Board of Architectural Review Meeting   10/15/2024

Welcome to this regularly scheduled monthly meeting of the Charlottesville Board of Architectural Review.

Staff will introduce each item followed by the applicant's presentation.

which should not exceed 10 minutes.

The chair will then ask for questions from the public followed by questions from the BAR.

After questions are closed, the chair will ask for comments from the public.

For each application, members of the public are allowed three minutes to ask questions and three minutes to offer comments.

Speakers shall identify themselves and provide their address.

I'd like to ask everybody to speak from the podium.

Comments should be limited to the BAR's purview, that is, regarding only the exterior aspects of a project.

following the BAR's discussion and prior to taking action, the applicant will have up to three minutes to respond.

Didn't get a chance.

Some of us talked a little bit.

There's a pre-meeting discussion about the Virginia 250 grant request.

I'm going to move that to other business towards the end of the agenda.

So we'll start our regular meeting.

Review Council's charge to the BAR.

Jeff, is that something you wanted to talk about?

While you're working on that, I'm going to go ahead and ask if there are any matters from the public not on the agenda or on the consent agenda.

There are three virtual attendees.

If any of you would like to speak, click the raise hand icon in the Zoom webinar, or you can press star nine if you're joining us via telephone.

Okay.

Thank you.

Jeff, do you have your, are you ready?

All right.

Then we'll go ahead and ask if anybody have any comments on the consent agenda.

Here motion to pass the consent agenda.

The Virginia 250 grant is through the Department of Historic Resources.

This is a preservation fund and the City of Charlottesville would like to apply specifically through Parks and Rec to undertake the long-term plan and rehabilitation management of our downtown hall.

Do we know how much they're requesting?

Yes.

Okay, very good.

Would y'all like me to read the letter?

and Katelyn Sylvester

At its monthly meeting on October 15, 2024, the Charlottesville Board of Architectural Review reviewed the City of Charlottesville's pending grant request for the Downtown Maw Preservation and Rehabilitation Project.

Charged by City Council to administer the provisions of Charlottesville's Historic Preservation Ordinance, the BAR's purview includes the Maw.

and Michael Kochis.

The Mall manifests Halpern's utilization of a simple palette of materials and features based in part on local precedents to create a series of interconnected spaces that act as a stage for public life The Mall is an outstanding example of Lawrence Halpern and Associates Urban Landscapes and the only excellent work by the firm in Virginia

Those statements are all the more important as we approach the 50th anniversary of the Mall while also preparing for the events associated with the Virginia 250 with both celebrations expected to draw additional visitors to Charlottesville.

The trees and fountains are character defining features of our downtown living room so it is imperative that they be

appropriately maintained and, where necessary, properly rehabilitated.

If you have any questions, please contact me.

Thank you for considering Charlottesville's grant request.

Sincerely, I would sign on behalf of the City of Charlottesville Board of Architecture Review.

I'm happy to pass this around.

Yes.

Okay.

All right.

I'll call the vote.

All in favor?

Aye.

All right.

All right.

It does pass unanimously.

Thank you all for drafting that for us.

All right, so.

Thank you.

Yeah.

And

It's an interesting opportunity, Grant Request.

We'll see.

It is for the 250th anniversary of the United States, but there are grant funds allocated to historic sites, not necessarily associated with the

Colonial America and Revolution, and them all being on, but they do want to provide funds for national register districts and sites, and certainly the mall falls into that, so we'll see what happens.

I just made a note that charge at the top was actually a note to myself to remember to just tell you, but I do want to say it's

when we're on Channel 10, it's a good opportunity to inform.

But the Board of Architectural Review, you all are not a committee.

The city has lots of committees and lots of committees that

and so on and so forth.

You all are, as the city refers to it, the City Council, Planning Commission, Board of Zoning Appeals and the Board of Architectural Review, and you all are created by ordinance and you are appointed by council and what you do in reviewing a possibly approving a COA essentially becomes

and enforceable items.

Zoning can enforce the conditions of an approved COA.

So I think there's just some confusion sometimes that the BAR is just a group interested in historic stuff and makes, you know, like to make suggestions to people, but so everyone's very clear you are a pointed body.

Second, your responsibility is

to implement the design guidelines and to interpret them reviewing projects.

And per the ordinance, the guidelines are what you all develop and recommend to counsel, only by counsel adopting them do they become official.

So we had some things that are

where we've interpreted and applied it as policy, but the guidelines themselves, for example tonight when you possibly make a recommendation to council to update the cafe spaces,

Your recommendation doesn't make it so.

It's only after I take it to city council and they agree to it.

The other thing that comes up a lot and people don't understand is that every action for the BAR is appealable to city council.

Someone can even appeal an approval.

And we've had that happen where neighboring property owners did like a project so they appealed to council for various reasons.

It's very rare.

I think I've dealt with five or six in my almost eight years here.

But even I feel sometimes when planning commission and council, people don't realize that BAR is not some autonomous group that is doing what it thinks is what to do.

So just when if

When things come to the BAR and you decide something, councils can change that if it's appealed within 10 days.

The other thing to be clear about is, and I mentioned it in theirs, you all are not a zoning interpretive body.

We have the projecting Mr. Schaffers here tonight, 1609.

Gordon Avenue, which I'm going to just formally withdraw from the agenda.

So but I still encourage you to have a conversation with the applicant.

We need to resolve a couple zoning questions that I think it's best we resolve those before you all are reviewing this formally.

But if, for example, you approved a COA and then it went in for a building permit and zoning says this can't happen,

someone can't say, well, the BAR approved it.

So while you all have that, you have some authority under the code and through the COA, the ordinance is always capping that.

You don't buy an action intentional or inadvertently alter zoning.

You don't supersede it.

And I think I just want to make that clear because

I mean, if I think there's something that's questionable or if you'll have some concern about how the zoning ordinance goes, you know, we can look into that, but it's not.

I even brought it with me tonight.

You all are not, you're not responsible to memorize this and question and clarify everything.

Now, I have to work with my colleagues internally to figure out how to

worked through the new ordinance and we're finding some problems and issues with it.

But so there, I just wanted to be clear with everybody out there what the BRR's role is and that you're subordinate to city council and they're the boss.

So any questions about that?

All right, the first item tonight is 1301 Workman Street, and it is

You all reviewed the COA for this.

Hey, Jeff, before you get started, I just want to disclose that I actually have a higher design develop to do a conceptual study for an addition to my house.

So this is a COA request, 13-1 Workland Street.

It is within the Workland Street ADC District.

This is adjacent to the Workbocker House, which has a couple of construction dates associated with it, but certainly early 1800s.

You reviewed this project.

last year and then approved, well, in 2022 and then approved the COA in 2023.

The applicant is coming tonight, and I flipped through it when Kevin speaks, making a couple of changes to the project, the primary being using or selecting an alternate brick and mortar.

I think that's the key thing I want

you all to focus on.

There's a couple other items that are somewhat cosmetic that I'm not too concerned about on, for example, in the east and west on the side elevations where there are like recessed stair walls, those in the balcony walls will have a painted trim instead of the brick.

Sliding doors are being reduced from six foot to five foot

and on the back wall, the north elevation, the entire wall will be painted cement panels in lieu of brick and some changes to the retaining wall and the railings.

So I didn't have any issues with any of those.

I would have been comfortable, even those type of things that occur as your value engineering and typically work with the applicant on.

Masonry was an important feature and it was an important part of the discussion that you all had as the project was being developed so that's why I'm bringing it forward to you and I'll let Kevin explain what he needs.

Thank you very much, Jeff.

I appreciate that report and that introduction.

My name is Kevin Schaefer.

I am the Charlottesville Studio Director at Design Develop.

As Jeff mentioned, we are here to discuss just some developments and refinements of the material palette as this project has gone through the design development phase and moved through a value engineering project.

or Process.

On the next slide you can see kind of the summary of the four revisions.

I think Jeff correctly identified the more pertinent one is the revised BRIC selection and I'll get into some of the choices or the decisions behind why we are presenting what we're presenting in just a moment.

But the other areas of revision that you can see on this slide are the recessed areas, as Jeff mentioned, going to the Hardy panel for a couple of reasons.

The first obviously being a cost-saving material, but also as we went through kind of a structural engineering process, the stair landings and the balcony connections through that brick veneer became

Very challenging and costly as well so it's a move to simplify our balcony framing conditions as well as still preserve the brick in the areas that it's visible but where the building starts to recess and step back bring down that hardy panel in the sort of rectangular volume that sits atop the brick elements

The other revisions that Jeff mentioned are the changing of the sliding doors from six feet to five feet.

That was primarily a building code consideration as we consider the percentages of glazing that are allowed.

when we're adjacent to a property line or an existing structure on a lot and just making sure that we were within those allowable percentages from a building code perspective.

I don't think it fundamentally changes the overall form or feeling of the building to do so.

And then I'll talk also about the guardrail substitution in just a moment.

You can go to the next page.

But overarchingly, what we wanted to do is keep the form, the mass, the materiality the same, keep the overall concept intact, keep the relationship to the existing house intact.

And overall, just the major driving points of the COA that has already been approved, keep all those together in cohesive and legible.

You can go to the next slide.

Thank you.

So the brick being the topic that we debated the most internally, I have the two brick samples here.

So thank you, Jeff.

The previous selection, it was a handmade brick.

And in the past, almost two years since the Windsor, the old Carolina Windsor selection, made its way onto our BAR submission, obviously prices on construction materials have continued to increase, particularly around labor-intensive materials like handmade brick.

And that just became a cost burden that

nearly every, well, every general contractor who priced the project identified.

And we also noted the board's sort of previous comments on the brick, which was replication should not be desired.

We shouldn't be trying to match exactly.

and that there was some flexibility in finding a complementary material.

So a complementary and material palette, complementary in its kind of character.

And so after reviewing several different brick options with Deb Brown from Allied, which is not Cheney,

We selected and would like to propose the Pine Hall brick from Old Yorktown.

It's a tumbled brick.

It's coming from a local, I believe it's a Roanoke plant and so it is

much less freight, much lower costs, it still has great character being that it's tumbled, it has a really nice color to it and you can see from the samples here

The difference between what was previously approved on my left here and what we're suggesting here on the right.

But we think it's very complementary in color.

It's not an exact match on the building.

And if you flip through these images, you can see we took these brick panels to the site in a variety of different sunlights and shades, working to select the water.

and working carefully to select brick that would look appropriate in shadow and indirect sun and then in kind of indirect light as well.

Sometimes when it was wet and sometimes when it would when it had dried out.

And so we felt that the Pine Hall brick was a good substitution and one that could could make the project viable from a value engineering perspective.

And so that is what's in front of you today.

The other elements include, I included this slide just to show that this is with the revisions that we're proposing and I think from the street you would be hard pressed to tell a difference between what was previously approved and kind of what we're showing here.

one of the things that was important that I do want to note because it's a little bit counterintuitive to the value engineering exercises that the brick volumes needed to read as volumes and so we are returning the brick a certain distance into those stairwells which you can see kind of

In this instance right here, and the one that's in front of us is three foot eight.

On the next slide, I think we can talk about our choices for the balcony.

We now have two installed examples of the custom steel railing, which on day one looks really, really great.

We're a fan of the custom steel railing, which was previously approved.

We have found that field painting, because of the requirements to field weld some of these elements,

then we can't powder coat, we can't pre-primate and we end up field welding and field welding every weld joint and every side of every bar and every base plate and every bolt connection has just proved to be too challenging and so from a maintenance perspective we're proposing this kit of parts from Trex.

It gives us very much the same look.

It comes in 42 inch height and

But it is very much a pre-finished kit of parts which allows for, you know, the maintenance considerations to be assured.

And we don't have the rust conditions at Virginia Ave even.

The field painting, no matter what kind of paint we specify there, it seems to become an issue to just get it properly field painted.

So we end up with rust where we don't really want rust streaks.

And so that was the choice here.

Next slide.

I would be clear on something.

So once again, we wanted to keep the overall building concept, the overall building form, the materiality.

The windows were important to continue to be a high quality and we opted not to VE those and so those are the remaining as what was previously approved.

As is, you know, the immense amount of site work that's going into this to make this a little bit better place and so the goal is always to be respectful and deferential to the Wharton Baker House and provide this kind of density here that will help ensure that it has the maintenance behind it to last another couple hundred years.

Any questions?

Are you finished?

I appreciate the update.

At this time we'll ask for any questions from the public.

Any questions from the VAR?

I have one about the railing.

It's hard to tell in the renderings, whether it's outboard of the brick, or if it's inboard, or if the intention is for it to be flat.

And then there's a little ambiguity as to, well, not so much there, but on that other rendering, it looks like the railing was actually proud of the brick.

Yeah, absolutely.

As Jeff noted previously, the custom steel railing had this c-channel that was being welded.

The bannisters were being welded to that c-channel and then face applied onto our deck framing.

To work with the Trek system, it actually just relies on the posts, so we won't be attaching through the brick at all, but you'll see we'll have posts

Anybody else questions from the BR?

Then we'll go back out to the public.

We'll open it up to the BAR then.

I'll start.

I think the brick choice is a good one.

I mean, I think that you're not downgrading quite so much.

I mean, that's still a very handsome tumbled brick.

I think it's kind of hard to expect someone to use a hand mold brick on a project or enforce that.

I agree with the brick.

I probably have any problem with it.

I would say that I prefer the previous railing.

I think it was a little bit more sophisticated.

and has a little bit more of a custom look that would, I think, you know, certainly on this side that faces the historic building, it would be a plus, you know, and the owners and the city's advantage.

You know, if the alternative is chosen, I might suggest pushing it back a little bit to give us a bit of a relief to it so that there isn't a flush transition between the two.

You know, one of the things that always stands out

with the tracks is the sort of, I think with the kit of parts, you know, you get these kind of like railings that very much look like a kit of parts and it has a different feel.

I think everything you're proposing is

Perfectly within our guidelines and acceptable.

Looks good.

Definitely a great trace in the brick.

My only concern is the back facade.

It just kind of seems sad to me to get rid of all that brick right there, but I'm not sure I'm going to make that hold up my vote.

I'll make motion.

Having considered the standards set forth within the city code, including the ADC District Design Guidelines, I moved to find that the proposed modifications to the approved design referenced COA number 220903 for the new construction at 1301 Wartland Street.

Satisfy the BAR's criteria and are compatible with this property and other properties in the Workland Street ADC District and the BAR approves the application as submitted.

Aye.

Aye.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

This is 1609.

Gordon Avenue.

And as I mentioned earlier, I removed this from the agenda as a formal item, but I encouraged the BAR to offer any comments they had about the design to the applicant.

I think that would be helpful if there's anything you wanted to address.

So to be clear, the

and I'll let Kevin discuss this.

Recently, the city adopted the new zoning ordinance last December and it requires the screening of mechanical units, rooftop mechanical units.

So there would need to be some sort of a knee wall or something addressing those units at the roof.

And the other piece, and this is

When you view the project from Gordon Avenue, which would be the top image, that hallway that separates the two sides of the building.

There's a provision in the code about how entrances like this should be treated.

in one review of it, it could require that that be, have a doorway, if you will, at that entrance and not an open hallway.

So I've asked the zoning administrator to review that and give me a determination, you know, work with Mr. Schaefer on how they are interpreting it so that he can respond accordingly.

So I said, I thought,

on one side, you all could discuss this, maybe take action and have some caveat, but I think that would be, that leaves too much sort of dangling out there to be resolved later.

So it's wisest to let, again, Zoning will be reviewing, having an internal discussion about this on Thursday and they can advise

Mr. Schaefer, what the decision is and he can respond accordingly and then bring the presentation back with those two things resolved.

So the just a little background you all did review this in

earlier this year with a preliminary discussion.

There's an existing building on the site, the 1960s apartment building.

That would be raised.

It's not a contributing structure so that it doesn't require a BAR review.

I want to just make the opportunity here for you all.

If you did have something, and certainly Kevin can present his slides and talk through it, but it really, it's your pleasure on, if you want to simply wait until this is ready for formal action or have some discussion on it.

So leave that to you.

and my point being is if you'd like Mr. Schaefer to review the slides he can or you can say we'll talk about this at a later month.

Are you looking for some input?

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jeff, for facilitating the discussion.

Despite kind of the news that broke this morning, there may be an issue with zoning and thank you.

I'd rather, what do they say, fail fast.

I'd rather know that earlier rather than later if there is an issue.

I will say

We have been through two site development review plans, and it hasn't become a comment yet, so it was news to me, it was exciting.

I think the screening is obviously very easily solved and very clear in its language that there needs to be mechanical screening.

We have a rendering in this package.

I think the screening will actually be more visible than the mechanical units, but I don't think that it's like a battle we're going to win.

So we just will put the screening on and that'll be that's fine.

We have made the following revisions since our preliminary hearing, all of which I think have made for a better, more cohesive, more legible project.

The first being the removal of the commercial standing seam details that we were showing in our previous renderings and moving towards a more residential standing seam The second being the elimination of the hardy panel, which definitely allows for a lot more control of our control joints, a lot more ability to place our control joints in the way we want to

as well as its insulation on the outside of the wall.

It's a robust building system so we felt like that was a good move as well.

Previously we had kind of two main building materials, wall materials.

We had a brick and we had the hardy panel.

And in certain locations, the brick appeared to be floating, particularly above the parking entrance.

We have a balcony, a recessed balcony, and so we have introduced a third material, which is a hardy plank, that helps eliminate that kind of odd floating brick condition.

And then beyond that, it's just been the development of the details, the location of gutters and rainwater leaders, thanks to Jeff's encouragement, the development of the landscaping, the pedestrian access, the amenity space that we have, the required screening for the garage on the alley side.

and so those couple of site development reviews under our belt plus the initial BAR hearing that we had earlier this spring had us feeling like we were in a pretty good spot.

So we'll continue to work with zoning and determine what the problem is.

I'm not quite clear yet if it's just a door that is required to be on this facade.

or what the entry requirements are.

I can read the entry requirements and I'm still not clear on it.

But we'll work through that with zoning.

In the meantime, I think, thanks to Jeff's help, if there's further comments or questions that you have for us or suggestions that we should consider,

We'd be all ears at this point.

We do value the BAR's input and and feedback that we get when we're here Would you mind quickly scrolling through just so that And we can do this real quick I do want to highlight the anticipated screening locations that we'll come back with because I don't believe we have seen that These renderings do not show the screens as you can see the mechanical units on the roof and elevation

We did a little eye height test.

We have the ability to locate the eye height.

And you'd have to be 30 feet tall to see the mechanical units from any location.

Again, this is a little bit of a moot point that the zoning code requires screening.

And it's not something we would fight.

And I'll offer here

I know that lights coming out of parking garages have been something that comes up both with the BAR and the entrance corridor review.

So I had asked Kevin, like, because they showed a metal screen on that, but the response, it's a screen with planting on it.

I think it's somewhat like the car sale garage in the A school.

So that satisfied me is that something was physically going to be

I have not been able to get in touch with Zoning, so I don't know.

I think Jeff raised his hand this morning, or I guess it was yesterday afternoon.

I came in and met with Kelsey Schlein at Shimp Engineering and we looked through it.

The standards for, and this is not a zoning, but I'll just give you my thought process.

The standards, which is a 210, 13, 3C, to qualify as a street-facing entry, building entrances must meet the following standards.

They must be located on a street-facing ground story facade.

They must provide both ingress and egress pedestrian access to the ground story of the building.

They must remain operable at all times.

Access may be controlled.

Must access an occupiable space.

That's the entry feature section that when they talk about your required entry feature, and it has to meet certain standards.

And those standards are

Strangely, Very Particular, and they have a certain amount of percentage of enclosure, a certain amount of percentage of, you know, what's open, what's not.

And they all say, less, you know, a covered, like a porch, they'll say, you know, a covered porch with a front facing entry.

Okay, we were considering this a covered enclosure, which didn't have any minimum depth or any minimum width.

And then it had 50% enclosure max, which I think we were meeting all of those.

Okay.

It comes down to the note here, my conversation with the zoning administrator at the end of the day.

Does this entry feature require a closeable door?

Can it be defined as a forecourt, which I think would allow it to be served as it is designed?

and sort of that question about occupiable or habitable space and how defining that where you walk in then to enter the individual apartments.

So that's what they'll be discussing on Thursday and internally and we'll have a decision on it.

I mean it's possible that they say

from a given perspective as design meets the code.

Yeah, this is 21013, which is entrances.

before we get any more comments or reviews.

Anybody from the public want to comment?

Hello, I'm Genevieve Keller, President of Preservation Piedmont, and I didn't come intending to speak about this, but it did raise something to me that through the extended rezoning process came up several times.

Preservation Piedmont was trying to kind of quietly follow that process through all of its aspects, meeting with NDS leadership, the consultants, City Council, and we were

Each time assured that the code would not prevail over the guidance of the BAR.

When there was a conflict, the BAR would have priority.

It seems that this might be changing a little bit.

I personally and professionally don't necessarily have any thoughts about this, but I could see down the road where we would, so I think it's really important how this gets resolved, particularly with some of the big issues that could come up between the code and between

either your existing guidelines or new guidelines.

So I just want to raise that as an issue now because we did have assurances at the highest levels through this process that preservation values would not be sacrificed to code.

I'm not saying that that's the case here, but I think it starts to be a precedent.

And I know previously there was an issue

when something was appealed to council before we had a form-based code and one of the counselors was trying to apply form-based code to actually the historic features of the building to change the fenestration pattern.

So down the road, this could have a lot of implications.

Thank you very much.

Anybody else from the public?

Hi, I'm Jean Hyatt.

I was on the BAR many years ago.

So I just know that my concern is that needs to be in a large or any building, a nice entranceway that's welcoming and is significant to the building.

And

I'm not seeing that in this design.

So I'm hoping that you can change that.

So it's much more formal and interesting.

Anybody else?

Okay.

Well, obviously, I think you realize I'm on the problem.

So I apologize.

That was something that I questioned.

But I also, I questioned it because this open stair in the middle of the building, and I mentioned this at the last time you brought this in, it puts us in a little bit of a bind because two blocks to the north,

We forced a project to get rid of the open stair that divided the building in half because it didn't fit the context.

Two blocks to the south, we gave you guys the opportunity to do that for a different context.

This context is kind of right in the middle.

And I do, you know, I agree with Miss Hyatt that the building is kind of lacking any sort of

and so on.

We have apartment buildings nearby.

It's a mixed neighborhood, but there's also the Montessori across the street we gave a really hard time to when they tried to do a little addition.

There are still residents on this street, so it's not exactly a

completely student neighborhood context.

Some minor comments.

I appreciate the screening on the garages, although what you've labeled, it says Virginia Creeper IV.

So I assume that means Virginia Creeper or IV.

Virginia Creeper will lose its leaves in the winter.

Both that and IV will stick to the brick and eat the aphis.

So I don't know if there's just something else you can find for that.

I don't know if that was just a placeholder you put in there.

I'll defer a brick on that.

But I probably shouldn't put any plant material that's going to stick to the ethos.

Let's see.

Are your the eave materials?

Is that just like fiber cement trim?

That's pretty much it.

The front facade is still very monolithic.

You're going for a contemporary look.

I understand that.

But with that monolithic and plain look to it, I think you're, again, because you've just got an open slot right in the middle, I think it's lacking as far as context for the residential portion of the neighborhood.

I wasn't here when this project was first presented, so I apologize for that.

I like the massing of the project generally, and I don't know if I have a very strong opinion about the entrance way.

I do think it is beneficial to the neighborhood generally to have such a significant break in the volume of the building, which is quite large,

So really making it feel like two separate structures, I think turning the roof line is helpful.

My main concern, and I would have voiced this, sorry if I had seen it earlier, but the EFIS to me does not fit the context in my opinion.

and I know that we've okayed it in limited applications in the past and especially in applications where it's further either away from public view.

This would be one of the most prominent ones that we would have

approved.

I know the Virginia Avenue one we approved, but that's also on a quite a bit quieter street.

This one, what concerns me is not only the EFIS as a material, which feels fairly pretty inexpensive, but it also is so bright and that bright white inexpensive material in this residential neighborhood feels just wrong.

and I wish there were a better alternative.

We have two different ones depending on the size of the unit.

So if there's four-bedroom, then it's probably about 36 inches tall and max.

And that probably includes some sound dampening feet that go with that.

The other ones for the two-bedroom units are smaller.

Those are kind of mini-split systems.

Jeff, would you mind flipping just a few slides ahead?

We employed a pre-finished aluminum screening.

Screening products are designed to go on roofs.

as the metal roof.

And I don't think it would be visible, particularly given the adjacent landscaping.

So that's what we're thinking.

Just to follow up on Carl's comments about certain details.

I would love it if you came back with the brick you were proposing.

If it is an EFIS, the color sample would be the best.

It's really hard to tell on renders sometimes what the actual color is meant to be.

There's sunlight and reflection and everything that sometimes distorts that.

I think having physical samples of the two main, if not tertiary materials and product information on the screens would be great too because not all those decorative screens are the same so we have some hard and fast information to grab on to that would be very helpful I think

And personally, there's a way to, it's hard for me to tell where the windows are in line with the EFIS, how far back they are.

That would have maybe just a simple window detail to understand the sort of thickness and how, you know, the materials return would help as well.

And I recall that and we were supportive about it because of the joints, because of the feeling that ethos would be able to

for this largest space, EFIS would succeed.

Materials and textures, this applies to new construction.

The use of EFIS is discouraged, but may be approved on items such as gables where it cannot be seen or damaged.

It requires careful design at the location of control joints, which is the discussion from our January meeting.

With regard to the entrance,

a couple

I don't know.

I don't know how I haven't driven up the street recently just to compare.

But another guideline, many of the entrances of Charlottesville's historic buildings have special features such as transoms, sod lights, or decorative elements framing the openings.

Consideration, and this is talking about new construction, should be given to incorporating such elements in new construction.

Porches.

Porches and other semi-public spaces are important in establishing layers or zones of intermediate spaces within the streetscape.

and they are also encouraged.

I'm not an architect and I don't know what to suggest specifically about this entrance, but it probably suffers from the fact that there's not habitable living space behind it, that it's really leading to a utilitarian space like on-grade parking.

I get that.

But people are still going to be using that as they come up and down those upper floor stairs.

So it doesn't take away from the fact that it is the main entrance to the building, except for those who might be approaching into the garage.

I'll make a suggestion.

I'm wondering if it wouldn't help to de-emphasize the balconies on the 2nd and 3rd floor and kind of put a little more importance to the pedestrian level entrance as we're, you know, create more of a traditional porch.

It doesn't have to be.

I mean, I like the idea of having space between the two forms because it kind of scales the, scales it back down to the neighborhood.

But I think that those overhanging balconies

give it immediately an apartment feel to me in a not positive way.

And then maybe the door could be incorporated.

I would say the second store balcony would

Cheri Balkeady would, it kind of provides an overhang, so you get some protection from the elements.

So that's one reason it might have been programmed that way.

But it certainly doesn't even come to the sidewalk out front.

I mean, it's, you know, for a large building, it's a small protrusion, small covering.

anyone else?

Kevin, any questions?

No.

You know, the the the Eves back and forth with

No one's touching the eaves in this location.

It's on the second story, you know, it's not a pedestrian level.

It is on a gable and it happens to be, you know, pretty prominent in terms of building form.

I certainly understand the color comment in our renderings and I think we can address that color comment.

I'd encourage you to drive down Virginia Ave and look at that project.

It looks nice.

With the guidance from the BAR, there's a big large areas of eaves that have really tight control joints that align with windows and there's rationality and there's order behind those things and it kind of works.

and so I think the church across the street is stucco as well.

I think there is quite a bit of stucco on the street contextually and so I don't think it's out of place from a material perspective.

I think it's just maybe it's a color issue.

I think it's

From my perspective, it's a lot more thoughtful and controllable than working within Hardy Panel.

And we're going to take a four by eight Hardy Panel sheet and we're going to start at one end and then you're going to, as hard as we can try to align things, you'll see way more

Trim lines and joint lines and aluminum trim that doesn't line up and when it doesn't line up, we'll all cringe.

So that's my concern.

And I'm not opposed to looking at other materials, but I felt like the direction that we were given last time was a good one.

The staircase, we do utilize that staircase, obviously, to break down the building form into very much residential massing.

And that's kind of deferential to our context as well.

How can we take this building footprint that's immediately adjacent to us and not overpower it with a building form that could honestly be two more stories taller and even wider than we're showing to some degree?

You know, there's a shadow line, there's a big void, and that creates a breakdown in the building mass, which I think is a positive.

So I do like the comment.

And I think we'll continue to study it.

Just for clarification, so you don't come back and bring something that, again, we have issues with.

How many people would not vote for this because of the ethos?

As you would say, no.

No.

I mean, I suppose Navians are the reason that the Fibersmith panels, I mean, just as you said, you've got the joints roll over the place.

And I don't think I've yet to see Fibersmith done well in this town.

Yeah, I think materially it's, I'm in support of it.

And yeah, I think some of these other materials you get into, they're more fussy and they tend to warp or they tend to, there's more just a more margin of error that happens.

So at least the Ephesus monolithic, you know, and if you choose a good quality one, you know, like a limestone quality to

Speaking of the street, the building next door to it, what is that material?

Used to be pink.

I mean, I think we were in favor of Jeff's comments regarding the eaves in terms of its durability and its quality of construction.

Certainly be something we would specify.

Thank you all for the feedback.

So just a couple of takeaways for me.

One is I viewed this as an apartment building that has not as a single building.

So as we get things that come in and I, student residence type developments,

Go back to something Tim more often would say is, you know, in those preliminary discussions, sort of decide what are the key issues that are going to drive how you review a particular project.

So, I mean, if this had been sort of as a traditional apartments like up at 1600 Grady Avenue or New York University Circle or

were maybe viewed as a boarding house type of thing with a primary entrance.

So we can think about those things as projects like that come in and say, all right, how are we going to treat this?

And then you all sort of respond accordingly.

The other thing is that

The preliminary discussion was very positive and you all offered a lot of input that design developers responded to.

So I don't want to ever say that those conversations obligate you to the opinion at that time.

But we do, you know, the applicants are relying on that input.

That's why we have the preliminary discussions.

And so I'll go back, I can look through

Well, I'll share those.

And of course, they're always available.

Sometimes we do provide information that then, obviously, if something's a mistake in hindsight, I don't have a, we should point that out.

I just want to be careful when we're, if in the preliminary review, realize that we're setting the course that the applicant is going to follow.

So let's, we tend sometimes to be,

not get into the weeds and maybe we need to a little bit.

The other thing I just wanted to address and Ms.

Keller raised a good point.

This is a new building.

So in that application, zoning prevails.

There are some conditions in the ordinance addressing buildings that are in a design control district.

And I think the garage door down on Water Street is a perfect example of.

does zoning require because they're doing something to that building, require that they then have the entire elevation has openings that meet the code.

And there was actually some internal debate about that about how how the the intent of the ordinance and then the actual language of the ordinance.

So Carl, I can't remember what

because there's the rehabilitation of a building, but if there's a change of use of a building, there are some conditions in there.

I thought it was just that if you add onto a building or you change it, you don't have to retroactively change what existed.

And so it's where

where there's a

There's a fine line.

Obviously, a new building is a new building.

And rehabbing historic building is very clear.

But there's some gray area there that I don't know how to test it out.

And understandably so.

I mean, we could sit there and talk about what ifs until the cows come home.

And we have a lot going on just trying to apply this ordinance to what we're seeing.

I am concerned there is a currently a request to evaluate heights of buildings on the downtown.

I think it's the DX zoning, which covers more or less from the railroad tracks to just north of Market Street.

So and then there's the provision that allowed the BAR to the BAR can

relative to Hyth, specific to those buildings abutting the mall.

So that would be abutting the Brick Mall.

But then throughout that DX district, you also are reviewing things in there.

So there's another provision that covers, you know, outside of those, you know, properties abutting the mall.

some in my response and discussions internally, and this has been happening in the last two weeks.

As I repeatedly said, BAR's decision is not is appeal.

So if for whatever reason, you are reviewing a project and said

We would like that addition on the top of that building to step back 20 feet and cap it at X stories.

If an applicant did not like that outcome, they could appeal that so that tool exists as it's always existed.

The second thing I've said, and

You all will be hearing more about this in the coming months, but the BAR has approved some pretty tall buildings.

I mean, there's an unfortunately unfinished one on the Mall that's awfully tall that was approved by the BAR.

So I've tried to tell applicants over and over again that, you know, one, you can appeal if you don't like the BAR's decision, but two, the BAR's not afraid of height.

It's that transition from that historic face to when something new begins.

But I am concerned that the effort is being made to say, well, the BAR can't tell us how tall the building should be.

ultimately it's counsel to decide if the BAR can tell someone how tall the building may or may not be.

But that discussion is occurring and I think one of the things I'm most concerned about on the height of buildings and not just on the mall but all over the city is you know a 10, 12, 13 story building.

I suggested to we carefully weigh the expense for replacing the trees on the mall

if we're going to build buildings that don't allow them to get any sun.

given the intent of the comprehensive plan to build bigger, taller buildings closer to the sidewalk.

I think there's inherently going to be some collision that we have to resolve.

And it can't be, well, we'll follow the guidelines and then council can review it.

We need to, how do we adapt the guidelines in a way that

otherwise remove the ADC districts.

I mean, that's ultimately the intent is to, we don't want the BAR involved in this.

So just that's my two cents.

And I thank Ms.

Yes.

Do you want me to just, I've got the section open.

I can read the three things that.

So council actually made this change.

as they were approving the final zoning ordinance.

So the BAR conditions may require a reduction in height or massing consistent with the city's design guidelines and subject to the following limitations.

Along the downtown mall, the BAR made limit story height to within two stories of the prevailing story height of the block.

in all other areas subject to review, the BAR may reduce the allowed height by no more than two stories, and the BAR may require upper story step backs of up to 25 feet.

So did you catch that?

We were following.

and then the only other comment I was going to offer is I'm still not sure what to do about Ethos.

It's like become, it's become my nightmare in 2023.

The guideline said no EFAS.

What's the alternative?

Just be true, a true masonry stucco.

But Josea Mitchell, the chair of the Planning Commission, he deemed EFAS an ignoble material.

Because the entrance corridor review board has seen an awful lot of that.

It's got a bad rep from the 1990s Yeah, I think that's something that I do remind folks of

We can't require quality insulation.

I mean, I've seen masonry that's terrible.

We love brick buildings, but you can't make a mason do a phenomenal job.

So that's one of the issues with any product.

The next matter is this discussion about the

The Cafe Space Design Guidelines.

I did want to mention that Kate has to take a photograph of the BAR.

next week from the AIA chapter and they asked us for a high resolution photograph of the group.

So I wrote it on my hand so I wouldn't forget.

Sandy to the airport.

We were up in Northern Virginia, got up at four, go to take them to Dallas and I just drove home and I got to get up tomorrow and I told Brecht to make sure I get to the airport because somehow I think I'm going to go into work in just like a normal day.

But thank you, Mr. Gastamir for me to ride.

But I won't be available, but certainly Kate's in the office if anybody has any questions about things coming up.

So I want anything else that we needed was on our list.

Let me see if I can find

So we'll do the picture after the meeting.

Okay.

That was a joke.

I just want to load something on some of the images that, in fact, you all had even asked about so that I have them ready to go.

We can refer to them.

And for Mr. Timmerman, are you yielding the chair to Mr. Zehmer?

Appreciate it.

Okay, so I have, I found this, if you have questions about images, I can pull them up.

So the matter before you, Naxis, is not

It does require a formal action, if you will, but it is not a COA.

You all are not approving the revisions to the design guidelines.

We already have guidelines, and these are just updating them.

This is the result of the two work sessions we had about them.

I know we still need to figure out how to best package them for publication.

We'll figure that out.

But what's before you tonight is to make a recommendation to City Council.

My hope is that if you do make that recommendation, I can try to get on Council's agenda for either November 18th or December 2nd.

And I'm sure they will have questions.

But the goal is to have

these guidelines in whatever form they ultimately end up at in place at the beginning of the year so that then we can work with each of the cafe space, folks that are leasing a cafe space and there's no surprises.

March 1st is when the leases are renewed and

Yeah.

So to establish a document that says, this is your COA, moving forward, this is where, you know, what your furniture is, this is what your railing is, these are the things that you would like to have in there.

At the corner, yeah.

And it's not necessarily 42 separate businesses, but those are the spaces that are available.

So I did my best to capture the discussions that we've had.

I know there's likely some

I ran out of juice, Kate Let me try I realized I took my charger home, yay, okay

So I hand it off to you, Mr. Zehmer, to lead the charge.

We can answer questions.

We can make modifications if you guys want to adjust something.

All right, thank you.

So just to kind of recap how we got to tonight, I guess at last month's meeting, we started a discussion on essentially revising the design guidelines pertaining to the exterior cafe spaces, primarily on the downtown mall, but we also realized that it does include a few spaces on the corner, in the corner district.

and then we got, it was a good conversation last month and we realized we needed more time so we scheduled and held a work session on October 1st at City Hall in the NDS conference room wherein we continued the conversation and essentially came up with this chart spreadsheet.

Thank you to Jeff and Kate for their hard work on putting this together.

very helpful, which basically summarizes kind of the different elements of the mall, Captain Spaces summarizes what the current 2012 guidelines say and then kind of goes into our draft revisions.

We tried our best to try and kind of keep in mind that we, you know, we do not intend this to be overly onerous to the cafe leasers, leases, what's the right term?

Spellcheck wouldn't let me do leases.

Recognizing that there's, you know, a lot of folks that have invested money into what they have out there.

And so this is not necessarily intended to be a huge financial burden.

However,

We want to make sure that the mall is a nice space, has quality things out there.

And that also the intent is that this would be so the lease spaces, the leases are renewed on March 1st of every year.

And so that this would come into effect in March 1st, especially pertinent to new leaseholders.

There are a lot of things that we are grandfathering in.

again trying not to be overly onerous but the idea would be that sort of over time these design guidelines would get implemented across all cafe spaces as businesses come and go.

Is that a fair summary of how we got here?

And so I believe all these these recommended draft provisions were

circulated and handed out to all of the current cafe leaseholders.

So they were made aware of these proposed revisions and also presumably invited to come tonight.

I don't see too many here, but that's okay.

Before we invite the public to comment, I wanted to ask if anybody has any revisions or last minute

I'd like just to add a little context to what you've already provided just to let the public know and for the record that this has been a conversation that's been ongoing for several years.

and was a major component of the conversation of the downtown mall committee which brought together stakeholders from many different parts of the city including business owners, people who work on the mall, citizens, people who live here.

And it was pretty important, compelling conversation that really got to this essential truth is that we are stewards of a pretty remarkable place, both as citizens of Charlottesville and here as a board.

We have an incredible benefit of living near one of America's really truly remarkable urban landscapes, a designed landscape.

And it was the outcome of some foresight and some commitments from the city to pay for the design and construction of this space.

and so we've enjoyed this place through its almost 50 years.

It's remarkable in the way that it is a coming together of both public amenity and flourishing businesses.

There's something like over 200 businesses on the mall and side streets.

And we have probably been at our best when we know that the business and business activity and restaurant activity bring that vitality to them all.

And we've been at our best when we are able to balance that business activity with the public nature of this space.

And it was part of that conversation in the downtown mall committee that through the years, the spaces had begun to become overly privatized.

And so that means that they seem to belong more to the restaurants themselves than being participating in the overall intended design and public realm of the downtown mall.

and there was quite a bit of support for finding ways to peel that back and find a better balance between the individual business spaces and the public nature of the mall and I think we've had a really excellent conversation on that in this committee

and we couldn't have had it without an incredible contributions from staff doing the homework and very specific research and knowing every last little stanchion and planter that is on them all.

I don't know that we had been able to thank you publicly yet for that work, but I know that it's been an immense effort and really imperative to us doing our thing.

I also, when I looked at this spreadsheet, one thing that kind of had fallen off from the previous versions was similar to what Rick said, sort of a statement of significance, because as we were going through these, we kind of came back to a few kind of critical qualities.

So I drafted something really quickly.

We read on some things.

I tried to simplify what people would look at and say, what's it going to do to my space?

So I tried to make this worksheet the thing, the nuts and bolts, whereas then the guiding principles that you all developed.

And then Kate and I

No, that's fine.

I'm more cognizant of your time than anything.

We, you all had discussed some guiding principles, establishing them and then sort of using that as the filter for when you said, all right, let's talk about railings or furniture.

No, I can.

I just wanted to explain that.

It's here in our report.

What occurred?

Next, I can access the, I have to go around to get, oh, I thought you wanted it up there.

Let me just finish this sharing.

And so what was also realized when we talked on October 1st was that we're talking about cafe spaces

and

I don't know why I wrote four-mall, but the downtown mall is individually listed on the Virginia Landmarks Register and the National Register Historic Places.

The second, the corner is within the VLR National Register listed Rugby Road University Corner Historic District.

So that's establishing that both are

within districts, certainly the mall is individually listed.

The third, the brick paved mall and the sidewalks at the corner are city owned and important public spaces.

Three, least cafe spaces are not permanent.

That is, all elements, furniture, railing, planters, et cetera, should be portable and easily moved manually.

Next bullet, within a cafe space, the furniture, elements and materials should be compatible.

The next principle, materials must be durable, high quality, preference for metal, no plastic.

The other next was prioritized pedestrian experience such that the size and placement of railings, furniture, planters, plantings, and other elements should not create visual barriers.

Next was for unleashed cafe spaces, or when leased, but not used for prolonged periods, all elements, furniture, railings, planters, et cetera, should be removed from the public right of way.

Then specific to the mall, elements of the cafe spaces must respect the design intent of the mall.

I added, parenthetically, the mall is Charlottesville's living room.

to maintain the sight lines on the mall by minimizing visual obstructions within cafe spaces.

Third, the fountains should be accessible with clear space on all sides.

And fourth, placement of cafe elements on the mall should avoid and not cause damage to the mall trees.

So those were the principles as you all had them.

Perfect.

And I will say we also internally had the discussion about grandfathered and nonconforming.

And it got to where I said,

I know there are legal terms for it, but we know what it means.

And so in that context, we'll use it.

But when this goes to council, I can sit down with the attorneys and say, how would you like me to refer to these?

So I'll get that squared away.

Thank you, Jeff.

Appreciate it.

Hello again, Genevieve Keller.

I'm primarily speaking for myself at this moment, like Jeff and Breck.

I was a member of the downtown committee, downtown mall committee, and we were overwhelmingly in favor of retaining the cafes, even though they might be technically an intrusion into the helper and design concept.

We all felt that they add to the

Not only to the economic vitality of the space in our city, but to the experience, and they've over time achieved significance in their own right.

None of us could imagine the downtown mall without the cafes.

That said, I'd kind of like to invoke an earlier era.

I was a member of the original downtown board of architectural review, and I guess some of you might remember that, and others of you might not even know that there ever was one.

because before that there was a board of architectural review and then when the city decided that it needed to review primarily the mall but also buildings adjacent to it felt that it would be more expeditious and better accepted if there was a singular board for that that met in the mornings it was very oriented towards businesses so I was an original member of that occurred to me the other day there are only three of us left alive Mike Bednar and Doug Gilpin and I

but we were very capably led for the two terms that had stayed in existence by architect Jack Reinhart, now deceased but Jack had a deep history with the downtown mall and was a modernist but also working somewhat in a postmodern vein and he really had an affinity for what was happening on the mall his family had owned warehouses on South Street his family was also the developer of the National Bank Building

The Skyscraper

What are we going to do with this?

How are we going to have these chains and other barriers to conform to the ABC laws?

But Jack always reminded us that it really needed to be a simple, elegant, modern space that was consistent with the Halpern design.

And so we were always really trying to take things away rather than

adding things.

And so I would just say to you today, try to invoke the spirit of Jack Reinhardt and strip these back to their essence so that they're economically viable and that the food is what is showcased.

If the owners want to decorate their tables, yes, but they really shouldn't be doing things to call it individual attention and competing with the overall

Unity of the Mall as it was designed and expanded over the years because, as Jeff has said, and Breck, and I think Jack Will and his, James, sorry, knew your dad, in his statement of significance, what an important space this is and I would say defer to Breck when you need to because he said some great things in the last meeting.

It is a landscape and one of the people who

developed the first guidance documents for the National Park Service on how to evaluate and nominate design landscapes to the National Register.

And that's sort of also at the same time period as the mall was developed.

So it's kind of all of one piece.

And my final thing, which I was talking to Kate on the phone about, is I think that this will be much more acceptable to counsel.

if you can make references to the comp plan and you're not just banning plastic flowers, but you're doing that because it's consistent with our sustainability philosophy in the city.

It's compatible with climate action.

All of those other goals of the city can be interpreted and why you have these rules for the downtown mall and the cafe spaces.

Thank you very much.

So do we want to work with anything more?

Oh, sorry, yeah.

Remy, is there anyone online?

Thanks.

I have some minor things.

Sure.

Yeah, I do too.

Are you going to go long?

No.

Let me see.

Sorry, I thought I had this.

The temporary decorations.

Are lights included as not permanent temporary for holidays and special events?

Sorry.

For temporary decorations, is that a time when someone could put up holiday lights?

So lights are lights.

And so that would then, we would say, what's under lights?

OK.

And no holiday lights.

Um, are they what's allowed by lights?

Yeah, policy.

Someone to do that for someone to do that on tabletop.

Yeah, that pretty much.

Yeah, it's not.

Now,

This is where I think I need to

The staff report in all of this is also primarily prepping for how to present this to council.

So there's a lot in the staff report.

Kate and I played around like, oh, what if we did this?

All right.

Well, if someone wanted to do that, they could request that from the BAR.

So the intent of these guidelines, even as they were originally written, was to allow staff to work with the cafe operators.

What do you want to do?

Yep.

Check, check, check.

Do it.

If someone wants to do something else, they can certainly request a BAR review.

I looked at and it goes through discussion you all had is, you know, try to be, you know, not go in and just take the pull the rug out from everybody.

But you haven't done that.

And and we're really addressing some things.

It's just

and

Kear, they can ask the BAR.

And I think also if someone wants to, you know, come in and say, well, did you mean this by that?

And I mean, there's no way to write design guidelines that say specifically this, specifically not that.

So the default is if someone wants to debate what the meaning of, I don't know what Kate and I were

We talked about, do we call it a barrel?

Do we call it a cask?

Is it a whiskey barrel or a whiskey cask or a wine cask?

And what does full mean?

If it's full, does that mean there's stuff in it?

And we laughed and then said, if someone wants to debate what that precision of something in this is, we take it to the BAR.

So I just wanted to be clear about that, where, yes, there's clearly going to be some what abouts.

And if I'm not comfortable

But what you presented us, so I'm clear they would have to come to the BAR if they wanted to put up holiday lights for a week or so.

According to this.

I remember the discussion correctly from a couple weeks ago.

We talked about that, and I think the sentiment was that they would, if they wanted to do holiday decorations, it was more on the front of their business building rather than the cafe space.

Just want to make sure.

Well, I just want to clarify for the public that we're not seeing no Christmas lights ever.

You got a typo for shelves, so under service equipment, service furniture and equipment over on dimensions, typo on shelves.

It seems to me, if the cabinet, because a cabinet to me means it's got closed sides, if it's under three feet,

It seems like it could have doors, but just tossing that out there, it's not going to fall on that sword.

Well, the intent there was that the mall not become a place where people are storing things.

The tall closet, I think that's at Hamilton's.

And that's clear on this.

Yeah, that's staying, but that, you know, and I, you know, someone asked me, well, you know, where do we put our, you know, glasses in silverware?

I'd say, well, I hope it's going inside and getting washed.

You know, it's got to go in and come back out anyway.

The way I'm reading this is you're going to have a three-foot tall cabinet that has three sides or closed, the front's open.

And if that's what we're saying, I'm good.

I just want to make sure that's what we're saying.

To me, not having doors means stuff doesn't get stored there.

But I... The shelves are open.

They talk about the cabinets.

But then it says cabinet.

Go left one box.

Shelves are open and cabinets are different from shelves.

Oh, I see what you're saying.

Yeah.

I'm not going to fall on my sword for it, but it just seems like it's a funny thing to me.

And the other thing was just, I don't

You've got some very specific dimensions for chairs and bar counters.

What I was trying to get at there is there are some general standards to chairs, heights, and just say, all right, we'll know we're at least having, we're not going to get lifeguard stand chairs.

But it's

Again, we're going to have to, I mean, we have to rely.

There's got to be some reasonableness to this.

And I'm not going to say those are 15 and a half inch high chairs.

I don't allow them.

But it's just to sort of, if someone comes in and says, well, I want to use all these, you know, five foot chairs that people have to climb up and get into.

That's not a standard chair.

I mean, we can eliminate dimensions if you wish.

Well, that's, I do agree with you on cabinets.

I mean, they don't cabinets.

Don't allow cabinets.

Right.

Right.

Isn't the point that they simply not be permanent?

Yeah.

I guess what I'm kind of saying is it's a little, to me, it's unclear.

Yeah, I think so.

Yeah.

So if we just remove the line cabinets, no doors or closed storage.

I understand.

Strike the words, cabinets, colon, no doors or closed storage.

Sorry, I just, I do this to, because at some point, this is going to come up, or it's like the zoning code.

Just trying to figure out what.

Damn, it's something with the zoning code.

So what I've heard is to eliminate the

My first question is, what if someone does a bar at 36 inches, which I think is what's at its house?

Also, what's maximum table or counter height 8 feet?

Oh, the length.

It does say length.

Okay, sorry.

I was, I'm getting tired.

We ended up at eight, yeah.

You know, and that's, I mean, we are, you know, hoping to, we can't, you know, completely eliminate things, but we don't want panels under there.

So can I talk about tablecloths now?

I thought we had just agreed to get rid of tablecloths completely.

And I thought we felt the same thing about seat cushions, but I feel a little bit less strident about that.

But I don't think there's any restaurant on the downtown mall that has tablecloths.

Fleury might have it.

They're not on the mall.

They might be subject to cafe space, but they're under that COA anyway.

So God knows.

I don't know why we're legislating something.

First of all, it was never

It was never enforced because there are no tablecloths.

I don't think there are many plastic tablecloths, so I don't know why this is still in here.

And I think what Jenny said and what Breck has said, we would rather legislate the perimeters and

The View and the Landscape Down the Mall, but what goes on on tables, as long as it's taken up at night, is less of our concern, because each of them are going to have different standards, different etiquette, you know, not etiquette, aesthetic, you know, matching their food, matching their prices, whatever.

So I don't even know why tablecloths are still in there.

In seat cushions, I don't, I mean maybe

Most seat cushions that are outside are not going to be cloth.

They're actually going to be a plastic material.

Yeah, that was just the final comment that you all said is cloth is preferred.

But in some ways, it's an irrelevant line in this whole thing because I'm not just saying, yeah, if you do it, make it cloth.

But that's not something I'm

It's up to you all.

So I guess you're suggesting we change allow from yes to no.

I just say get rid of the whole thing.

Just saying currently the guidelines allow them and that they're clothed.

So my question is,

Do we allow tablecloths?

Why do we care if they're removed at night?

They'll end up to be somebody's pillow.

Well, I'm not going to strike it because I want

Council to see that there was a provision and you know that there's there's nothing there now but yes they are allowed but then there are no requirements associated with them correct and the having cloth is preferred in there is not me telling someone you take this down your

I think that's fine.

I mean, I don't know why it can't be deleted.

Well, because you're modifying your revising.

Yeah, that stays.

So we're trying to show counsel.

You mean retain the column on the left that shows the current existing?

I'm still uncertain how to package it for them, but I will make it clear to them that the current guidelines address table plots and see questions.

Yeah, that's a good point.

If it's in the current guidelines, we have to show what we're doing.

How about then no preference on materials?

I crossed out cloth as preferred and crossed out compatible with other elements.

I haven't talked to any of them.

They are aware that the current spaces as laid out interfere with

two of the founds at least.

They are aware that the reason some of the trees are injured on the mall is because of propane heaters that people put them against the tree and now we have to cut a tree down.

So they are aware of some circumstances, sort of the bigger picture of the mall, they have to evaluate some things, but they are not

It's not on their radar to, you know, what kind of lights or what kind of chairs and tables.

Yes.

Well, we're required to.

It's just been a

We've got a whole lot more we're going to be reviewing over the next year.

But that's part of your charge from council in the ordinance to periodically review the design guidelines and recommend updates.

And working with

My colleagues in zoning, it seemed we needed to tackle some things on the mall, so I elevate it to importance, and that's why it's here now.

issues.

One of the principles are that these things are, they can be moved.

So if the city has to go in and fix a water pipe, we don't have to bring in a forklift to move things, that these are easily moved.

So I thought that a 30 inches and awfully wide planter, and it's an awful lot of, it becomes a heavy pot.

We notified all the cafe owners or the cafe operators that this was going on.

We gave the web page where all of this would be linked.

Yes.

Yeah, I mean, I'm sure there'll be, internally, it's like, you know, someone would say, what about this?

What about that?

I said, well, please tell me how, you know, we're not changing the rails, not changing the furniture and, you know, not letting someone put artificial

Plants on the railing, tell me how that's absolutely critical to the operation of a business.

So I think these are extremely reasonable.

On the planters, are there planters that are 30 inches

Right, but those are out.

That's right.

There definitely are.

Some of them would not be allowable for other provisions in here, whether they're either outside of the current space or they're too tall.

Personally, I think I'm fine.

And in conflict with the zoning ordinance, not your ordinance, not your guidelines.

Your guidelines aren't relevant there.

I would ask, looking at the list of things that would not be continued, I did note the half barrel planters and I came down on feed trough planters.

What was the word you found?

There was some technical term for Hannibal Trough that I didn't know about.

So I noted that because I get the plants in the next line.

And I also noted because I saw on them all there are some planters that are up on

and so on.

not everyone, but there was not consensus on I had proposed that plant heights not be, I don't know, I think it was four foot, four foot six above the mall floor so as to not create a hedge.

where you came down on that was just simply preferably not taller than five feet and that they cannot create the image of a hedge and you referred to some of the taller plants that are not solid.

I still think that's going to be a problem but if at the very least

Correct.

I think that we need to keep in mind these are still guidelines.

They're not regulations or...

Law per se.

I'm just going to add something because I think it comes up in relative to the lighting as well.

Part of this is retaining the design integrity of the mall design, but part of it is also allowing the city to still have a voice in setting some of the aesthetic consistency along the mall.

So for instance, with planting, the city has planters that are way bigger than that, but they are part of a consistent design.

The trees are incorporated in that, and the same goes for lighting.

Now, if it helps, then the staff report was really my first draft of what was going to have to go to council.

So I laid out in order what the ordinance says about Chapter 28 talks about the cafe spaces and sidewalks and what are the rules by that ordinance.

the Board of Architectural Review because of a lease cafe space within a ADC district then the design elements of that space fall under your purview.

And then we have the city's comprehensive plan which in three of the goals specifically refers to the downtown mall and in fact

I'll read from strategy 6.1, study how downtown law could be more welcoming and inclusive for people of all social, cultural, racial, ethnic and economic backgrounds and take action on the findings.

So, and they say continue to support and maintain the downtown mall as not only the economic and cultural hub of the city, but as a historic central place that encourages diversity through activities, residences, goods and services.

So the comprehensive plan

recognized the importance of that public space.

Then next I went to the Secretary's Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties and specifically as it relates to rehabilitation or not changing or recreating a historic district and some

precise language in there about retaining, preserving landscape features that are important in defining the overall historic character of the setting.

And finally, I inserted some comments from the National Register nomination.

I should say the National Register listing, including the statement of integrity and the statement of significance about them all.

And I understand that there are the commercial interests of

These guidelines may or may not do, but your charge as the BAR is evaluating how this impacts this historic space.

So, and I think what we've discussed here and your principles are anchored in the comprehensive plan.

They're anchored in secretary standards and they respect the significance of the downtown mall.

So I think you've achieved that.

and but I'm going to have to also express that to council, I know.

So I'm hoping one of you will be available to go with me.

But if we just want to view this as what can we let the restaurants do, then turn this over and not recommend anything.

Your charge is looking at this through the lens of this is a historic landscape that has been individually listed and recognized.

Does council have a committee that they will refer this to?

We're in.

Per City Code, Chapter 34, Section 5.1.5.c.1.

The BAR will develop and recommend to city council for its approval design guidelines for the city's ADC districts.

And the BAR must develop the guidelines after seeking input from business and property owners in the various districts.

Guidelines developed by the BAR will become effective upon approval by city council, and thereafter will have the status of interpretive regulations.

So you're fulfilling your, you get a smiley face sticker for fulfilling that job.

And as I said, we've talked the business, the cafe folks, we circulated this.

I can't make them all for comment, but we are certainly, and we're also going to contact them about when this goes on Council's agenda.

I contemplated a

and so on, and so on.

show clearly the dimensions of that space.

And now someone could lease the space but move their railing in five feet and put planters out there.

And I would defer that to the zoning folks, although they view it as this is your enclosure and things should occur within the enclosure.

But I think what we're seeing right now is people putting things

beyond the least space.

But no, there's no, I mean, we've talked about possibly geo-referencing.

I mean, there's ways to do it.

But our job isn't to say your cafe space, you know, north 27 feet, you know, three degrees.

Ours is to say what you put into that least space.

Here are the guidelines for its design elements.

The question I did have for you all is

The Bijou and has its unique furniture and I think its Fitzroy has that composite material.

I specifically cited them as those stay and if they need to replace a chair, they can replace it in kind.

Where things change on them all is when

We're already seeing it.

Someone sells the business or sells the property.

And as I would apply this, it would be if someone bought Bijou and they're a new owner,

and so on.

So it's not like, oh, as long as that space is a cafe space used by someone, this furniture can be used forever.

It's that when those changes occur

I think these guidelines get implemented when there's a new lease granted to a new lease, whatever.

But it doesn't mean that next year, when Bijou, you know, we go back and say, you guys doing the same thing, I go, ah, now this is the year you got to change to black metal.

It's a new occupant.

And the new occupant could come and say, we'd like to keep the old furniture and we could decide.

That's right.

That's right.

Because, you know, otherwise, the furniture is city property and you're leasing that too.

Are we ready for a motion?

I'd love to make a motion.

We all help me remember that.

I move to recommend City Council approve these proposed changes and updates to the architectural design control district design guidelines regarding outdoor cafes including the guidelines for catenary lights and the guiding principles for outdoor cafes.

I further move to recommend that Council concur with the BAR's recommendations regarding grandfathered and or non-conforming elements of existing cafes.

With the following changes to the chart that we have been using today,

One is that on the table cloth seat cushions line that we keep the line but remove the cloth as preferred as the material and remove it compatible with other elements of the cafe in the design column

On the planters section, we will keep them as a maximum size of 30 inches wide and 36 inches height and we would like to make certain that oversized planters are not grandfathered.

Mr. Gestinger doing here.

Second?

Second.

I'm going to give it to Roger.

Can I get one clarification before you vote?

I can't find my copy up there.

So I'm not going to change anything.

I just want to make sure I'm just in full disclosure here.

So there were some questions about the height of the poles at the last meeting.

I simply changed that that the poles are going to be a sufficient height that at the low point that seven feet is maintained.

We were, had originally used the word strings, light strings, and I know that string lights connotate the Christmas lights.

So I tried to just say the light cable.

So I think nothing's changed, but it's just sort of making clear what we're talking about.

And then the

Yeah, about the straightness of the poles.

And so I mean, I had always been in there, but that they'd be maintained straight.

So someone out there bent and twisted.

And so that's in there.

But I didn't change anything significantly other than just removing that that's your whole records.

So this was the motion made by Mr. Gestinger and a second by Mr. Birle.

I will call it the vote.

Mr. Bailey.

Yes.

Ms.

Mr. Timmerman.

Yes.

Mr. Schwarz.

Yes.

Mr. Birle.

Yes.

Mr. Gestinger.

Yes.

Mr. Rosenthal.

Yes.

Thank you all and thank you for your patience.

It's just the tip of the iceberg.

We do have to

I mean, understandably, but I am being asked by members of council when are you all going to update the design guidelines?

And I think primarily that's, you know, some of the to do with how do they comport with the zoning.

So I mentioned at our last meeting, I think,

that I had a conversation with one of the council members who thought that they would support funding hiring a consultant to help us through that process.

I know that you feel strongly that we slash the larger we, Charlottesville, should have say in how the neighborhoods are defined and their characteristics, which I agree with, but I also think that that consultant could help us with that.

We have funding.

I have a chunk, but I also have to do the entrance corridor update, and then each of the historic conservation districts.

I mean, I don't disagree with you, but I think we tried a couple different ways and didn't get there, and there are nuance fault.

That's the result.

I just want to make sure

You know, you hire a consultant and they just take what they just did for whatever, Austin, Texas, and just do, you know, word search, replace Austin for Charlottesville.

So, but... Mike, it's a really good stucco section.

Yeah.

I would just like to issue a word of caution.

The consultant goes out through procurement.

and you've got a form-based color consultant instead of a cultural resource that is for a preservation consultant.

And I would think that there would be a large sentiment towards doing that.

So if you do get a consultant, you really need to specify that the primary consultant

and challenged the credentials of the team doing rezoning rewrite because there were no historic resource professionals on that team and I was told well this person has worked in a historic district and this person has done redevelopment in historic districts but there was no one who was advocating for the issues that you deal with every day and that's why we have what we have and that's why we didn't get those things resolved

any competing issues during that process?

And I can just not assure you, if you've got a form-based code consultant, it will be resolved on their side and not on the history of research side.

No, thank you for that.

That's a good point.

I think we can try to control that, at least in the initial RFP and RFQ process.

If we will, we can have a request for qualifications before we even issue an RFP.

I would think, I hope that might be one way to help you.

That's right.

22 years ago, I believe.

Right?

Are they still around?

They are.

And a number of other people.

I mean, I used to crank these out and they became pretty boilerplate.

So I think that's where Jeff is right.

I think James was also thinking that at least a consultant could do

You're going to need some help.

I don't think we need to rewrite the guidelines.

I think we need to revise the guidelines.

That's all we're charged with is that we're required to revise them.

I've been toying with the idea of a dream team would be higher former BAR members who are familiar with what, you know, where we've had issues and not and, you know, get some input that way, but I'll think about that in November.

Well, except for Mr. Gastinger.

We'll have all of our notes from past.

And I think I mentioned to you, I talked to Paul Josie about how can we model some of these heights relative to trees.

There's a lot of steps here.

And I think some of that is because it's where I feel a need to illustrate to counsel what this ordinance will do in some places just so they can see it.

But it may not necessarily be

My Responsibility.

That's where one of the questions lies, is it for me to say, hey, this is what it's going to look like, what you have proposed?

There seems to be all this fear about our trees in our downtown mall with the building heights.

Again, the code says we can limit the height to within two stories of the prevailing height, and then we can also ask for a 25-foot step back.

So I think we're downtown on the Mall.

Until it's appealed and or until it's revised as being explored.

Wait me until it's appealed and say that again.

Well, you all can approve a COA that

has the step back.

But someone can take it to council and say, I don't like what they do.

Yeah.

Well, I'm just offering that the BAR's purview is not absolute in relative to the height.

And I don't think we, I feel like we need to illustrate that.

But yes, there are people who are asking.

Currently council is letting us.

Do I hear motion to adjourn?