deceptive, right?

There were three examples.

One was the tobacco hut in the middle of Greenbrier.

One was the row of 7-Elevens with a bunch of parking in front.

And then the other was the Brady Avenue Mini Mart, which has coexisted right next to and in front of single-family homes for decades, right?

And that was the only one that even remotely complied with the module one form standards because they don't allow, you know, that kind of auto-oriented use with the big parking lot.

And so because of that, it becomes, it has to be something that serves the surrounding neighbors that primarily probably walk there or maybe, you know, stop an entry parking for a couple of minutes, like the one at Bowling and Avon.

I think of Avon Street as an example of how the sort of, I don't know, it's not really accurate to call it mixed use, but a variety of uses on a street can work very well.

And I've lived in places where it has worked very well.

I'm also aware that there were a number of proposals that were made

a year or two ago around the notion of mixed use nodes that people went ballistic over.

And the rationale for having this kind of area where there might be something of a concentration of RCs or something, it reminds me very much of the rationale for a mixed use node, which I thought we were getting away from.

And I'm just,

The overall rationale of a mixed-use node was it was supposed to be something that would serve, I think they usually say about a three-quarters of a mile radius of people who might walk or bike to there instead of getting in their car and going two miles to Kroger or something.

But I still don't see that we're going to have the topology in Charlottesville to make that work.

Did we cover that last time when we talked to our parents?

Well, I think we covered that one.

But it was on the attachment to...

There is one, I guess, I don't know if you guys covered it or not.

It was 107.

It was another project that was proposed.

It will be project 610 Harris Road.

It's currently R3 and it's going to RC is proposed and the number 107.

So that's

It is next to RA, but I think there's a project in the works that there were concerns about it meeting RC.

I mean, I think in the spirit of kind of the late 2021 era, like when citizens responsible planning was saying,

I think it does make sense to allow more there in terms of you put more on vacant land.

There's less in the not so vacant places, less disruption to existing neighborhoods.

I was worried that that was all floodplain, but apparently it's not.

So it's so it's shows up on the language math is medium intensity.

What's the proposal?

So these two big empty lots to Rx3 because they're currently R3.

That's the one from the developer that we got email from

saying she will be.

I don't know.

Let's see here.

If you go to kind of north downtown, this area, this is a plum change that I've talked about, but this whole area west of 1st Street is all R3 right now.

It's all pretty dense houses that have been largely split up, and it's all been down zoned to RA, which is general residential plum.

It just doesn't...

It makes sense to me, given that it's already been divided into, in many cases, more than triplexes.

It would need a blunt change, so I have to go on that list, but if you look at them.

What?

What's your proposal?

We did get one comment.

I don't know what number it is.

That guy is a little confused.

I was a little confused trying to find this person on the map.

But here's kind of this area.

All those different colors that aren't light yellow are apartments of various kinds.

So you can see it's kind of already been very much eclectic mix of stuff.

The Corp T. McIntyre, one of these parcels is split in the back and there's a little duplex down there.

It's currently R3 also, but given the size and the constraints in our seat, I think you actually probably could build more.

and then this kind of gets into this whole second street thing, which is that like a lot of these RER subdivided as well.

And kind of the pattern of between first and second is that most of the houses

like subdivided off over the years and developed.

So like this right here is currently a little block of R3 because it's all townhouses.

And, you know, these are empty lots.

There's actually in the sheet apparently, so I proposed this back in late 2021, but apparently some of these property owners are like, yeah, I have a big empty backyard and we're right next to downtown.

It's like one of the best places in the city to live near downtown.

You know, why are we going to not let them develop it like everyone has been for the last 100 years.

And so I think I had a list of places to make or see in there.

Tickles is the matching most of the matching water conditions on the ground.

Yeah.

I see time.

I'm also editing a motion at this time.

Please.

So the approach we take, we took was that you asked members to identify those areas on the map where they had concerns that they wanted to discuss at the table.

I'm focusing on the 13th so that

So the next meeting is going to focus on particular rules in the RA, the RB, and the RC.

So how those standards are written.

I've got a list of topics that I'm going to present to you guys and then including commercial uses and some of the things that we've touched on here.

So do we feel pretty good about all of the map stuff besides RA, B, and C?

Are there any lingering issues on those?

that I don't know that we've really talked about, but it's sort of been nagging at me, is that it seems like there are a number of instances, and the discussion about Fifth Street and Willoughby was one of them, the discussion about the SUP that is coming on, or this is here,

Ivy Road and is another, some discussion about Barracks Road is another, this notion that at least on the outskirts, we should feel free to build to the skies, that we should be more willing to build eight and 10 story buildings there.

Pardon me for my Lord of the Rings reference, but I keep thinking of the statues of the Argonaf when you come in and you're to be surrounded by these tall buildings on either side.

But is the theory simply that, well, let's put them there because we're only going to be inconveniencing city people on half of it, one side, and the other side is inconveniencing county people or making it ugly for county people.

I'm concerned that we don't

end up with such a foreboding entrance in some places.

So I think a lot of the motivation is kind of the opposite, is that we have these terrible entrances where they're not terrible in that they're tall towers, but they are like abysmal strip malls that in some cases are half vacant and falling down.

is a more urban form, you know, and I would say more welcoming and feeling like you're entering the city than a bunch of parking lots and, you know, off in the distance, a trip mall, you know, allowing things to happen there, encouraging things to happen there by incentivizing them with more potential, you know, means they're more likely to shift, just like the UVA's Ivy Harbor plan talks about turning that from

this suburban strip mall kind of feel into an urban, you know, entrance gateway.

I mean, I think aesthetically, we definitely need to be thinking that as the true entrance partners, the city and making things look good.

I mean, is 10 stories really a tower?

For Charlottesville it is.

I mean, it is, but it seems to me that these areas are also areas that have the best infrastructure or the most accommodating infrastructure.

They're all, you know, one of like Fitzgerald's

Shopping Center, some of the other areas that we've discussed, and they're also not bumping up against county as much as UVA or just nothing.

Okay, my point's the same.

We're only offending people on one side.

How is that offending Charlottesville people?

On 5th Street, you're back on 64.

Can I

The infrastructure aspect of it is a little bit questionable because the only, in some of these cases, the Fifth Street one is one, in fact, is the only real access you have is via driving.

I mean, we don't have good pedestrian.

and so in some respects, I've thought that the idea that while we're creating some of that density allowance to allow redevelopment, which is positive for these areas, breath of new life and all that, but we aren't necessarily going to the top of what we can possibly allow because we don't necessarily have the diversity of infrastructure that we have towards the core of the city.

We don't have the inherent walkability that we have towards the core of the city.

I think I would say that's a little bit self-defeating in that, like, I think if you allow on the higher end, you get a whole lot of people there.

It creates an impetus to say, hey, you better get your app together and get, you know, the seminal square to be connected to pedestrian stuff.

You put a few people there, you're like, yeah, well, you know, it's not enough to, like, make it worthwhile.

And now all of those people are, you know, isolated out in the boonies of a giant parking lot.

where, and, and, you know, kind of what we were aiming to do back before my time with like the hydraulic smaller plan is to make that, you know, a little hub of pedestrian walkability of its own.

And I certainly see Fish Street going the same way.

And, you know, you're probably not in the near term going to make Fish Street a like, you know, lovely place to fight, but, you know, you have an egress onto Harris that you can cut up, you know, kind of through Johnson Village and fight to get places.

And so, yeah, I think if you go halfway with it, that's where you run into trouble because you just end up with kind of your like suburban dense apartments like you find on Pantops and in other places in the county where they will always be car dependent and never be walkable because there just isn't enough there to make it work.

I would love a motion at this time.

Yes, Charlie.

I would like to recognize that July 5th is National Workaholics Day and that we should accordingly adjourn and celebrate it by taking the rest of the day off.

I do a second.

All in favor, aye, please.

Aye.

I do aye.

Aye.