City Council Special Meeting - Draft Zoning Ordinance Deliberations   12/13/2023

All I could think about was how I did not pack correctly, and I did not pack correctly.

Across the street, it was so cold.

I think we've got everybody here.

So I will call to order this work session, December 13th.

Before we get to the business at hand, we have a matter to take up in closed session.

Is that right?

Certainly.

Okay, this is a motion for a City Council closed meeting pursuant to Section 2.2-3712 of the Code of Virginia.

Is there a second?

Second.

Any discussion?

True vote.

Okay.

Passes 5-0.

We will now go into closed session in the conference room.

We will come back here.

My guess is 10 or 15 minutes.

It's not expected to be a long closed session.

So if you all who are interested, hang in here.

We'll be back.

Okay, ready to get back to the order?

Sure, I know.

Is there a second to that motion?

Second.

Okay, in discussion, should we vote?

passes 5-0.

And my apologies, I thought we would not be as long as we were.

What can I say?

The first thing we were going to do was hear from Ms.

Hildebrand.

And let me sort of set this up by saying at the meeting we had last week, at the public hearing, there was a lot of comment about specifically the state of our infrastructure and specifically the state of the

sewer system and I was puzzled by some of those comments and so I asked Ms.

Thank you.

I have a brief PowerPoint presentation.

Just brief to kind of guide us through this.

Bring that up please.

I have the PDF.

I don't have the PowerPoint.

Yeah, Remy is supposed to have the PowerPoint.

I assume he's behind you, right?

He should be Okay It'll be just one moment Oh, thank you

I do have it on a flash drive if that's helpful in my purse Do you have the PowerPoint?

There we go.

Great.

Thank you.

You want to slip it on slideshow for me?

Not sure if it's working.

Go ahead.

Not sure if it's working.

If you can put it on slideshow, then I can take it from here, I think.

can put it on slideshow.

It's right there in the middle.

Yeah.

Slideshow.

So good evening Mayor, Vice Mayor and Councilors.

My name is Lauren Hildebrand and I'm the Director of Utilities and I've been serving in this capacity for six and a half years and I'm here to address Council and a little bit about some of the misinformation that's been out there in the community regarding the city's utility infrastructure.

We have an asset management program in utilities and it's very data driven.

When we get site, for example, when we get site plans in and things are uploaded to GIS, we actually upload it to this dashboard

and so we know based on all the various utilities what the pipe material is, what the size of the pipe is, how much how much footage it adds into the total miles of the utility and this is how we track just our assets and you know I've mentioned in other presentations you know we have other applications and dashboards we use to track our infrastructure.

and to look at the conditions of all of our other infrastructure.

A little bit about existing capacity regarding our city utilities.

From a water standpoint, we have a water model that was developed over 10 years ago that we use to improve and look at our infrastructure.

It looks at the fire flow that's necessary to give water to our hydrants.

It also looks at the potable water that's necessary for all of our customers.

And we use this as a tool when we're

looking to upgrade any of our infrastructure or replace any of our infrastructure whether we need to increase the size or loop the system to provide more redundancy and that's how we use the model.

From a sewer standpoint we actually have flow monitored our entire system.

So over the years you can put flow monitors actually in the sewer system

and it will detect what the capacity still is, what the capacity is being taken up and what capacity is left.

And we've done that in all of our drainage basins and it generally was for a different purpose because it was for what infrastructure needed to be improved and where we needed to focus our efforts to eliminate the extraneous water that gets into our sewer systems during rain events.

But if you look at the flow monitoring and all the data that we've collected over the years, right now if you look at the pipe capacity just from an annular space, generally our sewers, if you look at what the flows are, it's 20% or less is in use right now.

And that's a good thing because typically

When you look to improve sewers or upgrade the size of sewers, you'll start looking at it when it's 50%.

So we are a long way from looking at capacity of most of our sewers.

And then stormwater, we also have a model because storm is related to rain events and intensity of rain and different storms can occur.

and we look to see whether we've got any push points in our stormwater piping system that might need to be improved.

And right now we have very adequate capacity within all three of the utilities.

And then there was also a question about looking at Rivanna's system from a treatment standpoint.

and some of this information was actually conveyed to Council when we talked about the water supply plan this past Council meeting.

But, you know, Rivanna has the water treatment major transmission lines that actually feed the city's distribution lines and then the sewer on the other side, we have the collection sewers that feed into Rivanna's transmission lines that carry it to their wastewater treatment plant.

But Rivanna with us and Almar County Service Authority as stakeholders look at the water and sewer systems every 10 years.

We look at what the growth has happened, what future growth, and whether there's still adequate capacity within the system for now and 50 years in the future.

That's how far we plan out when it comes to Rivanna's system.

And as it was conveyed at the last council meeting, the water supply is sufficient

and planned out for 50 plus years with the noted improvements they have underway.

And their water treatment upgrades are currently underway to increase the capacity at the South Rivanna plan as well as observatory.

And then in addition, in recent years they've also done a wastewater treatment master plan which was completed to ensure there's capacity currently and if they need to add additional infrastructure to not only

add capacity but also address regulatory compliance that could be coming down the pike in the future.

That's what this master plan was completed to do.

So they have a roadmap on how they'll add that over the next 50 years.

So just the summary is that the system has adequate capacity

and in the utility system, city's utilities as well as Rivanna.

But I also want to say that development, when we get a new site plan in and there isn't capacity in the immediate area of the city's infrastructure, the developer pays for whatever they may need where the infrastructure is inadequate and they'll pay for that capacity when there's inadequate infrastructure.

It doesn't happen very often, but there are certain instances where

The fire flow capacity isn't adequate from a water standpoint.

They have to increase the size of the pipe or we ask them to loot the system for redundancy.

So we do ask development to pay for that and that's all provided as part of their site development project.

Rennie, I can do the slides if you don't mind.

That would be great.

Thank you.

And then I want to talk a little bit about our capital improvement program.

Prior to 2008, there was very little replacement or rehabilitation that had been completed on the water, sewer, and stormwater.

I've talked about over the years natural gas.

They had the foresight back in the 1990s and 2000s to replace all of those systems except for the one remaining system that we're going to replace in West Main because we've been fortunate to get a grant, but that's another story.

So we have looked at all of these other systems because there was very little done to the water, storm or sanitary sewer systems prior to 2008.

And we've taken a very aggressive approach to look at those systems.

From a water standpoint, we look at various criteria and a condition assessment is done and we review that annually.

For example, we look

at the last year's water main breaks and if we know, like for example, Locust Avenue last year we had five major breaks, that's going to move up in the list as far as replacement.

And it's a big project and we do have it planned for the near future because it's an old cast iron pipe and it's aged and it needs to be replaced.

and with that said we've done a lot in our sewer water system but there's still a lot to do and we do have a plan to address it but we take various criteria and look at that and inputs and those are evaluated and they're really kind of rated and then we've established this priority list currently it's a living document it's got about 45 projects we complete about

10 to 20 projects a year depending on the length of those projects in the water area.

So far over the years we've replaced about 20.8% of the water system and we've spent over $30 million.

West Main is also a project.

We're doing that.

It's an upcoming project where we're doing that associated with the West Main gas line replacement.

We're going to tackle both of those at the same time.

regarding sewer.

We've got a little more opportunities with sewer because we can do condition assessment by televising the sewers to see what condition they're in and then we prioritize those improvements based on what we know is going on with the current system.

So far, and we also have a convenience with sewer

because we can line the sewer lines.

Water lines, we've got to go in and replace them so it takes a little while.

But sewer, we can slip line the terracotta pipe and it's a liner that goes in the pipe.

It has structural integrity.

and then you can get 50 to 75 years more out of that same pipe and it's also non intrusive you can slip it into manholes you don't have to dig and so it's an easy way to do a long-term rehabilitation of your sewers and it's it's less money than actually going in and digging them all up so far we've replaced

or rehab 38.5% of the wastewater system, which was a major accomplishment, and we spent over $33 million.

But here again, we've got two major projects we've still got to do.

Shanks Branch Sewer Line still needs to be done.

It's a project we're coordinating with Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority.

It goes along McIntyre Road.

And upstream of that, we've got the 14th, 15th Street Sewer.

It's a city project that needs to be replaced and those two projects have got to happen in the near future.

Storm is similar to sewer because they're both gravity.

We're able to TV and televise and see what the current conditions are.

and we go through the same type of prioritization similar to sewer lines.

Here with stormwater we have a lot of corrugated metal pipe that kind of deteriorates along the bottom that we need to address.

It doesn't last very long.

We don't allow it to be

to be installed currently in our current standards, but we do have some historical pipe material that needs to be replaced.

We've replaced about 11% of the stormwater pipe so far, rehabbed it, spending almost $12 million.

And we've got a list of projects that still need to be done.

I know with comments recently, it was brought up that Belmont has a lot of issues.

and I want to you know we did a quick analysis at the Belmont neighborhood and in Belmont we have actually replaced 30 percent of the water lines and that's in comparison and that and that kind of makes sense to me because you know Belmont's one of the older neighborhoods water lines are probably galvanized and they're old but we replaced 30 percent of the water lines in the Belmont neighborhood

and that's compared to citywide we've replaced 12.8% of the water lines citywide.

In Belmont we've replaced 46%.

We've rehabbed 46% of the sewer lines and that's in comparison with 38.5% citywide.

Storm we've rehabbed 21% of the storm system, citywide 11%.

And we also look back at historical data that we keep because we have to keep it.

In the last ten years?

How is our CIP funded and really how are utility budgets funded?

Utility budgets are separate from the general fund and they're not supported by taxes.

You know, we bring a rate report to council every June based on our budget and projected revenues.

and we're considered enterprise funds.

There are four utilities, so there are four separate enterprise funds, so you guys see the rates associated with those four utilities every year.

It's all evaluated annually.

We have models set up that develop those rates and in coordination with Chris Cullinan, the Director of Finance, he and I present those to you annually.

and I might mention the Rivanna is also included in those costs when we present them to council the city's share of Rivanna water and sewer authorities costs are included in the city's utility rates and I might just re-emphasize development pays for capacity when there's inadequate infrastructure.

You talked about in several of your slides upcoming projects or projects to be undertaken, something similar to that.

What does that mean?

I know that that means that those things have to be done, but are you saying these are things that need to happen in the next 12 months, in the next five years?

You indicated you had received a grant for a portion of the gas lines on West Main Street.

Is that something that's happening in 36 months?

How do you

Those things that you listed are priorities.

You were very clear about that.

So, you know, each one is kind of specific.

Like the gas line project, we're currently in design of that.

We anticipate that will be under construction in the next 18 months.

Locust Avenue, we're actually in design of it.

And...

That's a two-phase project.

What does that mean?

Yeah, that's sanitary sewer overflows.

That's not a lot in 10 years?

It's not.

We average, I think I reported to council when I introduced the budget presentation.

Last year we had four citywide.

We do have a few, but it's

It's interesting you bring this up because I could probably talk a long time about it because back in the day when I got here we had a lot of overflows.

We had hundreds of overflows.

We were in consent order and that's the reason we decided that City Council approved it and allowed us to approve the sewer lines and

We were able to get out of that consent order because of our aggressive methods of rehabbing our current system.

But your response time is very good, so that kind of balances out.

Okay.

Thank you.

So one question I had, the folks who were complaining last week were basically saying, their argument was, we've got all these terracotta pipes and they're going to fail and we've got to pull them all up and replace them with something.

And once they're relined, they should be good for another 15 years?

Yeah, 15, maybe 75 years.

It is, definitely.

It is.

But there still is, I mean I will say,

Even though we've done 38.5%, the majority of our piping is terracotta.

But people think of terracotta as terracotta pipe pots, you know, easily break.

It's a good product.

I mean, there was a lot of it installed across this country.

And it's almost, I always, I remember some person I used to deal with back in the day that, you know, until you dig it up, it's a pretty good pipe.

until something happens to it and then you've got to do something with it.

And so the estimate that was given in the letter that we received that it could cost $59 million to upsize all of Belmont?

Do you know of any reason, let's assume for the moment that in the next 25 years Charlottesville's population increases by 20,000 people.

That's the number we've talked about.

James first introduced this concept about adding additional dwelling units on each parcel.

Yes, I did.

I did.

You know, because an 8-inch sewer line has a lot of capacity.

You know, people don't think it does, but it has a lot of capacity.

So it's not, yeah.

And then just to be clear about something else, one of the other complaints that they were making was that this was going to cause our property taxes to go through the roof.

And you made the point that the money, if anything, is to be spent in this, it's going to be coming not out of property taxes, not out of general fund revenues, but out of the revenues that you get from administering the utilities.

That's correct.

That's right.

Yeah, we have a facility fee that they're assessed if they increase the meter size, you know, consequently you add additional flow into it and that's the facility fee.

That's correct.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

I appreciate the ability to get the

the real facts out there.

Good evening, Mayor Snook, members of Council.

My name is James Fries, Director of Neighborhood Development Services.

I think we've spoken.

I don't know.

And on that note, I actually want to say congratulations.

As to have gotten this far in the process, we continue to make progress.

On behalf of staff, I want to thank you all for your attention and your diligence and your hard work on this project.

We're right back at you.

Over the course of however many months we've been at it.

Thank you.

So we are at the point of making some final decisions about moving forward with the ordinance.

And you all received a memo that tries to highlight some of those.

And I'm not going to pretend to believe that this is the final list of decisions still to be made.

I anticipate we'll have more that will come up over the course of our conversation.

But we do believe there's some significant ones that we need to work our way through.

In terms of resources we have in the room, obviously you know we have staff, Missy Creasy, our legal team.

We also have with us Code Studio, Lee Einsweller and Christy Dodson available to answer any questions you guys have on the content of the zoning ordinance as we go through.

All right.

So the first topic that we identified at least to make some decisions on is on the topic of design review and particularly as that relates to historic preservation.

This is the memo.

And we know that one of the challenges we face is that many of the places that make a lot of sense for the purposes of new development to happen also are places where we significantly want to see historic preservation.

Most prominently of those is probably downtown itself.

So we know that design review is one of those challenges in the development review process.

It's balanced against the values and benefits we see from historic preservation.

One of the things we can do to address that challenge, the costs of design review, is to make our ordinance as predictable as we can make it, both in the terms of the ordinance and in terms of the guidelines that we have.

And we've talked about

updating those guidelines over the course of the next period of time.

One of the concerns that's been raised is that the ordinance does not provide sufficient parameters for the BAR or for that matter the ECRB in their review.

So in the memo you received, we propose some additional parameters for your consideration.

Now really the options that are available to you are to go with what's in the ordinance today, or in the proposed ordinance today, which clearly states that the BAR has the ability to reduce massing height, those being some of kind of the critical issues, consistent with their adopted guidelines, consistent with the comprehensive plan, and something that's always been the case, the BAR takes into account the cost of those types of conditions when they are deliberating on what to impose on a project.

But there's some further parameters that we've proposed that deal with first along the downtown mall, saying the BAR may limit story height to within two stories at the prevailing story height of the we said in the area, but that could be the block.

There's options there, and we're open to those.

in all other areas subject to review by the BAR.

They may reduce the allowed height by not more than two stories.

And then ultimately the BAR may require step backs of up to 20 feet.

Now we did get you all got a message from Preservation Piedmont that suggested 25 feet.

We're happy to accept that as a friendly amendment.

20 horizontal.

So that is basically going up a certain height.

Yep.

So I can pause there and see if there's any questions or thoughts on that.

Again, the options are we go with what we have or we go with something that provides a little more

A little more constraint.

When you say what we have, you mean what's currently in the law or currently in the proposal?

So, number one, along the downtown mall, the BAR may limit story height to within two stories of the prevailing story height of the area.

With the current

The closest thing to pay attention to is the stories.

The stories are really what controls.

Okay.

And so the stories are 10 and then the bonus for affordable housing can take you up to 13.

And that's where that 184 comes in at the 13.

So what's the current stories now?

I'm sorry.

Current stories on the downtown?

Sorry.

It's okay.

But I thought you were going to ask what the prevailing heights are.

So the 13 and the complaint that I've heard about, the 13 stories is equal to 184 feet nominally.

Well, that's so again, the story height is what we're paying attention to.

What that the height in feet is really there to create room, to create flexibility in how a story is configured.

I always like to say that the developers rent floor space.

They don't rent wall space.

So generally,

They look to keep their storing heights at the minimum necessary to serve the use that they're building for.

So that tends to be floor to floor around 9 feet, maybe 10 feet for residential, 12 to 14 if you're doing office space.

But your first floor might have a retail use in it.

Modern retail uses might be as much as 20 feet floor to floor.

If you incorporate a mezzanine in there, you might see something higher.

So that ultimate height cap

is essentially to put an ultimate height cap on it but to allow some flexibility if you're doing different things with your different floors within the space.

This actually in effect is defining, we've given already in the proposed ordinance, and I think this has caused some consternation, but we've given the BAR, we very clearly articulated what we believe they already had, which was the authority to regulate height and massing.

What we are doing is putting some constraints on that.

156 or something.

What you're trying to do here is...

So another question was the setbacks

recommended by Preservation.

Pete Martin is 25?

25, yeah.

And you said that your department could agree with that 25?

Okay.

It's just recognizing that the existing ordinance had 25, which is what we were aiming for.

And that's ultimately why the Planning Commission made the decision to pull them out of the ordinance as a strict requirement.

which is what led you guys down the path of having to do a special permit amendment when that was modified to something that the BAR has the flexibility to impose or not.

So all we're doing here is saying that there's a limit to the depth to which they can require it but they have flexibility.

They can say in this instance 20 feet is sufficient, 10 feet is sufficient or as the existing ordinance on side streets had a five foot step back.

Yeah, right.

One of the concerns, I confess I thought that there had been a decision made that is, my memory is apparently wrong.

that one of the things that folks were concerned about was not creating the Grand Canyon on East Main Street and not allowing a lot of height directly on East Main Street.

How can you think about having trees on the Mall if the sun doesn't get to the trees?

How can you think about having a pedestrian mall and all of that when it feels like you're at the bottom of a canyon?

I thought that we had agreed at some point, or somebody had agreed, I know it didn't come to Council at that point, so it wasn't us, that there would be some different limit perhaps for buildings directly on the Mall as opposed to removed from the Mall by

the other end of the block or something.

Well, I mean, I guess are we thinking of a Planning Commission conversation?

I don't remember now.

I don't remember a scenario where the Planning Commission went in that direction.

Now, you know, certainly possible to do that.

I mean, if one were to take, I just expressed a moment ago the notion that what this does is in some respects allows the BAR as they deem appropriate to do so in their

Deliberations on Protecting the Historic Resource to essentially mimic kind of the punctuation points we see on the downtown mall map.

Now one could also attempt to do that in the base zoning, right?

You could drop the zoning on the corridor, but I would still suggest that the places where we see tall buildings today remain locations that are appropriate for tall buildings.

So you might do a finer grain on your

But I think you're right, Wells Fargo, maybe 101.

I know for a long time that the height of the Monticello Hotel was moved around to say that was the tallest building we could have.

Okay.

You know, I am, this is going to sound perhaps, I don't know, a little crazy, but I'm almost willing to say we could have more height on the north side of the Mall than on the south side of the Mall because at least the sun didn't shine in from the north.

I really feel it's important to be able to get the sun down to the street level.

And my concern is that if we end up with 100-foot buildings directly on the south side of the mall, the mall will never see the sun for months at a time.

Well, I guess it, you know, seems the notion of, I don't know, maybe this is crazy on my part, but these iconic buildings we have along the mall, them being demoed to make way for something enormous seems unlikely.

I guess what I'm saying is if you wanted to to allow taller buildings I would rather have them be on the north side than on the south side because on the north side they're not going to block any sunlight yeah I think yeah that makes sense and I think that we

We've spent a lot of time and energy over the last 50 years making the downtown mall a pedestrian-friendly mall in a place that people want to eat and sit under the trees and all that.

So will we have to do something to say on certain sides?

Because we're in the point now where we need to

Make a decision and not like just say it.

I think what he's saying here is that we're giving the BAR the permission to make it to limit the story height within basically you're basing it on the surrounding existing buildings.

I mean, it's true we are putting it on the BAR to make that call, but...

One of the questions I had is to what extent any of these formulations would be an inappropriate delegation of legislative authority to the BAR.

What's the limit there?

I know that that's the concern.

Mr. Mayor, if I might, Sharon Pandack.

I'm assisting Mr. Stroman on this matter in the council.

The answer is that there's specific authority for the BAR to make decisions in order to protect historical features in the environment, historical environment.

And so when James says that we've tried to put parameters around some of this,

One of the concerns, and maybe I'm misremembering some of the arguments from a couple of meetings ago, was that if Council, for example, were to approve a particular design or particular height or some dimensional limitation came before Council, that the BAR would not then be free to change that in a later consideration.

I remember something in that regard.

Let me say that the structure of what is being presented to you is to provide the BAR the authority that it has under the state code as well as a delegation of authority through the zoning ordinance to them to both come before you with guidelines which you will approve

You have guidelines right now.

As Mr. Freeze has told you, they're going to be updated and that will be necessary to make them mesh better with the way the zoning ordinance is being written.

It seems like there's two aspects to the question you're asking.

One is very clearly that the BAR cannot

approve a project to exceed the dimensional standards.

So in the simplest case, the BAR could not approve a taller building than what's allowed under zoning.

The second question I believe you're asking is where City Council has granted a special exception.

So I'm going to use that as an example.

Again, we'll continue to use height as an example because it's easy.

So where the City Council might have granted a special exception to allow a specific height, can the BAR then, in their review, reduce that?

That's for a specific project.

For a specific project, yes.

What's here is perfectly legal.

Okay.

So really this comes down to do we feel like we should try to come up with a max limit of the heights of buildings or do we turn this over to the BAR to manage given this criterion?

I'm inclined to do the latter.

So for this.

Because I don't know how to pick a height.

No.

I mean right now are we talking about the specific question of for on the downtown mall directly whether the BAR would have direction to approve within two stories of the prevailing height or whether they just have latitude outside of even that we're not talking about areas adjacent to the downtown mall or BAR

No, we're just talking about points one, two, and three here.

So one would be the downtown mall, and then everywhere else in the city, the BAR is relevant.

They would be able to reduce it by no more than two stories, and they may do this step back thing.

So I guess item number one, which is the one we're still stuck on, I guess, is specifically limited, like you said, prevailing height.

Yeah, well, I definitely don't know what those absolute heights would be.

And in my thinking through it, big picture policy goal, it would seem like

Height is difficult because I think the design of the building will matter tremendously in terms of how it fits in with the architecture of the downtown mall.

I guess for point number one, I guess I would be inclined to support the BAR may limit story height within two stories of the prevailing story height of the area and just generally erring on the side of the BAR having broad latitude to make a decision in terms of what's appropriate.

The concern obviously would be teardowns that dramatically change both the kind of

pedestrian experience as well as just the architecture itself on the Mall.

And it seems like the best tool to prevent that would be the BAR having broad latitude, including with the direction of they may limit store height within two stories of the prevailing height of the area.

I wouldn't really know where to land if we're talking about setting specific height limits.

This would be the guidance right here.

We're basically giving them some parameters to work with, and I think these are reasonable parameters.

So you're using the terminology stories versus feet or inches or whatever that 180 something thing is.

Presentation of the Ordinance, the stories is really the more controlling factor.

I'm happy to have that explained.

You recommended stories versus this, whatever, height, you know, whatever, that 180, whatever, feet, inches, whatever, it doesn't matter.

There's a reason that you have proposed

one, two, and three based on what you have said and you are saying that Preservation Piedmont said 25 versus the 20 but your department and all of the people that have done all of the things that they have done

can agree with the 25.

All three.

And let me just clarify one thing.

I'm not saying that the BAR would not be able to regulate absolute height.

I'm just saying that the stories is the real controlling factor and that's why we talk about that.

You have done stories so that I can understand.

So we all can.

Well, you're speaking regular language versus computerese.

Stories is regular.

So I think we're at the point.

Can everyone chime in so we...

I have to say I am uneasy about something that would on its face permit a building of 184 feet on the downtown mall.

One of the things that I've been concerned about that I gather other folks who are involved in the field are not has been the notion of having a very tall building rise straight out of the sidewalk.

On the other hand, I have also said that I am more concerned about that problem in other areas and less concerned about it in the downtown area.

That's what happens in downtown areas.

I'm a little uneasy about it simply because I have a hard time imagining a 184 foot building in downtown Charlottesville but if we've got the authority, give the BAR the authority to limit story height to within

Okay, and maybe this is something I'm not understanding.

May limit story height to within two stories of the prevailing story height.

Or of the block.

We've been focused on stories again because that's the controlling factor.

If you go down the Mall today, there's buildings of varying heights but of the same number of stories.

That's kind of what we're trying to allow to continue by talking about stories rather than height.

The story height of the prevailing block also works well and actually probably works better to reinforce that pattern I was talking about where we have, again, I call them punctuation points, but places where there's

higher, taller buildings.

And Lloyd, I was, 184 seems a lot to, and then I came in here with that notion as well, but I feel better that we had the BAR to kind of take a look at that, kind of look what's in the adjacent area of the building.

So if we're looking at, I gather paragraph two would mean that if you had a building, let's say on Water Street,

Yeah.

Yeah, BAR does.

Oh.

That's something we worked out at the guideline stage, I would imagine.

For the three bullet points, point one, I'm good with.

Point three with the friendly amendment for 25 feet, I'm fine with.

For point two, I don't know if we need to limit their discretion in that way in terms of saying

They may reduce the allowed height by not more than two stories.

Yeah, yeah.

Correct.

And also recognizing that it's a process that, if appealed, will come to City Council as well.

Do you see any issues with that?

Well, I guess I'd just point out that if you take out that parameter entirely, I'm not sure what's the point of having the parameter for the downtown mall.

Yeah, I mean, right.

Right now, our starting point is they can regulate height as much as they want to, and this is hemming them in a little bit.

We've given them more latitude on the downtown mall, given the value of the downtown mall, less latitude in other historic districts.

Now, if you want to increase the number from two to something greater or have us take a different approach in other districts, we're happy to

The point of two, I guess, if I put on the hat of people who are advocating for more density is they might be concerned, and also the notion of trying to give developers some level of

Constancy in terms of their planning.

If they go into something and then you get a BAR that's, I don't know, there's some issue that comes up that's, there's some conflict or whatever, and they say, oh, you can't do your eight-story building, you've got to make it four because of whatever reason.

I'm going in with no idea as to what I could potentially no idea.

Now the guidelines are supposed to be there to provide some direction in that area as well.

But yeah, I'm kind of going in not knowing where I could end up.

Whereas knowing it's two stories means that I can at least game out some different scenarios and anticipate what it means if I lose two stories as opposed to what I'm proposing.

The other thing is when we looked at most of the districts, two stories

was within the realm of what the BAR considers today.

The BAR has, within their guidelines, the notion that heights should be no more than 200% of the existing.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, again, I mean, if no one else agrees, that's fine.

Again, I'm fine with points one and three.

I just err towards giving, because my understanding is the current status quo today would be the VAR's authority, as it relates to point two in the recommendations, doesn't have that restriction.

I don't know how, realistically, I don't know how often it will be invoked, but I'm just, I'm more comfortable erring on the side of more latitude in terms of what they're able to do there, but

I favor keeping it as you have because I feel like it gives more consistency to people trying to build things.

That's sort of my thinking, too.

I think you've got four out of five.

Okay.

So the next item we talked about here is the Entrance Corridor Review.

Now in the case of the Entrance Corridor Review, it's different from the VAR Review.

The criteria established in the proposed ordinance very clearly says that the ECRB is looking at what we call kind of like the skin issues, architecture, materials, color, you know, a little bit of

facade differentiation.

They don't currently have authority around issues of massing.

And this was a topic of conversation, so we want to just present that on the issue of entrance corridors, building off of the conversation you all had last time, we kind of see three options.

One is requiring a step back after five stories, and that requirement could either show up

in effectively in the base zoning for the entrance corridor areas or it could be added to the authority of the ECRB.

So basically they'd have skin plus step backs after five stories.

In that scenario, it allows them to make decisions on a case by case basis.

We've talked previously about the idea of a discretionary permit at five stories.

And then the third option obviously would be to

just straight up rezoning of those areas and then expect that anyone seeking to go higher than what the zoning would be would have to seek a rezoning.

I also noted here the conversation we had at the last meeting just to capture it of a

a different streetscape standard as found in Section 4.5 for the Route 29 entrance corridor area.

Nope.

Because we talked about it the other night, and I've had some more thoughts subsequent to that.

I don't know if you want to talk about that now.

I think we are.

There are a number of things that we decided

very provisionally over the last month.

Sure.

And number one, they were all just provisional, you know, what seemed to catch a majority of sentiment on a particular evening.

I already touched on my, sort of my concern about

having in some areas the notion that a very tall building would rise out of the sidewalk and just go straight up for a long way.

And while I'm willing to acknowledge that that's more typically downtown, I'm also concerned that it doesn't necessarily make sense for the same reasons with an entrance corridor.

Yeah, okay.

Well, it's actually a broader concern that we've had to focus on the entrance corridors just because of the decisions we've been discussing recently.

I'll give you an example.

As I said in a meeting, one of the meetings recently, I'm fine with the notion of a 10 story building like the NX 10, 10 to 13 stories in the area designated as a Barrett Road Shopping Center in part because you can put it in sort of back in the corner, not in the corner, but in sort of the middle of the shopping center so that it's not immediately on the street.

and I think that if you are trying to put a building of that size immediately on the street, it affects the quality of the street and it affects the quality of the street as an entrance corridor that we're trying to specifically in the ordinance make attractive to tourists.

And so yes, I think that that is something that's different for entrance corridors.

But I also think that the same logic of having

So, and I was thinking about that, that, you know, I'm trying to think where you enter the city where along those corridors where it might be a pedestrian, most of them are, you know, you're in your car.

So I don't see, you know, big buildings or as kind of being intimidating or uninviting.

Most of the time you're in your car.

That's what I'm just thinking of generally.

I can't think of a specific example from some other city that I have in mind perhaps because I can't think of a city where you go from

a two-story house to a ten-story building right on the side of the road.

Just boom like that.

If you look at the overlay map on the interactive, the areas that are called entrance, you've got 5th Street,

goes all the way up basically to Cherry.

You've got Avon, Monticello, East High is considered entrance corridor, Longstreet, and then 29, JPA, and then Fontaine.

I mean, we're talking about a large part of the city.

No, we're not saying no.

We're saying the proposal that I had mentioned before, the CX-5 allows an eight-story building there.

That's not a no.

No, not even necessarily.

I disagreed in terms of the scale of it, but I think even what was informally agreed to at the last conversation was CX-5 and then a special exception process to even go above that.

Well, that's true.

We did talk about it, and frankly, as I thought about it more, I thought that doesn't make a lot of sense since CX-5 has built into it a circumstance for going up to eight stories.

Okay.

Okay.

Is it 7 stories?

Yeah, it's 7 stories.

Okay.

Well, I think the an example of maybe the bigger policy concern is like say an area on barracks which is an entrance corridor which there's both no large areas of that

Don't have residential housing.

There's a lot of infill development to be done.

That designation, a lot of those designations I think were NX10.

So if you drop to CX5 with no process to allow for infill development going up to like the NX10 intensity, that is an area where there's a very significant restriction in terms of what's possible.

So I think that

My memory of the last conversation and obviously feel free to correct me was that you all had decided in your last conversation to exclude Route 29 which I interpreted as well the Route 29 entrance corridor district runs from Ivy to the city line and then it includes as a separate district Barracks to Meadow Creek

So the question really is about, if we narrow in on it, JPA has an allowance to go above five right now at key intersections.

Otherwise, it's already at five.

Fifth Street, the shopping center down at the entrance, goes higher than five.

Fifth Street is all CX-8.

Yeah, at key intersections as well, right.

I don't know.

I mean, I get the point, Lloyd, you're making about not having guard towers or whatever.

But to me, the opposite perspective would be maybe makes more sense to build things out of, I don't know, Fifth Street where it comes close to the interstate seems like a good place to build some tall buildings to me.

Down Fifth Street, up Fifth Street as it goes into town seems like a reasonable place to build.

Of course, we're not really asking anything too tall on 5th Street going up towards Cherry.

It doesn't bother me.

Most of that is vehicular traffic.

I work down there, so it's a few pedestrians not

a lot of foot traffic.

Yeah, and as we discussed last time, I guess I would definitely agree in terms of if you're looking at areas for the highest height and density that areas at the end of 5th particularly where there's not a lot of existing housing barracks make the most sense.

To me, I guess maybe the real relevant policy question for us to decide on is whether to what extent we want any discretionary processes that remain.

As we've discussed before, I've approached it different than entrance corridors, but more in mixed use commercial corridors.

What is the scale of and type of commercial we want to see?

the core neighborhood overlay, which we'll get to later tonight.

Maybe.

Maybe.

If you assume we didn't do that, to me, the most relevant areas are really East High, Preston, Cherry.

And the core overlay neighborhood potentially covers Cherry and Preston.

And so to me, really, the only outs for me is on East High.

One, the areas where there's some CX8

Do we consider that in alignment with the urban Rivanna River corridor plan as well as for that entire corridor do we want is what we envision

basically the scale of West Main Street in terms of how it develops both for alignment with the urban Rivanna River corridor plan as well as just kind of the infrastructure there.

That's where we would go.

To me, those would be the areas where the biggest question is if we want a discretionary process to go to a higher height.

But I definitely think that there's

just doing entrance corridors as a whole is not very there would be a much more surgical way to do that particularly because there'll be areas where with the entrance corridor there may be CX-8 or NX-8 one parcel outside of the entrance corridor that's still that which just seems a little wonky as a solution to the concern but

I mean, what are you thinking, Lloyd?

Well, you know, I guess the, I've thought about it a lot over the last couple of weeks as we've been running around on these kinds of issues.

And I guess where I, maybe where I come out is that it's the combination of

the height and the lack of any kind of setbacks that affects the streetscape that even in a place like 29 North, like Fifth Street Extended, I still think we need to have some sense of a streetscape.

And I don't think that something that

allows much less encourages building to the margins in a place like that is a particularly good idea.

Maybe the answer is not to say nothing over CX5.

Maybe the answer is to have some additional streetscape considerations similar to what's being proposed for 29 North.

It's a pretty intensive, I mean, I can see that width working up 29 north, but I can't see that width working, and I could see it maybe working down at 5th.

I don't know that I could see it working on Longstreet, though, or East High.

I expect Long Street is, yeah, going to be at 11 feet.

Well, do you know what type of street type that is?

I don't know.

We're not asking about the old code.

Long Street, which is, it's the 250, right?

Yeah.

It's probably the highest level, actually.

Yeah, it's got to be a 15 foot, right?

It's mixed use B. So that's, sorry, you've got to have both papers over.

13, sorry.

I may well get outvoted.

Yeah.

Yeah, so I guess when we get to the core neighborhood overlay, two of them were covered.

The only other one is really just one side of

East High and whether we think that's in alignment with the Urban Rivanna River Corridor Plan.

I think there's two parcels.

The parcel itself goes up to the river.

Those are CX-8.

Again, I don't know how much of that parcel is developed up to that point, but the parcel itself goes right up to the river.

And then the rest on the river side are CX-5.

I know we have the Urban Rivanna River Corridor Plan.

Obviously, the city recently made a large

Acquisition adjacent to there.

That plan called for creating a special zoning district for that plan.

And the question is, do we feel particularly on the side of the street that's adjacent to the river, is that in alignment with our comp plan goals there?

So you're saying just as you come across, as you're going west on Long and can turn left again at East High, this one parcel that's right there and two parcels.

Yeah, Gallagher Brothers.

Do we want to just call that park?

I think it's not just one parcel.

It's the side of the street that's closer to the river.

To me, the question is, is that higher buy-right intensity in alignment, again, with the urban Rivanna River corridor plan, or would we prefer something where the buy-right allowances is similar to present conditions under current zoning, perhaps with a special exception process?

I don't know.

I just, again, I just think particularly for that side of the street looking, it just seems a little

So at the intersection that I was talking about that is CX-8 and then the rest of the parcels going up or down whatever east high are CX-5?

Correct.

Okay.

Yeah, I mean, to your point about the river, it is interesting.

Let me see where he's talking about.

In addition to the Cosner Brothers, there's also the AutoZone property, which would go to CX-8, as well as the CVS, as well as the, I guess that's probably the tire place.

Yeah, there was identification.

If you go all the way back to the comp plan, the comp plan basically said this area should go up to a certain height and then a greater height at key intersections.

I guess I just need to go back and understand what aspect of the

I don't think it does.

I don't think it does specifically.

I will note that the zoning of the parcels except for right at that intersection are in the lower intensity zonings.

The zoning classification of the property that was just acquired is higher.

Oh, I see.

Which is one of the very few areas in the city where that occurred.

Again, it just seems like the plan itself doesn't directly speak to height, but it did reference the possibility of creating a zoning district for there.

And I think there are areas that tie into development and height in terms of the priorities laid out there.

It just seems one of those cases where there's a clunkiness in the streets that work plan and some conflict with that area of our cop plan.

Well, it's CX-5, most of it now.

The lower number?

To go from the intersection.

West to Mead Avenue.

On the east side of High.

So that is presently proposed to be CX5?

CX5 and CX8 up at the corners.

So CX-5 can go up to seven stories.

CX-3 can go up to five.

That seems more appropriate and in alignment with the comp plan to me.

Today we don't have access.

We don't have sufficient space for a full road access.

There is an access way today.

If you were building 240 or 250 units, you would not have sufficient access.

No, I know that, but I'm saying for us in the future, if we want to do more with that park, do we have a way to get from East Tide to that, say it's a park at some point,

I don't believe so.

Right.

That's a different problem for us.

So would it work then to say let's go CX, let's lower it by two from CX5 to CX3 up to Meade Avenue on the west side, east side of the road.

You'll help me out here.

Yeah.

And then at the intersection

Potentially, yeah.

So from the intersection down on the east side of the road to Meade, make that all CX-3?

Correct.

From here all the way down to Meade, this would be CX-3.

No, because we have it as part of our comp plan.

His point is there's been a lot of time and money poured into doing a Rivanna River

And again, I mean, I'm sorry to cut you off, but I'm just thinking like, as we've discussed,

We can go up in the future.

And I can absolutely believe, depending on how plans work out and things work, that you could have high density residential there and it fit in perfectly.

I can support you, Mike.

Yeah.

So now let's go to, did you get that?

Yep.

Okay.

Can we go now down to 5th Street?

Let's just walk around the circle of the city.

Is it helpful for me to restate what I heard just so we're all clear?

Sure.

So southeast corner of the intersection of East High and 250 long would be CX-5.

CX-3.

No, southeast corner, the one lot.

East side of East High Street from the intersection to Meade, CX3.

I thought I heard you say that the lot at the intersection

Okay.

Correct, and I consider that in alignment with, again, Urban Rivanna River Program.

So on Fifth Street, I think that that is a lot different.

Lloyd, I know you had a meeting out there the other night, but that wasn't adjacent to Fifth Street, was it?

It was VDOT's meeting.

adjusting the heat.

It's cold.

Hot and cold, hot and cold.

Yeah, well, it's working.

Yeah, I don't see a reason to change that one.

Sorry, what are we talking about?

We're talking about 5th Street, the very where it goes out to the interstate, the very southernmost extreme of 5th.

They've got down a CX8, and I say let's just leave it there.

I would concur with that.

And the rest of, yeah.

Well, I'm just saying that the other ones, then you get into RC and RX3.

Right, right.

All right, Avon, nothing there looks very tall, Lloyd No Wait a minute, wait, wait, wait Did you say Monticello?

That is, what is purple?

School or something?

No.

No.

It's a pretty low level, whatever it is.

NX3.

RX3, yeah.

NX3.

NX3, okay.

NX3.

You've got RX3 and NX3, okay.

Let's go around the horn to Fontaine, I guess.

Mm-hmm.

CX-5 is in there.

There's CX-8 at a couple of intersections.

One of the decisions you already made was to reduce the intersection of Shamrock and JPA from 8 to 5.

Yeah, I am.

Yeah.

OK.

Do we keep on going?

Where do we end up?

IV 250?

Ah, the one that is the pain point right now I guess.

We'll find out on Monday whether there was some positive engagement there.

It goes basically from where old ivy is, right?

Yeah.

Fruits of all nations.

Foods of All Nations, that area is designated CX-8.

Correct.

That's not what I'm seeing on my interactive map.

You need to talk to your boss about a new computer.

I think you have too many.

Yeah.

Right here, that's CX-5 and that's CX-8.

The reason you can't get to it is you've got an overlay.

Oh, okay.

So, I mean, I don't have a problem with those designations in that area.

I think that you're going to see more development happening out.

further into the county in that direction.

And you're going to see a lot more growth up in north grounds for the university.

And this is a good place for people to walk to from.

So I don't know.

In that area, Lloyd, maybe

Well, yeah, and I mean frankly one of the things that caused me to think about it a lot is specifically the discussion we've been having about 2117 Ivy Road.

Well, you've got a bit of a sidewalk there, though, right?

The streetscape is 14 feet or something there.

It's a little bit better, but anyway.

That was part of what I was reacting to.

Then I look across the street at the Wells Fargo that isn't going to be a bank for very long as best we can tell.

Of course, we don't have a proposal to look at there.

But both of those are relatively small lots when it comes right down to it.

Yeah, I mean, we can round it off shortly, but again, I think outside of Ericsson 5th Street, the real question is whether these key intersections

Do you want a discretionary process?

But I'm fine.

Because you're basically okay with what's there.

Correct.

I'm with Michael.

The only reason I was suggesting a discretionary process, I guess, is because I've heard some comments from the Planning Commission

that assumed some further discretionary process.

Whether that was an ECRB decision that maybe the ECRB doesn't actually have the power to make, I don't know, but that's

And I don't think we can do that.

Right, which I guess if we're through going around the circle of the city, is there any other entrance corridor we're missing?

I think that's...

Because I wanted to come back to your point, Lloyd, which is in the memorandum here.

I mean, up at the top of the city, the north side of the city, we already talked about barracks.

Is there anything funky up at Greenbrier coming around Rio?

That's not an entrance corridor.

Okay.

At least not a city one.

I think we've hit all the entrance corridors now.

So going back to your memo,

There are at least three options for addressing concerns within the entrance corridor.

One requires step back after five stories.

Two, the idea of a discretionary permit for projects over five stories and then we could apply lower height districts.

And it sounds like number three we've by our exercise tonight.

And then it sounds like we may not have to do number two.

I guess, Lloyd, to your point, so currently the ECRB doesn't have any real say-so over higher massing, right?

Correct.

So it's a little, you know, I love all those guys, but once it gets through the Planning Commission, they're going to pretty much do what they want with the ECRB in terms of

So I don't know.

If you did have this item, number one, requires step back after five stories, to me that would make the 2117 project a little more palatable to people.

For example, I don't want to prejudge that project, but that might be one that would be more if people just knew going into it, hey, above five stories on the entrance corridor, we're expecting you to have a step back unless you get approval from us otherwise.

Yeah, and I would regard that as a serious thought, as an alternative to what I had said before.

And I have to say that when we talked about having a discretionary permit for projects over five stories, if you'll recall a couple of meetings ago, there was the discussion that we would require

a discretionary permit of some sort for any building over five stories.

And then we backed off of that and said, well, okay, let's just say for the entrance corridors, as I suppose a SOP to me, that's fine.

But, you know, and I am generally in favor of the goal of trying to reduce the number of discretionary permit processes that we build into everything.

and the more I've thought about things over the last couple of weeks, the more I've thought that maybe where we were headed with anything over a CX-5 requiring some sort of a permit even in the entrance corridors, even temporarily,

maybe wasn't the best solution.

If there was a better solution that was not a discretionary review that would in fact limit the massing, I could be okay with that.

Which would be the step back.

I was going to, you know, I understand now I was going to say it was your concern

the aesthetics of it or the impacts?

Well, it's, you know, entrance corridors are one place where we, by our ordinance, specifically endorse a notion of being concerned about attractiveness.

is the one place we do that.

Particularly to tourists, yeah.

But beyond that, we have the general concerns about harmonious.

The word complementary appears in there.

I think that was just a typo, Lloyd.

I don't think most people would even notice the difference between those two.

What I was going to say, let me just interrupt a second to sort of finish my thought.

The step back is one piece of it, but I continue to think that even on entrance corridors, we need to pay attention to the streetscape.

And even though, of course, this is a place where we're specifically thinking we're going to have more pedestrians.

Yes.

Unlike Fifth Street, where you all said, you're not going to have pedestrians down there anyway.

Here we're planning for pedestrians and planning for bikes and planning for, frankly, a colossal mess on Copley Drive, but that's another story.

And I think that if there's a way to

Where do we lay out streetscapes in this book?

Section 445, I believe it is.

Sounds right.

Yeah.

And let me say at the risk of prefiguring something we'll talk about next week, the redesign of the VRV project

I appreciated the fact that between the Planning Commission version and the version we got, we got a wider streetscape.

We got double the number of street trees.

Yeah.

If you all look at page 4-17, it shows the clearwalk zone plus greenscape zone.

As far as the street typology on ivy is what we're asking about?

Correct, yeah.

You are correct.

Now, certainly one thing we could do is just say on entrance corridors we always use typology A. Typology A is more conservative, I guess, or more spacious.

I certainly support, you know, I don't have any issues with that.

Having more, basically two more feet.

Yeah.

So clear walk zone and a greenscape zone of eight feet.

Yeah.

How about y'all down there?

Right.

Yes.

But I think the justification is very good because for the most part these are places where, you know, we're talking about

People coming into the city in whatever mode they choose.

And we want to encourage many of them to come in walking, biking, and so on.

OK.

We wouldn't resolve it tonight.

The only other thing I could think of is if you thought there was any utility in terms of the

I mean, this would be when we get to revising the guidelines, whether we wanted any kind of very simple regulations around like building materials or very simple design elements.

Right, right.

Totally.

What about the step back notion after five stories?

Where are you?

Huh?

Is that okay?

What do you think?

It takes up some height, some capacity, volume of buildings is what you're going to lose.

Yeah.

So the latter, the ECRB allows them to make that as a contextual decision.

Okay.

Okay.

So require it as part of the base.

If it's base, they're coming to you for a special exception to that rule.

the ECRB could be authorized to require a step back on a case by case basis.

I guess I'm getting tired and having a hard time remembering.

On this point, to be completely honest, I'm not even, I don't, I'm not 100% sure in terms of if I have really strong convictions.

I was just saying as a practical matter, the ECRB appeals will come to us, so it's not, the characterization that the ECRB means almost nothing, I don't know, I don't know if that's Well, it would only come to us if the developer,

No, I believe adjacent property owners can also appeal to us.

Is that right?

You're right.

Personally, I would rather have more of these requirements in the base zoning than left to the ECRB, but that just fits in with the general notion of trying to have as much certainty at the application stage as possible.

and frankly then it would sort of free us it would seem to me to say you knew when you applied that this was the condition and why are you applying for an exception

that is not I mean is there something extraordinary about this particular requirement that's going to be really onerous or is it simply you want to get more apartment units in there and therefore you're you're asking for the exception I just think we we need to be clear about what kinds of things we're going to be granting exceptions for what kind of reasons we ought to be granting exceptions

Yeah, and again, I don't have strong convictions, but just trying to think through it.

I guess there's some relatively marginal possible impact on number of apartment units.

And the only other consideration I could think of, and I don't know how this would play out, is if it's similar to requirements in terms of number of, say, you need three different building materials that ironically we end up getting

even more uniform design typologies.

So I think the only challenge that we see, the taller step back is a very different challenge for the developer than a step back that occurs lower like at the second or third story.

At the second or third story the construction type would usually be that that piece would be pasted on to fundamentally a building that was built inside there.

When you're now building that paste on five stories tall it's just expensive to do because fundamentally you're holding up your taller building with material that's you know inside of a space that's however deep

That is.

And especially if it's as narrow as 15 feet, it's affecting the first bay of a retail space or the first apartment unit or the first whatever else.

So it's a really challenging thing for most developers to build that building.

The likely impact, and this is my personal opinion, the likely impact of setting it at the fifth story is that you'll get five story buildings that they don't have to deal with the challenge of it.

They may set back one story or something on the top, but probably won't continue on up.

The other thing that goes along with this that is still true today but is changing, and we had a great conversation with your building official today about this issue, is the difference between the least expensive five-story building

which is a concrete podium and four stories of stick built on top of that.

That is the least expensive building that we can build and therefore the most affordable.

We're already exacting units out of them for affordable housing if that's residential and not office.

So we're getting a lot for a five story building.

After that, the reason that you have seven and eight

is because you need a leap because you are paying for a different technology.

Now this is not true in student housing which would almost always be institutional.

It's built of concrete and steel in most cases anyway, but private student housing that's really just apartments would likely be podium and stick.

So if you look at that, the only thing that's coming is mass timber is coming really fast in some parts of the country and it doesn't care how many stories it is.

You are right here at the edge and on the cusp of a real issue that in terms of height and cost of buildings means that today still the five story building is the sweet spot.

The leap to eight works fine.

because that's enough to sort of compense.

But the step back is also going to be at play in that same question.

And I want to ask you one question about it.

And Mayor, this is especially directed at you.

In cases where we ask for a step back in other communities for transition purposes, you have a choice of moving the whole building to that point.

So you would get your deeper, we would get less of, we'd get a deeper bill too.

because we would still be asking for the building to be wide at that point.

You would get a deeper build too, but they would build in that slightly less expensive, non-articulated building form.

If you're terribly worried about the massing and you really need that to stay, then that can stay in there.

It's just that you will frequently see buildings stop at that point until we get to more mass timber and other kinds of things that avoid that.

Five stories is a really good thing because it is

If we're trying to build units at the most affordable level, that is the best building we can build a bunch of.

So on these corridors, on old strip centers, on whatever, that would be the most common building that the market wants to build you right now.

But 10 years from now,

We could be in a different world because of the fact that costs will change associated with mass timber and we'll have more flexibility.

And in ten years they'll be doing another zoning order.

I won't be back.

You and I will come back and observe Christie.

How about that?

That's great.

OK.

Trying to fully understand that.

So if you were to say like eight stories or above, you have a setback at like three stories.

So that's actually easier to take because you're going to build that little piece out of stick and it's just kind of free space.

You'll figure out a way to use it.

And I know it's subjective, but is that something you've seen have any effectiveness in other areas in terms of actually having a streetscape that for the pedestrian feels more kind of human scale?

The poster child for the lower step back is the entire city, the downtown core of Vancouver.

Right.

Townhouse wrap on every podium and tower.

I hadn't noticed that particular aspect.

When you stand on a street in Vancouver, first off, there's tons of street trees.

They got that right.

They've got good bike pad on all of their streets.

so that stuff's really good.

The cross section of streets is really good.

They've re-thunk their downtown and what they got built feels good on the street.

You do not feel loomed upon.

So I would only offer up that yes, step backs are functional,

but in their particular case they put a townhouse wrap on a parking structure which becomes the podium for a tower.

So it's just a different model.

Three.

Well, maybe just change this to say for any building above seven stories requires a step back somewhere in the first three or four stories or something like that.

So it doesn't have to be specifically at five.

So what you were talking about having capacity to do downtown is very different because we're talking about a meaningful historic facade that's there today and therefore we're pushing that tower back to where when I'm standing on the street next to this nice facade I'm not really seeing it because

I can't get there because the corner of the building is still in the way right you're talking about in these other settings something quite different right they're sitting back on wider roads already so all you're doing is sort of modulating opening up you know to the sunlight to the whatever that corridor so it's it's a

Very different kind of thing.

Yes, I mean, that's very helpful.

Thank you very much.

It's 9 o'clock.

I'm still learning something today.

But I'm not sure what's the best advice.

I mean, the best.

Best resolution.

I think I heard the mayor say it.

We could say basically any

So we can give a range, is that what you're saying?

Okay.

And let architects, yes.

Is this just for the entrance corridors?

That's the context in which we're discussing it.

To me, I mean, it doesn't seem unreasonable to do broader.

So what do you, putting that basically in each of the, putting that as a standard in

Yeah, if you build above 5, yeah.

Yeah, I understand.

I'm supportive of the idea.

I think I'd like a little bit more time to think about it.

Maybe ask a builder or someone who's willing to build in our city.

I'm actually fine with just saying let's put that requirement in for the entrance corridors and obviously architects can design a step back if they want to.

But in terms of the concerns, the reasons for my concerns that I've expressed various times over the last few weeks,

I can agree with that.

You said you can or you cannot?

No, no, no, I said Brian.

You said can or cannot?

Can.

I mean, I'd definitely be interested in additional conversation with multiple parties about it, but I'm not shut off to expanding it beyond entrance corridors.

I think there's BAR review for some of it, but I'm thinking about kind of

how it may influence the experience along West Main Street or other areas in the city which are going CX8 or above and that equivalent.

And again, I'm just thinking through cities I've been to and seeing the difference of the just pedestrian experience versus when you have 8, 10, 12 stories without that step.

If we were to change that later, would that count as down zoning?

I think for the entrance corridors, I'm good with it.

I think what Michael is trying to say is he thinks this is a good idea more broadly throughout the city.

It could be.

I'm not sure.

I think if we could wait to decide that piece later and it's not going to run afoul of something legal if we say we are going to require step backs

If we could decide that as a zoning amendment later, then I think that's a good place to be right now.

Does that sound good to you, Michael?

Realistically, how long will that be?

You could revisit it at the time of the issuance of the guidelines because you'll be looking at those.

Oh, okay.

I think it's a great point.

The question is when would be the appropriate time to revisit?

Right.

But they just said it could happen when you do the guidelines.

So that could be a more in-depth discussion during the guidelines and it would be permissible.

Yes.

Michael, you're not supposed to go there.

You're supposed to look at the upside.

Okay.

It can be done later.

I think so.

Hallelujah.

So let's talk about discretionary review through special permits.

We are, we are, we are.

Yeah.

I mean, this conversation may be moved at this point.

The idea here was, I mean, basically I'm asking the question, a couple of instances of additional special or new special permit reviews have been identified over the course of Yale's work sessions.

Where are we on that idea?

I walked away from it on anything five and higher too.

And also I appreciate your stating here the special permit process presents well-recognized benefits and challenges.

A special permit addresses site specific features.

Yes.

Because a lot of the special use permits we've been seeing aren't site specific features.

Well, site specific to me says there is something about this site that is peculiar that requires us to do something different as opposed to we want to build more units here.

I guess what I was simply referring to is that the deliberations and a special permit are relative to

No, not the topography.

As opposed to addressing broader conditions or broader interests that the city has through the

through conditioning on a specific site.

I understand that.

So 5-58 is where we lay out the special use permit in the book.

So just a small clarification.

The previous city attorney especially was interested in use permits being about use.

And therefore, we have the special exception.

Good job.

Brian.

Brian.

Well, the only point there, the fundamental process is about the same, but one is about whether a use is appropriate in the form that's already been established.

and the other is about establishing a modification to the form and the way, Mayor, that I would suggest that the word special be considered is there ought to be some kind of condition that allows you to say yes

and the condition is not the applicant will make more money or we'll get more affordable units because there'll be more units altogether.

The condition ought to be something on the land, in the neighborhood, in the context, about the road that serves it.

So just step back to the two types.

So one of them is saying this is the use and this is the form and we're going to let you tweak something around the edges.

The first one is really a little more like this.

I'm worried about this particular use in this district and therefore I have not permitted it by right.

I have allowed it by special use permit so we can have a conversation and add additional standards if necessary that would apply specifically to this use in this building, in this setting, etc.

You know, blinders on use.

Not like I'm adding this use and you can do two more floors with it and you can change your side setback because you're doing a use I really, really want.

Okay.

because it may be allowed by Wright in another more intense district.

But in this particular district it's pushing the envelope.

So therefore we're going to talk about it and maybe we're going to condition it.

Maybe it's going to be smaller than they're asking for.

Correct.

So we are taking exception from our rules for a particular reason.

It's going through a very discretionary process.

Both conversations end up with you.

One, you should kind of have your use hat on because the approval criteria are focused on use for that one.

Pretty much.

Pretty much.

Yeah, so you can modify the rules for zoning districts.

That means all the dimensional kinds of things.

Blocks and the connectivity requirements.

So you could take exception and say, I don't want to put a road through here because

and maybe you'll have a good reason for it, access and parking reductions to either of those, transitions and screening, modification of your screening because of some particular condition, and fences and walls.

So these are all prescriptive standards right now and this is a discretionary model to talk about them and modify them.

All righty.

Right.

I want to be clear.

So there's, after the prior conversation, we created a placeholder for the ability to grant a special exception for a greater height in stories.

and so that's in the advertised draft.

The way that was going to be used is

We would have then identified districts where you could only get, say, we'll use CX-8.

It came up out of, I don't know, two or three work sessions ago.

Yeah, I don't think, I mean, I support the higher building.

So I don't, I mean, if we're going to basically go in and tell everyone that you only get five, for example, and if you want eight, you've got to go through this whole dog and pony show to prove that you want eight, which is what we'd be talking about.

Right.

This won't be useful for our conversation.

I still think it's useful as a tool.

The thing I've struggled with is outside of the core neighborhood framework, what is actually a good baseline for it.

And this isn't helpful because I still haven't thought of what a good one is.

But I still see utility for it.

And maybe the core overlay, core neighborhoods, the best we'll get to.

I mean you look at the Cherry Avenue project, you look at Sunrise Mobile Home Park redevelopment, those things only happen because there was a discretionary process.

We can always do a variance though, right?

I think the point you're making is different than simply the fact that they, because Cherry Avenue didn't come to the city council seeking a permission to change one of the standards that applied to them.

They were seeking greater density than is allowed at the base level in the zoning ordinance.

And that required them to get a special use permit.

But you're referring to the fact that because they had to get a special use permit, they were inclined to

Correct.

And the fact that if they had that buy-write height and density on those parcels years ago, years ago a developer would have bought it and built a market rate development with no unique design features.

I mean, I think that's just the reality of leverage.

and that's good sometimes and it's also bad many times.

Well, I mean, those are all good points.

But at this point, I think what we're hearing is we're going to strike that provisional language that's been put in there.

Go back to the original, is that right?

Yes, I think so.

So how do you feel?

How do you feel?

Yeah.

Yep.

Uh-huh.

Affordable growing units.

Okay, so what I provided here at the beginning is essentially a very, very brief overview of what's currently in the ordinance relative to ADUs.

It's not complete.

It's a much longer section, but trying to hit the high notes, the ADU ordinance requires, as drafted right now, rental projects of 10 units or more to include 10% of units at 60% of AMI for 99 years.

requires ownership projects of 10 units or more to include 10% of units at 80% of AMI for the first owner.

And then we have the option for fee in lieu.

And we have then a height bonus provision

of two or three stories depending on the district for affordable units at 50% of AMI and then a unit bonus provision in the residential districts, RA, B, C, which allows additional units if those units are affordable.

So one of the concerns I think you guys have heard expressed is that difference between rental and ownership.

And we understand where that

difference is coming from.

And so we've tried to address that concern.

And we're proposing tonight a notion of saying that rather than differentiating between rental and ownership, we differentiate based on the district that you're in in the sense that on the citywide level, the standard would be 10% of units at 60% of AMI for 99 years, no matter what the tenure of the building is, no matter if it's rental or ownership.

But then when we get into the residential districts where we're talking about the bonus unit, that would be at the 80% of AMI, and it would be a 30-year term of affordability.

And that would also be for rental or ownership.

Again, we're trying to get away.

The concern that has been expressed is

differentiating on this tenure factor, on this rental or ownership.

Our concern is just the basis on which we're differentiating.

Right.

So now we're basically saying, because the concern that was being expressed was about ownership.

Correct.

Right.

I'll just start by saying now,

None of this is at all a criticism of you because you're responding to concerns we've raised and you've done that as best you can from what we've said.

I'll just say I think this solution is even worse than what we were at.

I think it's a negative thing to be weakening the years of affordability as well as the AMI level in those districts.

And quite frankly, ownership for 99 years is possible.

And I just feel uncomfortable with making a change like this for very specific circumstances that I think is weakening the affordability overall.

One of the things that I'm curious about, and we've got this discussion, it comes up in a couple different ways.

is what is the difference in the way a developer is going to look at the cost of building something that would then be marketed or would be rented to people at 50% of AMI as opposed to 60% AMI.

We know that any time somebody builds an affordable unit, you can figure out the present value of the loss of income over that period of time.

What's the practical difference between a 50% and a 60% AMI at that point?

Is it a minor difference?

It's very meaningful.

It's a significant drop in the revenue available.

It would be a drop in revenue available to the developer, but it would afford more people at 50%

But it affects the performance of the project, thus also making the project possibly infeasible.

The difference between the 50 and 60 is, in my mind,

from a developer standpoint at 60 I can make this project go at 50 it'll be a stretch but if I'm the person the 50% is better for me because I have a better chance of getting in at 50 than I do at 60 so you're balancing one

it's it's it's you know it's not even good cop bad cop it's one against the other can I the community person or the resident or the person moving in get in at 50 percent easier or better or whatever my salary will sustain it versus 60 percent if I'm a developer

And I know developers, but if I am a developer, the difference in that 50 and 60 percent is 60 percent, it's a go.

10% of units, but the phrase that always comes up when we talk about inclusionary zoning and moving these numbers around is 10% of zero is zero.

If we make the project infeasible, then we're not getting the units.

Absolutely.

But the other thing to remember is that we always have the option of buying down affordability, right, in that the cost of subsidizing an affordable unit is more than subsidizing the buy-down

on a unit that somebody's already required to produce.

To date.