Planning Commission Regular Meeting   12/10/2024

I think we've got 19 seconds left.

Was that a hint?

Good evening and welcome to the December Regular Planning Commission meeting.

We are going to begin our meeting with a report from our director.

Thank you very much.

Good evening, commissioners.

My name is Kelly Brown, and I am the director of the Neighborhood Development Services Department.

I'm happy to be here tonight with you.

As you know, I have been in my role as the director for three months as of Monday, and I've very much been enjoying getting

to speed on all of the department's work and getting to know many of you and my colleagues and wanted to take an opportunity to check in with you tonight on the department's work where we are in our work plan for this year.

I will be sharing an update on our work plan with City Council in January and thought this could be an opportunity to get some feedback from you all as we prepare for that, for sharing that information with them in January.

So in my presentation tonight, I will share a little contextual information before diving into our priorities.

So by way of background, I wanted to share an overview of our department's organization.

We have made some changes to the organization over the past several years, actually.

Some changes that were initiated by Director Fries before he moved to the manager's office in which I've been able to fully implement with the support of Deputy Director Creasy.

Some of the key highlights that I wanted to share, we are a department of 28 staff.

We currently have four vacancies and we're really divided

in our organization into two primary groups.

Deputy Director Creasy supervises our building code and property maintenance code oversight, as well as our zoning administration and our historic preservation planning staff.

And I supervise the work of our larger planning team, which is made up of our

Current Planning Services, led by Matt Alfelli as our Development Services Planning Manager, also our Transportation Planning Group.

and then our support services.

We are currently recruiting for a long-range planning manager that will be a counterpart to Mr. Alfelli and really lead the development of small area plans and a lot of our long-range policy work in the areas that have been identified through our work plan.

Our planning staff is a fairly small group.

Our development services group is made up of three planners and a planning manager and then our long range group is the planning manager and we'll be recruiting for another planner to support that work as well.

I also wanted to highlight some of our accomplishments from the past year to help frame where we are now and where we're looking ahead.

We have and we continue to support

a significant amount of development review and building review over a thousand permits reviewed in this past year, 1700 permits issued and a significant number of inspections over 6000.

That work is primarily supervised in the building code side of the shop but a lot of that work also comes from

a lot of the plan review that our planners do and it is a day-to-day responsibility of the department but it is really important work and it really leads to a lot of our increased the revitalization of our community, increased housing production I wanted to highlight here a number of development approvals from fiscal year 24 and the first quarter of fiscal 25 a number of student housing developments which I know you're all familiar with the VIRV 468 units

Aspen Heiss is another student housing development, a number of other housing projects which include affordable housing components.

So this is all work, development approvals that have come through and will continue to need our support as they move into the building and construction phase of those projects.

We also have a number of accomplishments that are worth noting in other areas of our responsibilities.

I think it's important to mention that it's still been less than a year since we've adopted a new development code, which is really creating an entirely new framework for how we

support reinvestment in our community and help to meet our comprehensive plan goals.

In terms of some other accomplishments, we have submitted a grant application for reinvestment on the downtown mall through the Virginia Department of Historic Resources.

We are working in our transportation planning group on a number of initiatives, school bike fleets for after school programs, the creation of a regional transit authority which will be coming to

Council next Monday, been many years in the making, numerous improvements through safe routes to schools, and the completion of a downtown walking tour guide, or a couple of things I wanted to highlight that really showed the breadth of the department's scope.

Also, we've done a lot of work in the staff development side of things in our department.

Of course, new director, new development review planning manager.

I mentioned we're recruiting for a long-range planning manager.

Also a new property maintenance inspector to support off-ground student housing.

That's what's meant by the UVA inspector.

We're recruiting for a new transit planner.

We continue to send our staff to conferences and supporting professional development.

So a lot of growth and development in our department as well.

So before I jump into the priorities, I did just want to provide a few more framing, comments.

This is really the lens which we've used to identify our priorities for the rest of this fiscal year and looking ahead into next year as well.

First, it's very important that we seek

to timely accomplish our non-discretionary core mission services.

So I've mentioned this already, but our building code, review and enforcement, property maintenance code, enforcement, development plan review, historic preservation, zoning enforcement, a lot of that kind of happens in the background, but it is very important work and work that we are really attentive to on a day-to-day basis.

Prioritizing efforts in support of health, safety, and the implementation of the new development code

is also a key priority, and that's really before we think about adding new initiatives.

What are the things that we need to do to make sure that we're doing everything we can in those core areas?

Thirdly, it's really important that we consistently apply an equity lens to our work and the selection of it.

So something that I try to do whenever faced with a decision about this priority versus that priority is asking some key questions.

First, who would benefit from this decision or this choice?

Who might be burdened?

Who is missing from the conversation?

who is left out as a beneficiary.

And how do we know these things?

What data are we using to help us make decisions?

So that is a very important lens for prioritizing our work and how we do our work as well.

and then finally aligning our work plan commitments with staff capacity, recognizing that we are a small but mighty department in terms of our workforce and making sure that we are really able to accomplish what we identify as our priorities given our existing capacity, but also being creative and trying to grow our capacity as well through professional development and training.

So with that, I will start to lay out what we've identified as our main priorities for the rest of this year.

I've tried to group them by theme.

These are themes that are present in city council's strategic plan.

So organizational excellence is one of council's strategic plan priorities.

And you can see there's a number of priorities that we're really focused on with regards to organizational excellence.

So continuing to maintain

the city's review of all property development and property maintenance with applicable local and state requirements.

Working to continue to improve our electronic plan review system is part of that and also just looking holistically at our development review process and seeking to identify where there's some opportunities to streamline and make our review even more efficient.

Switching gears slightly, we also need to be focused on

How are we going to undertake our five-year comp plan review?

So it might be hard to believe that we have just adopted our comp plan not too long ago, but we will be required to conduct a review.

And so what do we need to be, how should we be setting ourselves up to complete that by 2026?

What are the key areas that we really want to be focused on there?

We will continue to be focused on recruitment and onboarding the several new staff that we're bringing on board.

We've also identified needs for several other staff in the budget and training professional development as well.

We also have a number of priorities in the area of transportation, which I know you're all familiar with thanks to Ben Chambers' work and his team working with DPW as well.

One of the first items that I wanted to highlight is scoping for a comprehensive transportation plan.

So this is an item that has emerged.

really recognizing that the city has a number of priorities across several different plan documents they don't always speak to each other consistently and they don't always come across in a way that everyone can kind of understand where we're headed so we will begin scoping a new comprehensive transportation plan this year and we will also at the same time however be focusing on developing policies

and a number of areas where it really doesn't make sense or we just really can't wait until we have a comprehensive transportation plan in place.

So we'll be looking at new policies and procedures and community engagement around the creation of safe streets, traffic calming, lowering speed limits throughout the city, continuing to support move safely, Blue Ridge, building out our pedestrian facilities and sidewalks.

That's something that we hope through the CIP investment will greatly support that work.

Our regional transit and cat planning, I'm not going to go through all of these items, but I'm happy to refer you to Ben Chambers to answer any questions on these items, biking, bike and bike facilities, continuing neighborhood walking tours and focusing on micro mobility as well.

In the area of economic prosperity, we will continue to support a range of interdepartmental efforts related to revitalizing the downtown mall.

Currently bringing forward updates to the CAFE standards for their review and approval and also as we approach milestone anniversary years celebrating the mall's historic district status.

I mentioned the downtown cafe standards that were out that was in process and we will be focusing on home stays so improving enforcement by investing in software That will really help us without tracking but also that can be a data point To conduct a zoning study to help refine our existing regulations to make enforcement easier Sorry commissioner of the revenue

I might have made that up as an acronym, but it fit on the slide.

And then finally in climate and sustainability, this has been identified coming out of the development code as an area of additional work is a review of our environmental policies.

and really developing a new policy framework for how we're going to steward our natural resources within the context of our goals for reinvestment and new housing in the city.

And what, with those new policies in place, what does that mean for some regulatory changes?

And then finally, housing will continue to be an important area of focus for us.

A lot of this is related to continuing to socialize the development code in the community

But before I mention that, we will be ginscoping the scope of work for small area plan for 10th and Page.

That's also something that was identified coming out of the adoption of the development code.

Our initial step there will be

starting to pull together an understanding of the existing conditions in those neighborhoods, in that neighborhood, excuse me, and really seeking to identify what are the key issues that can be addressed, that should be addressed, that a small area plan can help resolve, and working with the community as well, collaborating with them to identify those key planning issues.

On the topic of the development code itself, like I mentioned, we're going to continue working to

make it more accessible to everyday homeowners, investors looking to develop more training materials that can help break down some fairly complicated concepts into more digestible material for what are the opportunities.

Monitoring and evaluating the code, where are the issues that remain, that present barriers to reinvestment, maybe unintended consequences that we're starting to identify.

And then we will also be creating a task force to address how we can stabilize a few properties in the city that really represent a limited number of most neglected or deteriorated properties and return them to stabilize housing opportunities.

Anticipating that there might be some questions on the development code and what it is that we're monitoring or we've already taken stock of as potential issues to address.

We've really created three buckets at this point of areas that potentially need amendment or need some further study.

The first category is technical corrections, so things like typos.

The second category is clarifications where

There's a clear intent, but the language doesn't necessarily best reflect that intent.

So things like providing better language to allow attached dwellings across zoning side lot lines right now.

There's this the four foot setback still that makes a attached dwelling unit.

And then we've also identified policy questions that will be on a longer term time horizon, but are really the types of things where we anticipate

meeting, some community engagement, conversation with you all.

This was what we were thinking when we adopted the development code, but maybe it really isn't what's best for us now that we've had a year to sit with it.

So things like reevaluating height and feet and stories within the residential districts.

Those are the types of things, again, longer-term time horizon,

but just wanted to give you a flavor of the types of issues that we are documenting as we become more and more familiar with the code and speak to prospective applicants on a daily basis.

And so looking ahead, I just wanted to identify a few items that we do not anticipate addressing in any meaningful way over the next six months, but that are certainly areas of potential focus looking ahead into the next fiscal year.

Commercial uses in residential districts, certainly an opportunity, potential issues and opportunities for allowing neighborhood serving retail within residential areas.

And then what are the zoning amendments that could support that?

whatever policies we decide are appropriate.

Entrance corridor design guidelines study.

I'm taking a look at alleys and what we need to do in terms of the ownership of alleys, maintenance of alleys to support some of this infill development that would be really helpful if the alleys were more accessible for that sort of infill.

And then taking another look at the downtown mall.

So there have been

Concerns raised that the development code doesn't provide the clearest guidance for what really is the appropriate height and massing on the mall and so there may be an opportunity in the next year to develop a scope of work for some study to look at building height, take another look at building height and massing on the mall and come up with a clearer vision and then what are the right regulations in the development code to support that.

Just a reminder that when this was originally discussed, it had to do with the intersection of Preston and Grady and the Preston corridor.

I think we've discovered that the whole neighborhood itself needs to be studied as a small area plan since then.

Yes, thank you.

The question for you.

I like the annual review of the development code.

I think it's a great idea to see how it's going and see what should be adjusted.

Is the development code, has it been in place long enough to where we could start to do a trend analysis on some basic metrics like I don't know what those are, building permits issued or units of housing permitted on a monthly basis before in the old code and now in the new code, just some high level numbers that we could see from time to time just to get a sense of

You know, is the direction going up?

Like I think one of the goals was to produce more housing, is that happening?

Right, and that is the key point that I think it does take a while for a code that has this magnitude of changes to really take effect.

And so we certainly

can report out on trends.

We are seeing a lot of interest, but to date we are not seeing a significant number of real applications.

Interestingly, we have received a number of permits for accessory dwellings in areas where we weren't seeing applications before.

But beyond that, I think people are still really trying to understand what exactly is possible and identifying, you know, areas where there's questions about, you know, feasibility and that's what we're tracking.

I think maybe if I could suggest something we do in the short term with a more limited scope than that the county produces just I think it's a quarterly and an annual report of just this is how many units were made and I think they split it up into their comp plan areas we could split it up into our planning neighborhoods and

Thank you.

I'll just make a comment.

I liked when you mentioned thinking about the climate and resiliency as being more folded in and also I like the idea of like a dashboard so people who are tracking it

A, can see how long it takes.

So they're not like, oh, you're just hiding things.

Here it is.

But also, like you're saying, just to show how many affordable units, regular units, whatever it is that people might be interested in seeing.

But the climate thing I thought was great because I feel like in many large organizations, there's all of these different departments.

and getting funded in different ways, trying to do the same thing.

So after we had the work session with the county, you know, and they had some really great goals, like how did those actually get, you know, come into action.

The school board folks are also interested in these kinds of metrics.

They see changes happening and they know they change enrollment and capacity.

Everyone wants more information.

It's wonderful.

One item, a member of the public approached me about heights, which I see are on the work plan.

One possible idea to think about would be, in the way that we think about considering context when we look at setbacks in our development code, we could consider context in the way we regulate heights as well.

In terms of a very tall building next to a very short building, what's going on nearby?

I think that wraps it up.

If you have any other thoughts, why don't you just drop Ms.

Brown's email and maybe copy Ms.

Creasy and the entire planning group.

We are going to postpone the commissioner reports, the university report.

and move on to matters to be presented by the public that are not on the formal agenda.

So this is your opportunity to talk to us about all the work that we do with the exception of the CIP.

There will be a separate public hearing for the CIP.

Ms.

Sure.

So this is an opportunity, as the chair said, for individuals to speak three minutes about any topic besides the public hearing item.

We will alternate between in-person and our virtual audience We'll begin with our in-person audience and then move to virtual and then go back and forth as long as we have speakers Each person has three minutes to address the planning commission So we'll start with our in-person audience.

Do we have anyone who would like to speak?

Alright, we'll move to our virtual audience, which appears to be staff and counselors, so I'm not sure that they're interested in speaking, but I'm giving that opportunity.

If you would like to, you have to raise your hand in the application.

All right, seeing none.

Back to in-person audience, no.

And again, no changes in the virtual audience.

Right.

This portion of the public hearing is now closed.

Moving to the consent agenda.

Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda?

Yes.

Second.

All in favor.

Any objections?

Any abstentions?

The consent agenda is now approved.

Thank you guys for cooperating and helping us get to the public hearing almost early.

So we need to wait another three minutes, don't we?

Let's see, Ms.

Thank you, Chairman Mitchell.

This is just a brief recap of last week's Board of Visitors, Buildings and Ground Committee that took place on Thursday.

And so three capital projects were presented to the board.

And I mentioned them at previous meetings, but I thought I would just kind of put them on the formal record here.

The first

Project that was presented was a thousand thirty parking space parking garage over in north grounds and so that design was approved and that's good because it greenlights the construction of that to begin so that design it's a design bill delivery for that project and it's slated for completion in 2026 and that sits just in the northwest corner of Massey and Cobley Road so opposite the parking at the John Paul Jones Arena

and north of Palmer Park, which is the relatively new softball stadium.

The next project was a 750-800-bed student housing project, and so this one I've mentioned before, this sits at the westernmost parcels of the 14-acre M&IV corridor.

The sort of part of it butts up against the Cobley Bridge and then another portion runs along Ivy Road, sits just to the west of the Carson Institute of Democracy and so that was presented just for design review so that will go back to the board after the new year for its final approval and that is part of a larger discussion that's currently happening around second-year housing across grounds so that is the first part of a larger project

So more to report on that as that takes shape.

And then the last one was the schematic design review for the Center for the Arts.

And so again, that was just a preliminary review.

Some of the programmatic highlights for this included 1200 seat performing arts center, the UVA Department of Music, there's art galleries that will showcase the combined UVA fine art collection of the Freyland and the Klugeet Roo along with traveling exhibits.

And the project has received generous donations to help sort of get that project going, but additional state funding is necessary to proceed further in design and construction.

I'm very excited about the second year housing.

I was with the tree commission a week ago and they are preparing, I can't remember if it's the state of the canopy, the tree canopy or the state of the forest that they present to city council and one of the items is kind of reinforcing the

I think there's already some interest in hiring a second urban forester that one might work with more with NDS on private land and one might work as they already are in public land.

Anyway, so I think they've been working really hard on that.

So I attended my first meeting of the MPO Citizens Transportation Advisory Committee.

There's some overlap between the committee that Rory is on, but one thing that was somewhat new that would interest the commission is

The MPO received a Safe Streets and Roads for All Planning Grant from the federal government.

This program is funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and it provides two types of grants, a planning grant or implementation grant, but a

Locality has to have an approved safety action plan before they can get implementation dollars, so completing this plan would allow the city, the MPO, and other localities within the MPO region to apply for federal safes and roads for all implementation money.

This program, locally, the study has been called Move Safely Blue Ridge.

They've been doing some public outreach.

I think there's a survey, online survey that's out there right now you may have seen floating around.

But they're taking a safe systems approach to identifying high injury corridors and intersections, and then they're going to be planning countermeasures to improve those locations.

They're planning to wrap up in the spring of 2025, which is the deadline for the grant program.

And this is a very data-driven process, and it's going to, I think, help the city and help the region understand where we can invest our safety dollars to make the biggest impact.

I will do the rest of the commission after the CIP.

So I'm happy to introduce Ms.

Thank you.

So good evening here tonight to follow up on our work session from a few weeks ago.

And this is a public hearing on the CIP.

My presentation does not really contain any new information than what I presented to you before.

So plan is to just breeze through that pretty quickly and then leave the time for you all to have discussion or answer any further questions, ask any further questions.

So next slide please.

This is just an overview.

Again, I'll give you an overview of the CIP tonight.

Well, I've included responses from feedback that you provided to the city manager from your meeting in September.

And then we can talk about what's next.

And there's resources for further information if you need it.

Next slide.

So the five-year plan includes just under $186 million worth of projects for the city CIP.

In looking at just in terms of dollars allocated in terms of priorities, we'll note that education was first, affordable housing was second,

and Transportation and Access came in third.

Again, that is just based on an allocation of dollars throughout this plan for the project.

For this five-year plan, we intend to bond about $131 million of this with the recipe and cash from the general fund and then also some contributions from the schools and

Prior year budget surpluses, we have those programmed in.

That's the CIP contingency that is listed here in 27 and 29.

Next slide, please.

So with the CIP, as we discussed, it needs to be balanced.

So what we plan to spend, we have to have a way to pay for.

As noted, we are using bonds for the majority of the CIP, in addition to cash from the general fund, or we often refer to that as pay go.

We do have a city policy that requires that we attribute at least 3% of the general fund budget to the CIP as pay go.

But we also have an additional financial policy that says when we have a surplus, those dollars go to the CIP and they're used for one time expenses.

And so just prior to the last two fiscal years where we had an unusual high surplus, that gives us we average between five and 6% of pay go in the CIP on an annual basis.

Next slide, please.

So this is just a breakdown of each of the individual groups as we discussed last year at our last meeting.

If there's a highlight, that means that there was a change made from the five-year plan last year.

If there's nothing noted here, then the numbers did not change from the five-year.

The only addition is the funding in FY 30, if that's applicable.

So in this case, the school HVAC, you'll see it here and you'll also see it in the facilities groups.

We are still working with staff on those numbers.

They did request additional funding above and beyond what's here.

We're working to get some further information on those.

And so that's why these are highlighted in terms of just the recommendation, but they are likely to change between now and the proposed budget.

Next slide.

No real changes here except for the HVAC again.

You'll still see that the climate action is listed here at a million dollars a year and ending in 29 at the moment.

That's just based on the five year commitment that was made with the plan last year.

Next slide please.

If it's highlighted in green, these mean that the numbers have changed since last year.

So with the fire and EMS replacement numbers, we have moved those around.

There's a large lead time on that equipment.

And so we recalibrated the timing of those and adjusted the costs slightly.

In addition, the police mobile data computers

We adjusted the price to allow, those are basically, we replace so many each year to keep from having to replace large numbers all at once and so we just adjusted to adjust for the cost of those.

Next slide please.

Transportation and Access.

There's lots of projects here.

One of the big things, as you will note, we hear every year about please, please more money to new sidewalks.

We have gotten that in this year.

And as city manager Sanders has told you previously, we had not done that until we were ready to move forward and we had a plan.

Mr. Chambers has been here and presented his sidewalk priority list.

And so

We feel like this is a good path forward and the funding reflects that as well.

Small area plans change slightly.

As to the street milling and paving, we've just adjusted that.

There's been over the last few years, there have been some issues in that that's rolling, ramping back up.

And so we feel like the dollars that are here are reflective of the work that can get accomplished over these five years.

And then the ADA transition money that is new this year.

We are still working on the exact plan, but this is to show our commitment to moving that transition plan forward.

And more plans and discussions will be coming forward to council on the specifics of how those will be spent.

Next slide.

Parks and Rec.

The playground dollars for renovations, that's an annual ongoing sort of maintenance account that got some increased funding, as well as some of the tree accounts at the request of Parks and Rec.

Those were reshuffled to reflect more where the dollars were being spent.

And then we added some money for the downtown mall tree management plan.

That plan is in the works or will be in the works.

And that we will definitely be coming back asking for more dollars once that plan produces some recommendations.

But that's to get it started.

Technology, no new changes here.

$40,000 of that is for PEG fees, public education access fees,

that come to the city and must be used.

We use those for the

channel 10 studio.

In addition, the citywide IT strategic infrastructure, that is money that is set aside to help address IT needs that come up during the year.

Sometimes it helps us supplant new software.

But that that stays the same.

And then the voting equipment was in last year as well.

That will all be replaced in 27.

And this is just building up a balance to do that.

Portable Housing.

No changes here from the five-year plan, except I will note that the Carlton Mobile Home Park, which was approved by council, that is an annual payment to our partners on that project.

And so these are the numbers that have been submitted, and we are still working forward to finalize those numbers.

But that is what we project right now on an annual basis.

Next slide.

And so we're back to the questions that you all had set to counsel from your meeting.

Things you wanted us to look at.

The next few slides we went through is how we address those.

How would you guys like to do this?

Thanks, Chairman.

Thank you.

I had a very small question, I think, when I'm under, sorry, what?

Transportation Access, what is the CIA immediate implementation?

Is that the old CIA?

Can I add though that I believe it was last year in our conversation on the CIP with council, we did agree

to expand that to be inclusive of implementation in all small area plan areas.

And that was a name change.

So thank you.

I don't have any questions at this time.

Very clear.

Good.

A quick question.

Sorry, I said it in that email late, but I saw that there was an unfunded request for barriers for the downtown mall, for example, for events.

So some of those we are still working through.

The list that I sent you were all the requests we received from departments.

Some of those we're still in the midst of working through the remaining ARP funding.

There's an item that will be coming to council.

And so we have not made a decision yet, is the real answer.

So it is likely that some of those items may fall into the CIP.

Excuse me, they may fall into ARP category as well.

Okay, great.

Right.

Did Brennan have a presentation specifically about the signals?

Brian Duncan, City Engineer, thank you for the opportunity here.

Just based off of emails and just my own, I was thinking about presenting on this at some point anyway, because we have had a lot of questions about

The traffic signal replacement in different meetings as it relates to the budget.

So I just wanted to kind of go through kind of the history of this.

It's been in the works now for three or four years.

So some people either may not have really known about it or are just now finding out about it.

So next slide.

So kind of the history of this.

So most of our inventory, we've got 75 traffic signals in the city.

They're approaching the end of their useful life.

Most traffic signals are anywhere from 40 to 70, 80 years somewhere in there, depending on the material, whether it's galvanized or painted.

Almost all of our signals were put in in the late 70s, early 80s, somewhere around there.

You know, in that like 40 year-ish range, 40 to 50 years, and we are really starting to notice the wear and tear on the signals.

Back in 2021,

We went to Council and you all to create a fund to first just kind of start looking and assessing these.

So that was where this kind of fund was created.

We hired a consultant to come in, they analyzed, they did reports on all 75 of our signals, did tests on the thickness of the material, they did visual inspections.

All-Encompassing, really.

So that took about a year.

So from 2021 to 2022, they were kind of doing that assessment.

We came back then kind of, you know, with the first round of that to say, hey, you know, we've got a lot of these that are are in really bad shape.

You'll see on the next slide we actually had one that had fallen over kind of in this time frame out at Arlington and Emmett Street.

A truck kind of just barely tapped it, the one there in the middle and sheared off the pole, but it did not take much force at all.

You can see in several of these pictures, you know, there's just holes that are through the steel, brackets that are cracked.

Just this is kind of a snapshot, but this is the majority of our signals.

in the city of the 75, roughly 80% were deemed to be structurally deficient, which is around 60 of our signals.

Right now, we're focusing on kind of the top 20.

So just over a quarter of our signals, which were designated as the worst.

So that's kind of where we were and where we're going next one.

Patrick.

So our approach going forward, as I mentioned, we're doing about 20, depending on how you want to count it, we've got Rugby, Rugby Preston, Rugby Rugby, and Rugby Barracks.

Those are listed as three.

But really, that's all one traffic signal.

It's all one controller because those signals are so close.

So between 19 and 21, depending on how you count.

But these are kind of the signals that we're prioritizing.

We've broken this down into a four phase approach.

for a few different reasons.

One, just trying to actually get this many signals done at one time is difficult.

Two, even if we could do all 20 in the same year,

That just means that when the next person comes through and has to replace signals that we've got a whole bunch that are all kind of becoming a needing replacement all at the same time.

So we are trying to spread it out slowly here.

So again, the goal is to get this first batch of 20-ish done and then kind of get on a cadence where we're addressing

you know, one a year or two every two years or something like that and start spacing them out so that we're you know, we're still addressing them because that's the other thing other than new signals that have gone in in the city we have not done any replacements of signals in the city like really since they've gone in so this is it's deferred maintenance there's at one point a public works director you know basically said I don't want to pay to paint the poles anymore or cars don't have enough time so

There was a period of years where normally we do regular painting every year.

That's another reason why we're trying to go away from painted poles towards more galvanized.

It just takes time, staff and resources away from the other duties that they're doing.

So that's kind of the approach right now.

I did want to go through I think the next one.

Next slide.

Oh, first, before I get to the next slide.

So, yeah, how it's going.

So, we do have, Timon's engineering is under contract.

for these first 21 intersections.

They started there.

No supersede was around January of this year.

We're through about 60% design phase, which means that we've looked at right-of-way needs and that kind of stuff, trying to reduce cost and also schedule.

They've given us the poll designs ahead of the whole bid document so that we can normally, again,

I don't know how much you guys know, but I want to assume you know anything.

So the polls are a long lead time item.

Usually, if we would put it out to bid, the contractor needs to order them.

It can be anywhere from six to nine to 12 months for those actually to be produced and get to the job site.

So, you know, it just, it drags out the project.

So we are, we've asked for these designs ahead of the rest of the plan set.

So that we can go ahead and order those ourselves with our own money.

Then we're not paying a contractor a markup on it as well.

We're going to store them at our site and then the contractor will just install them.

So we're working on that.

That contract should go out for bid either by the end of the year or the first part of January.

for that first batch of I think it was five intersections.

So we're doing that.

We've already begun purchasing cameras and controllers and signal boxes, all the smaller stuff we can do and store ourselves so that when we do get a contractor on board, they're really just doing the installation of all the stuff in the field.

That's kind of where we're at and how it's going right now.

We are anticipating that the plans will be 100% finalized and we'll go out to bed here in the spring of 2025, which brings me to the next slide.

So, you know, I broke this down more to understand kind of how and why we need the money when we need it.

Bidding in general usually happens in the spring for larger construction projects, which doesn't necessarily line up well with our fiscal year, you know, with the money coming July 1.

If we're only getting the money in July and then starting to bid stuff in July and August, like you're almost delaying a whole other season.

So we're asking for that money, you know, in July really to be used in quarter three, quarter four of the following year.

So it doesn't line up well, but without doing that, it really means that the money is just sitting there that much longer.

So, you know, we are, for 25, we do have about 4.5 million in the budget right now.

The mass star purchase that we're getting ready to do will take about 500,000 of that.

And then phase one right now is that the estimate is about another 1.8 of that.

So that'll draw us down to about 2.5.

We're asking for $250,000 for this next fiscal year for $26,000.

And again, that's so that when we go to bid, really in spring of $26,000, that we have that money and we're not waiting on July before we can actually bid again.

And some of that too is we just don't know what the

The atmosphere is going to be forbidding.

We've seen some bids really high.

This is our first batch of this, and we want to make sure that we've got enough there.

It'll also feed into future year requests.

The two million for 27, the three million for 28, those are our best guesses right now, but as we start getting bids in and we go through one or two of these rounds of actually bidding out these signals in batches, we'll hopefully be able to hone in on a better

better number for those, and those may change from year to year, but that kind of takes us through the next five years, and by the time we get to that 2030 fiscal year budget, we're hoping that these first 20 will be done, and then we'll be kind of on more of a million dollar a year, again, depending on construction costs in 2030, but that hopefully will at least allow us to still do one or two every year or two.

So that's kind of where this came from and where it's going.

Again, there was no CIP for these large maintenance items for the traffic signal poles in the history of Charlottesville.

So we're kind of starting from scratch and trying to play a little bit of catch up to get back on an actual cadence that's a little bit more manageable.

Thanks.

That was helpful.

Primarily.

I mean, a lot of the

The infrastructure, we've replaced signal heads and we're in the process of doing a lot of the controllers and that kind of stuff to bring those up to date.

Yeah, we're not only just doing the signal poles like these intersection improvements like we're doing

ADA, if there's improvements that need to happen.

Okay.

Are there VDOT funds that this would be eligible for?

for ITS improvements

the technology side of it and not necessarily the signal poles side of it.

So this is kind of going beyond that.

Usually there's not VDOT funds for maintenance activities and replacing signal poles generally falls under a maintenance activity.

Is that effort and that technology being taken into account when the new arms and the new poles are being... It is, yeah, and part of this where we, hopefully again by the end of the year or shortly thereafter we'll have what's called the central system, it's basically the brain of the traffic.

We haven't had a modern one for quite a few years, so that will allow us to do a lot with the intelligent transportation stuff.

The new controllers we're getting are compatible already with that.

We'll be able to implement and the plan is to implement a lot of the flashing yellow arrows that you see across the commonwealth right now.

Our old controllers and old signals actually couldn't even do that.

I've got a question kind of following on that.

A lot of the signals now, or some of the signals now, don't detect bikes.

Yes, our new standard will be camera systems as opposed to, we're actually doing a redundancy, so it'll be camera systems and the traditional loops so that we can

do both pikes and pads and stuff there as well.

It allows us to just get a lot more data for use.

You know, we'll be able to track how many times people push the pedestrian push buttons on any vehicle.

It'll get those vehicle counts at the signals without actually having to hire somebody to go out there and take vehicle counts.

Great.

That's great.

You may be repeating yourself when I ask this, but you said you're going to get the brains for the system this year.

Yes.

We've already put some of the controllers in the city.

Not all of our signals are old.

We do have some newer signals.

And even with the old poles, we can still update some of the

the controllers and stuff.

So we've started doing that.

But once we get the contract finalized early this next year, it is about a nine month implementation to get everything on the back end installed and stuff.

So really, we'll start seeing the fruits of that come fall of next year.

But we're not waiting for your big long list.

There will be the availability to do transit priority.

We've already started those discussions with Garland and CAT about where and when and how we're going to do that.

Okay.

Last question.

Not that I'm aware.

Not that I am going to drop on you.

I've got a couple.

It's been a few years since we've talked about this, so I hope you'll forgive me if I repeat myself.

A lot of my ideas are old and keep coming up.

We will look at them when we do it.

A lot of our traffic signals are on corridors that have, you know,

Hosea Mitchell

We're not trying to go and do a smart scale project where we're obtaining right away.

We're trying to work as much with these projects in the footprint that we have available to us.

So I don't anticipate that many would go away, but will I say that none will?

Always happy to save money.

Bollards.

Bollards are amazing.

You smashed into the Bollard and you don't kill the pole.

Possibly.

I'll say that a lot of times we've got narrow sidewalks and putting those in becomes an ADA issue as well.

So again, I won't say that no, we can't.

We are going to, it's not

Not the standard that our current polls have, but it's not as robust as the VDOT standard either.

So most of the polls that we are old polls are just four-bolt polls.

Most of the new VDOT polls are like eight-bolt polls.

There's still an active standard that we can use that's more of a six-bolt poll.

Thank you.

Okay.

Sit.

Anything else?

Do you have any general questions for Ms.

Hallow?

All right, with that, I think we will open it up to the public hearing.

Ms.

Sure, this is an opportunity for anyone who would like to speak on the CIP hearing.

As we typically do, we will begin with our in-person audience and then we will move to our virtual audience and we'll alternate as long as we have speakers.

Just want to check and see if anyone in the audience in person wants to speak.

Wonderful.

Thank you.

I'm Fritz Kounavi from the Venable Neighborhood Association.

I actually had a couple questions from the interesting presentations we just had.

One was in the traffic signal category, which was, I'm sure, as all the technology, all the vendors have lots of interesting technology to offer, and probably is available on offer.

Easily exceeds the budget of most departments.

I'm curious what sort of things are not going to be bought, not going to be provisioned that are kind of the interesting state-of-the-art things that are potentially being offered in this area.

It's sort of like always budgets are limited and you can't always buy everything that is there.

Or if the systems are so flexible that in the future you will be able to

I'm

You know, driverless vehicles will probably be on the streets of Charlottesville and all sorts of other changes will be happening that, you know, we can't even imagine what will happen.

And then I had one other question which was just around the CIP and it was around what sort of things in the CIP are particularly oriented towards climate resilience as we see increasing changes, you know, some of the events that we've just seen in Asheville are, you know, certainly

You know, notable to us.

So it will be before you all answer.

Typically, we do not allow a back and forth in public hearings because there are usually so many people that want to speak.

But I think we will allow it today.

Thank you.

The number of folks lining up to speak are not that large.

So I guess to answer the question of the future proof, I guess I'll use that term for the system.

A lot of the old technology that it was kind of a server based, you'd have it on site and you bought it and then that's kind of what you had.

I think the whole market is really

moving towards more of a subscription-based service.

So that's what we're going with.

So as new technology comes in, the supplier that we're going with, as they update their system to accommodate the new technology, whatever that is going forward, we would have that ability to tap into that.

I think a lot of

The current technology that's out there will be able to do with the system that we're getting, so I don't think there's anything that we're prohibited from doing with the system that we're going with.

Is there more?

Sure.

A lot of it, and some of it, does it infringe on?

So, I'm

You know, get individual devices so you can see how vehicles are moving throughout town So is that technology out there?

Yes.

Are we using it right now?

No, are we planning to use it?

And follow up on your climate question.

Specifically in the CFP last year, we added for the first time $5 million, a million a year for climate action initiatives.

This budget, this five year has 4 million of that left.

In addition, for all of the maintenance type items, we are looking at more efficient, more modern ways of doing things to help address the climate in areas when we can.

Thanks.

All right.

Well, we'll check in on our virtual audience.

I don't think we're going to have any speakers there, but I am going to note that there is an opportunity if you raise your hand in the application.

All right.

And we have no more in-person audience.

And our virtual audience is staff and council.

The public hearing is now closed.

So I think we begin deliberating.

I don't have comments.

I just said it because I'm new to the commission with this process.

So with the CIP, I know we go to approval.

It goes to council.

If I remember, City Manager Sanders mentioned at the last meeting that a balanced budget is ultimately what he has to deliver.

So if there's shifts or changes from this, does it come back?

Or how does it, if it does?

I think this is the last look.

We're going to get at it.

Got it.

So I guess we'll just hear what doesn't get funded.

OK.

Thank you.

The only possible amendment or not, wouldn't be an amendment, a recommendation.

I think others might bring it up, the kind of extra, having some money set aside for affordable housing emergencies that come up that are not five years in the making.

Yeah, I think Mr. Solla-Yates has an amendment that he's actually going to add to the motion to do that.

Nothing at this time.

If you've got a motion, let's wait and tell them that we've moved to the motion.

If you get thoughts, we'd love to hear them.

That's our good.

I do.

And we don't need to prove that yet, Ms.

Correct.

I'll second that.

We have a second from Mr. D'Oronzio.

All right, we are now open to amendments.

So while we start with the one that's

I have a lot, but I'll start with that one.

Strategic Housing Fund, similar to the Strategic Economic Development Fund, reflecting recent funding challenges with mobile home park purchases and the sunsetting of affordable housing restrictions.

Basically, this keeps coming up.

So would we second and then discuss that?

All right, so I'd like to second that with a friendly amendment.

to it that we look to create a seven figure strike fund either from forward surpluses or otherwise at a very high level, some of the larger projects on the affordable housing piece are really amorphous at this point and placeholders.

We have an amendment.

We have a motion to amend.

We have a second.

Are there any questions or challenges to Mr. Saltiates or Mr. D'Oronzio?

Ms.

Does a strike just mean if it's cancelled?

Well, a strike fund is to strike out immediately.

Not it being stricken from the record, but if you need to strike, for example, the Carlton mobile home park, it would have been really nice if there had been an extra two or three million dollars sitting around.

I just know what that term is.

For the sake of clarity and Ms.

If you want to incorporate some of them.

All right, we have a motion and we have a second.

Ms.

Creasy, would you like to poll the board?

Sure.

Does everyone understand the friendly amendment?

Because I don't 100%.

Can I share mine?

I'm a bit confused, too.

That's net and good.

That's good and net.

You had a thought?

No, I think that clarifies it.

All right, sure.

Okay, so I'm polling the commission now.

Let's see.

All right, Mr. Schwarz is abstaining.

Ms.

Rocher?

Aye.

Yes.

That amendment has been incorporated into the motion.

Very good.

So the school CIP committee met.

It's been a long time since the Planning Commissioner has been on that committee and gotten updated.

So we basically had to talk about everything.

So I have a lot to talk about.

One item.

The City Schools Priority Improvement Project, $1.25 million.

There's a lot of value to it.

We get a lot of value out of it for $1.25 million, which is less and less valuable.

We're getting less and less back every year.

Just inflation has sliced it up.

Likewise, the mission that it was created for has largely been achieved, which is good.

We succeeded.

But this leads to a question of, what do we do with our capital planning going forward?

I have some suggestions.

Initially, I suggest that we, well, let's go positive, that we create a new City Schools Comprehensive Facility Plan to guide funding going forward, so that we know where the money is going.

That's nice, let's take that one.

You want to restate that one?

Increase funding for City Schools Comprehensive Facility Plan.

So just create a comprehensive?

Okay.

All right, Ms.

Just to be clear, this is for miscellaneous emergency, it sounds like this was also miscellaneous emergency funding, or what is the money being used for?

All capital spending.

There should be some planning.

You want a plan to guide the future.

Okay, I'm sorry.

Okay, so we have the amendment for create funding for City Schools Comprehensive Spending Plan Comprehensive Facility Plan Comprehensive Facility Plan So it's just money to create a plan Alright, Mr. Schwarz?

Yes Okay

Mr. Stolzenberg?

Sure.

Why not?

I seconded it.

Ms.

Roettger?

Yes.

Yes.

Reduce funding for city schools' priority improvement projects in out years not yet programmed.

Yes.

In out years.

They are essentially one thing.

In my thinking.

Reduce funding for city schools, blank programs, and out years.

And out years.

Yes.

OK.

Yeah.

I understand the words on the page.

I'm confused about why we would add here and decrease there.

So this is the school CIP, and the school board doesn't get to vote on this.

I mean, could we make an First Amendment?

I mean, revisit every year, so that takes care of itself.

Yeah.

I can hold off on this one.

It sounds like we want to hear other ideas.

So you're going to draw that motion?

I'd like to withdraw it at this time because I think you want to hear the other ideas.

Increase funding for city and school solar PV program.

Increase funding for city and school solar PV program.

This was a big one that the school board was concerned about.

They were shocked that we weren't funding it.

I said, we did fund it.

Didn't we get an explanation of that?

We did, I mean they did have an unfunded request, a large unfunded request to add solar.

The thing is though, they are exploring and can do lots of other localities do it, power purchase agreements to

get private companies to install solar on the roof.

We buy the clean energy back at rates lower than what we pay Dominion and we don't have to spend money or we don't need the capital outlay in the first place.

Given the current state of the budget, I would simply recommend that we move forward with those as quickly as possible.

I personally know people who

run large commercial industrial solar installers who are doing this all across the Commonwealth and wondering why the city is not letting them give them a proposal.

I agree with that generally.

Yeah, I mean, you know, in the near term, we were told, let me pull up the email, that the next couple are funded, right?

The Fire Station, KTAC, CHS The two big ones are CHS in the middle school I mean, you know, an advantage of

Just paying for PV directly, I guess, is that every year we're paying money in operating budget to Dominion and we can pay down our debt service with the same funds and presumably save money.

I don't know.

I mean, I don't think we've seen progress either way, right?

So what?

Do something, even if it's wrong at this point?

So we do have a request out from PBA.

Ooh, do you want to table this?

What do you want?

I'm open to that.

I guess my suggestion would just be at this time that we still consider this a priority.

School board considers this a priority.

I'm hearing that from staff as well.

Just to make one point, I don't want to go away to say that we're not doing anything because that's not true.

We are moving forward with the roof on KTEC and the bypass fire station as you noted, and we do have the request for proposal out.

So we are working on all of those things.

It just it takes time and it is complicated.

Is the PPA a request?

I believe it's for citywide.

I agree.

Increase funding for city and school solar PV program or pursue PPA.

All right, Ms.

Kritchie.

So this is, I got most of it, but you all can help correct me.

PV program.

PV program.

Okay, or pursue other agreements.

All right.

I mean, this seems like a good thing.

Mr. Doronzio.

Aye.

Mr. Solla-Yates.

Yes.

Ms.

Roettger.

Aye.

Mr. Yoder.

Yes.

And Mr. Mitchell.

Increase funding for lump sum to schools maintenance fund to account for inflation.

That seems very valid.

OK.

Yeah, I think it is an aside apropos.

Well, yeah, the good news is we family got allowed to get invited.

We hadn't been getting invited.

Ms.

Can I ask a question?

So how, I mean, there's a lot of items here for the school budget, and I'm just wondering, you know, how, how do the school budget requests make it into the CIP?

Like, are these, are they, are they making these requests earlier in the process?

So the school feels like there's a lot of, they put in a lot of budget requests that were not approved and okay.

Is that, I mean, is that really, is that the situation?

So a lot of the accounts that you see in the CIP, like the middle school aside, the specific roof projects aside, the lump sum accounts, the school priority accounts, those are annually funded accounts that this CIP committee works with city staff and because they contract with the city to do their contract work,

to decide how they would like to spend those dollars.

So the dollars that are allocated in the CIP are in addition to the dollars that are also allocated in the general fund to the schools.

We work in conjunction with them and then we have added the preschool at $30 million.

We added Buford at $90 million.

Plus we maintain the level funding and all the other ongoing accounts for schools as well.

So it is up to that CIP committee to kind of prioritize the things that they want to see in the CIP and to move forward appropriately.

Yeah, I think and this is my first time going through this process as a new commissioner, but I'm just a little uncomfortable with kind of

Yeah, I think also you know the schools makes a budget request right of their own.

You know I don't know that it's our responsibility to sort of go through every single CIP item of theirs and say the things that they want.

I think for big-ticket items, should we build a new middle school or not?

Those are the things on our plate.

Should there be a 3% adjustment annually?

Are we effect giving their submission a second bite at the apple here?

How do we characterize this?

You said you got hit with a fire hose.

Are they feeling that they are being underserved at this point?

Or that the priorities that they presented X months ago have changed?

We do have a motion on the table and I think Mr. D'Oronzio is checking it.

So we can vote it up or down.

I really would, I feel like there are smarter minds in the budget office than mine at least.

So yeah, I'm starting to feel uncomfortable with all of these amendments.

Um, I mean, sure, it sounds like a great idea.

So yes, I would support, like, let's, you know, the money that goes to school should increase with inflation.

So, uh, up or down?

It currently, it is flatline.

I mean, isn't that okay?

I mean, these are recommendations.

So yes, sure.

Yeah, I'm, I think I'm gonna have to vote no.

Um, I, um,

You know, I think at Planning Commission, we get to play this nice game of not actually having to make the budget or having to balance the budget.

And it's easy to say, yes, we want all these nice things.

All right, Mr. Yoder-Oronzio.

Mr. Roettger.

Yes.

I agree with Rory.

I mean, I want, I think I want the school to be funded.

I want their funds to increase with inflation, but I just don't like the process that this is taking.

And I believe this is baked into the work that the budget office has already done.

So I'm going to vote no as well.

It was four to three.

Four to three, indeed.

To move it forward.

Pass.

Mr. Solla-Yates, can you let us know what the volume of requests you have that you'll be bringing forward just so we can understand?

For now.

Could we get clarification of where those numbers came from?

Those out years?

The 1.25?

Yeah, I'll second that.

Sure.

Oh, there it is.

Okay.

Ms.

Roettger?

Aye.

Can I hear the amendment again?

I agree that it should be put into specific projects at some point.

I don't think for budget planning reasons it makes sense to put it at zero when you know there will be projects.

Looking at Opengov, it does have

In 2017, the school's facility approved planning committee selected classroom modernizations, and every fiscal year they did a school, and then those end in FY24.

Are you revising your vote?

No, I'm still no.

Okay, that was another four-three.

I am done.

Sure.

Carl, I have nothing to add.

First, I'd like to see the city identify, maintain funding for the Safe Routes to School program.

It has previously been funded out of primarily ARP money that is now gone.

We still have expanded walk zones, I believe.

We still have kids walking to school.

Kids should be able to walk to school safely and we need to create the infrastructure for that.

Miss Creasy.

Okay.

I missed the second.

It was me.

No discussion.

Nope, it does not have a line item.

I mean, there are new sidewalks line items, for example, but that's not, it's not specifically safe to access school.

Yeah, and they are trying to then harden them from paint and plastic to concrete.

Okay.

And they have 41 identified projects, in fact.

Okay.

Hey, we're ready, Ms.

Mr. Solla-Yates?

Yes.

Mr. Roettger?

Yes.

We've got another on a similar note.

So just to recap, if you'll recall, recently a woman was killed at the crosswalk on Elliott Avenue and the city was able to deploy funds from other accounts for what's called urgent transportation improvements.

First, to start to fix that intersection with more planned and then at other

and other high priority intersections around the city that it's currently identifying.

I understand that this year out of surplus funds, the city manager plans to allocate or to ask council to allocate money into that account.

Identify sustainable funding for urgent transportation improvements in out years.

All right, last one.

This one might feel a little bit spicier.

So at this point, between funds already allocated and funds in the CIP, according to the city manager's presentation the other day, there have been and will be $99 million allocated for affordable housing in CIP projects alone, I believe.

As you'll all recall, we passed an affordable housing plan that recommended $100 million over 10 years.

$1 million a year of that was intended to be for administrative capacity and OCS has, you know, accordingly scaled up its capacity.

An additional

It's between 1 and 2 million.

Probably closer to 2 million is the tax abatement program, which has also been scaled up.

And the remainder was meant for active subsidies like the ones in the CIP.

It's not a bad thing that we have exceeded our goal.

My concern is that we still have no defined process for competitive granting of major

CIP, Lytec subsidy awards.

All the money now of that $99 million is programmed to specific projects, none of which have gone through any sort of competitive or even really an application process.

I would suggest that we

create a line item for general large budget affordable housing expenditures.

This might be similar to the one that Lyle had discussed earlier, but not necessarily cash.

I guess if it's not cash, it limits us to CRHA.

But what also, this might be the controversial part, suggests that at least Friendship Court phase four's bookmarked funding should be put in that category.

City Council made a commitment to redevelop Friendship Court and everyone who lives in Friendship Court will be housed in new housing

as part of phases one through three.

PHA has not, sorry, Kindlewood now, it's still called that as a CIV item.

PHA has not planned phase four.

It's entirely conceptual.

We don't know what it is.

It could be all market rate for all we know.

And I don't see that it is part of Council's original commitment to redevelopment.

Maybe you can go back and make it a little simpler for us.

I think I see the distinction.

Lyle is looking for a strike fund.

This is something that we're going to have in place.

We don't have to even fund it every year.

If we've got three or four million dollars sitting in it over, fine, we're done.

It's the strike fund.

It's available for that purpose.

I think, and this is something that I actually started talking about back in 2018 on essentially this point, which is

looking out and looking at West Haven in the, you know, in 28, 29, where we've got fine laying out, you know, and, you know, Kindlewood to a certain extent, but these larger scale projects for these that are planned for, I think a bucket that says affordable housing programs, TBD, instead of splitting them out this way,

But you have one light item for out-year affordable housing projects, and then we figure out how that gets allocated.

Right, exactly, yeah.

To say, we know we're going to give, you know, X million dollars in FY 30 to an affordable housing, two affordable housing projects, one or more affordable housing projects.

It's not quite a nofo, but it's just a, hey, if you have a big thing, come tell us about it.

But as far as I know, there's still no process like the CAF for small affordable housing investments that those expenditures go through.

Yeah, I think that's reasonable.

Yep.

Not that we not allocate specific.

Sure.

What's easier for you, Ms.

Creasy, I'm sorry.

I would not vote on taking the funding out given that they've already made plans for that funding or at least that tied to phase one two you know I mean there's

without discussion.

I think that would make sense if you do too, right?

And if we created a line in them, it might be empty and this CIP wouldn't be in there.

Yes.

Go ahead and clean it up.

Sorry.

I will second that.

I'm trying to think if there's a clarify.

Ms.

Kritsche, does that make sense to you?

Are you following it?

Here's what I have.

I got grant program?

Yeah, I think grant.

I think grant monies the waters.

Money's money.

Yeah, I think it's fun.

Sure.

It's crazy when you finish typing, we do read it back to us so we know where it needs to get seconded.

Create a line item for large affordable housing expenditures with a competitive program for selection for the out years.

Start funding in fiscal year 2031.

All right, we have a motion to second.

Is there any other discussion?

Ms.

Mr. Solla-Yates?

Aye.

Ms.

Rocher?

Aye.

Yes, I would follow that up with a motion that we start funding in FY29 with uncommitted funds.

Can we start funding?

Nope, nope, nope, new one.

New motion.

That we

On the present CIP with what we see in animals, what you're saying?

You want to move those into that?

Hmm.

Obviously, you know, Carlton Mobile Home Park funds, we can't move.

We've already signed the agreement.

Uncommitted.

Yeah, I don't think that.

Yeah, I don't think I'm prepared to start pulling things out of 29.

Well, it's the same project.

Right, we have a motion.

We don't have a second yet.

All right.

Keep hands in the way, Kiddish.

Right, that motion did not survive a second.

I'm just going to bring it on again.

I apologize it's more just coming in from being new to this process, but it seems an interesting concept to sort of project out like these larger fund sources that are undefined in the out years with the idea that there's a competitive process to access them.

So I think about the conversation we just had about the schools, and I wonder if there's a corollary.

So we have the motion on the table that has multitudes of amendments.

I move to approve the capital improvements plan with the following amendments, which I believe Ms.

There.

Do you want me to read them all?

If you would.

Okay, with the following amendments.

The first one, increase funding for a strategic housing fund as CIP or ongoing funding for a land bank.

Create funding for city schools comprehensive facility plan.

Increase funding for city and schools solar PV program or pursue other agreements.

Increase funding for schools maintenance lump sum projects.

Reduce funding for city schools priority, improvement projects in out years.

Create line item for safe routes to school implementation at requested amount.

Identify sustainable funding for urgent transportation improvements in out years.

And create a line item for large affordable housing expenditures with a competitive program for selection for out years.

We are ready to vote.

Ms.

Aye.

Mr. D'Oronzio.

Aye.

Mr. Solla-Yates.

Aye.

Mr. Roettger.

Aye.

Yes.

And Mr. Solla-Yates, do you have a committee report?

You know, the school CIP committee met.

We talked about capital improvements plan.

We had listed a lot of concerns that I'd like to share with you at this time.

Do you really?

Well, I think you probably guessed what we talked about.

There was a lot of

Pride in the successes from the strategic investment program over the term.

Over the years it has been successful.

It's led to a lot of good projects.

It's just things have changed and it's time for a reassessment.

1.25 million doesn't buy what it used to.

We talked about the lump sum and that it's, again, the money's not going as far as it used to.

It's for things like painting and basic maintenance, which we will have to do no matter what, and those costs just keep going up.

The solar was a major topic of concern.

Staff were

surprised that we were so concerned about it because we had not funded it.

And they said that if it were funded, it would proceed into build the way that roofs have.

It just, there needed to be funding to get the project done.

And there was general unanimity on that concern.

And I think those were the main ones.

Just general concern that

We don't know where we're going.

We have growth in the south.

We don't have growth in the north.

We have capacity in the north.

We don't have capacity in the south.

School board wants more information.

Thomas Jefferson Planning District met last week.

Nothing of extraordinary excitement to close there.

Lots of work going on.

The Path Mobility Management, which is an assistance program,

Rol folks regarding satisfying transportation needs people don't have cars there was We are moving forward with several grants in that department.

We're also

going to try to revisit getting some money to do some solid engineering on the bike-ped bridge over the Romana because our costs are all over the place.

And we're being told that we really need to nail those down more securely to have a hope.

So that was the main objects there.

The hack meant on the 20th, Mr. Freeze gave an update

date on staff's thinking on the land bank, which was they didn't like the fundamental underlying principle that the hack had suggested, which is that it'd be an independent body.

So where would the authority reside?

In the city?

It would be an authority.

Basically the way it was presented, there would be a seven member board composed of four at large, a planning commissioner, a city councilor, and a deputy city manager.

The concern, there are going to be some governance concerns there because it effectively

The argument for doing this is to have the city have a closer holding oversight over these tax dollars that go through the bank

So if you have that, that can be a funding source in effect, sort of parallel.

But I'll, I, that's sort of still have formed.

I need to sort of reify that into a memo and perhaps the working group can address that, because that was sort of a blind siding.

Those were those two, I just

Yeah, although three of them are if needed.

Let's see, I had two meetings.

One was Lupec last month, where we covered Brazilian together.

So you guys are all very familiar with that from our October joint meeting, and so I won't go into it.

Then this morning I had MPOTech, which people have covered.

The big things, SS4A, Safe Scrooge for All, as well, underway.

There are public sessions coming up.

Was there any additional folks given to you?

Oh, my bad, hopefully R...

Yep, yep, there was a discussion of that and I believe maybe two months earlier, we got a whole presentation from Bill Moyer at RWSA of their full, you know, the full water supply plan.

I have not been getting these presentations.

They haven't been pushing on the website.

The other thing I'll point out is there's a raging fire somewhere around here too, so it goes back to my concern about droughts.

Actually, one other interesting tidbit from that.

VDOT mentioned that if you guys remember the sort of heavy rain before Hillean, I think apparently there were several millions of dollars in damage in just Elmoral County alone to treat infrastructure from that.

I guess we're really watching out.

I think that is about, or the last thing for me to take may have mentioned this before.

VDOT is starting a number, a few star studies to sort of create plans that become smart scale projects.

One is 29 more or less at

All right, at last month's BR meeting, we had two significant projects that we looked at.

One of them was a hotel at the Artful Lodger site.

I think it was a proposed six-story hotel.

In general, the BR was fine with the massing.

I think some of us even made comments that if it wanted to be taller, it could.

But we did pick at it for

The street scape, the pedestrian experience, the materials, the detailing, and we found that generally that it was a preliminary discussion, but the direction it was going was not going to be compatible with the district.

So basically they still have their massing, but they do need to figure out ways to make the building

material fit better into the district.

We also looked at a 13 story proposed kind of test fit building on the Violet Crown Theatre site.

So this was not an actual design building.

It was more of a developer saying, how much mask can I put right here?

What can I get away with?

And

It was a good discussion.

Council allows us to limit the height of buildings on the downtown mall to within two stories of the prevailing height on the block.

And we're allowed a 25-foot step back.

Those are our parameters from the ordinance.

Our guidelines tell us that in commercial areas at street front, the height should be within 130% of the prevailing average on both sides of the block.

So on that block, the prevailing height is two stories.

A lot of comments, but some of the comments we're leading towards make it about three stories or four close to Unreal when we were on the downtown mall, step back your 25 feet, and then go up to, you know, if you go up to five stories, six, and then hold the

I think it was, most of us were generally okay with allowing as much height as zoning would allow, but further back towards Water Street.

So like half the way back on the block.

So it's not really a mall building that's 13 stories, but a Water Street building that would be 13 stories.

Obviously, that's cutting back significantly from the buildable mass of what the developer proposed could be.

But I mean, there's a lot of moving parts there.

There are a lot of components of this that would have had to go through the zoning code, like four stories of parking with no active depth on the base of the building, things like that.

So anyways, it was an interesting discussion.

It's to be continued.

So if we do allow 13 stories on that site, does that then trickle down to the rest of the ball?

Do we do other sites?

The way we're looking at it is if the 13 stories is built, at least I can't speak for everyone on the board, but it seemed like the discussion was saying that the 13 stories would be a water street component.

When you're thinking of the block itself, you're thinking of three stories, maybe four.

Imagine the height of the lowest portion of the code building, which I think is three very tall.

The lowest portion of the code building, which I believe is three very tall stories,

So that gives them a lot of wiggle room.

But yeah, when we, I believe the ordinance, when we're talking about, it's a block by block thing.

So it doesn't mean that the next block over, we have to allow a tall building.

We still can average the buildings on that block to decide, you know, how tall the- That's under the curvy of the bar.

Is that clear?

I had a question earlier we heard about the sort of the city's NDS's plans coming in the future and one of them was a downtown mall height study.

I mean is the BAR, are things connected there?

Personally, I don't think there's an emergency on the mall.

I think the BAR has been given enough leeway and constraints that development can happen.

But it's not going to catastrophically, we're not going to create a canyon that kills all the trees.

There's very few blocks on the south side of the mall that has anything tall.

And we've got the Dewberry is, I think, the one example.

And it is set back quite a bit.

So I'm not seeing the emergency there, but it is something that, yeah, I think part of the reasoning for that discussion is because of, we want to figure out what, I mean, it's not the, I think there is some concern about what the BAR's purview is over this, how much height we can take away, how much mass we can take away from development versus the competing interest of the aesthetic on the mall and the trees.

So there's a bunch of competing interests.

It's beyond just the BAR.

So I imagine the trees are part of that.

Except for all the planning to cut them all down.

Right, is there any other business we need to discuss?

You know, I was thinking about it, and today's kind of in sort of days to remember, it's a little tough.

I mean, it's Nobel Prize Day.

It is the anniversary of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights and such.

And it's even Dewey Decimal Day if we want to look to reorganize things around here.

Logger.

Because we're cutting down the trees.

Alright, we have a motion.

Just a second.