Planning Commission Regular Meeting and Joint Public Hearing with City Council   11/14/2023

Thank you.

All righty, ladies and gentlemen, I believe we are ready to begin our deliberations for the evening.

And we will begin with reports from the dais.

Sure.

Yeah, I don't have like a whole lot to report.

There is a next BOV meeting.

It's not until December, so I think I already reported on the September one.

Just quick updates on a few projects that

are going on around grounds.

I could start with, I guess, the library.

The main library actually is nearing completion.

It got its temporary occupancy permit, which is a big milestone so they can start occupying the building and bringing stuff in, like books and things like that.

But that should be

It should open to some extent, but mostly fully by April timeframe, I would think.

Contemplative Commons, which is also over that way, is also nearing completion.

I don't know the exact date on that, but winter, spring 2024.

Brandon Avenue housing.

We're building a new residence.

I wouldn't call it a residence hall because it's apartment style living but there's like going to be 330 beds give or take in there plus dining.

Undergraduate, yeah.

Like not first year but like second, third, fourth year.

Yeah.

and then Data Science again is also nearing completion for 2024 so that should be open summer time frame.

What is the motif for that?

It's a little more modern looking than that.

They've got kind of a, I think it's a precast system that has a lot of glass and brick to it.

but yeah that it sits you know further back on the site so but yeah it's a more modern look definitely with some brick.

Karsh Institute for Democracy which is right near there that's less far along that's still in design and that's should be like 2026 before that one's done and then moving on sorry we got a lot going on as you probably

the football operations building which is over by JPJ kind of across Massey from there that is also going along great and should be done in the spring of 2024.

as well.

And then the Olympic Sports Building is also started over there, but that's going to be further out for completion.

Yeah, so those are the main ones.

I mean, there's more going on.

You know, one thing that's really exciting, it's a smaller project, but the western side of McCormick Road has recently gone through a

redesigned.

It used to be like a landing strip of pavement.

They've made it a two-lane road with really wide sidewalks to accommodate the heavy traffic on pedestrian traffic.

That's cool.

Class changes.

It looks really great.

Okay.

Thanks.

I had one meeting with the Tree Commission, met last Thursday on the 9th, and some of the things we discussed and looked at were first contractors, the

Contractors Watering the New Plantings effort was complete.

It helped us save a lot of the newly planted trees.

And the contractor was awarded a bid to install 186 trees within the city on public properties along various parks.

Historically, this contractor had a low 5% to 10% tree mortality rate, so it seems promising.

CATS, the Charlottesville area tree stewards, are going to install 22 trees at Reeves Park this week or next.

And then through the invasive species control efforts, mulching, goats, all that, we had reclaimed about 12 acres of land in which 900 seedlings are going to be planted between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

And those are going to be at Fry Springs, Forest Hill Park, Azalea, and the Rivanna Trail section between Jordan Park and Fifth Street Station.

Kind of going along with that, an invasives information sheet is going to be mailed out or included as part of the, I think, the Parks and Rec mailer that goes around to help people identify invasives if they see them in their own backyard.

As we know, most of the city's green space is privately owned, so we'll need everyone's help in this effort to combat invasives and preserve our tree canopy.

Another round of intensive tree work is going to happen on the downtown mall in mid-January, looking to prune all the trees removed deadwood two inches and over, and I believe there might be one tree removal.

And we looked at the state of the forest report, and we're just trying to prepare that as it comes out early next year.

Let's see.

I attended a meeting of, my first meeting of LUPEC, the joint committee between UVA Charlottesville and Albemarle.

There was a presentation from the UVA Foundation on, well, two presentations, one on their North Fork development plans up by the airport.

They're planning to build, what is it, 1,400 units, quite a lot of units.

and sort of split into a bunch of different blocks of some multifamily, some single family, some duplexes or townhomes.

And then they also presented on the ongoing effort to provide land for affordable housing projects.

As you'll recall, there are three sites.

One of them is North Fork.

Once that rezoning is done, that's kind of set off for later.

The other is Wartland behind Stacey Hall over on Main Street, the old Sears.

And then the other is Piedmont Family Housing, which currently hosts grad students and professors.

And we can expect, depending on the final outline of the plan, so they have awarded or they've

I don't think they've signed contracts, but they've figured out what developers are going to do, each of them.

The one in the city on Wirtland will be a group out of, I think, Baltimore called Preservation of Affordable Housing, and they'll be building, depending on the final configuration, about 120 to 152 units.

And then over on Piedmont, it should be about 300 units, but that's right over the county line.

Right.

So let's see.

HAC met the 18th at noon.

This commission knows the results of that meeting because they were presented in our meeting on the 18th at 5 o'clock.

that was tweaking on the ordinance also met on the 6th generally for the same purpose and we ran afoul of the insufficient number of people in the room to actually conduct business so we had a quick and dirty on yesterday to ratify and finalize all of that.

That having to do with some of that being presented to Council last night by Sunshine Mathan.

Then TJPDC met on November 2nd.

Bulk of that meeting was taken up with

the Accountant and the Audited Financials Review.

Two items there of sort of tangential interest in other business.

One is moving towards an agreement regarding the Virginia Department of Health's SWAP program, which is Septic Well Assistance Program.

This was funded through ARPA.

The idea being if you're up to 200 percent in the poverty line, you can apply for funds.

to deal with failed well, failing septic.

The Department of Health took an enormous number of applications in that they tentatively approved because it met the criteria during 2022 and then discovered that it's a little difficult to get an individual well contractor 250 miles away to commit to how you're going to handle that.

So they sent fired off a distress

flair to the regional planning districts to actually administer the program so that they could find local contractors and such.

Having said all that, there are five in this district that were identified, one of which is in the city of Charlottesville for a failed septic.

The other program was they are going to be providing support assistance and counseling probably in every sense of the word to the Town of Mineral in their comprehensive plan update.

I saw the scope of work on that and I am green with envy for the people of the Town of Mineral for how they're going to go through that process.

My only report is BAR meeting last month.

Pretty good.

Excellent.

All right, I had a couple, three meetings.

Parks and Rec met, and we got a presentation, a kickoff presentation from the folks that are going to be developing the Comprehensive Parks and Rec Master Plan.

And that presentation was from someone we know, Mike Steves.

I think he was the director.

The Parks director.

2005 through 2009.

And he's actually going to be leading the efforts of

The good news is somebody that knows us is going to be helping us to think through the conference plan for Parks and Rec.

The key center roof is replacing that as ahead of schedule.

It might even be finished by now, but it was definitely ahead of schedule a couple weeks ago.

We recently purchased an eight-acre track of land.

And that eight-acre track of land runs along Morris Creek and Adelia Park.

And I sent you guys a copy of what that looks like.

You should get the email just what the scan looks like.

And we actually only had to put up $8,000 for it.

The rest of the money was put up by the Land Water Conservation Fund to help us get that stuff.

We will be working to develop that and integrate that into our Parks and Rec portfolio.

Met with the city manager to talk about the capital improvement program.

We've got a work session on November 28th.

where we're going to get a chance to look at that.

I've copied you guys on the draft.

If you guys would take a look at the draft and if you guys would get back to me by midday tomorrow with any questions you've got or any input that you want to provide, let me know.

I'll meet with the budget organization tomorrow at 1 o'clock, I think.

based on the city manager's priorities, and these could be readjusted by council.

But the most important things in his mind are safety, meeting any legal requirements, sidewalks, ADA, and housing for the homeless.

Those are things that he's really focused on.

But again, please take a look at that budget and let me know if there's anything in there you want.

Good News Invasive Species is in there, so we got that in the issue without having to fight for it.

Let's see, then Lyle, James, Juan, Sam, and Chris Henney, Henry and I met.

And that conversation was about something that they're doing in Richmond.

It's called the Affordable Housing Grant.

End of the day, it's nothing more than rebates and tax credits to incentivize the development of affordable housing.

Mr. Freeze has the to-do to begin helping us to organize our thinking around what we might want to do with that in Charlottesville.

And in fact, I think he's going to use the hack as a sounding board in the beginning, Mr. D'Oronzio, for that.

Ms.

Sure, so I did want to remind everybody we do have the work session.

It'll be the 28th, last Tuesday of the month, fourth Tuesday of the month, and it'll be specific to the CIP.

We've already talked about that so I won't go into any more depth.

I'll note that we are continuing work with council on the development code and zoning map.

We had a work session yesterday.

Our next work session is November 29th and that's going to be discussion on the zoning map itself.

The public hearing for that for

Council is scheduled for December 5th starting at 4 o'clock and continuing until everyone has had an opportunity who would like that opportunity.

The mailings and advertisements and all of those kinds of things are out and in the works and we've had some releases go out on that information as well.

and then Council has designated December 13th as another date if they need deliberation if they're not prepared to make a decision on the 5th and also considered December 18th as well.

So we have a number of upcoming timeframes for working with the zoning code.

That's it.

All right, we are ready to open up for matters to be presented by the public.

In this session, we're going to be talking about things that are not on the formal agenda.

So we're not going to be talking about the verb.

We're not going to be talking about Lankford.

We're not going to be talking about Ivy Road.

It's other things that we do.

We've got a hard stop at about 6 o'clock, so any comments we don't get in before 6, we'll have to revisit after all the other public hearings are happening.

Ms.

Sure.

Provide instructions.

We will take in person and comments by Zoom.

We will alternate at this point in time and each speaker will have three minutes to speak and we'll begin with in person.

Do we have anyone who would like to speak in person?

All right.

We'll start there.

Good evening.

I'm Deb Jackson.

My husband and I own and live on Douglas Avenue property that abuts the north side of the proposed Belmont condominium development.

There are three issues that I wish to speak about.

The first one is that on the current plan, the outflow water pipe from the stormwater management system will empty water onto our property.

There's a history of flooding in our backyard when the stream backs up, and as there is an opportunity now,

to change the direction of the outflow and avoid backup flooding in the future, it's prudent to do so.

And I cite a, there's a legal precedent in 1974, 17 Inc.

versus Pilot Life Insurance Company, surface water is common enemy that may be fended off by each landowner, but landowner may not collect surface water into artificial channel and pour it upon land of another to his injury.

We request that the developer flip the pipe to empty the water onto the adjacent property to the east of where the outflow is currently planned.

My second topic, we wonder how will the 20-foot cement block retaining wall on the north side of the development be constructed without trucks and other building equipment trespassing onto our property.

We request that the developer inform all demolition and construction personnel

to respect the limits of demolition and monitor these limits so as not to trespass on our property.

This is also relevant to abutters on Spruce Street because they don't have any buffer between their property and the Belmont condominium site.

And my third comment is that the engineering firm that assessed the plan, the company is ECS Mid-Atlantic LLC,

commented several times in their report that they do not recommend blasting the rock in this area during the site preparation.

We wonder how homeowners on the adjacent properties can be assured that there will be no blasting.

Under what circumstances might the city council approve a blasting permit?

Is that something that the city has gone through a few years ago and it's very important to us?

So those are my concerns.

Thanks for your consideration.

All right, we'll go to our next speaker.

We'll go with our virtual speaker and for any virtual speakers out there, you can raise your hand in the application.

If you're on the phone line, you would hit star nine, which would raise your hand.

Our first online speaker, Elsa Spencer.

Can you hear me?

Okay, great.

So, yeah, I'm Elsa Spencer.

I own a house on Chestnut Street, which connects to Carlton Ave and also to Spruce Street, which Spruce Street will connect to Conifer Drive, I think, in the new Belmont condominiums development.

So I wanted to speak about basically one thing, partly as a resident and partly as a mom.

I have two teenagers who live with me.

The 19, almost 20-year-old who lives with me has autism spectrum and attention issues.

He had an IEP when he went through the public school system here and he walks to work.

They're not ready to drive because of those kind of issues.

They walk down Carleton Ave and Carleton Road several times a week for that.

They walk over to catch the bus by Clark Elementary where they're a student at PVCC several times a week.

My other teenager, we walk and bike.

I myself bike to work at PVCC.

So we use those roads a lot.

And I'm concerned about, well, I'd like to make a request, I guess, that when there's the pre-site disturbance meeting, I understand there's going to be one with the developer to go over traffic issues.

And I'd like to request just that the residents be notified about the meeting.

and that the developer formulates the safety plan for the construction of the roads and the houses.

Make sure we know that it's the developer's responsibility for that.

I'd like to ask that we minimize the through traffic through our spruce cherry chestnut myrtle block.

It's never been a through road.

We have 16 kids and 16 dogs that live in that area and the kids are not used to through traffic.

We understand there's going to be a lot of traffic, but we just want to make sure that the developer has a safety plan for those construction vehicles.

Apart from the construction vehicles, I understand we're anticipating like an additional 900 or so car trips a day down Carleton Ave between Moss Restaurant and Carleton Road Stop Lane.

That intersection of Carleton and Carleton is already problematic.

It's a commercial loading zone for the Red Lantern and Cactus restaurants.

Yes, I'm Deb Jackson's neighbor.

So I am in accordance with her concerns as far as the groundwater runoff.

And I'm grateful that in the plans they were looking towards climate change.

So I think some of the usual precedents that we have been going on really may not take hold in the coming decades.

So I think looking at long-term planning, really taking a serious look at where that water is going

and even off to the other property, there's culverts that are even further downstream that have been compromised by different storms.

So I would really hope that the engineers really take a good look at

some of these considerations again reiterating the other comment about traffic I know we throw numbers about but if wherever you all live if you can imagine next year 900 more cars are going to be coming into your neighborhood that is really pretty unfathomable

So one of my suggestions, and we've been trying to do this without much success is, you know, right in front of Belmont Market, which is closed and in front of other restaurants, obviously there has to be delivery and, you know, different trucks for, you know,

for business, but if all of that parking can be removed down Carlton, I know that's a really sensitive issue, but already it's a one lane going, turning off of Douglas either way.

And when you have the large construction trucks and people that aren't familiar with the patterns,

I'd really, really appreciate if there can be any look, even if it's temporary halting of parking along Monticello Road, down Carlton.

It's really, really dangerous as it is.

And I'm just so grateful nothing has happened at this point.

And then my last point is, and I know there's timing and schedules and construction protocols, but the light pollution for the neighborhoods is going to be pretty extravagant because this is really built high.

If there is any way that they can begin the peripheral green planting sooner to give these

Trees are a little more time to grow and we love working with the Charlottesville tree stewards.

If there's any way we can look to what are the best, you know, native even magnolias, some fast growing evergreens that'll be healthy, you know, just working in that cooperative way to really prevent, you know, some of the local light disturbance that'll be coming from that.

So thank you very much.

All right, do we have any in-person speakers for matters from the public?

Okay, do we have any additional virtual speakers?

If so, raise your hand in the application.

We are now closing matters from the public, and I am now gaveling us out of the Planning Commission and gaveling us into the ECRB.

Consider agenda?

What?

Consider agenda?

Yes, I'm done.

Thank you.

Mr. Chair.

Is there a motion?

I can't believe we haven't gotten that right yet.

I'll second.

Is there a second?

All in favor?

Any opposition?

Any abstentions?

The consent agenda is approved.

Okay, now let me gavel now and gavel us back into the ECRB.

Don't we just have two minutes to do this?

My wife wants me home early tonight.

Good evening.

Jeff Warner with the city.

I'm the city's preservation and design planner, and I'm here in my capacity tonight as the staff for the entrance corridor review board, which is you all.

Tonight presenting a request for a certificate of appropriateness for the development of 1709 Jefferson Park Avenue.

1709 JPA is within the Fontaine Avenue, Jefferson Park Avenue entrance corridor.

Currently on the site is a four-story brick apartment building that was constructed in 1972.

That structure will be raised for this development.

This COA request is for a proposed eight-story apartment building with a footprint approximately 70 feet wide by 100 feet deep into the parcel.

As you recall, back in October City Council approved a special use permit for this site which increased the residential density of the parcel and that included increasing the maximum building height to 70 feet.

reducing the front setback on JPA to 18 feet and reducing the side yard setback to five feet which will likely only affect that one corner towards the front.

This is a brick and metal panel building that will feature a six-story tower set atop a two-story podium.

The primary facade which is oriented to JPA steps back at the third and eighth story and at street level incorporated into the podium is the primary pedestrian entrance

and the vehicular entrance into the enclosed garage.

The design is generally consistent with the design guidelines relative to the architectural design, form and style, consistent relative to building placement, materiality and color palette and relative to the streetscape, landscape and site design.

The height was established by special use permit, but it is consistent with the trend of recently constructed and improved buildings on JPA, which are becoming taller than the older structures.

The new building also reflects a trend of larger footprints and reduced front setbacks.

Along this section of JPA, side yard setbacks and spacing between buildings vary widely so there's nothing typical nor is a trend emerging.

The project features variation in materiality and color palette with the brick and metal panels, canopies, railings, doors and windows.

The facades and elevations are articulated with projecting and recessed balconies.

Step backs again at the third and eighth floors.

Street-level landscaping and hardscaping mitigate the perception and visual impact of the building's height, mass, and scale.

And the on-site parking will be concealed within the building, which is a solution consistent with the design guidelines.

And while the entrance to the garage is a prominent element of the primary facade, it's the only location viable for that entrance.

and the only issue that I think you all or I propose you might want to discuss tonight is the treatment of the side yard retaining walls from the front to the back or from actually from the back to the front towards JPA this is a project this parcels on a steep grade drops over 50 feet within the parcels 100 foot depth and as a result the side yards features tall concrete retaining walls and

from the street level as a pedestrian they're obscured by landscaping and limited sight lines but from elsewhere on JPA they are generally obscured by trees in the building and also the topography however if you all feel that further mitigation is necessary and particularly at the rear segments of these walls that would be the back walls not the sides staff's recommendation is to plant at

grade at that back wall above the wall segments to plant cascading plants suitable for that location and with a condition that the plants are maintained and do not encroach onto the building.

The other options are something closer to JPA on those lower terraces, maybe to construct a screen, a hedge, or even to do something to the concrete itself.

My recommendation is with the cascading plans as a solution.

And I have not received any public comments regarding the COA and so with that analysis I find that the proposed improvements are appropriate and recommend approval of the COA with the conditions that are suggested in the draft motion and also to make sure to include anything if you wish on that retaining walls.

And then if you have no questions for me, I know the applicant is here.

In lieu of presentation, they're willing to jump right into questions as well.

But we do have the submittal that you've seen that we can call up if necessary.

So with that, any questions?

All right.

Hi, I'm Kevin Riddle with Mitchell Matthews Architects, representing the owner on this project.

You're asking about the walls that are at the back of the side wells.

Yeah.

Yeah, we think actually some sort of hanging or cascading plants could be effective there.

We do recognize that we would need to consult with civil engineers and landscape architects

about I can imagine on the north side the viability of that.

I'm just not confident about it.

But I think on the side to the south I think we certainly could have something growing there and thriving.

We do expect to be doing something with the walls on the inside both at the back and along the sides either using some material that will make those spaces more pleasant for the tenants but at the moment we're proposing a stained

or color tinted concrete as you can see in the materials that we have proposed at the back of this presentation.

We think that will make for nice walls in the meanwhile but we're absolutely open to planting as much as is viable to help the screening.

One other thing I'd mention that in our I guess you can see it in our site plan

which is, let me pull it up here.

It's on what's page 16 in our presentation booklet.

You can see we have the plantings identified that we proposed for this project and the ones that are labeled C, the sassafras trees.

We think with some time, but not that much time, probably less than ten years, those trees could grow to a pretty good size, have a kind of a thicket quality, and that those will do actually a great deal when you're down at the JPA elevations to help obscure those wells beyond.

and then I'd also note that in general our plantings are going to end up being well above the 10 percent required, closer to 17 and a half percent at 10 years maturity.

Sure.

Mr. Riddle, page 40 of your packet gives me a pretty clear

and the scope of the retaining walls.

Does that seem accurate?

MR. Well, yeah, this is pretty accurate.

The modeling of the terrain that you see in green, that's based on our survey of the site.

Now, it doesn't extend, you know, well past the boundaries.

But, you know, so where you see the house that's next door at 1713 JPA, you know, the terrain may not be exactly as

as you see it there.

But it's pretty close to that.

And along the edge of the wall that we're showing, that is what the grades are doing, more or less.

The computer models do have to do some interpretation.

And of course, as you probably suspect, the more contours you can have surveyed, the more precise this gets.

But this is a pretty close approximation.

Thank you.

Mr. Stolzberg.

So

I guess one question.

On the retaining wall front, it seems to me, you know, I'm less concerned about the inward facing retaining walls as this one that's kind of covering up your trash area.

Do you have any plans for that?

However, as you come over to the JPA side at that corner of the property there already is a fairly tall retaining wall and we recognize that we're just going to have to work out some things as we get further into the civil and site design and depending on how we have to

rebuild or revise that wall, we realize we might be getting a little taller than that five feet, maybe closer to six or a little over six feet tall.

And so that's what you see there.

But yes, we agree that anything we could do in the way of texture and color potentially there could have a better outcome than just a blank concrete wall.

I wouldn't propose to use chartreuse this time.

created some guff earlier.

But, yeah, I agree with you.

Yep.

All right, yeah, well, I'd just like to see something with that.

I don't think we need to add it into a conditioner.

Are we doing comments, too?

Sure.

The scooter things you're proposing instead of bike racks.

Staple bike racks.

Staple bike racks.

Bike racks staples.

Don't mess with it.

It's the best solution.

Every time architects try to get fancy with bike racks,

Terrible things happen and they become useless for bikes and probably scooters in this case.

I mean the ones you're proposing look like they might not even fit a V.O.

scooter.

Staple bike racks.

Just use staples.

Okay.

No questions.

I'm satisfied with his scooter dykes.

Mr. Schwartz.

All right, thank you guys very much.

Yeah, thank you.

We are ready to deliberate.

I could make a motion if we're ready.

I don't think we need to put a condition on the walls.

There's lighting in here.

There's glass.

The new railings are going to match the railings to the balconies.

Yes.

So, okay.

Having considered the standards set forth in the city's entrance corridor design guidelines, I move to find the proposed design for 1709 Jefferson Park Avenue is consistent with the guidelines and compatible with the goals of this entrance corridor and that the ERB approves the certificate of appropriateness application as submitted with the following conditions as listed in our packet.

There is a second.

Any further discussion?

Ms.

Creasy, would you behold the board?

Yes.

All right, I am gaveling us out of the ECRB and we are now back into the Planning Commission.

Mr. Mayor, is counsel in order?

We are indeed.

Counsel in order, we are ready to begin our public hearings.

The first item on our docket is?

is ZM23-00004.

This is a zoning map amendment.

I think you guys remember this.

We approved this application 620 only a month ago, but it was decided that we probably needed to get a formal proper statement included in the docket, and that's one of the main reasons we're here to review this again, to review the inclusion of the proper statement.

Thank you, Chair.

Matt Alfley, City Planner, Neighborhood Development Services.

As the Planning Commission tonight, you'll be holding a public hearing and making a recommendation to City Council regarding a proposed planned unit development located off Jefferson Park Avenue, Stadium Road, Image Street, and Montebello Circle.

Subtext Acquisition, LLC, the applicant on behalf of Woodrow Apartments, LLC, Woodrow II, LLC, and 1709 JPA, LLC,

the owners is requesting a zoning map amendment pursuant to Section 3441 of the Code of the City of Charlottesville for properties located at 106 through 114 Stadium Road, 409 Stadium Road, 104 Stadium Road, 102 Stadium Road,

1705 Jefferson Park Avenue and 100 Stadium Road.

The applicant is pursuing to rezone the subject property from multifamily residential to planned unit development with a development plan and proper statement.

The application and the development plan include parking requirements, a use matrix,

yard and height regulations, open space, and landscaping.

The proper statement indicates the applicant will provide a cash contribution to the city's affordable housing fund in the amount equal to double that which is required under Section 3412 .

The applicant is proposing to redevelop the subject property and replace the existing 62 residential units spread between nine different buildings with one building containing between 524 and 550 residential units.

The proposed building will have a height range of 75 feet to 135 feet and stories that range from five stories to 12 stories.

In addition, the proposed PUD includes improved pedestrian and bicycle circulation along stadium,

Emmett and Jefferson Park Avenue and road improvements to Montebello Circle.

On October 10, 2023, the Planning Commission held a joint public hearing with City Council on this proposed rezoning along with the following applications, a critical slope waiver which the Planning Commission voted 6-0 to recommend approval, a sidewalk waiver which will be presented to City Council in a future meeting,

An amendment to an ordinance for the sale of property located at 409 Stadium Road, which will be heard by City Council at a future meeting.

And a comprehensive plan validation for amending the ordinance that closed Woodrow Street, which Planning Commission found was in accordance with the comprehensive plan.

During the October 10, 2023 public hearing, there was a question regarding the enforceability of the affordable housing statement provided on the cover sheet of the PUD development plan.

It was determined that to ensure the statement is enforceable,

the applicant needed to provide a proper statement.

The applicant has provided the proper statement containing the same language that Planning Commission saw on October 10th with no additional changes to the application.

This concludes staff's presentation.

I'm here to answer any question.

Any questions for Mr. Affleck from the Commission?

Any questions for Mr. Affleck from the council?

Mr. Mayor, Mr. Vice Mayor?

Sorry.

Mr. Pinkston.

We're just finding our feet over here, I think.

I have no question.

Yes, Counselor.

The only change being there was a statement on the cover sheet of the development plan that spoke to cash in lieu two times what would normally be provided.

One thing I did, and maybe this is not the right time, Mr. Chair, but I am aware of a letter that was sent by the University relative to the height of this project and the visibility from the lawn.

I don't know if that's something that

I think UVA and Mr. Palmer will make a brief statement about that in a minute.

Got it.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the Commission, Valerie Long, representing the applicant.

I did not have a presentation prepared for tonight.

I would be happy to answer any questions or respond to any public comment as needed.

Any questions for the applicant?

All right, why don't we, any thoughts?

We'll begin with Mr. Palmer.

Any thoughts about this application?

Oh, I haven't really, I don't like Anthony, but thank you.

I'm glad you guys are here.

We have to open this up for public hearing.

So we are now ready to do that.

Are there any members of Ms.

Creasy, would you like to moderate?

If we have members of the public in person who would like to speak, we have that opportunity.

We'll alternate between our virtual and our in person speakers.

If you're virtual and you are interested in speaking, it would be wonderful for you to raise your hand in the application.

If you're on a phone line, you can hit star nine and that will do the same function but that way we can tell who would like to speak.

Hello.

I'm Ellen Cantini-Moraha from 225 Montebello Circle.

I'm going to talk about the proffer from the developer of the VRV student high-rise at the corner of JPA, Emmett Street, and Stadium Road.

$4 million sounds like a lot of money.

but it's not that much if you compare it with the affordable housing fee that a developer would have to pay under the new zoning code if their development doesn't include any affordable housing.

That would be $185,000 per unit for 10% of the total number of units in the development.

The VRV development will have around 530 units.

10% of that is 53.

53 times $185,000

comes to $9,805,000, a lot more than $4 million, and that is a discount.

A developer of family housing that size would be charged almost twice as much under the new zoning code, more than $17 million.

Why offer a discount to developers of student housing?

The reason is a little complicated to try.

I'll see if I can break it down.

At last night's work session, the following assumptions were made.

First, students will not be eligible for affordable housing.

Second, student housing is regarded as not suitable for families.

Therefore, builders of student housing are not expected to include any affordable units in their projects.

Builders of family-oriented housing would be charged a higher fee as an incentive to actually build some affordable units on site rather than make an in-lieu payment equivalent to what it would cost for someone else to build them.

Since it's assumed that builders of student housing will not build any affordable units, they would be charged less than someone who might build affordable units on site.

At last night's work session, Mr. Freese said it would be, quote, unfair to charge them the higher rate.

But there's also general agreement that student housing that can be rented out by the bedroom is a lot more lucrative than family-oriented housing.

That's why it's worthwhile for a developer of student housing to invest in bigger buildings that require more expensive materials.

Why should developers who are making much bigger profits get a discount on the in-lieu affordable housing fee?

I hope City Council will think harder about this when finalizing the affordable dwelling unit requirements in the new code.

But back to the VRB project.

What's the hurry to approve this monstrosity that even the city staff report found

to be inconsistent with the city's comprehensive plan.

What's the hurry to hand developers of student housing a multi-million dollar affordability discount when you're finalizing the new zoning code as we speak?

All right, I don't see any hands raised, but I'll give it just a few seconds.

Do we have any additional in-person speakers this evening?

Okay, and I don't see any hands raised.

Give one more opportunity for virtual or in-person speakers for the VRV application.

All right, Chair, we have a virtual speaker.

John Hosek?

Yes.

I'd like to just echo everything that Ellen has just mentioned.

I think this project is too large.

It looks to me like this is an initial ask and something to be negotiated down.

and I'd also like to take this opportunity although this is a very large project which would obviously require a public hearing I think it draws sharp line under the fact with the new zoning ordinance that this opportunity will be taken away and that neighbours like myself are faced with you know three-storey apartments next to us and needless to say the support for that level of

that level of by right development on a street like my own and others is 5% and surely that's a problem.

Thanks.

All right.

Any in-person speakers on this application?

Any additional virtual speakers?

All right, now I think we're ready to be in talking about this.

Well, yeah, I mean, this came up in the pre-meeting.

So UVA did submit a letter with some concerns about the height of this project, the 12-story portion, and its potential to be visible from the lawn.

And, you know, just that since that's a World Heritage site, that's some concern.

What came up in the pre-meeting was that the developer may have developed some renderings from perspectives from the lawn.

that try to show how it will look.

I haven't seen those.

So I'll just say I will look forward to seeing those.

We'll look at those.

And if there are any revisions we want to make to our statement, we can do that and get them to city council in the appropriate time.

I have the same comments I had last time.

No comment.

Me too.

Same.

Second.

Ms.

Creasy, any further discussion?

Ms.

Creasy, would you poll the board?

Yes.

Mr. D'Oronzio?

Aye Mr. Stolzenberg?

Aye Mr. Hrabab?

No Mr. Schwartz?

Yes And Mr. Mitchell?

All right, the next application is, all right, we've got three applications associated with Lankford Road.

The first is ZM23-00002.

That is a rezoning from R1S to R3.

The second application is SP23-00003.

That is for a special use permit.

The third application is

P23-00046.

That is a critical slope waiver.

If this development is approved, it's going to allow for about 48 units to be built in this space.

It is also accompanied by affordable housing profits.

Around 13%, 12.5, 13% of the units to be built will be affordable.

We will take the presentations

for all three altogether, and we'll ask questions for all three altogether, but we have to have three separate votes no matter how any of the votes go.

So I forget who's managing this, Mr. Duncan, maybe who's, Ms.

Franey is managing this.

Good evening.

Carrie Rainey, City Planner with Neighborhood Development Services.

Before you tonight are three applications for 108, 110, and 112 Landonia Avenue.

As noted, a zoning map amendment, a special use permit, and a critical slope waiver.

The applicant's representative, Justin Schimpf of Schimpf Engineering, has indicated potential updates to the project are under consideration.

All right, good evening everyone.

Justin Schimp, the engineer of the project.

I'm representing the property owner.

What I sent an email out earlier, and I just want to address this, that essentially I would like to have a discussion about this very brief, let the public make any comments, and then request defer.

And I would just like to go over briefly, if I could have my presentation up, just a brief explanation of why I proposed this and why I like to change it, basically.

So we have that groundwork.

And I'd be interested, of course, in hearing any thoughts the commission has, provided it to be deferred, that I might incorporate into my edits in addition to what I already have in mind.

So first, I want to say I definitely appreciate the direction the city is taking with the zoning ordinance.

It is much, much better than the one we have, the proposed ordinance.

And I'm pleased to see the city, you know, turning that over to, let's see, unlimited density in the mixed-use corridors, but that's no longer really the issue.

But in the RA type zones to be the current R1, I think there are some unusual larger parcels that have potential to go up above that without being out of place in the neighborhood.

And that's why I proposed this.

However, where I think I went wrong is bringing in that three-story building to Lankford Avenue streetscape.

and upon looking at it, reading the staff's comments, and then really going off the site and walking around a bunch more, I want to amend that to keep the two houses in the front, keep that existing historic structures, and then build the project in the back.

So I'll go flip through that real quickly and just show you what I have in mind, but I think that's going to be a better outcome.

I also have an issue of two of the houses in the street are owned by six different tenants.

and we propose to leave those two structures so that we don't have to move them anywhere.

There's one tenant that would have to be rehoused and one structure would come down for the road entrance, but the others could remain in their current accommodation.

So maybe that's a net positive also.

We could flip to the next page.

I think everyone's familiar with this location, and I'll just comment that, again, the inspiration for this was, this is interesting, it's a one-acre parcel, and within close proximity, there's an adjacent multifamily building up to the west.

The first street projects are near the site.

There's a church across the street.

It's a

predominantly single-family neighborhood, but there are a variety of other uses and structures that make up this neighborhood.

It's also a very close walking distance to a lot of things in Charlottesville, which for me makes this a primary location to put some higher density, particularly this project could be essentially all of one-bedroom small units.

We'd have an affordable component, but they're intended to be a single or a couple occupancy for folks who would work around downtown the hospital area.

If I could go, next slide please.

So, for example, this is your, you have an interesting mix here.

We have a new subdivision, Payne's Mill subdivision was built a couple years ago.

You have in there six, seven, $800,000 homes.

It's a nice little neighborhood.

You've got the South First Street.

There's a few single family lots around.

I think I saw a house that maybe went up on Hartman's.

It was assessed at like 1.4 or something like that.

So you really have an interesting mix.

in this neighborhood.

And frankly, that's a possible outcome of these large lots.

And one of the things I'm trying to avoid is that the market forces dictate that you can almost slice this into three lots and it's more valuable than 48 units.

And that was a question that came up at the community meeting was, hey, could you do 20 units?

I thought, well, no, I can't because essentially I'm taking land value down, right?

And at the end of the day,

Developers are not looking to do that.

And so if the land is worth more as three single-family houses that can be sold for a million bucks a piece, that's what it becomes.

Again, that's not a thing that can happen.

It's okay, but we have these sort of large one-acre lots under a common ownership as an opportunity for something different.

Next, please.

There's the three houses at play, the existing three structures.

We would keep the two on the left.

If you could skip the next slide, please.

So here's what was in the packet, is this structure.

This is where I think this goes wrong here, is that first building on Langford, as opposed to three-story, and it really is too much height and scale for that street.

There are other structures similar size, but it's too much.

You'll notice footprint-wise, we are smaller than the adjacent immediately multi-family structure, but we are three-story, that's more like one.

So I feel like after looking at it again, we need to peel that back.

And that would be my alternate proposal.

Next slide, please.

Again, some context of example of what's around.

You might be familiar with the South First Street community, the existing structures there.

You'll see for context, you know, 28 by 72, 2,000 square foot footprint, two stories.

We're a similar scale to that.

Whereas the new First Street buildings are about 7,000 square foot footprint.

So much smaller than those.

Next.

We'll skip this because I'm going to come back to update this information to the new, skip this slide.

The building on the top left is essentially what I envision.

That's a pretty close representation of the size and scale of these structures, which I think was appropriate in the back of the site, but is just a little tall for the front.

And interestingly enough, the comparison we used at the neighborhood meeting was that Dunlora Forest, which is a neighborhood in Albemarle, has a duplex that is nearly the same size.

So we would have a 14-unit building in that example on the left versus two units.

and on the right.

One of my fundamental issues with density is that to me those structures aren't really a lot different.

There's a number of people within them, but is that something we should be regulating what we do?

Next slide.

Quick examples there was the Mount View PUD was a project we did that was approved.

It's a lower density.

It was 30 dwelling units per acre.

However, it's larger units.

The actual sort of square footage per acre in that project is larger

was proposed for Lankford.

Next slide.

A similar to Grove Street was another project of R3 out of the R1, very similar scale type buildings.

Next slide.

We talked about this a little bit, and I want to touch on one thing.

Again, I'm going to ask that you all just give me some quick feedback on this, and we'll bring it back to the final plan.

But the affordable housing is interesting, and I appreciate the comments that were made a moment ago about the amount, like, fee in lieu of.

Because it is a big expense, and one of the things we've tried to figure out on these small projects, it is difficult to get them off the ground.

So my proposal was rather than starting for year one to have affordable housing, to start at year ten and have an additional unit.

So rather than having

99 years of 5 units, I have 89 years of 6 units.

You get more net affordability that way, more years of affordable housing number of units.

But it starts 10 years down the law.

And the simple math of that is to build this project, getting it off the ground is the most difficult.

Once you get past 10 years and you pay down some of your debt, you can refinance it and you can make that work.

The developer is going to lose at year 10.

They are not going to have as much available equity to pull out because the project will essentially be devalued.

those affordable units, but it gets built.

And so we get the market rate units and the affordable units, and it becomes a sustainable project.

So I'd be curious if folks take on that.

There was a comment from the community solutions folks about this being a non-standard.

But in my mind, affordable housing is not an issue that's going to go away in 30 years.

So if we're looking at a 99-year window, is 10 to 99 an OK perspective?

Probably the last one, I think.

I'll skip this and we can go over this next time.

So here's the alternate concept plan, which I emailed out.

So we would keep 112 and 110 Langford.

110 is actually an interesting kind of historic store, I didn't realize until today.

So we'd keep those structures and then build the three-story buildings in the back.

So again, I don't want to take too much time unless it has to come back, but I did want to run down where I started.

What we would like to do, hear any feedback, and then understand that we're trying to get a mix here.

I think this has to be more density on some of these sites.

I know that there's going to be more opportunities in the city for density, but I don't think there's that many of these one-acre parcels that will come along like this.

To me, it's a missed opportunity not to do something at higher density.

So that's what I want to end up with.

If the Commission is willing to defer it, I'd be happy to come back next month or depending on scheduling, month after for a hearing with a new information.

Only slightly updated.

All right.

So this looks like it's becoming a mini-work session.

Let's keep it net, though, if we could.

And let's just do the usual route.

Let's go from left to right with questions.

Just to be clear, so removing one building, does that reduce the number of units that you were hoping to achieve on this site?

We lose a 12-unit building.

We pick up two more for the houses that are there.

And then we would probably actually try to increase the units from buildings from 12 to 14.

Correct, yes.

Anything else?

Would you change your parking if you could?

That's a good question.

I'd have to leave that a little bit at the developer's comfort level, right?

I think when you all remove the restrictions whatsoever, you know, people are going to still provide parking because it is an understanding that people are going to want cars.

I'd be certainly content to remove some parking and add some more landscaping, but I don't want to say I'm going to do that.

I think keeping the homes in the front is definitely a great idea.

It makes me feel a lot better about the project.

I had a question on critical slopes, reading staff's comments.

Is this something you can avoid disturbing?

So this is a complicated, but I'm going to need to meet the city engineer out there.

There's actually the on-the-ground conditions are a little bit different than what you see in this application GIS.

So there is a channel that we can get to from our property to the existing channel.

It doesn't show up.

The staff report is interesting.

It's very technical, but I do need to address that city engineer.

I think that if we did not have a channel to discharge to that I don't think he's aware of, we would have a problem.

But we do, and I've surveyed it.

And I think my request, I guess, is to find a way to incorporate creative open spaces and planting.

Looking at this, it's very asphalt heavy.

And if there is a way to carve that in a meaningful way, I think that'll make me feel better.

I spent some time walking around the street and looking at the site.

I didn't trespass, so perhaps I should have.

I'm guessing you wouldn't get too angry.

But my sense is that there's quite a bit of grade going down, and it's a pretty deep lot.

The back of the site is something like 18 or 20 feet below Langford.

and then it drops.

Okay.

Something we've talked about in the past, I think you did on, and I'm forgetting the street now, is doing tuck under parking just as a way of reducing the footprint of the paved space.

I think that's potentially exciting, although I'm not sure that the numbers exactly work for this site.

In general, yeah, excited to see

Something of this scale up front.

I like that idea of kind of continuing the scale of the street as it is and then doing more in the back.

That makes a lot of sense.

Yeah, I mean, I wasn't really so worried about the height on the front, but I think keeping those two historic buildings does make me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

So I think that probably is a good idea.

My question for you on the deferral, though, is

Have you done the math on that?

Are you betting that they're not going to pass the new zoning ordinance anytime soon and so you'll have time for that?

Right.

And certainly, so I did skip over with the slide.

We lost about a year on this project for investigating historic cemetery.

There was a potential of that, and so we hired a firm to go out and do the subterranean sonar survey.

And so, yes, we did not mean to be cutting it this close by interest to the imagination.

But I think

If it comes down to it, if the ordinance is passed and there's given no, you know, basically if it said, hey, we're cutting it off this day, you're not approved, I think we would simply amend this to like an RX.

There would be a zoning district under the new ordinance that would adopt the same project.

Maybe it's involving starting over, but I feel that, you know,

It's a better project and I think maybe it could be voted on tonight.

I hate to complicate things like that.

I'm going to take the chance that if we have to, we'll amend it to an RX and I'll take my chances there.

Yeah, that makes sense.

So, you know, I came into this application skimming the beginning and was very skeptical because it's so different from what the comp plan is recommending for this area.

And I'm learning that this was R3 until 2003 forever, right?

And then, you know, had this historic store on the site.

You know, I sort of warmed up to it.

probably not enough that I would have voted yes tonight.

But I think, you know, what you found in that staff report is that the reasons to deny are all basically the comp plan doesn't say to do this in this area.

And, you know, to the extent that you're supporting other goals in the comp plan, you know, maybe we can say even though the map doesn't say that, you know, it makes sense.

As you may know, under the current Zoning Ordinance 3427 , between November 1st and January 2nd, an applicant can submit for a Comprehensive Plan Amendment.

And to me, you know, doing a concurrent Comprehensive Plan Amendment seems like the move here.

To say, let's just change that future land use map.

Because this is a site that is appropriate for more density, that slopes down, that's a large site that historically was zoned for more, that historically had mixed use on it, you know, I think you could make a strong case for a comprehensive plan amendment.

I don't know if staff can turn that around in time to, you know, keep it on the same track.

But I think this application becomes a lot stronger if it's with a concurrent comprehensive plan amendment.

and then lastly I guess so if you if time does run out which it I would assume will unless there are delays council and you do an Rx of course that means you get into the standard you know 10% for 99 years beginning at year one if you're able to do that I think that's great I think that will help I don't hate I see where you're coming from on the math right that you

you know pay off your debt for a few years get your debt service coverage ratio up and then only then do you have to to do it I don't love the idea of experimenting it on that with one sort of random project one random small project that already isn't super consistent with a comprehensive plan but I think you know as we refine our inclusionary zoning you know that's something

or we should have sort of that discussion about how these things should work.

I will say 10 years seems like too long.

It will be forgotten about and probably never enforced.

So I think I generally echo Commissioner Habab on the

on the pavement issue.

I think that's essentially he and I are on the same page there.

I think that this is much better than the packet presentation.

To the funding of the affordable housing, I concur with some of Commissioner Stolzenberg's views.

The math certainly makes sense to the developer.

I get that.

The question is how this is future money for the city and for the developer that we're talking about 10 years hence.

And I'm not sure if the math, maths, or there's a way to sort of engineer that in a way that's

either equitable, sensible, or even possible.

And I also agree that although that is an intriguing concept of this delay of how we do that, I agree that we should not try to build the airplane in flight and that we need to sort of give that some thought on how alternatives might work.

Certainly at 10 years, I think that's a non-starter, as it sits.

I'm just going to echo a lot of what's been said.

I think your revised idea is a much more intriguing concept and makes the idea...

doing something contrary to our plan a lot more palatable.

And as has been said, you know, that you're respecting the, by preserving those two houses, you're respecting the sense on the street.

I think you probably need to be somewhat careful with the parking lot at least as it's viewed from the street.

I'm not sure if I'm as concerned about the rest of it further down the hill because you have to resolve your water issues somehow by law anyways.

So I think it's just more of do you see this giant parking lot from the street.

Yeah, and I'm going to let those who are smarter on the affordable housing component deal with that.

All right, so nothing more to add.

I like this much better.

The 10 years gives me great heartburn.

I'm not sure I can get comfortable with that.

The one thing that we're going to have to address later, so maybe I can ask Ms.

Rainey to help me out with it now, and you and Mr. Bob went back and forth on this, but I'm still not certain to understand.

Can you walk me through the channel discharge conundrum that we've gotten?

Is there a way to address that?

Certainly.

Sorry, one moment.

I will say this may be a case where we need to hear additionally from the city engineer on this issue.

But as noted in the staff report, our city engineer noted concern with the proposal to channel water through the critical slopes onsite to an offsite channel which was shown in the

staff packet with a blue line running through the middle, and the city engineer had found that not to be an eligible stormwater conveyance system, basically saying that he felt that you could not, I believe, put the water through those slopes into that conveyance path, and then also noted issues with the design of how that conveyance was showed, where the angle at which the water would hit that conveyance path off-site would likely cause erosion to that swell.

Well, it's helping me to appreciate that I understand what the problem is.

Certainly I believe the applicant could choose to have proposed a critical slope waiver application during a site plan process subsequent to a rezoning in SUP process if they so choose.

Okay.

So what I typically do is now ask council if they have any questions.

But this is a mini work session, so if you have questions or comments, that would be of value to us.

Oh, there he is.

Hello.

One question.

Could you just talk in a little bit more detail about the situation with the existing residents who were there and just all of that?

I think you said one person would be moved under this new arrangement.

Sure, so one of the things that came to light in my recent exploration side of the game, it kind of started two years ago, people kind of moved in and out, but right now the house, so 108 is the kind of address that we're talking about.

There's a house there that's occupied by one tenant.

that would be taken out to build the entryway.

There are 110 and 112 actually have rented out for the room and they have six separate tenants in there.

And so in evaluating an alternate change, you know, those are the structures we wanted to keep.

One, the store is also kind of an interesting historic piece of information.

But those folks could remain in that residence without having to be re-housed.

And for that one tenant who would need to move, is there any sense yet in terms of on your end, any involvement in terms of assistance with that?

This particular property owner owns other rentals throughout the city.

So given the time frame, let's say this is approved, there would be something like 12 to 16 months before any demolition would occur.

So I don't think it'd be a problem at all to have a special use permanent condition or some kind of profit that addressed assistance towards that individual.

Because 14 months ought to be plenty of time to help somebody find a house.

Yeah, because I'll say that's my biggest concern.

The changes may lessen that issue substantially, but obviously depending on their situation, we've seen tenants in similar situations where they just simply cannot find another place to rent in the city at the price point that they were at and basically are permanently displaced from the community, and that's always a risk.

To be required, I think we mentioned this in the application, but there's a S1, S2, a screen that involves a fence, some shrubs, trees.

You can see it kind of graphically depicted on here, but there is a city standard essentially for buffering a parking lot from an adjacent residential.

and finally reference had been made to the possibility of some sort of landscaping or green space even on a very small scale that's incorporated into the project.

It's not shown, it's not depicted well here, but we do have some units in the back are fronting out onto essentially what is a lawn space, a 25-foot lawn.

One of the requirements in the R3 is to have a certain amount of exterior open space, interior and exterior.

for tenant use.

And so that would be an area that we were thinking of as space.

It's basically a flat lawn behind there, 25 feet times 100.

So it's a reasonable size.

And then I think we probably need to look at losing a few parking spaces and finding a little more green space in the front.

I wasn't prepared to do that in the last day or so looking at this.

But I think that's

Yeah, I definitely think in that space in the back, activating it and landscaping even just a little bit could go a long way for the residents who will live there.

Similarly with outside of that area, I think, you know, it'll just make it a better project, I would think, for the people who live there.

I'll just say my thoughts.

I think the amendments to me seem positive.

As you mentioned, this is a neighborhood that's seen a tremendous amount of change.

and a lot of affluent residents moving in.

I think the changes may ease some of the feelings some people have that the entire neighborhood is being completely changed.

And I think the project in terms of the multifamily is also a better alternative than what we've seen of the construction of single-family homes at a price point of $800,000 to over a million dollars.

I have a couple of really basic questions, which if I had time to read the packet, I would know.

I think it'll probably land at 44.

44 units.

Three buildings of 14 units, plus the two existing buildings.

Houses.

All right.

So 14 per structure, basically.

And those are how many bedrooms?

I think they end up all one bedrooms.

There are probably 500 to 600 square feet units.

Okay.

Thank you.

And then I didn't quite follow.

So right now this is R01 and you would be looking for a zoning amendment, I guess, to let you do this.

But if you don't get this resolved prior to the new zoning ordinance going into place, it's still RA.

So this is going to depend a little bit on what City Council does as far as enacting an effective date, if it's made effective the day of the vote or if it's effective two or three months down the road.

I think the feedback I've gotten from the director is that there would be some grace period built into this.

So it's possible, as mentioned earlier, we might actually have to enact this project, propose a amendment to rezone under the new ordinance.

So if the council enacts, there's essentially a replacement for R3, which is Rx.

which is similar height without the density restrictions but similar requirements.

Correct.

Essentially right now we're going from R1 to R3 under current zoning nomenclature.

We would have to propose an RA to an RX.

There could be other options too, but the RX comes to mind as the obvious one.

It's the equivalent of the current zoning.

And whatever came of the historic cemetery investigations?

It's not there.

We spent lots of time and money trying to find it.

We think it's on the next couple lots down.

It could exist.

The cemetery is platted an easement, but there's no one actually has a record someone was buried there.

So it's possible that it's there and there's simply nobody there.

Okay.

All right.

Doug, I had a couple questions about how you were proposing to do the change in the affordability.

That's correct.

It would be market rate for the first ten years, I mean the first nine years, and then on year ten, it's required to have the six affordable units.

And so in year ten, if the folks who were in those units didn't qualify for an affordable unit, they would basically get moved out.

That is correct.

That is a possible outcome.

Okay.

I guess the other question is, okay, so what happens if in year 10 maybe your current owners are no longer the owners, maybe somebody else is now owning the property and they say, nah, we're not going to do it.

You should put them in zoning violation and fine them by the day.

I think it would be a zoning, basically a violation of the proffer.

Now, I think the point made by the Office of Community Solutions was a little bit like, hey, the more complicated this is, the harder it is to enforce.

And I do get that.

And I'm not trying to put any more burden on them.

having built a little building like this, it's very difficult.

And effectively, in my mind, there's a good question with the math.

What's the math, right?

Because it's a net present value, I think, is brought up on the Mt.PU project, right?

Is it 30 years versus 99?

What's the difference?

It's a huge difference between year 1 and year 10, right?

And so that's the math that I'm trying to get to a place where the project is viable for a small developer without subsidy.

to still provide sort of long-term affordable housing.

Yeah, my comment is concerning around the affordability as well.

And, you know, last night we had a work session on this.

Getting the cost now of what, what was it, a three unit is like half a million dollars, is that?

Three bedroom, supposedly half a million dollars built.

So my lens now of what, you know, we people, developers proffer now for affordable housing is a lot different, you know, and that's what I'm going to be looking at and I know that

10, 15 years can go by really quickly if you're staying in the place and then after that, you know, you're going to have to buy in another place.

It can go by really, really quickly.

So I'm going to, I haven't read the proffers.

I, too, am concerned about affordability.

14 times 3 is 42.

Moving beyond that, relocation of any individuals that are currently in the units because you said something

several people might have to be relocated, where they would be relocated, what that would mean for them during this process.

And did you Could I circle back real quick?

I'm sorry.

Go ahead, Council.

Could you

Again, if I had read the packet, I had to come out with this.

So the proposal in the packet was 48 units total, 6 affordable.

Okay.

And those are the 50% AMI, 60% AMI?

60% AMI.

Okay.

Great.

So Councillor Pinkston's question about R1 and RA kind of made me think about this.

Well, I can speculate.

I mean, we all know what the last 20 years of zoning was kind of all about.

So I think that I've had a project over on Carleton, right, that was R3 forever.

It was down zoned to R2 at some point, almost like a spot down zone.

When I started my career, there was a group called the ASAP, for sustainable Albemarle population.

That county shouldn't grow at all.

And things have changed, obviously, thankfully.

But I think that was the prevailing mindset.

I was not closely following this.

I didn't dive into history.

But it doesn't surprise me at all that something was down-zoned in 2003.

Yeah.

And the historic house next door, the IPP, is that an eight-plex?

At least.

I'm not sure.

I think it's at least eight.

I think it's a strange structure.

I think it's a historic house in the front and it was added onto in the back.

But yes, it's a multifamily, I think, at least eight units.

All right.

We've got three applications in front of us.

Well, I'd be happy to accept the deferral if the

You know, it sounds like the overall consensus is the revised plan is better.

The applicant is requesting a deferral.

Is that accurate?

Yes, please.

Thank you.

Ms.

Sure.

Let's take this opportunity for the public hearing to hear anyone who may be here for any of the 108 Langford Avenue requests.

And we will alternate with in-person speakers as well as our virtual speakers.

Do we have any in-person speakers interested in speaking on this item?

Okay, I don't see any at this time.

Any virtual speakers, you raise your hand in the application or if you're on a phone line, star nine.

Right, the applicant has requested a deferral.

Well, hold on.

Vote to itself.

So walk me through the protocol.

Yes, it would be a motion.

But if the applicant defers, then the clock stops.

I'm not sure that that's what

Yeah, for the record, yeah, I think that's probably right.

There's a 100-day timeline, I think, that you all have to stay within, and we are probably already on that now, perhaps.

Mr. Chair, have a motion?

Please.

I'll second.

Any more discussion?

Ms.

Greasy, would you poll the board?

Mr. Habab?

Aye.

And Mr. Mitchell?

Thank you.

Thank you for keeping me on track, guys.

All right.

The next application is ZM23-00003.

Good evening, everybody.

I'm Dan O'Connell, a city planner with Neighborhood Development Services.

And tonight I'm introducing an application from Williams Mullen on behalf of RMD Properties LLC for a zoning map amendment to change zoning district classification of 2117 Ivy Road.

The applicant proposes to change the zoning from urban corridor to PUD or planned unit development, subject to proffered development conditions and development plan.

The 2021 future land use map designates this property as part of an urban mixed use corridor.

These corridors are described as containing higher intensity mixed use development arranged along corridors between employment, commercial, and civic hubs of the city.

And although the proposed multifamily and ground floor commercial uses for this PUD are acceptable within an urban mixed use corridor,

The proposed building is over two stories taller than the maximum of eight stories that is currently described within the comprehensive plan.

The proposed building is also out of scale with adjacent commercial and low density residential uses to the west and south.

The subject property is currently zoned urban corridor and is within an entrance corridor overlay district and development of this district is specified as both pedestrian and audio oriented but evolving to more of a pedestrian center development pattern.

the proposed PUD would enable significantly higher building height and residential density than what is currently permitted under this district by right under the current urban corridor zoning district a maximum of 64 dwelling units per acre and 80 feet in height is permitted with an approved special use permit the proposed development plan allows for a maximum of 287 dwelling units

and a maximum building height of 142 feet and or 10 stories.

And the proposed mixed-use residential structure has a depicted height of around 130 feet and contains 10 stories plus a rooftop amenity and elevator space.

The proposed structure contains 242 residential units and a proposed bedroom count of 634 based on the current conceptuals and that would give a total DUA of around 249.

The applicant has included additional standards for building massing, ground story height, finished floor elevation, transparency, entrance spacing, wall and fence height, lot area, build to width, and parking location, which are not currently required by the urban corridor district.

However, these standards were based on our current draft new zoning ordinance, which includes category CX-8, which this property is

specified to be rezoned to and that is where those standards come from.

The CX-8 zoning district also contains a bonus provision allowing the property owner to build up to 10 stories with a commitment to affordable housing and that is what the applicant is using in their materials to justify the 10 story height.

The applicants are proposing a straight pedestrian crossing along Copley Road at the intersection, as well as painted bicycle boxes along Ivy Road to provide a safe area for bicyclists wanting to cross the Ivy, Copley and Alderman Road intersection.

Sidewalk would also be provided along Ivy Road and most of Copley Road to provide pedestrian and bicycle connectivity between the subject property and adjacent properties, particularly the adjacent University of Virginia campus.

The applicants have included a transportation demand management plan as part of their rezoning application.

This plan specifies that 264 indoor bicycle spaces as well as 28 outdoor bicycle spaces and 32 scooter spaces will be provided on the premises.

The proposed building's underground parking area will also include two car share spaces for the residents.

the applicant has provided a draft proper statement requiring one of the following actions to address affordable housing either the applicant shall provide affordable bedrooms in an amount that is equivalent to providing 10% of the total units within the proposed development details that are described within the proper statement

or the applicant shall make a cash contribution to the city's affordable housing fund, the amount equal to double that which would be required under current city code section 34-12 based on the approved final site plan.

Overall, staff finds the proposed development as presented in the application materials could contribute to some goals within the city's comprehensive plan, such as the provision of additional multifamily housing and encouragement of walkable, bikeable, and public transit accessible residential areas.

The uses presented in the proposed development are consistent with the adopted future land use map.

However, the proposed structure is significantly taller than the eight-story maximum that is currently recommended by the future land use map.

If approved, the PUD rezoning should contain a clear proffered commitment to affordable housing to justify the significant height increase, similar to the draft CX-8 zoning.

The Entrance Corridor Review Board shall also review the proposed structure prior to site plan approval to determine its appropriateness and compatibility with the City's Entrance Corridor design guidelines.

That is it for my presentation.

I had a quick question on the impact on traffic.

Could you just walk me through what the perceived impact is?

The applicants did provide a traffic study with this project.

The traffic study does note that the intersection does get congested during peak hours.

The traffic study

did not say that the increase in traffic from this development would significantly lower the level of service hooding intersection.

And so the study did not recommend any traffic improvements to that intersection.

Thanks.

Right.

I think that's been referenced to the adjacent property, which is the barbecue place on 211-line, Ivy Road.

That was not looked at too closely as that is not part of the PUD.

And the applicants are requesting zero setbacks alongside and rear lot lines away from the street, which is in line with CX 878.

Thank you.

Hello, sir.

I sent you an email earlier asking about in response to public comment about left turn control.

Yes.

As I said, there was no recommended intersection improvements or changes as part of their traffic study, and the traffic engineer agreed with that.

No questions.

Mrs. Schwartz?

Does the applicant have a presentation?

again today.

Did they provide any justification for the fact that under, as we discussed at our

meeting last night in terms of those calculations.

I believe conservatively the payment in lieu fee would be around $10 million and they're offering $2 million.

No, the first draft of this application that went for a review by the Planning Commission several months ago only included 3412 commitments based on our current ordinance.

Understood.

Yeah, I realize this may not be a very popular objection, but I drive into work every day from 250 going, I guess that's east on Ivy and then turn right on Alderman Road.

And it's backed up every day from essentially the police station that's there, the new

the new orthopedics hospital that's down there.

And so it's I'm not wanting to opine on where this project eventually goes in terms of whether it's suitable for other reasons.

But it absolutely will make that area very difficult to traverse unless I'm missing something here with the amount of parking.

Yeah, so it's disappointing that the applicant, it doesn't sound like they've really put a lot of thought into the traffic patterns in that area.

I have one question.

What's planned for the Wells Fargo, formerly Wells Fargo Bank across the street, do you know?

I'm not aware of anything.

Okay.

All I know is the bank closed, but I don't know what the plan is.

I am from the Lewis Mountain neighborhood.

I have heard that there is a development proposal being, you know, circulated on that and has raised a lot of concern about your transition step-down elements.

for that because that would also be a CXA development.

There's a single family property behind it.

The owner of that property is very concerned about that.

I mean, it would seem reasonable that something like that would be proposed.

It's kind of a thing these days.

I will tell you that one of the basic concerns that I have about some of these proposals that we've been getting is that they seem to be sort of built to the margins.

as much as they could possibly be.

And I wonder whether the consequence of that is that we end up losing the opportunity for some architecture as art rather than architecture as engineering.

And I think I remember seeing some place that there was some waiver of something that they were requesting, some dimensional waiver of some sort.

Is that right?

No, I think there's one or two standards that might differ from the proposed CX-8 zoning.

But we know that the entrance corridor review is not supposed to be a review of the size of the project.

It's a matter of trying to make it more palatable once the size has already been determined.

Thank you.

Yeah, so when I heard that my old transportation spider whiteys went off and when they said after doing a traffic study they determined that no improvements was needed.

And so I just think that

First of all, it's like I want staff to really kind of take a look at that to make sure because if, you know, this goes forward, we're going to be getting complaints by everyone in the area about traffic being backed up and it's like it just makes, doesn't make sense that that doesn't, you know, whether it's a turning lane, whether it's an extended turning lane, it's hard to believe is, you know, is, you know, no improvements but

So that's something that I would really be looking at.

And as noted before, the $2 million, that, you know, maybe five or six units.

So if that's given to the Housing Affordability Fund, so I just think that that's really, really low.

I think that both of those things are something I'm going to be really looking at.

We've received a lot of comments on this to support this.

A few saying we shouldn't, but the majority just, you know,

the emails that we received probably over the last 36 hours.

It seemed like it was like someone turned on the getting saved button.

Yeah.

So it's been a lot of support for this project.

But I've been up in of a planner before that when these things get approved, if we don't do our due diligence,

The city and staff will get a lot of complaints later that, why didn't you consider this?

Why didn't you take a look at this?

I like Mr. Pinkston and very familiar of the traffic issue in that section of the city and it's just a lot of traffic and I think that we must do our due diligence and have an adequate traffic study done because it's already abysmal and if this should happen it's going to get worse.

Hi, the applicant.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Valerie Long with Williams Mullen.

We're representing the applicant RMD Properties.

Joining me is Steve Buss, also representing the applicant as agent.

We also have our civil engineer and we do have our traffic engineer as well.

We did, as I think you saw in the application package, we did conduct a traffic study.

Ms.

Creasy, I believe, do you have our slide presentation?

Oh, thank you.

I'll go through this.

Obviously we're happy to answer any questions that anyone may have.

Next slide.

I presume everyone is very familiar with the location so we'll continue but I wanted to have an image just in case.

Go ahead, next slide.

This is just a slightly closer image showing the location again and obviously its use right now very underutilized particularly given its location.

Next slide.

As has been discussed, it is designating the comprehensive plan for urban mixed-use corridor and the existing zoning is urban corridor.

Next slide.

We have a proposal.

Again, you've heard the details for the most part, but I just wanted to make sure you saw them here.

It does include some non-residential space.

We're proposing a cafe on the ground floor.

We do have a maximum of 287 units proposed.

It most likely will be closer to the 230 range, but that will depend on the ultimate unit mix and size, the number of studios versus three four-bedroom units, for example.

The actual top of the building is actually 114 feet.

We are proposing some amenity space on the top, which I'll show you, which has

you know an outdoor terrace and it does include some indoor bathrooms so I think if not for those bathrooms being technically habitable space the upper elements the elevator shafts and so forth wouldn't count towards that additional space but we felt like it was important to have restrooms for those who might be using the rooftop amenities we are proposing additional streetscape enhancements widening the sidewalk along Ivy Road

also implementing a planted buffer that is not there today and a sidewalk along Copley along this segment where it's possible as was discussed in your pre-meeting the it's not possible at this point as far as we can tell to build a sidewalk continuing towards the bridge across the railroad but there were there were some comments about ways that perhaps there could be at least accommodated on the bridge some a pedestrian area of some sort but we also did attempt to

The design of the Streetscape Long Ivy in particular was designed to be consistent with the current proposal in the draft zoning ordinance.

We're also proposing to have some more slides to show regarding some additional bike head improvements at that intersection.

As discussed, we have a number of indoor long-term bike spaces, an indoor bike room for the tenants, as well as short-term bike spaces, bike racks out front,

a couple of different locations and spaces to accommodate 32 scooter spaces which will probably be a mixture of indoor and outdoor.

On-site car sharing opportunities and dedicated areas for car shares as well as electric car chargers.

Next slide please.

This is obviously an illustrative plan.

We also just this evening received a copy of the letter that was referenced about the location of the Mohs building, Mohs barbecue building in relation

It may not be exactly rendered accurately.

We were not aware of the issue, but I do want to just point out, well, the proposed building is planned to be five feet from the property line, not right on the property line, at least at the ground level at five feet.

So we're happy to work with the Mohs owners and make sure that's corrected and accurately represented going forward.

Next slide.

This is just a little bit more detail.

This was all in the plan set.

There is a proposed amenity space with pool and courtyard on the second floor there in the middle designed to break up the massing of the building and again you can see the rooftop amenity space with the patio and restrooms and there's a walkway for the various stairs.

Next slide.

These are the various amenities that are proposed.

As you can see the green bicycle boxes and new sidewalks

expanding an existing crosswalk.

We know it's important to, you know, the University's doing a great job on their portion of Ivy with the new buildings and their very enhanced pedestrian areas themselves.

So we want, but the sidewalk there is kind of fading out of visibility.

So we would expand and enhance the crosswalk and include the bike and scooter parking and the expanded sidewalk along Ivy.

Next slide.

We also just wanted to highlight, particularly in light of the comments about traffic, that there are a number of bus stops nearby, both UVA bus stops as well as the ones along Emmett Street are, my understanding is both UVA and CAT bus stops.

So it looks like the closest one is, you know, a block in either direction, either up Alderman or down Ivy.

Next slide, please.

It's just another rendering of the conceptual plan

First Level.

Again, there's a number of parking spaces there.

Several of them would be dedicated to the on-site retail space.

And then the majority of the resident spaces would be on the lower level, which you would access using that lamp down below.

As you can see, the retail space there, cafe, obviously lobby and leasing, and then some back-of-house and mail delivery and things like that in that location.

Next slide.

This is just a close-up of the amenity space again in the hopes that it's a little easier to see.

Next slide.

Like many projects like this there will be a variety of amenities for the residents on site as you can see there.

Next slide.

We also wanted to point out that the tax revenue from this site again it's very underutilized at the moment.

You can see what was paid in taxes

will be owed this year based on a conservative estimate of the investment that the applicant is proposing to make.

We think it will be about $900,000 a year at the current rate.

Next slide.

And we did make, as a reminder, I should have mentioned, we were here in June, I believe it was, for a work session.

And we appreciated all the feedback that you provided.

And the image on the left is the original rendering we showed you then.

and on the right you can see the changes and improvements that were made based on the feedback including probably most significantly the first two levels much more open, welcoming, opening the space up I think will much support pedestrian engagement and activity along Ivy and Copley much better and just seems to lighten it up a little bit too.

Next slide.

We also show that same change in connection with the sidewalk.

On the left side is what we showed you and I in June along Ivy Road and you can see really the only change is that that on the right hand side the second level they're being up and open more and then you can see in the blue rectangle on the far side that's an amenity space that now will have some translucency or transparency from the street which we think will support that further.

and of course you can see in these images the existing bike lane that would be enhanced and the new proposed planting zone that is not there now.

Right now you have a sidewalk right next to the travel lane.

Next slide.

As you can imagine we looked very closely at the University's Emmett Street IV plan.

They've done such a good job with their design and so we wanted to kind of demonstrate how this could fit in with their plan

and how in the context obviously the patterns of development are changing fairly rapidly along that corridor.

We think, I know many people will disagree, but we think this can fit in very well with what the university is proposing as well and what they've already built as well as what could be proposed for other areas immediately adjacent both under the existing zoning as well as under the proposed draft zoning.

Next slide.

And again, we also wanted to be able to demonstrate knowing that it would be very important to everyone the context of how the project would relate to the existing and proposed buildings along M&IV and the patterns of change and development that are occurring.

Again, we think it fits in.

There's a lot of change occurring, lots more to come.

Thank you.

Next slide.

We have some additional renderings.

These were all in our planned sets, so they'll hopefully look familiar to you.

This is one from sort of further to the west on Ivy Road.

Next slide.

Again, looking there from the Ivy Square Shopping Center there on your left.

Again, looking east.

Next slide, please.

This just moves a little bit closer towards the project site, still looking in the same direction.

Next slide.

obviously getting a little bit closer you can see the Foods of All Nations and the Moe's BBQ in the sort of foreground there and the I guess formerly Wells Fargo building there in the right on the corner and then some of the university buildings their massing shown a little bit there potential massing.

Next slide.

This next image is a view from Alderman Road.

We wanted to address concerns we heard from the neighboring community about the height of the building as viewed from their neighborhood as well.

Next slide.

There's a rendering there.

It's taken just a little bit past the church and the little parking lot that they have there.

Next slide.

And again, conceptual renderings from

Copley Road.

You obviously see where the garage is.

There's also behind this sort of glass there is where the indoor bike storage room would be located, as well as some bike racks for bicycles and scooters.

And again, some of those scooters will be inside as well.

And you can see the amenity space or the void where the pool and terrace are located above.

Next slide.

is that same image just looking at it from sort of the opposite direction.

Next slide.

And again, a bit of a close-up trying to show a little better how that space can really be programmed and activated far better than it is now as a bank that does not get a lot of street activity given its use, particularly on the weekends with it being closed much of the time.

We think this will be a big improvement over that.

Obviously provide some nice cafe space for those who are coming and going whether they're residents of the building, local residents, neighbors, other employees at the University, people coming and going for events at JPJ or the football stadium.

It'll be a nice place to stop and a nice amenity to support.

Next slide.

and again just a similar location to provide an idea of the streetscape envisioned.

You can see the bike racks on the far right and then some on the far left as well.

Cafe seating is envisioned outside.

Next slide.

Again, we wanted to talk a little bit about the height.

We know this is an issue that there's a lot of interest in.

It is proposed to be 10 stories, 114 feet to the roof.

But then there's the additional sort of rooftop space is about 12 to 16 feet for the elevator, the stairs, and the restrooms.

That technically, because the restrooms are enclosed in habitable space, they do count towards building height.

All of those additional things on the roof are about 4.5% of that total roof area.

Again, we did feel like it was much more important to have restrooms available for those using the rooftop amenity space than to not have that count against the height, frankly.

But you can see the top of the building is proposed to be 114 feet.

Next slide.

and these are just obviously additional elevations.

This one from Copley Road which hopefully helps show that better and then the next slide is questions and comments.

I will add just a couple of quick comments and happy obviously to answer questions.

We certainly have heard a lot about the concerns about traffic and congestion.

We certainly understand that.

Nevertheless, our traffic study was

went through several rounds of review with the city staff.

We think it's a valid study.

We've worked very hard on it.

Because of the nature of this use, the location, obviously in such close proximity to the University and many amenities and destinations, particularly with all the new development that's happening just down the block on Ivy, you know, this will be the perfect location for future School of Data Center students to live or perhaps even employees.

they'll be able to walk to so many destinations.

There's also of course as I've mentioned scooters and bike parking.

We've really worked hard to accommodate and incorporate and commit to all of those multimodal transportation opportunities.

There's obviously Uber and Lyft are accessible as needed.

The transit service is all nearby.

The developer feels very confident that this is a location that those students or tenants who want to

be able to live without a car will be able to do so that they will self-select to live at this project because it will be in such a good location and it will support their multimodal transportation lifestyle if you will.

So we're happy to discuss that more.

We did provide as well a transportation

Demand Management Plan and that has been reviewed by the staff as well.

So we are happy to chat about that.

Hopefully these students won't be contributing to the congestion at the peak hours as well.

I think that's another important thing that there certainly is congestion at the peak hour.

Given that these are students, they're not going to be certainly not more than a few contributing to the 8 a.m.

traffic congestion in that location.

All right.

Well, let's begin with Bill.

Sure.

Mixed-use size on the first floor.

I was curious.

and then move in west on the for the loading and service on Ivy Road it's always seemed a little odd to me I thought I saw on a site plan that there'd be like some sort of dumpster in the middle of that but it looks from what you just said it sounded like maybe that's

Additional service vehicles would be able to pull in there, too.

I may let Steve Buss talk about that.

And those are some of the site plan issues that haven't really been fully fleshed out.

But I think the idea was to allow a trash truck to pull in, pick up the trash, and exit and be out of the way of the traffic lanes on Ivy Road.

Conceptual plan, I think, keep going.

So while he's doing that, Steve Buss with Up Campus representing RMD Properties.

Keep going.

There you go.

Put that one.

So you can see, you know, the thinking on the site plan that we've worked through with numerous iterations with staff has been this.

You know, from a residential traffic perspective, the decision was made, let's take that off of Ivy and put the residential traffic onto, could you have the laser pointer here?

Sorry.

And put the residential traffic onto Copley Road.

And, you know, because that's the longer, A, that's the longer side of the property.

Sorry, it's not even.

It's not showing on the screen.

So anyway, input the residential traffic at Copley because that's the longer side of the property and I think the preference obviously is given the proximity of the property to the intersection, not to do that on Ivy Road.

because then the retail and the desire to have the retail up on that corner like any good retail or commercial should be, you know, then you want the serviceability and then you've got the elevator core for the residential also up towards the front where the lobby is.

And so that's where the trash chutes come down is by the elevator core.

So then now you've got a trash and loading in gray that sits there.

I think there was some commentary about some conflicts between that loading zone and the existing power poles.

The intent is to actually underground the power poles in keeping with

kind of some of the beautification efforts along Ivy Road a little bit further to the east and continue that power line on the grounding, you know, along our section of the, along our section of Ivy Road.

Yeah, I mean, and then there's the other side of that, which is the slash service that you show on there, is the intent that, like, because there's going to be a lot of deliveries to this, you know, that many units, you know, Amazon, USPS, whatever.

They could pull in there to deliver, but I think what we'll also do, they can also pull into the main residential garage.

You'll see that we have a recessed gate.

It says res parking gate.

I can't, sorry that this isn't coming.

There we go, right there.

You can see the res parking gate kind of right in the middle of the garage so that it allows both commercial traffic to come in, park, you know, pretty much all day long, except at night we'll kind of close the outer part of the garage at after hours.

And then that res parking gate, you know, can allow, you know, Amazon or whoever that more frequent, and they're coming in not with

Yeah, I think it'll have to be a learned behavior because I think, you know, those guys and women are so on a time sensitive thing.

No, we direct them and call them.

So we actually have to do this in other buildings and other locations because you're correct, you know.

Sorry, I don't want to take up too much time, but I do have a couple more questions.

So we've got two levels of parking here.

We've got the at-ground level, like you see here, and then one level down, so we've maximized it.

We did not want to build like a

podium where you've got four levels of parking above ground.

It wasn't the way to activate it.

We've got prior experience in Charlottesville.

We worked on the, I did the 1,000 West main project 10 something years ago.

The parking ratio of the approved project then was around 20 something percent.

You know, we're around that ratio right now.

We've seen parking ratios on urban campuses or campuses that have been urbanizing.

to be around in the 20%.

A lot of big-time campuses are in the 20%.

University of Maryland, which is very similar to this in terms of the demographics.

We did the Maryland Book Exchange Project.

That was around 27%.

So I think one of the key points that was made is that, you know, even, you know, students coming out of the dorms aren't all bringing cars.

And so there are still, you know, you know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, you know, some students bring cars.

Absolutely.

You know, we see it in, you know, you go to Alabama or you go somewhere, you know,

South and you'll see people like parking at 60, 75%.

That's the demand in those places, not in Virginia.

And so we're, you know, catering to really like the, you know, kids who are, you know, used to students and even non-students who don't necessarily need or want a car.

It's a lot, it's a big component of budget.

You know, it costs them,

150, couple hundred bucks a month for the space.

It costs them $300 to operate the car.

It costs mom and dad a lot of money to operate the car.

So we like to provide alternatives with sites and projects that are located in close proximity where students don't need a car.

They do not need it if they don't want it.

And then final kind of question and I'm sure others have plenty to ask.

I was kind of curious about the pool location on that second floor and the reason I ask is because some of the, you know, pushback on this project is about the height and I know that that pool kind of creates this cutout of the floor plate that maybe you could achieve your desired number of units

to right now or is that, you know, the 600 beds or whatever, that if you didn't have such a cutout maybe you could bring the height down a little bit.

You mean I think if you go to the, if you go to, I mean, so overall on the massing I think, you know,

Mr. O'Connell pointed out is that, you know, the URB is a, you know, 80-foot height limit.

The CXA is an eight-story, 114, I think, feet, or with, you know, the bonus, and we can get into the requirements around the bonuses in the next discussion point here, you know, 10 stories up to 142 feet, I believe.

in the draft, the draft code.

So can you go to the, I think it's one of the early, the next slide that shows the, there you go, that one.

And so ultimately a building's got to provide, you know, we have to provide some open space.

So I think under the, even in the current code and in the draft code, there's a certain amount of open space we have to provide.

So the space that you see here outlined in yellow meets that open space requirement under the new code.

And so you've got the one section in yellow that's on the roof.

just, you know, open space deck with fire pits and whatnot.

That would be closed down after hours.

And then you've got the pool courtyard on level two, and at least, you know, that faces south and east, so it'll get sunlight.

And so that, you know, ultimately, we did not want to create a donut.

You know, if we do a donut, you know, every unit's got to have light and vent, so if we closed it off, we would be creating this donut.

And so I think what we wanted to do was

to create the architecture.

I wanted to create a view coming out of that corridor looking down the Greenway to the east.

I'll start off with a couple of easy questions.

On the floor plan you were showing us before this, there was a crosswalk.

Yes, I believe we, you know, indicate on the, if they can go to the, yes.

Perfect.

Yes.

I had a question on the average cafe seating clearance.

I know it says varies.

What is that?

And do you have any concerns on how tight that is?

Go to the cross section.

There you go.

So in the slide on the right, you'll see that the overall sidewalk width at the cafe is around 12 feet from, you know, so you go from the back of curb, you've got that green zone, you've got a pedestrian sidewalk where the person's there around seven feet, and then we have like a

The cafe zone is about five.

The overall, the total is 12.

So frankly, we probably don't even need five feet for that cafe zone.

Yeah.

And so this is the old on the left.

The new is on the right.

And I think some of the comment in the preliminary discussion back in July was,

I agree it does.

I appreciate the recess pulling that up to the two floors to help break up the scale of the pedestrian level and create some interest there.

and parking and traffic wise.

This is more of a comment.

Thanks for pointing out that it's student housing and it's typically 9 to 5.

Keep that in mind.

My, I guess, harder question is on the casualty and doing some back of math real quick.

Looking at the draft zoning ordinance and what we are hoping to get to, we don't look at it considering the bonus just at the 60%.

Looking at about 24 units or assuming you're proposing 242 based on the application or 4.4 million or so in

cash-in-lieu payments and in this proposal you're providing 1.7 roughly double the current requirements.

It's a difference of about 2.7 million.

I think it's important to point out that the proposal is too prompt.

So I guess maybe a little bit of personal and company background is that, you know, we're probably one of the few people in the room who actually has built on-site units in other towns.

So we've got a lot of experience, you know, some experience doing affordable.

In some places they want the cash proffer and other places prefer to actually build them.

So we actually did complete a project.

recently where what required 8% to 60% AMI as part of an increase in pipe density and all that.

That's why we've outlined, because the code is in flux, we've outlined a two-prong approach to it.

Yeah, it's a very, I mean, the $10 million is a very massive number and not feasible, I don't think, in any, you know,

reasonable thing, but I guess I'd have to see the underlying, you know, there was some, in some conversation I'd have sent around $185,000 a unit, so I don't know.

This is all very recent, so I think there's, we're still trying to figure it out ourselves.

Hello.

Left turns, I've got left turns on the mind.

Historically on this property, there's been some control about left turns.

Left turns in general take longer, cause more queuing, cause more confusion, cause more danger, harder to see.

Vehicles these days have more blind spots, so a left turn is a more dangerous movement.

Yeah, I think it's a fine point to do.

So I think if you can go to probably the concept plan.

This is an earlier slider.

Go to the site plan, that same site plan that had the commercial on it.

Sorry, I'm a little bit lost here.

One more.

There you go.

I believe you're referring to kind of this turn here.

You know, we've got Clint from traffic engineer from Timmins here as well.

And, you know, right now you can see the, you know, the traffic would be a left, you know, you can take a left turn into the garage, you can take a right turn into the garage, and then you can come out.

So I believe you're referring to a left turn motion coming out, going left onto Copley,

Yeah I mean don't we want people going up Copley to Massey and going to barracks or whatever and not going on NIV?

If it's safe.

I'm going to ask Scott Dunn with Timmons Group, the traffic engineer, to address your question.

This has been an ongoing discussion with the city traffic engineer.

There's been some concern with traffic entering off of Copley into the site by the left because of the traffic cues from the signal.

We discussed doing a don't block the box option, putting some payment markings down to preserve that open space there.

But to the point you specifically brought up, it definitely is an issue

if you do get in the traffic you're looking left you know trying to look around two rows of traffic to continue and same to your right and again if you did prohibit the left out of the site which is the most dangerous movement it would just it would send additional vehicles down to the signalized intersection based on the distributions we discussed with this project we've got about 20% of the overall traffic going there so in the p.m.

peak hour

It'd be an additional 15 to 20 vehicles that would go to that signalized intersection based on the distributions.

Any project anywhere.

Well, while we're on the subject of left turns, I guess.

So in your study, the cueing at the left turn from Copley onto IV was the main problem point for your part of that intersection, right?

It seems like, you know, going up Copley

the existing southbound turn bay yeah really the way the road curves now there's not a lot of additional width to do anything if you look on Copley Road the opposite side of this project is the only sidewalk to exist out there that also carries over the bridge so we don't have any room to widen and if we extended that right turn lane that's heading southbound

on Coakley, then it's going to back over into the through lane.

That's just the point where we have enough width to accommodate two side-by-side vehicles.

It's really a function of the road as it exists today.

Yeah, there were a couple.

I mean, overall, all the intersections we studied, there were four of them in the general area.

Every intersection operated a level of service C or better.

Overall, there were a couple movements that had a level of service D, which is acceptable under general practice.

The addition of site traffic didn't affect that.

You know, with respect to the operations on Copley itself, I want to say in the background conditions, the queues on Copley coming down to the intersection were maybe

All right then I had some questions about your bike markings is that you were I guess they just seemed a little bit

Well, I don't know.

In the garage, within the building you're talking about?

No, along Ivy, the paint you're... Yeah, but these would be, you know, those I think were...

Are those bike racks, I think, Clint?

Oh, oh, oh, oh, it's similar to the, it's similar to, I'm sorry, the green paint in the, it's in, there's an aerial in your packages.

It's not in here.

Oh, it's actually shown on, like, the third slide.

If you could go further to the beginning of it.

So look there.

There we go.

Back down.

There you go.

One more.

Yeah, thank you.

So yeah, basically, green bicycle boxes.

You see them around campus.

Very common.

Yeah, so, you know, often you also see, you know, green boxes, like, in front of your left turn, for example.

There are a few other places I would point out where green paint would help, you know, a dash line in front of your loading dock, for example.

I guess, would you just commit to sitting down with our city traffic engineer and traffic planner, transportation planner, and kind of put in that paint anywhere that works?

I mean, it's pretty cheap, obviously.

We've done that.

And then, you know, a couple other potential big improvements you can make for bikes that would be a bit more of a commitment, but, you know, you're going to have a lot of bicyclists in your project, you know.

One would be potentially taking your sidewalk area along Copley Road and turning that into more of a shared use path to get bikes coming southbound off Copley off of the street and then bringing them up to the intersection off street.

into what ideally, if you really wanted to get crazy, would be something like a two-stage protected intersection.

That's going to be more expensive and not exactly your responsibility.

It should be the city's, but it's going to be some years before we get around to doing something like that.

I think that those lanes, I guess, are pretty wide.

On Copley?

I think to your point, obviously we can work with Brennan on seeing what's the best option for you, a multi-use path to the side versus what we can do to restripe those width-wise.

Obviously you could integrate some green paint depending on the pavement markings there, have some bike boxes as you approach Copley to hold bikes there in that area to provide a refuge.

Yeah, I mean, these are site plan problems, they're not conditions or anything.

I'm thinking like the, I think bike boxes would help a lot.

I'm thinking like the Oakhurst

Yeah, and what we're trying to be cognizant of here is obviously we want to make every accommodation we can for bikes and pedestrians, but we've also realized that there's a pretty heavy traffic further there, so trying to balance the needs of all the users.

Sure, absolutely.

So I won't retread anything that my colleagues have covered.

except going back to Commissioner Habab's comments about the fee-in-lieu and there's been a lot of talk about the fee-in-lieu and the size of the fee-in-lieu and the changing formulae and the new and the old and what Commissioner Habab and I both sort of had this view at the prior presentation here that it seems that we're trying to

cherry-pick isn't the right word, but so if we're making reference to the new proposed zoning, this is eight floors with a possible bonus to 10 for affordable housing.

However, the bonus to 10 is contingent on 50 percent, not 60 percent for the height.

So what I'm looking at here is that if we are

going to look at this height and we are referencing this new and you are referencing this new zoning as a you know I get I have heartburn about

sort of the exploitation of the most advantageous policies on both, which sort of waters us down a little bit.

You know, I mean, I would say, well, if we're going to, if your view on this is that we're looking at the 10-story bonus height we're doing for affordable housing, you know, we can't bonus that.

We can't bonus the height of the money.

So it would seem to me that

conforming to the intent of the new if you're going to be riding that horse would be a 50, not 60.

That sounds a little muddled, but I'm just trying to get at sort of a sense of equity for what we're doing here.

And again, I mean, I don't, I'm not as concerned with, and overall I'm not as concerned with height as a lot of other folks are, but that it just sort of,

Just the formula we've seen to be successful, what's worked in places like Minneapolis has been like an 8 at 60.

And so we, you know, 60% is actually a pretty important limit.

80, I understand, doesn't address affordability.

Doesn't do anything.

But 50, what happens at 50 is you start cutting into, you know, you're essentially, you can't even almost cover

the variable cost, much less the fixed cost of the affordable units.

So we've studied this at absurdum as developers and whatnot, and I think that's why we structured the proffer to be something that was a, you know, over, above, like an 8 at 60, to go to 10 at 60.

It's just getting to the 50 is tough.

Yeah, well, I mean, I'm unsurprised to learn that managing the financing and dollars of affordable housing isn't easy.

Well, great.

There was, I mean, some other, you know, I think there's some other updates and inputs I would recommend on some of the studies that were done.

I think the study was very well organized, but I think some of the inputs were

You know, and that may be a different subject, frankly, you know, a subject for a different, but it's germane, I think, because you're bringing it up.

But I think, you know, again, that's why there's kind of two alternatives, and I think we're comfortable doing one of the two.

And I think what, you know,

Well, I mean, we've had...

Well, I mean, it's not official, but we've had sort of draft figures available as well, but it's the foundation on the prior one.

Again, it's the conflation of the two.

And it is possible to do in student housing, so don't think that it's not unmanageable.

It is manageable, and there's other specifics that we can...

You know, get into the staff to do it, but it is manageable with the student housing.

There's just some flexibility that we identified in the proper statement to kind of comport these procedures with what we've seen work in other cities to do it for students.

Well, yeah, and I'm not asking you to sort of recalculate this on the fly at the podium.

as entertaining as that might be, but not there.

And I think that's all I've got since my colleagues come in.

All right.

And we're still on just questions, right?

Well, since I'm at the end, my stuff is really minor and kind of, yeah, just really minor.

In the drawings, you've got a site wall that says site wall for discussion.

No, it was just in the back of the site the topography drops off.

I don't think we need the wall because the foundation walls themselves would suffice.

It's just a matter of once you're going to calculate the average grade elevation under prior code you average things so you can kind of see the average grade elevation is

You know, that's what leads to that 130 foot tall determination at the penthouse.

Again, the only reason that we ran that calculation to there is because we're including a bathroom, you know, adjacent to the elevator court.

You know, if you kind of

If you measured the height of every elevator core in the city, every building in the city would be another 15, 16 feet taller.

So the true measure as we see it is measured from Ivy Road is that the height of this is about 114 feet.

All right.

It was, yeah, it was the four discussion that it was written under.

I just wanted to make sure it weren't.

And you've said, I believe you said that you're intending to move the power line or bury the power lines.

You're not going to move them across the street?

No, underground.

I don't see I mean the line continues to the you know comes from these continues to the west so I don't see okay because I mean that's we've gotten that a couple times where the lines just end up multiplying getting moved right across the street and that doesn't do anybody any good really minor question you've got it looks like three street trees showing up on your all of your architectural drawings your site plan shows two and a whole bunch of utilities underground and

I think Timmins has a more defined landscape plan.

I think it was part of the package, but not in the slideshow here.

So what's in C005 would govern?

I think it's just a limit as to what we can practically fit in the planters.

Again, this is kind of like competing uses within limited frontage where you've got

requirements for bike parking, short-term bike parking to meet the, you know, intent of the new code, both along Ivy and then along, you know, the public bike parking on Copley there.

And then we also have the scooter parking.

Six.

Yeah.

If I may, certainly at the site plan stage we'll have to comply, but if there's room to add more trees and address all the other bike pad improvement situations, I'm sure they can.

You did answer my question though, that the civil, the site plan is what's leading at the moment.

Right.

Okay.

That's it.

Yeah, sorry, a couple things I forgot because I was too busy with my clients.

One on the proffer, for your on-site option, you talk about Pell Grants and then you say, so your rent is 60% AMI, but then you have your Pell Grant for your qualification for your tenant, Pell Grant recipient or 100% of AMI?

At median, it says?

No, I think that's a misstatement.

It's for the non-Pell Grant, like if they're not a student, then... It should be, it should be, I'm not sure the exact section of the text you're referring to.

Here, let me find it and read it for you.

in the staff report, it's qualifying tenants, page 18 under four.

Students who qualify for any level of federal Pell Grant shall be qualifying tenants.

For all other tenants, those persons in households certified by the applicant to have combined adjusted annual income that does not exceed the applicable median family income for the applicable calendar year shall be qualified tenants.

I don't know if that's the staff report interpretation or what's in it.

It was the same text in your own proper.

So is that a confusion on applicable perhaps?

It should be 60.