City Council Work Session   10/3/2023

clearly so that people will understand.

The first question I had posed was to the city tax assessor.

Will taxes go up based on the potentially more intense use of the land in RA, RB, and RC lots?

Apparently the Assessor told someone that taxes would go up based on the potential use of the land, meaning, according to the folks on Nextdoor, that our taxes will immediately triple because we would now be able to have three residences on the property.

As I understand it, this is not a simple yes or no answer, but has a lot of it depends on whether neighbors are selling for three times as much, not whether neighbors might sell for three times as much.

As I understand it, the answer is, as it has always been, that it depends on what comparables are doing.

Can the tax assessor clarify?

And the tax assessor has responded with a letter that is actually dated a couple of weeks ago.

that said to the city manager says, Dear Sam, this letter is in response to your email of September 14th regarding the proposed changes in the zoning code that the assessor's office will not immediately revise assessments to match, quote, what can be built on site, close quote.

To my knowledge, no one in the assessor's office made that statement.

I think it is logical to assume that by increasing the density, property values may rise over time, but there is no basis for an immediate increase in assessments.

The assessor's office analyzes sales data to determine real estate assessments.

Until there is sufficient sales information to provide direction, we will not adjust the present values.

I hope this answers your question and provides additional helpful information.

Please let me know if you need clarification.

Sincerely, Jeffrey S. Davis, City Assessor.

The second question that arose again last night deals with the allegation that we are illegal because we have not asked the Department of Transportation for their opinion on our rezoning efforts.

and I asked City Attorney Jay Stroman to be able to respond to this accusation.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and I think we can put this one to rest pretty quickly.

The allegation of illegality relates not to the adoption of the zoning ordinance, which is before the Council at this time, but relates to an allegation of an event that has passed us, which relates to the amendment of a comprehensive plan.

The statute that is at issue here has no bearing on Council's consideration of the zoning ordinance and any allegation of illegality is ill-founded.

And can you also comment on the allegation that was made a year ago that this failure to do things with VDOT invalidated the comprehensive plan?

Thank you.

And then the last question I had asked was, will UVA students be eligible for low-income housing vouchers?

If not, why not?

And for that, I'm going to defer to John Sales.

Come on up here, please.

We're just answering.

So UVA students are eligible if they meet certain requirements.

So they would have to be 24 years or older.

So the typical second year student, 19 years old is not likely to qualify?

That's correct.

Anybody have any questions for Mr. Sayles about this?

Well, that's good to know.

We, serving on several of the university community task force, that was a question that was concerned of those 1,500 units that UVA is planning to build, and I don't think they fully kind of fleshed out that, you know, what those units will look like, but we know what

You know, our guidelines will be for that, so that's good to know.

I think that that will certainly, with those parameters, is probably a much, much smaller pool of students, potentially.

Yes.

Well, it's up to you all, but it's simple.

Okay.

That's all I've got.

Perfect.

Thank you, Mr. Sales.

So I wanted to get those out of the way.

Sure.

Maybe.

I hope so.

No, the intention here is to basically say that the low-income housing tax credit program rules generally align with what Mr. Sales laid out for the housing choice voucher.

And in fact, that is one of the reasons why, as we were working with the residents at Friendship Court slash Kindlewood in the redevelopment,

that we decided to take what was originally the idea of market rate units and make them 80% AMI LIHTC units is that it allowed for us to control for student populations to move into the community.

So it does have a barrier there as well.

Questions?

Anybody else?

I appreciate folks who have come who might not have been expecting to come because these are questions that persist and sort of the way council has dealt with these issues we have not really had the occasion for us to engage in dialogue with members of the public about some of this and so some of these issues seem to have been floating around for some time and we wanted to

to bring them back down to earth.

All right.

Well, good evening.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of Council.

My name is James Freese.

I'm the Director of Neighborhood Development Services.

And I'm not going to talk to you about displacement, or at least much.

I'm going to turn things over.

We have a couple of speakers here this evening to talk about displacement, and then I imagine all of us will be able to engage in the discussion.

At your pleasure, what I'd like to do is have each of the speakers speak.

Of course, they can answer any questions you might have, but then do discussion following both speakers if we can.

Thank you.

So our first speaker tonight is Antoine Williams with the Office of Community Solutions.

And then we have the Housing Advisory Committee, Joy Johnson and Sunshine Mathon here as well.

We just want to make sure you're on a microphone because this is being broadcast.

Good evening, council.

It's a pleasure to be before you.

I think this is my first time with this opportunity.

I'll give you a little background about me.

I've been serving since 2003 in public service.

My background is inclusive of law enforcement experience,

Emergency Management, Growth Management, Permitting and Zoning.

Prior to joining the City in May, I served as the Assistant Director of the Community Redevelopment Agency in the City of Fort Myers and for a brief time as U.S.

Director of Programs for a NGO leading housing resilience efforts in the U.S.

South.

So this is a role I'm very excited to have, work I'm very excited to do.

I am also excited that I don't have to do it alone.

So I'm going to go through this presentation.

It's a 10,000-foot overview of a framework that's in draft form.

It's a work in progress.

We can go to the next slide.

We start off by asking what is anti-displacement, but first let's look at the definition of placement.

Is it being defined as an action of putting someone or something in a particular place or the fact of being placed or the action of finding a home, job, school for someone?

So it has a broad context than just housing.

Anti-displacement then is generally referred to

as strategies and policies to prevent involuntary displacement of long-standing, often lower-income residents from their neighborhoods due to gentrification or other development pressures.

An anti-displacement strategy framework aims to create inclusive, stable communities where residents can afford to live and thrive.

James, is that good?

You want to add anything on that?

No.

All right.

So I won't focus too much on this demographic, what's in front of you.

I think you're going to have a deeper conversation about that later.

But the short of what's in front of you demonstrates that in our BIPOC community, within the city of Charlottesville, there is a depreciation or a decrease, close to 2%, specifically in black, non-Hispanic residents.

in other spaces where you see larger increases for demographics for white non-Hispanic increase substantially and then also within the Hispanic Latino population there was an increase in population between the 2010 and 2021 census data.

There is a deeper dive underway right now with more current data and I think that's gonna be introduced to you in your next work session.

So as we discuss this framework, I'd like you to consider it in the context of the four pillars that we feel most supports it, and that's our affordable housing plan, the comprehensive plans, and the strategic plan framework, and the zoning code rewrite and the ADU ordinance and manual.

There is a fourth pillar which I'll get into next, but these four pillars support equity in housing,

that's ensuring the availability of affordable housing options through policies like inclusionary zoning, rent control, or housing rental assistance programs like our C-STRAP program, tenant protections, continuous community engagement, inclusion and planning, education and training, and economic development.

So the fourth pillar is

the people in the process which add together to create our service capacity and next to that pillar I have sort of the working groups or the areas of who's supporting this element and you'll notice that it's not in green because it's in progress and it's supported by you know decisions that are yet to be made with regards to the zoning

and how that's administrative specifically as it relates to the ADU ordinance for example.

We have to build out processes for that and put staff in place so there's a continuous work that has to evolve from decisions that you all must make.

We have here working groups from the City Manager's Office, yourselves, Neighborhood Development Services, Office of Community Solutions, Human Services Department, Human Rights Department, the newly formed Homeless Intervention Task Force and various community partnerships.

Next slide.

That's just a graphic of the four pillars.

You can go to the next slide.

I think it's important to discuss also, I highlighted that there's a decision to be made with regards to the zoning, but I think it's also important to note that what a zoning ordinance can do to tackle anti-displacement.

Some of these things are, again, in progress or in discussion, but inclusionary zoning, density bonuses, mixed use zoning, historic preservation, housing equity districts, which I can unpack that later if you have questions on that, community housing resiliency zones, and zoning provisions like zero net loss policies and the ADU ordinance and companion manual.

To unpack zero net loss policy, what that means is if you have

Someone purchased two parcels, and on each parcel there is a home.

You could have a provision where it says you must build back two homes.

You can't take those two parcels and make one home or one large single-family property, something to that extent.

What zoning ordinances can't do directly, it can't address economic inequality.

control property values or address all displacement issues a little bit more on the economic inequality piece while section 15.2-2283 of state code the purpose of zoning ordinance of article 7 of the state code states that zoning codes may be used to encourage economic development activities that provide desirable employment

and enlarge the tax base.

It should be noted that one significant limitation of zoning codes in general is that it cannot directly address the underlying economic disparities contributing to displacement.

Factors like income inequality, job opportunities, and wage levels are beyond the scope of zoning regulations.

In this slide, I present to you some of the activities that's either in progress or directly supported by the city through its CAF fund, the Charlottesville Affordable Housing Fund, either directly or through a partner.

So everything that you see in green with a check mark corresponds to activities that are supported by the city.

So we talk a lot about the city punching above its weight class, and I think for me, what that means also to is not just sort of

and the volume of what we spend and contribute, but also in the diversity and range of ways we try to solve the problem.

The two elements that have the blue chevron, these are things that are being discussed by our Housing Advisory Committee and are possibly coming forward with recommendations and suggestions soon.

We're here.

Is it possible that we can get a copy of your presentation?

Yes.

Thank you.

Yes, ma'am.

So what is the difference between community land-trusted and... Land-based.

What?

But that was part of a land trust and that really brought those units down to like $160,000 and they were very nice.

It is a common lack of clarity around the distinction between them.

And in some ways because there is some overlapping tools and benefits between them, but there are some differences as well.

Land banks are a

is a statutory entity that has powers that a land trust never does.

So for example, a land bank can clear title.

And land banks as a concept were actually sort of created in the sort of rust belt areas where the cities or towns wanted to aggregate and get properties redeveloped so that you would spur economic growth or spur housing growth.

and a lot of those lands were either you know a lot of those houses were needed to be have the title cleared in one way or another so land banks came to form then and became a mechanism for the cities to transfer property generally speaking to private developers some non-profit some for-profit so that it would spur economic growth effectively

There are some land banks in the state of Virginia, not many.

The legislation that enabling them came about 10, 12 years ago, something along those lines.

We thought about, as a city, creating a land bank and moving that forward.

And one of the benefits of a land bank is that can also, if it sells land, it can then impose effectively

a requirement that 50% of the tax increase that comes from redevelopment on that site for 10 years can come back to support the land bank function of acquiring new land.

I had one other thought and I've forgotten it.

But the community land trust side is a separate entity style that actually grew out of the deep south originally to support preservation of farmland amongst black farmers who were experiencing the land being taken from them effectively.

and they pooled their land together in a way that it made that impossible to do in not having individual ownership.

That has transitioned over to the home ownership sector where community land trusts now act as an entity in the homes you're talking about.

The community land trust maintains ownership of the land over the long term in perpetuity.

the homeowner owns the improvements on that land.

When the homeowner decides to sell, if they do, they don't have to, they can hand it down to their children if they choose to do so, but if they do decide to sell a portion of the increased value

a loan or second mortgage or something like that.

They were like, well, you don't actually own the land.

Is that an issue?

It does make sense.

That has been an issue in the past in different jurisdictions.

We have largely solved it now.

There are three banks in our region or three entities in our region which now lend to community land trust owners when they first want to purchase a community land trust home.

One is the UVA Credit Union, another is Fulton Bank and then Virginia Housing, the state housing finance agency will also do so.

One of the important factors to ensure that future banks also join that is that it qualifies now and as the Piedmont Community Land Trust qualifies under the duty to serve protocol the federal government puts out there which essentially says that those mortgages can be sold in the secondary market.

So what in here, I see affordable housing and fee waivers, but what in all of these things that are listed here allows for people that are in affordable housing or affordable housing units to ultimately become homeowners, particularly of that unit?

My second column has a 10-year opportunity purchase program and a down payment

for example, Habitat for Humanity as a down payment assistance program that is supported through the CAF program.

I would highlight three items on here.

One is the one that Antoine and Mr. Williams just highlighted.

And we as well, Piedmont Housing Alliance, administers down payment assistance programs from state funds, city funds, county funds, et cetera.

Property tax relief programs are not homeowner creation, but they're homeowner preservation to ensure that folks who are low income can afford to stay in their homes.

Can I add one more?

So the voucher program is also a good option, and the housing authority is rolling that out now to where you can use a voucher to pay a mortgage instead of paying landlords.

And so we're committing to doing it for five a year in our new annual plan, our new five-year plan.

The ones that were listed up here including what Mr. Sayles just highlighted are the mechanisms for doing that.

The biggest hurdle and challenge as you might suspect is available inventory that's affordable at any affordable price.

Even with a voucher there are limitations to how much can be afforded which is the reason that for example Piedmont Housing Alliance decided to work with the Community Land Trust

Question for Mr. Williams.

So obviously all these tools we've been discussing right now aren't zoning.

You mentioned in your presentation that zoning is partially a tool for anti-displacement.

You can't control everything.

It's not the only tool or even the most powerful tool.

I'm curious if you had any thoughts on this.

Okay, zoning may not be directly related

Zoning may not be directly an anti-displacement tool on its own, but does zoning interact with these tools in any way?

Yes, very good question.

One of the things we were asked to contemplate as we put this together was that there's a discussion about areas in our community that are more susceptible to certain displacement risk or certain effects of gentrification, and there had been discussion about what do we title such an area.

For our work in evaluation, I looked at it as, okay, what do we want to achieve in these areas?

One example I went through was I mentioned

Housing Equity Districts, right?

And what you could do there is if, say, a certain district was identifying the plan associated with it, you may identify homes within that district that have longstanding tenants that have been renting those homes for years.

Within those programs you could do things from specific tax abatement programs that are enabled through state code or you may introduce new programs.

One thing that has been discussed and is being vetted is concepts where you can freeze tax values or work with the owner of said home to ensure that that homeowner could have the opportunity of first right of refusal or the city or a land bank or a land trust.

So the short answer to your question is yes.

All of these work together interchangeably.

Yeah, thank you.

That's very helpful.

One of the big questions I've had is that example you mentioned.

Let's say there's areas where you have a large amount of long-term tenants.

It's not subsidized housing with vouchers or low-income tax credits, so it's not protected by an affordability period.

Let's say the city wanted to prevent displacement of that community.

The community land trust strategy is identified as a good tool.

Let's say the current zoning is like the lowest density residential.

If that zoning changed to just like CX5, does that change the feasibility of ever being able to implement the community land trust model to prevent displacement?

In other words, I mean, can you increase the density in a community like that to the point where

a non-profit wouldn't be able to compete against the private market to buy it or the market incentive to redevelop it becomes so high the probability of preventing displacement goes down.

It's a very complex question, and I'm going to try to answer it as straightforward as possible.

There's a lot of moving parts to that, and what you'll hear from, I'm not sure when James points on having the RKG study presentation about the implications to, the impediments to, is it next week?

Okay.

You'll hear more in depth about the implications of that study with regards to impediments to implementation to the

the inclusionary zoning piece.

The short part of my answer is that yes, you will have to work it all together.

You have to work it to work it.

So there's no one solution.

What I would say is that it would depend on the lot and depend on that specific community and what the market does, which can change over time.

Right.

Yeah, because to me one of the huge questions is how does zoning connect with these tools?

in specifically, we say we want to get to these tools because there's the most powerful anti-displacement measures.

Yeah, I suppose you always could.

And the zoning is going to need some attention over time anyway.

You can always write an amendment.

I mean, that's a prerogative of this council.

But if you don't have a housing equity district, could you use these tools without some mechanism written into your zoning?

I guess it's kind of how do we evaluate the level of risk as just like a concrete example let's say there's a mobile home park in Charlottesville the current zoning you couldn't build a particularly high height and density so the market incentive to redevelop it

is not extremely high.

And let's say that was rezoned to CX5 and there was an unlimited density and the height goes to five stories by right.

Do you greatly increase the probability of a developer coming in, evicting tenants who don't own, redeveloping it?

And then if we talk about the anti-displacement tools, it's irrelevant because we could make an amendment, but the community is displaced.

I think the intention for these tools is to make them proactive.

So I believe that's the next iteration of work, right?

And that block where the pillars

Yeah.

Yeah.

So might I do my comments?

I'm going to not directly address that specific example, but I would

My comments are kind of related to the idea in general around what you're talking about, if that's okay.

Sure.

Just following protocol.

Ms.

Johnson, as the chair of the HAC, could we at least acknowledge you first?

We honor those that we need to honor.

Thank you for that protocol.

Good evening, Mayor and members of Council.

For the record, my name is Sunshine Mathon.

I'm a volunteer in the City's Housing Advisory Committee, and I'm the Executive Director of Piedmont Housing Alliance.

Additionally, I volunteer on the board of the Virginia Housing Alliance and the National Labor Works Association, statewide and national housing advocacy organizations, respectively.

I share these last two references to highlight that my comments endeavor to pull broadly from my experience in state and national level dialogues as well as local ones.

First of all, I want to thank Antoine for the presentation initially.

I think it's a great, we're incredibly lucky to have him joining the city and I think it's a great foundation for the conversation moving forward.

Five years ago, the city commissioned its first comprehensive housing needs assessments.

The results were grim, and if we could put up the presentation at this time, that would be great.

Many of you have seen this before, but perhaps some of you haven't, so I'm bringing it up as a reminder.

The results were grim.

At that moment in time, five years ago, it identified that the city needed to deploy 3,300 housing interventions, the 3318 number on the right-hand side, to address household cost burdens experienced by lower-income families in our city.

Disturbingly, it also estimated that the challenges would only worsen in the coming decades without deep investment and focused action, resulting in the 4020 number in the lower right-hand corner by 2040.

In part, these data helped catalyze the ensuing creation of the affordable housing plan framework and an alignment of purpose with the update to the city's comprehensive plan and future land use map.

These efforts have laid the foundation for the work of revisioning our city's zoning code that we're discussing today At the outset, the three resounding reasons for updating the zoning were one, to modernize the burdensome patchwork of unpredictable regulations

Two, to enable, as much as zoning can, the creation and preservation of housing affordability.

And three, to confront and redress the history of race-based zoning that undergirds our city's infrastructure, that has formed the character of where we live and who we live next to, and has reinforced racialized disparities in wealth creation, educational achievement, and other measures of civic well-being.

And Charlottesville's not alone.

Over the last four years, cities and states across the country have contended with related histories and similar goals.

Minneapolis was the first city to take the leap by effectively eliminating single family zoning across the entire city.

Other municipalities have taken similar steps.

Portland, Charlotte, Maine, Arlington, to name a few.

And some cities have approached the problem differently.

The Cambridge Massachusetts affordable housing overlay being of particular consequence.

The headwinds to progress that every city faces are similar.

One, we operate within a social fabric that privileges housing as an investment vehicle over housing as a human right.

Corporate aggregation of homes across the country, including in Charlottesville, is the latest expression of this principle.

Two, pre-existing limitations of disparate infrastructure investment, roads, public utilities, et cetera, facilitated by the same discriminatory practices that framed our city's exclusionary zoning policies,

and three, the endemic housing supply demand mismatch.

Every urbanized region of the country is somewhere between 10 and 20 years behind the curve.

I highlight the housing supply issue last because I want to reinforce that this is not the sole driver of rising housing costs.

Instead, it acts as an amplifier of pre-existing conditions.

Even if we could solve the supply challenge today, other factors would still exacerbate displacement and disparate wealth creation.

Nonetheless, if we don't work to address housing supply, it will continue to magnify displacement During public comment over the last few months, we have heard some residents in historically exclusionary neighborhoods state that they don't want change, that they like the way their neighborhoods are now I respectfully submit that this perspective fails to acknowledge a fundamental truth

Change has been and will continue to take place even if the zoning stays as is.

The form of that change looks different, however.

Instead of the buildings and the streets potentially changing, it will continue to be the people.

Residents of neighborhoods like Fifeville and Tenth and Page can attest to this.

Displacement is change.

One measure of this change is the unprecedented increase in Charlottesville area's median income.

If you can go to the next slide, please.

There we go, thank you.

To my knowledge, since 2017, Charlottesville has experienced the most dramatic surge in measured area median income it has ever seen, a 61% increase in six years.

To put this in real terms, in 2017, half of the city's households made more than $76,600.

In 2023, half of the city's households now make more than $123,300.

and the data that Mr. Williams showed in his presentation a moment ago highlighting the impact or the reduction in the percentage of people of color in the city of Charlottesville between 2011 and 2021 only goes up to 2021 and then you look at this data here between 21 and 23 that's a 32% increase in the AMI in the last two years alone.

If the population were static, we could assume that wage rates are increasing substantially, that that's the reason for what we see here.

However, the population is not static, and we all know that this surge in AMI is not driven by average wage increases.

The disturbing dynamic this data unveils is that those who increasingly cannot afford to live in Charlottesville are being displaced, and those who are moving in can afford to be here with higher incomes.

This is a measure of displacement over time over the last six years.

With zoning and densities as is, this is what the face of change would continue to look like.

It's the people who are changing, and those who are least able to absorb increased costs of housing are the ones impacted the most.

So I believe we all agree on some general ideas moving forward.

We agree that upzoning the city is necessary, that the degree of upzoning should and will vary based on existing uses, corridors, current and planned and other factors, and that one RA neighborhood is not necessarily the same as another.

All the factors that I referenced above, particularly the legacy of race-based city decisions that formed our current neighborhood layouts and infrastructures, these feed into what will actually happen when upzoning takes effect.

Although the city does not have precise transactional data, we know displacement pressure is highest in the historically black and lower income neighborhoods.

We have heard it loud and clear from the residents of some of these neighborhoods themselves.

In a recent door-to-door survey conducted by FAR in parts of Fifeville, Rose Hill, and Tenth and Page, the overwhelming concern from residents is that the rising cost of housing and the real and present danger of displacement, not just of individual families, but of the rich cultural fabric of these communities.

I state all these data and analyses because as we consider next steps, I want to deeply reinforce that we have to devise guardrails to protect vulnerable neighborhoods once upzoning takes effect.

tomorrow, or perhaps it's next week, you're gonna see a presentation from RKG, the consultant who was hired to review the inclusionary zoning framework.

The Housing Advisory Committee, the HAC, saw the presentation a couple of weeks ago, and the estimated rate of change in RA parcels in different parts of the city is crucial to this anti-displacement conversation today.

Next slide, please.

So I'm stealing some of their thunder that you'll see next week.

On the left,

You'll see the consultant's organization of market sub-areas.

Don't mistake A, B, and C, and D for designations of zoning categories as I initially did.

Those are just areas that they organized it by.

On the right, you'll see the results of their analysis of the ratio of difference in value between current values under current zoning and potential values under up-zoning.

The consultant can provide more details when you meet with them.

But here is the key insight from my perspective for this conversation.

The resulting estimated rate of change is as follows.

Next slide, please.

In area A, the estimated rate of change is a bit over 2%.

Next slide.

In area B, it's a little under 1%.

And this is rate of change annually projected.

These are all estimations.

And next slide, please.

In areas C and D, the areas we had previously called sensitive areas, which now with neighborhood input are described as anti-displacement areas or zones, the estimated rate of change is nearly 3.5%.

This means that these areas are going to be 1.5 to 4 times as likely to see change as a result of upzoning as compared to other RA neighborhoods.

To be 100% clear, James Fries has urged me to communicate that we don't actually know the current rate of change in these neighborhoods.

We don't know whether the estimated disproportionate rate of change we are seeing estimated here will amplify displacement or simply change that kind of displacement.

We don't have the data to compare.

But the bottom line is we have to rapidly evaluate and deploy all available tools, zoning based tools, policy tools, funding tools, to mitigate this risk of disproportionate displacement.

As the future land use map discussion evolved, even though we didn't have the analysis we do now, we all intuitively knew that upzoning without guardrails risked displacement in these neighborhoods.

The anti-displacement zones overlay, or i.e.

sensitive area overlay, grew out of this assessment and attempted to redistribute development pressure by differentiating maximum densities, more density in historically exclusionary neighborhoods, less density in anti-displacement zones.

This proposal has been shelved at least for the moment because of the real tradeoff this represents.

The tradeoff is that by allowing more density in wealthier exclusionary neighborhoods and allowing less density in anti-displacement zones, we do risk perpetuating disproportionate wealth creation opportunities.

In its stead, city staff and consultants have proposed working with the anti-displacement neighborhoods themselves so that they can self-determine what guardrails or tools they wish to utilize, density restrictions, overlays, or other forms through small area plan development.

To my knowledge, that idea is universally welcomed, although how it is done is crucially important to determine soon.

The city has a long history of making decisions for neighborhoods, not with them.

Doing this partnered work will require deep humility and shared power.

However, all of that work will take time.

In fact, it'll take years.

If we are not going to have an anti-displacement zone overlay at the time when the up-zoning takes effect, the potential resulting impact could be devastating, so we need interim solutions to limit speculative development in these neighborhoods until the small area plans are ready.

At HAC meetings in recent weeks, we have been brainstorming ideas and have started to organize them into temporary and long-term categories.

I'll share what we believe is ideal, or at least best we have determined so far.

These are ongoing conversations.

We know that these ideas will require legal vetting, and we respectfully and firmly request that the posture of this vetting process be one of, how do we get this done, rather than, no, that doesn't work.

The urgency and importance of the topic must call us forth to do so.

On an interim basis, the most elegant temporary solution we have hit upon to date preserves the right for long time owners to develop their own land and limits speculative development.

We have proposed allowing development of a parcel only if the owner has owned their land for an extended period, enough time to get through the small area planning process.

This would allow land and homeowners to build wealth through development because they could do so once upsoning took effect and it would discourage speculative development from acquiring this land because they could not do anything with it, with that site for a number of years.

Apparently one of our nearby counties does something similar specifically to reduce land speculation.

Although all concerted efforts should be given to developing a legal and elegant temporary solution, if in the end no temporary solution is determined viable, we strongly recommend a return to the future land use map concept of reduced densities and or stronger prioritization of affordable housing to achieve higher densities.

Some form of development pressure relief must be in place when upzoning takes effect.

Unrelated to development, but equally important in the short term, is the fact that upzoning may increase, as we heard earlier, may increase property tax evaluations over time.

And many households in anti-displacement zones will potentially feel displacement pressures unless the city's tax abatement program is strengthened and made easier to access.

We strongly encourage the city to take a deep dive into this program, specifically in light of upzoning, so that the city is a ready and willing partner to low-income neighbors when they are in need.

Long Term.

One of the deepest challenges of the small area plan concept is that small area plans are rarely capitalized with city investment dollars to reach their goals, to realize their goals.

So although the small area plan concept of neighborhood self-determination is crucial, it must have sufficient funding to achieve desired outcomes.

To capitalize on these efforts, we are exploring the idea of a TIF-like set-aside of potential increased property taxes that result from upzoning within anti-displacement zones.

For example, we can calculate the current total annual property taxes paid by land and homeowners within the 10th and Page neighborhood.

This total would represent the base taxes.

When upzoning takes effect and if property taxes rise as development value goes up, we propose that one, a portion of that increase in taxes above the base be set aside as a tax abatement fund to prioritize preservation of existing neighbors.

Two, another portion be set aside as an implementation fund once the small area plan is finalized.

And three, the remainder increase would go into the city's general revenue bucket.

This shared benefit approach would strengthen the capacity of neighborhoods like Tenth and Page to weather the upzoning and actually participate in how their neighborhood would gain benefit from it, whether they wanted to invest it in affordable housing, small businesses, park improvements, or other priorities.

The outcomes would be for them to decide in partnership with the city.

In closing, when we began the comprehensive plan and rezoning processes, I stated publicly and privately that when it got to the final stages approaching approval, it was going to require each of you, each city council member, to be creative, bold, and brave.

No city has figured this out.

We are all experimenting with how to confront prevailing financial forces and our own historical choices.

We have to take a stand that for the first time privileges those who have experienced decades and centuries of historical exclusion even if the choices are uncomfortable for those who have inherited the benefits of disparate impact.

There is no easy answer and will require all of us to do the hard but right thing.

Thank you.

That was very informative.

I have a couple of questions or comments.

I mean recommendations and one in particular you mentioned was to prevent don't allow development until the small area plans are done so Jay how would how would that be

I'm trying to figure out.

Jay, speak to the legal piece, but I want to clarify that the proposal we're suggesting allows for somebody who owns their land currently

and has owned it, say, for a minimum of three years or a minimum of five years, when upzoning came to play, they would be able to do that.

Our proposal suggests that they would have the ability, because they've held title to that land for a period of time, that they would be able to take advantage of that opportunity at their choice.

Yes.

So that's the question that we need the legal department to work with us on.

But the idea originally came from a comment that Phil Duranzio made at a HACC meeting

A lot of counties do it.

Do you want to speak your example just quickly just to make sure we're all clear on it?

Sure.

For the record, Phil DeRonzio, Planning Commissioner, HAC member, City resident.

So the idea sort of came to me and the idea is that in Fluvanna County, for example, and I'm not sure this is currently, but a few years ago, they had fairly strict rules surrounding family subdivisions.

So if you were going to divide a land, let's say you owned a parcel of 20 acres and you wanted to gift two acres to a child so that they could have their own lot that they could build a house on.

You can do that.

But the subdivision rules were written such that if you're doing that and gifting the lot, for seven years, they can't unload that property.

can't be subdivided again.

It can't be sold to another party.

It's got to stay in the family for X period of time.

So, yeah, the way I sort of, and I've already had a conversation with the city attorney about this, where his enthusiasm was limited to certain portions of it.

But we have not yet had a really deep dive and an aggressive chat.

But the idea would be that you could say, all right, as of the date of this zoning in these following areas, you know, 10th and Page, the Meadows, blah, blah, blah.

I mean, we set them out.

You would say that if you have been on title for two years, you can do whatever you want.

Any transfer of title comes with it that development and what that means and to be defined can't be done for two years until you've been on title for two years.

So the idea being that anyone acting in a vulture-like capacity to sweep into the neighborhood would be stopped from doing anything.

Thank you.

So I guess where I stand on this is that if that's something that we can do, I think that that is definitely something that will

slow it down if we develop it down while we figure out from the community what that will look like.

Discussion has to go on with that, and secondly, something that you mentioned as far as what we can do to keep residents in their home is the various tax abatements and things.

We had some discussion on this, you know, on council earlier this year, and it's a lot of different programs.

We changed the focus or

of it so that more people can have access to it.

And I thought that we, at this point, made it the easiest that you can possibly, you know, access the program.

Mr. Vice Mayor, so I'd like to perhaps make just a couple of comments.

We also have Sharon Pandack, our outside counsel on the zoning ordinance, and I haven't been texting any member of our family.

We've been chatting a little bit about some of this discussion.

So Commissioner Duranzi is right.

We've been twisting this cubics

this Rubik's Cube around and trying to figure it out.

I'd make a couple of preliminary observations.

First of all, family divisions are a bit of a different animal, and I think analogizing family divisions to a you got to hold it if you're the new kid on the block is a stretch, candidly.

Those are fundamentally different precepts, and so

I'm familiar with family divisions which are more common frankly in more rural counties where there's lots of land that farmers want to cut up or family members want to make transfers for the benefit of their children or whatnot.

I will tell you that in my experience in many cases those are

turned out to be badly planned subdivisions because they turned the property over and that sort of thing.

But with respect to this concept, I think we need to pretty early on confront the issue of the potential legal challenge of saying that one person

has the right to dispose of their property more quickly, while another person, the only difference between the two people, as I understand it, being that they've acquired the property more recently, that we're impairing their ability to dispose of property.

And those kinds of things, I think, would leave the city potentially open to a legal challenge.

because of the fundamental right to acquire and dispose of property in the absence of a special rule of which I'm not aware.

And so, Ms.

Pandack, please jump in.

And if I've misstated anything, I'd be delighted to be corrected.

But we've talked at various points about this issue of imposing a restriction

on somebody who has a fundamental right to acquire and dispose of property, and that just seems to have some legal thorns to it that we ought to be aware of.

Sharon?

We have lost the ability to give audio, so she hasn't told me I'm wrong, so I'm going to go with that.

And I think, again, we're not trying to give a dispositive opinion on the fly about this kind of program, and I don't want to leave that impression at all.

If I may, a couple of points to follow up on.

One piece of clarity, the proposal is not around the disposition of land, but it's about the right to develop it and the delay of the ability to develop it.

Now that may be a fine point that may not make much legal difference, but I do want to highlight in particular that

even if that what we think is an elegant solution is not ultimately a legal or viable solution fundamentally trying to find some mechanism for putting up guardrails around those neighborhoods to prevent that what we saw on the on the estimated graph around not unmitigated displacement but it would but that that potentially accelerated displacement has we have to figure out a tool set and if

Fundamentally we can't, then the hack in general has agreed that we should then fall back to the comp plan idea of reducing the density allowance in those areas at least until those small area plans are in place and then potentially doing a rezoning later after that.

But we need to have some form of guardrail.

wasn't part of the original discussions a couple years ago, and a lot of things I've heard I've forgotten.

So I guess one question I had, and Mr. Williams, I don't see him right now, but the code that he was reading from, I think from the Virginia code, is it the case with that code section?

Does it rule out from the outset even having something called like an anti-displacement overlay?

Just from the original conversations when the sensitive community overlay was created, our legal staff at that time did determine that that was legal, but that was the specific language and framework used.

Okay, bundles of sticks, I can't resist.

So, Councilor Payne, I think a good starting point is for us to get a hold of that legal opinion.

Kind of using that as a foundational document looking at some of what's been suggested tonight and perhaps responding to council with some thoughts about that I think would be very productive Okay, so it sounds like that is still a bit of an open question but setting that aside the original notion to sort of mitigate so it seems like the fundamental philosophical point here is on the one hand if we

If we limit people's ability to do what they want with their land, then people that own that land will not be able to take advantage of any wealth creation.

That's one side of the dilemma.

The other side of the dilemma is that if we don't take appropriate measures, then the whole area won't recognize it in 10 years.

So I guess my

What seemed like the best idea at the time, I guess, was this what you just mentioned in terms of bonus densities and so forth.

Right.

Those are the tensions we're trying to hold.

Original Sensitive Communities Overlay, and it would have evolved in time because the density allowances in RA, B, and C have evolved since then as well, but it would have essentially said that, as an example, let's say in the equivalent of RA, and then you have RA, I'm going to continue to call it sensitive for the moment just because that was the language that was used then,

you might have four units you could develop on an RA site outside of those areas and only three units you could develop on the inside those areas.

And so it wasn't saying zero and four, it was saying a lesser amount to make it, to sort of redistribute the development pressure.

Right.

The other idea that was kicked around at the time, and I actually don't remember whether it was in the future land use map or not, was the idea that in those areas, the first home that was developed, if you were going to develop up to three, the first one would have to be affordable.

And there was a stronger emphasis on preservation of the existing building.

Yeah, I mean, I think that, I'm not an attorney, so this is not in any way a legal opinion, but we are already differentiating different parts of the city in terms of what can be done in different ways.

So if a particular neighborhood gets an RA version two,

and we just call it that.

It's just a differentiation of zoning and what would happen in those zoning categories.

Which we're doing anyway.

So, yeah, I mean, I think that that seems to be like a...

a viable tool because we can't say based on this growth, and I like the comment that you made, is that we can't say, okay, in these neighborhoods,

We're not going to upzone because we don't want to continue to deprive them of the ability to create wealth.

But we want to study these neighborhoods a little bit more, but in that interim, a lot could happen, and I think that this would be a good tool to do it if we can.

We definitely need to do those other things as far as the tax abatements and things like that.

Hopefully we're doing all that we can with that.

Rather than an interim overlay or zoning change, it would just be the zoning designation in those areas.

We're going to be revisiting our comprehensive plan in 2026 anyway, and it's not an interim zoning designation.

It doesn't to me.

I think in terms of our...

I'm referring to how we would frame it and conceptualize Let me just say, whatever we put in place, we wouldn't call it interim.

We would think of it potentially as interim.

Wow, I got a lot of...

But we wouldn't call anything in the zoning ordinance interim.

And when we choose to come back and revisit it would be entirely our call.

We could do it in two years.

But I do think it's a good way of thinking about it.

It's sort of a strategy where, and I think

I feel like, and others have said this as well, that we should do this zoning, have this zoning conversation on a much more frequent basis than every 20 or 30 years, you know, and so maybe we say, Juan, to your point, you know, we take a stab at what we think would be the appropriate upzone for the next couple years.

Maybe it's moderated, but we plan to come back using the data, using analysis of what

of what we learned in the time and then several years from now we reevaluate.

I think that said, one thing we would need to be careful about is if we make some zoning decisions now in the interim, that could be, you know,

Yeah, and to be clear, I agree with the points you raised, Vice Mayor, and agree on the policies you raised.

It's just, as you said, we wouldn't do it, but we can't make...

Let me say at least one important part of that really is the commitment to reevaluate the zoning ordinance with some frequency.

The zoning rewrite we're doing right now follows from a 2016 list of problems.

It has taken us seven years to

Okay.

So in my mind, that means in two years.

I mean, it's already being revisited.

And one of the questions that raised, and I raised this in an email, is,

What side of the risk do we want to fall on given the fact that it's going to be revisited in two years?

The risk that displacement increases by

an upzoning in a sensitive area or the risk that you suppress development of housing.

As I said in my email, particularly in neighborhoods like 10th and Page and Fifeville, I weigh more on being more concerned about the risk of displacement rather than suppressing new market rate housing construction.

specifically because in the research I cited from Brookings of not a radical organization who is explicitly pro-up zoning there can be a diffuse regional benefit but within a specific neighborhood it can increase gentrification, displacement even though regionally it helped and so

It's not just a technocratic question with an objective answer.

I think I'm on the side of being more concerned about displacement pressures versus people being able to take as much value out of their property as they can.

I appreciate that and respect that, but I think that

I think that concern is echoed by the residents themselves.

So I see three things, you know, for to get kind of to help existing homeowners in

communities that we're trying to preserve, which all of them, but I'm talking about the sensitive neighborhoods.

Thank you.

We've been together for a long time.

Yes.

All right.

Okay.

So, for those, you know, to keep them in their home, I see us leaning on programs like AHIP.

the tax abatement so that they can stay in their home to kind of protect them.

And if they are aging out and they want to sell it to their children or give it to their children or sell it to someone, then that's an option for them.

They have the right to do that, to get the American dream if they want to.

For homeowners, for someone who wants to buy a home,

and maybe making the $18 to $20 an hour, or then I think that we need to use the community land trust and things like that, that work with our community partners to be able to make that home affordable.

It still amazes me, those wonderful homes, townhomes there with the efforts that were put in, they were between $140 and $160.

Wonderful.

You're talking about prospect.

Yes, yes.

And then it's kind of for the apartments that we need to work with things like Kindlewood,

the housing authority in places like that, that is where we're going to get the big volume.

And we talked last night about the Jefferson Park, that would be four or five.

We're just not going to, you know, it'll take a lot of those to get one Kindlewood or one housing.

So, Vice Mayor,

If we were to look at the actual sort of zoning designations in terms of, I don't know if we have a map that's nearby that we could look at, but it sounds like what you're saying is if we were basically to just sort of go with what I'll call the more conservative version of upzoning in that area, which is what was originally laid out,

as opposed to allowing things like CX-5 or whatever, which would basically be like a dairy central.

No, well, I mean,

I'm not convinced that, I think the only players that's going to be able to make what Ms.

Carr has talked about the deeply affordable homes, housing, are PHA, the Housing Authority, and maybe Habitat.

I don't think that, I mean, there may be some models out there for the private developer to get those deeply affordable, because from that

The graph that you showed there, that's the biggest.

I think it was 930, 960.

That's what we need.

And is there a private model for someone to, for a private developer to provide those deeply affordable housing units?

Not without subsidy.

Yeah, so I mean, I'm not saying we shouldn't do it, but we can do it.

That's just... Come on, if I may, a couple of points.

I agree with you in principle that the most deeply affordable units or homes are going to be developed by nonprofit partners because the profit motive is removed and we can get access to subsidies that enable reaching deeper.

and you've heard me say this before but fundamentally people want choice they want choice about where they want to live and if we're going to be a city that has all kinds of housing for all kinds of people in all kinds of places it needs to not just be

the nonprofit developers.

It does need to be interspersed.

The opportunity needs to be interspersed throughout the neighborhoods as much as possible, both from a wealth creation opportunity for home ownership, but also in terms of rental.

And you're right that it won't be the same level of numerical impact.

But it still needs to be part of the equation set because there's no, you've heard folks say this before too, there is no silver bullet that we are not going to solve this with one solution set.

It has to be all of them.

And I do want to also highlight, I know that in the conversations we are just having around 10th of Page and other areas around property taxes increases potentially and property tax abatement.

One of the real

Sort of hidden pernicious issues in that in those neighborhoods is not just for homeowners but is frankly for renters because if a if a home if somebody owns a home and there is a property tax increase Where'd that go that gets that burden gets laid on the renter?

So there is a secondary effect of risk of displacement through through for renters as well and

And so one of the tools that we have had in our belt for the last three years or so through the pandemic is robust renter assistance.

That is effectively gone now at the federal and state level in large effect.

Could I ask that, given, I mean, we're here talking, we're in this discussion generally to talk about how we, what we do with the zoning ordinance and the zoning rewrite, and in the presentation we had, there were a few things in particular that were mentioned, and I'm curious, perhaps, to have the experts talk with us a little bit about what, how they see these working, inclusionary zoning, density bonuses,

mixed-use zoning being the three that are sort of top of mind.

My sense of things looking at the zoning ordinance that we have, that we've been looking at most carefully, is that we're not likely to see very many additional units coming on from inclusionary zoning.

Number one.

Number two, I don't know what the current thinking is on so-called density bonuses, but to the extent that they're expected to have city subsidies to make them happen for

for private profit-making opportunities owners, that's not terribly likely.

And so that principle actually was pioneered most recently in the Cambridge affordable housing overlay.

That was one of their core principles is essentially by allowing affordable housing

So I guess the first question is what formulation of a density bonus are we talking about?

Well, I think what is put in front of Council right now and has been debated by the Planning Commission over and over again for the last while, I think in general is the right trajectory.

I don't think there's any real particular resistance to that.

The one exception being this idea of potentially circling back to the original sensitive area overlay or

So the actual density bonuses are in those initial pages where they lay out the RA, RB, RC.

Correct.

That's very interesting.

So that makes more sense.

So for a nonprofit,

Correct.

And potentially, as I said in my comments,

This is a little bit of an experiment.

We are trying to figure out how to address our particular challenges within a larger national fabric of real estate evaluation.

And we can push it as far as we can, but as far as we're willing to,

But I think one of the ideas that has also been sort of new to me in the last couple of weeks as I've, you know, continued to hear from constituents and neighbors is that there are actually not an insignificant number of people who would be interested in partnering with an entity like us or Habitat and

Maybe they'd be willing to sell a portion of land or lease a portion of land to do some affordable.

They themselves wouldn't necessarily do it, but they want to be part of the solution.

And so maybe they maintain their own ability to develop their own portion if they own the site currently, but a partnership with a nonprofit to develop the affordable side might be an option as well.

That is clearly not going to work in every circumstance.

We know as a city that topography, roads, et cetera, will inevitably constrain what's possible in different parts of the city.

I suppose that's one way of looking at, yeah.

So just I want to be clear, see whether I understand what you're talking about.

I'm looking at page 26 or section 2.2.2 for RA where the base dwelling units, dwellings per lot would be three, a bonus for one for preserving the existing structure which need not be affordable and then a bonus of up to six which I take it would be either two or three.

that would be affordable, is that the plan?

Now there's all additional units beyond that?

Yes, you got it.

Okay.

Two or three.

The formulation with the sensitive communities, really what I think of it as is as soon as, you know, right now we have an inclusionary zone that says when you hit 10 units you've got to provide an affordable unit.

No, not for every two, but as soon as you hit two, you've got to provide one affordable because it says the first additional unit is affordable.

Oh, I see.

I see.

Okay.

That is correct.

To jump off something else Lloyd had mentioned, what was mixed use?

I think it's just noting that traditionally zoning has had strict separation of uses.

And again, coming back to this issue of supply, I think the point that, actually, yeah, Antoine's not here anymore.

So I think the point you were simply making is that mixed-use zoning has opened up more opportunities for residential development overall.

It's just coming back to the issue of supply.

Is there something that creates in some of these, you know, the RX or CX or other Xs that creates an incentive to have more housing, more affordable housing?

So what have, and you may have, in your conversation may have mentioned, determined this, but can the, you know, I'm thinking a lot of conversations with people about the first unit that they built being affordable instead of the, you know, so they hit that

You know, because if you don't make it the first one, then they will stop at the third, you know, until you get to that.

Yeah, just to follow up on that, it occurs to me that actually tomorrow is another Housing Advisory Committee meeting.

We have a policy subcommittee meeting where we'll be talking about some of these things.

So I'd like to ask a question just for clarity as Jay and I was processing what we were hearing.

Are we, and this is to answer that question of something that you could potentially do at the HACC, is are you still aiming for the idea of an overlay specifically where you would draw boundaries and apply it equally?

or are you suggesting a new zoning category that we would then layer on parcels meaning that we would have someone go back and look for appropriateness for applying them?

And I'll also say, since I have the mic, that the question in regards to the tax relief program, rental relief program, keep in mind that's programming.

That's a programming decision that is not associated with zoning.

So that becomes a separate consideration for council in that you're making a determination as to how much you want to make available in the way of funds to expand the terms of those programs.

So that is something that we can always come back and talk about in a separate set of conversations that is not directly tied to zoning.

With all due respect.

I know you're going to say something.

I 100% agree that it is separate from zoning, and we have to have those conversations in parallel, not in sequence.

Sure.

And I recognize the request for additional support in the category is appropriate.

I'm not opposing that at all.

So I'm concerned because we're talking about displacement and you came up with a solution to address that and then you flipped to the rental issue.

and that is important as well and I see those two things having to work together because you don't want any homeowner that has been in their home that looks like me and that looks like Juan for however long they've been in that home to lose that home because of something that is happening.

and so I think that those individuals have to be protected as well as the individuals who are in low income or subsidized apartments or homes because I know someone personally that rents in one of your sensitive neighborhoods their rent has gone up

because of the assessments of development around them.

The issue becomes how much longer are they going to be able to stay where they are?

Because even with subsidies, your subsidy is not 100%.

And so eventually, over time, this person could become displaced.

So we're saying that we want to do two things.

But they've got to go together because you can't save me and throw somebody else under the bus.

Well, it wasn't.

That's why I'm saying to you, it was not.

And so if it was not to me, how many other people are listening

and they didn't get that either.

So if that was your intent or if that is your intent, it needs to be very well stated that the intention is we are doing A, B and C, E, F and G together, not separate.

They are two separate issues, home ownership and renting, but we are doing this together to protect

the people that have traditionally been unprotected.

The city did not put in a $10 million fund for people to be unprotected.

So all the policy priorities that the HACC has discussed have contemplated both preservation and affordable housing home ownership and preservation of affordable rental.

So to be 100% crystal clear,

Never was any of the hack discussions intended to prioritize one over the other, recognizing that there is an interplay between the two and that we need the full housing spectrum in place in order to maintain our city as much as we can.

I think perhaps what may be part of the perceived tension is that we are operating within

a larger financial framework under which we have limited control.

And so when we push in one direction, it inevitably pushes out in another.

You know, it's like pushing on a balloon.

and we are doing all of the suggestions that we have made to date endeavor to try to put our hands all the way around the balloon so we can all push at the same time in the same direction so no one gets lost in that process but it is imperfect and as I was saying earlier it is

This is a little bit of an experiment.

There is no city that has solved this.

The data that I highlighted with the increase in area median income over the last two years alone is clear representation of whether your friend or somebody else's who have been displaced over the last couple of years and others have moved in.

The overall thought, I guess I want to say one thing before I forget it, that is the graph showing the change about 30% over the last two years is very clear that the only way to get there

is if a lot of rich people have moved in.

It is not because everybody has gotten 30% better incomes in Charlottesville in the last two years.

And I wonder, maybe we can find out more about this next week when we hear more about population things, but I don't know whether the sense from the demographers is that the population of Charlottesville has grown.

What I've been told is that it is not, that there's just not enough housing capacity to allow for more growth at the moment.

And so what we would necessarily be seeing is not only an influx of richer people, people above the median, people of the 150,000 plus range, as well as a decline in the number of poorer people, which may simply be older folks dying.

It may also be poor people moving out.

True.

That is not a trend.

Wait, wait, wait, wait.

That is not a trend that has changed.

In my mind, that data is very clear that you're absolutely right that we do see an incremental growth in the city population overall.

but that also has been relatively consistent going back 20, 30 years and the demographers I believe will reinforce that.

So that trend is relatively constant.

The rate of death is relatively constant.

The inconstant that we are seeing over the last two years in particular but six years more broadly

And I mean, I don't think you're talking about just poor families being displaced.

You're talking about working class or people that would be making 30 bucks an hour, working full time, unable, having to move.

I thought it was interesting in that trend that it kind of overlaps with the beginning of the pandemic, one of the spikes.

And

There does seem to be some indications of that from various folks I've spoken with, both

Realtors and also when the gentleman from Weldon Cooper comes next week, he referenced that as well.

So yeah, it's a real thing.

And in particular, it's a lot from the D.C.

market.

And it's worth noting the D.C.

market is now considered the most expensive housing market.

The last point I'll make, and this relates to the, it's not a perfect overlay, I'm just, I'm considering this data Thank you, Amazon Considering this data through your comment, Michael, I do wonder, like, it's not perfect, but again, the timing of when rental relief

Could I ask a question in terms of, so I'm just looking at the zoning map, the proposed zoning map, and I don't have the one with the sensitive overlays pulled up here, but

When the Planning Commission, and I will say to their credit, the Planning Commission has gone lot by lot, perhaps, but very fine-tuned, fine-grained analysis of a specific piece of property in a specific location.

When I look at the, say, the NX, well, you've got the RX ones near grounds, you've got CX, I'm trying to pull up here, sorry.

Well, let's just use Dairy Market, because that's a place that we've gotten a lot of comment on recently, and that's centered on the, I guess, northwest end of Preston.

going back down towards McIntyre.

So all of that looks like it's CX-5, is that right?

Yeah.

And then you've got some NX-8 over near Rose Hill, is that right?

And then you've got RX3 down where the students live, like along Workland and so forth.

Yes, yes.

So I guess it's one thing to talk about anti-displacement.

I think we're all on board in terms of the policies, the procedures, like Mr. Williams said earlier, that third and fourth pillar, this council at least, and I know the next council will too because of the person who's joining it, and I think it's safe to say for the foreseeable future is going to make significant investments in both

the actual contributions to these funds as well as funding the staff capacity to pull them off.

So that statement doesn't necessarily, there's no way to take that sort of aspiration, which I think will actually come about, and convert that into a number of how many houses and people will be sort of saved.

But I do think, you know, it should be in the record that we are committed to those sorts of policies and that's something we'll continue to fund.

My question is, during the actual, you know, sort of, I'll call it on the ground tactical thinking about where to put one lot versus another,

within the sensitive areas.

So I'm just picking right now the 10th and Page area around Derry Central and then going southeast on Preston.

So first off, the sensitive communities or the anti-displacement discussion in terms of the comprehensive plan never contemplated the corridors themselves.

It was focused entirely within the neighborhoods.

And remember, when we look at these trend lines, when we look at the conversation we've been having and have been having for a number of months,

We recognize that the existing zoning ordinance is leading to displacement happening within those neighborhoods and that's primarily happening in an environment where a house sells for somewhere under 200,000 is flipped and sells for somewhere between 500 and 700, I've heard even higher numbers in these exact neighborhoods that we're talking about.

And it's more like a house by house, lot by lot.

It's a house by house thing.

It's been happening for a long period of time.

And it's in recognition that these neighborhoods today sit in what probably could be considered the most valuable land area in the entire city.

I mean, we're talking about neighborhoods that are within walking distance of UVA, the medical center.

West Main Street downtown.

Sure.

And increasingly Preston is on that list as well of having desirable amenities to be within walking distance of.

So that target is in place.

I see.

Because the folks who came a few weeks ago when we had the meeting in here with Dairy Central was sort of the main thing that people were talking about.

So there's an element of that, right, as the neighborhood becomes a more desirable place, becomes a more desirable place because what determines the value of any piece of property is what it provides access to.

Right.

What do I gain access to in terms of job opportunities, in terms of recreation, in terms of shopping?

That determines the value of property.

So certainly that plays a role.

And the comparable sales are two similar properties.

I see.

They aren't the dairy market.

Someone's not, they're not determining their assessed value based on the value of the dairy market.

They're doing it based on

That's not the perception.

Those sales are being partly driven by the increasing value of the area.

It's definitely an ecosystem.

and I definitely agree and acknowledge this is not an issue that has an objective clear answer and there's very difficult and uncertain trade-offs on either end of it.

At least one of the things I think about is all of that is true at the same time if you're talking about particularly in just using the example in an area like Preston, something going to CX or NX8 where you're talking eight stories by right, ten with an affordable housing bonus.

I mean you are talking about

That is a pretty fundamental change in terms of the flood of capital investment that's going to come in, the type of developer that's going to come in, and I think that is something I think a lot about.

Again, I don't know if you're talking about, certainly if you're talking about the current height and densities going to NX or CX8, the value of that parcel is going to increase by a very substantial amount.

several factors, I would guess.

I don't know whether that sale price has a knock-on effect in directly adjacent residential properties.

And the other thing I think about is

If we're moving to that designation without a special use permit is the question of voice and I know in the zoning conversation we tend to think of that as a negative thing where it's strictly painted with kind of the any special use permit or discretionary process is giving voice to and at risk of people who are nimby and want to shoot down anything no matter what

But I think particularly in some of these corridors a question in my mind is maintaining a special exception or use permit worthwhile there because maybe there is value to allowing the 10th and Page neighborhood to express thoughts they have about it and certainly us as council if we keep the zoning as it is without any special use permit process or changes there I think we need to be a hundred percent honest with the 10th and Page neighborhood

We've made a policy choice to allow development like Dairy Central at an even greater scale in intensity.

That's our policy choice without any role for you to have a voice in what happens.

And that's the choice we made.

I think we're uncomfortable to tell that to them.

I think it would be the wrong choice.

But that's where we're at.

And to be clear,

I'm not on board with that yet.

You've made this point in some emails and I appreciated the point about

And maybe this is relevant, perhaps this is less relevant than to say in East High than it is to a place that we're called sensitive area where the CX, was it above three stories or five stories?

Five stories north of that requires steel construction.

Yeah, and so basically you're going to only get sort of luxury type.

Well, right now the analysis, and this will be something we discuss at the next meeting, is suggesting that those aren't viable here in the city.

Right, and I appreciate that, but to Michael's point, you know,

Is it possible, and again this is a legal question I guess, is it possible within these sensitive areas to have another level of review, an SUP type process for someone who wants to come in and do a CX8 or whatever where we get that kind of focus on that sort of development because

I would hate to see all of Preston.

And if the analysis is in our current market, we won't get much of that.

Again, thinking about which side of the risk we kind of go on, again, in the context of the next comprehensive plan is 2026.

What is the risk of having a special use permit process in some of these areas?

As well as, I mean, we're getting proposals for developments that are above five stories.

Yeah, and I don't think, I mean, Preston is So that's why we're only getting student housing proposals for the most part I'm aware of that and I think Preston is close enough to the university where it's not impossible to identify that as a market for students.

Again, I'm just, I mean, I think

I think this relates to the displacement question.

Just my personal opinion is particularly in these areas where you're talking about a level of intensity change going to ten stories, eight stories by right, I don't think still having a special use permit is this disastrous end of the world that should be considered.

I think we've heard that from folks.

And so we do have some... I think Michael also makes a good point, is you've got to think about your risk.

When you're looking at the scale, are you going to go this way

or are you gonna go get that way?

How risk averse are you?

And if you take the risk to protect your sensitive neighborhoods and you lose something on that side,

is that risk in the long run going to be the risk that we need to take with the understanding that if what I heard Mr. Freeze say, what I heard Michael say, in two years you have a new comprehensive plan.

So you're looking at the decisions that you make are not irrevocable.

not the issue.

The issue is how much risk are you going to take in a two year period and what is going to be your net gain in that two year period.

And I mean a lot of thought, and this is again a very complex issue that doesn't have clear answers.

I guess to try to clarify my thoughts, I mean the concern to me this is the central, this question of displacement to zoning is the central question to figure out before I think we're ready to adopt it and there aren't clear easy answers.

Some of my thoughts and again I'm not concerned about the politics, I'm just trying to be honest whether people like it or not.

My concern is a lot of the conversation is so far has been between a professional class that is younger, they have college degrees,

versus established homeowners who bought their homes many decades ago and kind of want to keep that.

And that younger professional class has money, degrees, cultural capital, but they're still shut out of homeownership and rentals.

That's a very important policy question because we need a middle class.

We need people to be able to move into the middle class.

But we really haven't heard nearly as much from working class people, certainly poor people, and my concern is, is there anywhere where you have a class dynamic where that professional class can get a benefit?

That's a victory in some ways, but is there any specific area where it screws over a community like, again, Mobile Home Park, areas of Tenth and Page, the Meadows?

and you've as in the study I cited you have this diffuse regional benefit but within a local working-class neighborhood people kind of get screwed over and it's uncomfortable to talk about because I think there's a risk some people maybe perceive that the specifics of that maybe may feed people who just want to blow up this whole process but I still think we've got to get it right and it's real and we've also got a very unique housing market being ten and a half square miles in a regional market

So I appreciate that, thank you.

So the way I was looking at it, Michael, is that the proposed zoning ordinance will provide the opportunity for a lot more houses, but also housing tightness.

And that is what I, you know, for a large part, they will be able to, because the developers will be able to

catered to that population because they can make a profit to kind of that middle class that right now they may be making good money but not enough to buy that $700,000 house which is not like

a fancy-smanchy mansion, unfortunately.

No, it's not.

And again, we as a locality working with our nonprofit, we're really going to have to step up to provide the housing of different types for the 20 to 30, the low wealth, you know,

So I see that, we certainly see that, again, I mentioned this before, Leah and I have seen this in the school board where that middle class is just, as soon as they get to that point, they're like, have to move to the county because it's more opportunities, you know, and so it would be nice if we can provide that opportunity here, and I think that, you know, that at least under proposed zoning ordinance that we're proposing, the draft, that those opportunities will be there

because that is what the developers will do because they can make a profit off of it.

No, and I do agree with that, and that's why at our last meeting, I mean, the residential districts support where we're at for that exact same reason.

I guess to kind of distill it, in my mind, one of the questions I feel like before, at least I would feel completely comfortable with adoption is working out.

some kind of overlay, which you had discussed and we discussed earlier, kind of return to that model, as well as I do think particularly in these areas adjacent to 10th and Page, Fytheville, looking at a special use permit or something like that in these mixed use corridors where I think we see the most dramatic change.

And again, as a 10 and a half square mile city in a regional market, you know,

I could see there being a direct gentrification impact in those immediate neighborhoods with not that much of an impact on affordability.

Those two questions are the biggest for me, but I'm not saying that the whole thing should be blown up.

Michael, you're saying that in certain neighborhoods that

So I definitely would support that, but I think that for a sensitive neighborhood we need to throw

everything we can edit.

If we can do that proposal, Jay, that Sunshine mentioned, that we can delay it or until we do the small areas plan, we can put more money into the

The tax abatement and things like that for... To protect them.

Yeah, so those type of things, you know, I think that we need to do.

Could I interject a second?

I do not want to...

We have an expert here on a particular aspect of things that I don't know whether you've got a lot to say about the CX-5 discussion, but I had a couple of questions that I know directly relate to your expertise.

and I don't want to force him to come back next week if he doesn't want to.

And then specifically, we had talked about 15, 20 minutes ago about the suggestion of the bonus that would apply to affordable dwelling units as giving folks like you and Habitat and other nonprofits

I'm just curious, at one point you and I had talked, probably six, eight months ago, about the notion that you might have a lot that would be basically subdivided and one half of it might be developed by somebody at a market rate and they would sell, you know, a lot of it might be, you know, a lot of it might be, you know, a lot of it might be developed by somebody at a market rate

the back portion of it perhaps to you to develop something on an affordable basis and that would be the way of getting that sort of the half-and-half effect.

I wonder, could you explain a little bit more about that and particularly what I'm worried, what I'm concerned about is this, looking at, for example,

Greenbrier, most of Greenbrier is governed by covenants that prohibit subdivisions.

And those covenants may well, most of them don't have, they don't lapse because of time.

Some of the subdivisions, some of the restrictions dealing with only single family have expired because of the 25 or 35 year time period.

but does not appear to be anything that would expire about a no subdivision kind of thing.

Is there a way with any of the tools that are in this ordinance that would facilitate sort of the

the half development by you and the half development by a for-profit person.

Okay.

Which seems to be a subdivision.

Which seems to be prohibited.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Yeah.

In your instance where the covenant box subdivision.

Right.

So should I go back to my language?

So the way that I would approach that in the

We're actually taking this approach with Park City Christian Church and with them, and there's no covenant that we're addressing, but it's just the fact that as a church they want to maintain long-term ownership of land, that we essentially are not purchasing the land nor subdividing it.

Instead we are doing a long-term land lease on a portion of that land with meets and bounds

You know, three affordable units.

I mean, I'm concerned about the way that the financial package would get put together.

What we're used to seeing involves a fair amount of money coming in through low-income housing tax credits.

So there are examples of what are called scattered site LIHTC projects.

And just to be 100% clear, LIHTC only funds rental, doesn't fund homeownership.

So there are examples in other places where you do scattered site, basically aggregated sites within a single jurisdiction, meaning you can't do some in the county and some in the city.

It has to be in a single jurisdictional boundary.

And you can do scattered site LIHTC.

That is technically allowed.

There are examples of that in Virginia.

It's not commonly used.

We've never used it, so that would be an exploration.

But the other pathway to subsidy, and this in some ways is more about the potential for developing home ownership on those sites,

or rental potentially is we reliably use the state housing trust fund dollars, home dollars and home dollars which are essentially aggregated through the Department of Housing Community Development and between those two sources

It's not predictable.

It's always competitive money.

There's limited resources.

But we have been successful in recent times in getting, for homeownership, somewhere between $70,000 and $80,000 per home in subsidy.

Habitat uses those.

We've used those for the community land trust.

I do not have those numbers off the top of my head.

So I don't know for 100 percent.

And I do not anticipate that they will drop.

Everyone I talk to doesn't really anticipate that.

But at least for the moment, that things have generally stabilized and have maybe incremental increases, but not the dramatic surges we've seen.

Okay.

So I just wanted to check in with Joy again.

Just to comment on Mr. Snook's comment about people dying.

The experience that I see in my neighborhood is that people want two things.

Jeremy Kaplan can figure this out.

Jeremy Kaplan buys homes and he fixed them up and rent them back to people from the neighborhood.

Does that a lot.

And so I'm trying to figure out if he can do that, why isn't that happening across Charlottesville?

where it's not being, you know, the neighborhood is not gentrified.

People who were born in that neighborhood and grew up in that neighborhood can stay in that neighborhood, but also paying a real affordable rent for those units.

So I'll just put that out there.

I'm shouting out Jeremy Kaplan.

The second thing is that I have classmates that their parents died

and left home their houses to them, but because of the taxes, they couldn't keep it.

Also, I have a friend who lives in the Vanderbilt neighborhood, and she's telling me every single day a developer is either stopping by our house, offering her

money for her property or she's getting these letters from them.

I say this to say that when families are down and out, money and people are swinging money in front of your face, sometimes what ends up happening is those homes get lost to developers who then

turned those houses into $200,000 and $300,000 homes.

So I see a whole lot of different movement why our neighborhoods are getting gentrified.

But the real issue is about the developers who, at the end of the day, the bottom line for them is how much money they're going to make off that deal.

And so I think something needs to happen.

and I don't call them sensitive neighborhood, I call them anti-displacement neighborhood.

Sensitive neighborhood is becoming to have a bitter taste in my mouth because it seems like you're basically using those to identify their locations.

So what I wanted to say is that you have to figure this out.

One, affordability.

Every time I get the chance to speak to you all, I said you need to define affordability because my daughter makes pretty good money at UVA and she still can't find affordable rental unit.

or an affordable home to buy, either in the city or the county.

And I think we need to look at that.

We have a lot of people in the low income neighborhoods who work.

They work.

Everybody who lives in the low income community are not people who are just getting assistance, right?

They work hard and they can't live in the neighborhood that they choose to live in.

And I think that's something that

whether this council or other council needs to understand.

We need to preserve certain neighborhoods.

So I'm a little disheartened sitting in the room most of the time listening to council or the planning commission talking about approving

different sites and just like the dairy market.

One of the things about the dairy market was when Nikuyah Walker was on council and I showed up at a meeting to say, you all need to understand how this

deal is being put together.

Chris Henry already know what his bottom line gain is going to be and most of those things are not going to be affordable and the neighborhood didn't understand.

They understand now.

That's why they're pushing back because to build a seven, eight story building and then you have the standard on West Main Street.

is like you're locking us in and you know Chris Henry has the plaza over on Preston Avenue you know and now he's so I have a lot of mixed emotions when I sit in this room and listen because at the end of the day this plan started

Long ago when, I can't even think of his name now, was on council.

This started a long time ago.

We know Chris Henry can build what he wants to build, but I think there needs to be something that says to developers, you need to respect the existing neighborhoods.

There is no more respect for existing neighborhoods, like you were talking about people who live there.

I know people who are, I went to school with people who still own their homes on Concord Avenue and Henry Avenue and all of that, but the taxes, because of what's being built up against them, they have to make hard choices of do they lose their wealth.

Do they lose their wealth?

And so I think I've rabble on a little bit.

But I just wanted to say, and then, you know, we have redevelopment in West Haven, which is the biggest political site we have.

You know, how is that going to affect

what we put back on that side.

We're trying to build affordable housing for people.

More people, not just less, more people.

How is some of that going to affect?

Anyway, shout out to Jeremy Kaplan.

If he can do it, I don't know why the city can't work with others to make sure affordable housing still stays in the neighborhoods.

And I think we should be building more affordable housing out in Greenbrier and Rugby Road and all of that.

Thank you, Ms.

Johnson.

Can I say one thing before you say one thing?

Thank you.

I think we also have to be sensitive to what Michael said.

When whatever decisions we make, we have to be open and honest with the neighborhoods.

regardless of what your title is.

I can't remember what Joy just said.

She didn't like sensitive neighborhoods.

Anti-displacement neighborhoods.

Whatever term we select,

anti-displacement neighborhoods.

Michael was very clear that we need to be certain that the individuals living in those neighborhoods understand what is happening.

Brian and I have had several conversations about people not understanding or people misinterpreting and we're getting ready to do something that's gonna have an impact

not only for two years, but beyond.

Because if it doesn't work for the first two years, you're going to do something different.

And all along the way, people need to understand.

So however we roll it out,

They have to understand.

They are a part of the process.

Yes, amen.

That's exactly right.

Question I had, so I know that one of the goals for this whole thing is to reduce the

need for SUPs.

There are allowances for SUPs in the zoning document.

I don't remember what they're all for at this point.

I can look it up, but I don't remember.

I mean, what the effort, what this service is trying to do is identify those things that we want out of an SAP process and lay them into the zoning ordinance up front.

I see.

Right.

The idea is because what we understand from

kind of how land use discretionary decision making works.

It does add costs.

Senator might have a better sense as a developer what the costs of the discretionary process are.

The biggest cost is just the uncertainty.

Sunshine probably understands this better, but the uncertainty of that discretionary process creates risk.

When you have greater risk, the cost of your financing goes up.

because you've got to pay for that risk.

Understood.

There is the balancing process that you're engaged in.

I want to acknowledge that a lot of this effort is also about kind of shifting.

A lot of the conversations in the field are about how do we shift those conversations

that happened around development to this conversation.

This zoning, the conversation about writing the rules

I think, and again, I'm being sincere.

There's tradeoffs.

Part of my evaluation is revisiting in two years and kind of that element.

But again, just being honest, I mean, one of my concerns is talking about going to eight stories by right or even, you know, Dairy Central by right.

talking with 10th and Page Neighborhood attending some of the meetings it was the planning commission council laid out the inclusionary zoning rules there was no support for the project even with those inclusionary zoning rules and I think there are some elements of a laundromat or community history that you can't

Yeah, that's a good point.

Question?

No, not yet.

I'm a process person, and I want to make sure that I'm understanding what the next steps are for the hack.

You are discussing additional items.

At what point will those items be coming forward so that this body will have the pleasure of considering those things?

trying to keep in mind that we are on track for trying to determine how much of a change that might result from this consideration thus needing to be re-advertised and therefore staying on schedule.

Am I right in what you're thinking?

No, I mean, certainly those are things that I'm thinking about, but I mean, also just note, we are already working on drafting options in terms of these overlay districts.

We're not sitting on our hands.

Okay.

All right, so I guess the question is for the hack.

At what point do you all anticipate being finished with any further considerations that you want to present?

And based on Ms.

So I don't have a clear answer because, you know, this is, I'm one person, I'm not the entire hack.

What I will say is that

I heard a sort of reinforced mandate for our conversation tomorrow with a couple of key points to discuss and explore.

James will be at the HACC meeting.

Yes?

Well, it is the policy committee which may be why it didn't hit your radar.

It is not the full HACC meeting.

But if you can make it, that would be wonderful.

either way I think it would be helpful as we enter our discussions to understand I think we're in the same position that Michael laid out which is we neither want to blow up the process nor do we want to rush something through that is not fully baked and that we haven't considered the implications of fully.

So we want to be moving as quickly as we can in partnership and parallel with City Council in their deliberations.

Mr. Mayor, if I may, a key deadline is approaching when the Planning Commission issues its recommendation, and we don't know precisely when that will be, but it must of necessity be very soon, then we're going to have to re-advertise in all likelihood.

And so in order to incorporate some of these, if there are aspects that the hack will bring forward,

that the Council may want to consider in that re-advertising decision.

I think we're talking about the next week or two, James?

It looks like we're getting close.

Yeah, we have to meet.

That was one of the things that came up earlier today.

Yeah.

And Mr. Mayor, indulge me in one more question.

James, do I understand that y'all are...

Okay.

All right.

Thank you very much.

All right.

Is everybody good to go?

Thank you, we are adjourned.