City Council Meeting   10/7/2024

Do we need Councilor Payne before we can start with the reports or can we go ahead and begin?

I'll record his time when he comes in.

Do you want to call a roll, I guess?

Or if you call to order and then I'll.

Thomas, will you please call the roll?

Vice Mayor Pinkston.

Here.

Councillor Snook.

Here.

And Mayor Wade is absent today.

So is there a motion to approve or amend the agenda?

I move approval of the agenda as presented.

And then finally, the city council business meeting will begin at 6.30.

So I guess our first presentation is up with Mr. Garland Williams on the Charlottesville area transit dashboard.

Remy, if you want to pull up the link for me, I don't have, I'm probably going to have to ask you to run the show for me before I'm behind the scenes.

Oh, you're doing something else, okay.

20 boardings and it'll only show like 19 because two people got off and it's really sensitive but it may not have picked up both people getting off the bus at the same time.

So there's some sensor that is detecting it?

Yes, so it's rare that the numbers don't equal but there are times where the number may not actually be 100% equal.

Sorry.

We will be adding more information as we get more information and it will basically change every three to four months.

In other words, they come to the stop and then they just keep on going versus...

That's what it means.

Stay in there and hang it out until then.

That is in the schedule adjustments that we're making.

So does it mean to oversimplify something that I'm sure is very complicated, but is it a matter of telling drivers, hey, just pace yourself kind of thing, or is it more complicated?

to address some of the earlys and some of the late arrivals.

Is this Tableau system that this works on?

This is just a public interface so the public can see this, but behind the scenes there's other software that we're using.

is less so

Yes, ma'am?

What's the best way for people to submit feedback?

There's a cat web address that allows them to basically give us feedback.

Does that mean these changes haven't been implemented yet or they have been and you're just, people just have to notice it?

That was what we've been telling everybody.

OK, great.

And then for folks who are... But I want you to understand, we're putting pressure on them to try to make sure we get to the 26th, because that's what we told everybody.

deciding to ride the bus for the first time, what is the best app that they should use for up to date info?

So we're going to be over the probably next three, four months really looking at the functionality of what we have and probably going to get an RFP to get a new system put in place over the next year.

Does the University use Translock?

Actually, Nelson Nagar does our scheduling for us right now because we don't have a scheduling department.

Yeah, and that was my only other question which sounds like you answered is whether this effort could help it lead into an improvement from the app because we definitely hear fairly regularly the app is a little outdated, not user-friendly, and can be inaccurate sometimes.

Thank you.

I will say I am very proud that they chose to take that moment to acknowledge the work that CAT has been doing on this matter.

So thank you very much for the recognition.

All right.

Mr. Williams, how are you tonight?

Is this working?

Yes.

Did I get that acronym right?

Yes.

and their on hand to answer any questions regarding the memo or draft ordinance that was attached to this presentation.

Questions?

And two, if so, does it need to be created in a certain way to allow it to have that bonding ability?

Staff hasn't gotten to a final presentation of what the result of that inquiry is.

Issuing bonds immediately that that would be a year or two three down the road We just want to make sure that we establish it in such a way that we're not foreclosing on the ability to do that either as an independent body in conjunction with somebody else or otherwise

I'll just say I would, you know, if there's a way for it to have bonding capacity or bonding ability, that would seem important long term because it would, I think, significantly improve its fiscal ability to realistically acquire land and kind of leverage its portfolio to the maximum extent.

I would say, you know, there's language in the enabling legislation about bonding, but what the assigned attorney is doing is looking at how it applies to say if you went the route of an authority or a route of nonprofit corporation, or compared to naming a nonprofit or partnership, what does the bonding capacities of each of those options look like we haven't gotten that report back yet?

So what you all are proposing is of the three options, which option?

Hack has proposed the nonprofit corporation, so I think that was the third option I named.

So create a new entity like PHA Plus or something like that?

But it doesn't necessarily have to be a PHA model or a community development corporation.

501C.

It'll be a standalone entity.

Uh-huh.

Have I framed that fairly?

And help me understand, so the advantages of this versus just using the CRHA to kind of go ahead and do this, who already is kind of doing this work, what's the

And I think we need more time to speak to that specifically.

Yeah, if you don't mind.

Managed the operations of the entity, but the idea that they that entity could move quickly And if a if an opportunity came up to have if there's a strike fund available to be able to pursue a piece of land in rapid form Was contemplated That's the the general nature of the dialogue back and forth.

Thank you for that So that is not the same thing as an authority

Also, the question of whether under this legislation the statute facilitates that or not, I think that's the nature of this conversation that the city attorneys to weigh in on.

When you say potentially a single person with support from city staff, what kind of support are you imagining?

But that has not been fleshed out or detailed.

Is that the idea?

The one lingering question that remained is the one that was referenced just a moment ago, which is around the potential bonding authority of that entity.

Okay.

A legitimate question would be if it's going to be a separate nonprofit entity, but it's still going to rely heavily on city staff in order to function, what were the reasons that led you to say that is still a better option than just having it be an authority that has like a closer direct connection to the city?

Does that respond to your question?

I think capacity is not always going to be the folks that were able to manage that and so having it as a separate entity guarantees that kind of agility regardless of who's up here and on staff.

Does that respond to your question?

Yeah.

holding things for a later use by a nonprofit who identified it, giving the relief upfront to the other players to let them not scramble, but move with deliberate.

No.

I have it off the top of my head.

We may need some expertise for this organization, so we sort of kept that kind of open.

And is there any relationship with the community land trust?

Again, because the community land trust might be a partner, a development partner, it would be independent from that.

So potentially a relationship, but not a management relationship?

appointment process, in this particular case it would have to be city council by statute.

And the statute is crystal clear on non-self-dealing too, so it would be self-defeating for, for example, sunshine to sit on that board because that would essentially foreclose any option for PHA or the land trust, or he'd constantly be saying, I mean, recuse myself here.

But there would be a potential to work collaboratively.

Fundamentally, that is the intention.

What are the criteria for a purchase that would make it something that the land bank would want to acquire and not let someone on the private market who might redevelop it

work more quickly and ideally do so with taking on the risk of that particular site is hugely beneficial from my perspective as a nonprofit developer.

And then there would be a process for that with RFPing for it.

So just to reflect back on the experience we all went through recently with the acquisition of the Carlton Trailer Park, if the land bank had been an entity that existed at that point, honestly, that would have been the natural potential entity to consider the acquisition, whether we ultimately would have decided that in our collaborative effort, looking at looking at how to do it well, I'm not sure, but it certainly would have been contemplated as an ideal solution.

Thank you.

So it doesn't seem to me a wise idea if it's going to function to appoint a board where a quorum could very easily not be appointed for over a year.

We would need to pursue a pretty robust recruitment program to ensure that there would be folks ready and willing to participate, but we took that more broadly and started dialoguing with staff about the possibility of amending or growing our overall recruitment process city-wide for boards and commissions to facilitate those vacancies getting filled with folks who are willing and able to meet.

Three people are on the board, and those are the people who make all the decisions, and that's also not very, you know, helpful.

We are working on a board analysis right now, right?

Yeah.

I mean, it's going to be months, though.

As a board, as a board, as a board.

I know we don't have a rubric for that yet, but is there a situation where CRHA and the land bank would both be going for the same property and how does that shake out?

The other path, is that clear?

So what that sounded like is the land bank says I want this property and then if anyone else wants it you have to go through us first.

Let me do the other scenario next and see if that helps clarify.

the CRHA tries to get it from land bank?

not wanting the land bank to be able to operate independently and have it to be a fair process for adjudicating what happens on that site while also allowing for non-profit to have sites they want to do, they want to work on but they don't quite have the capital or the ability to close on it to partner with the land bank without losing it, so to speak.

It would be there to

So if CRHA says, I want to buy this house, Land Bank isn't going to say, well, we do too.

Can you snag it for me?

But if there is the liquidity available, then Lane Banks is not standing in the way.

The land bank could sell it back to the CRHA at the same price plus expenses or they hold it or lease hold it or whatever, but it would not be kind of available as a resource, like to bridge a gap if needed, but otherwise CRHA could just go ahead and buy it.

And then they, everyone, you know, honestly, that was a very interesting and great process.

It's just not building an affordable house.

Would it ever be like we are building this site over here with market rates so we can fund this site over here at a deeper lower AMI?

Another scenario that I would throw out there is what if a site really is ideally a mixed use developments where ground floor retail or commercial and you don't want to prohibit the land bank from being able to pursue that kind of development even though affordable housing will still be its primary.

Thank you.

It'd be an initial sort of

So it's going to work best when there's a combination.

So they're cobbling together the financing is going to be critically important, but I'm pretty optimistic that we can get a sizeable chunk of money to do stuff here with only a portion of it having to come from the city coffers.

You've done some work with it.

But I'm going to have Mr. Freese speak first on anything that he wanted to add since this is really in his lane and then I will jump into his lane.

So I'm going to ask Sunshine and Phil to come back to the microphones.

So the indication is that a single dedicated staff person is what you would imagine at some point

So I'm not sure I've got a straight answer to that question.

Transactions.

And I think a dedicated FTE, even if it's not transactional in the beginning, is going to be necessary to kind of really make that happen in short form.

I do have some experience with cat wrangling

And we have to be able to balance all of that.

That's not to say every one of those is the right, we would pull the trigger if we had the land bank in that moment, but the evaluation of those sites is relatively consistent on a near daily basis or maybe not daily, a few a week.

The evaluation of these potential... I think they have to.

And, you know, with perhaps GIS support or whatever from the city, but that role of a first staff person, that person has to be able to stand up the nonprofit, but they also have to have some real estate experience to understand how to be able to, whatever rubric gets developed with that board, to be able to make recommendations to the board in rapid form.

I mean, I opened my mouth and said, hey, we could have 100 transactions a year, and everyone looked at me like I was crazy, more so than usual.

you're offering that the land bank could be that repository for inquiries?

I think that's a relatively heavy lift to develop that so I don't think that's short term but I think that could be a really intriguing opportunity for growth of that aspect in the future.

Brian Pinkston, Juandiego

I don't come into this thinking there must be only one way to structure it but I do think there's potential value added there especially if we're not going to pursue you know a land strike fund or revolving loan fund which the city on its own couldn't do but maybe we could do that if there was private capital or a large university that decided to seed it with you know an initial investment or something like that Michael you better be for this because you've been talking about for as long as I did on council I think we should consider a land bank

So I think we have to, yes, pursue dedicated affordable housing interventions and also be excited about private development that contributes to our overall housing supply.

Whether we've got a plan at all and I hope that if we're going to develop this sort of a land bank that we have certainly a clearer idea than I have right now of how it would all work.

But in terms of the concept itself and is it being a possible tool and that kind of thing, you don't have any objections to it?

That's why I say qualified, yes.

Okay, cool.

Good.

Mr. City Manager, for you to take next steps with a hack or what do you need from us now?

We have the legal questions that are probably the biggest questions that still have to be asked in regards to the bonding capacity and whatever read we get in regards to if it were a standalone non-profit organization, does that prohibit inhibiting?

Mr. Payne, did you get that?

Thank you all.

I know it's been a lot.

Yeah, I have it open.

If you could please read the closed session motion, closed meeting motion.

Well, it is loading.

You find it?

Under Virginia Code, Section 2.2-3711A3, for discussion, consideration of the disposition of two different publicly held real properties, where discussion in an open meeting would adversely affect the bargaining position or negotiating strategy of the public body.

Councillor Payne, could you please read us out of closed session?

I move that this council certify by recorded vote that to the best of each council member's knowledge only public business matters lawfully exempted from the open meeting requirements of the Virginia Freedom Information Act and identified in the motion convening the closed session were heard, discussed, or considered in the closed session.

All right, thank you.

We will begin our meeting tonight with a moment of silence.

Okay, are there any announcements?

and so we had a little proclamation in Beth's honor and thanking her for her many years of service to not only the council but to the community as well.

Great, thank you.

or you can just Google Charlottesville Boards and Commissions.

in the incident and I hope I speak on behalf of all of us up here that we were heartbroken to learn of that and that we are going to try to do what we can to continue making improvements to bike pedestrian infrastructure in this city.

Okay, great.

Peter, come on up.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, Miss Walker.

Hi.

That's part of the discussion.

Eileen Bartels

Thank you.

Radeli Denise Banks.

Do you want to speak sooner and take your name off later?

I would like to combine the two times, please.

You can have one slot for three minutes, so it's fine to go ahead.

Okay, I do pay tax though.

Thank you, sir.

And if y'all ain't gonna push, we're a person as a community.

Thank you, sir.

Yeah, I know it.

Thank you.

Tyler Miller.

And I think that using the last minute of my time to sit here and in silence for a mamala samai,

Thank you Mr. Bill Emory

Thank you.

Francis Allen.

Thank you.

Will you come up please, give your name and where you live.

Thank you.

And I am reading a statement on behalf of livable sea bill.

And would you give us your name?

We appreciate the work that has been going into this area and look forward to supporting future efforts.

Yes, sir.

Thank you.

Yes, sir.

I reside at 112 West Morgan Street, Charlottesville, Virginia.

Regardless, Shannon, you've been called out in public on TV.

I'm sorry, it's not acceptable to attack people.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Mo Vandesampel, I live at 608 Cabell Avenue.

Thank you.

With respect to the consent agenda, Ms.

Thomas, could you please read the consent agenda?

10, Resolution for Golf Maintenance, Equipment Replacement, 11, Resolution Appropriating Funds for the Carlton Mobile Home Park, $379,000, and this should have been one of two readings.

Is there a motion to adopt the consent agenda?

I'll move to adopt the consent agenda.

Is there a second?

Second.

Four to zero, the motion passes.

Yes, sir.

I've asked Deputy Freeze to highlight some of the city's ongoing efforts to prioritize bike and pedestrian safety throughout the city, and I remain committed to getting our systems right so we can deliver on keeping our community safe, whether by foot, by bike, or by car.

bike pedestrian safety on improving our transit system and overall looking at our transportation system to be safe and efficient.

Is it the case that we're missing traffic engineer right now?

We are actively recruiting to fill that position.

So if you, you know, proportion it down relative, then you'd still have the same momentum.

So I just wanted to be able to express that that is that's where the focus is and my commitment is to get it right Thank you.

Take to do an outside contracting service in the meantime or what's the what's the balance there?

We haven't really, we haven't reached a conclusion of that conversation at this point in time.

Okay, but it is being considered.

Yes, it's, it's, yeah, absolutely.

Thank you.

Okay, so now we're going to turn to the action items part of the meeting.

Crystal Littlevar, will you introduce the item for public hearing, please?

an agreement between the state agency, Virginia Energy and our locality that says we will follow the rules and the program guidelines of the statewide program and then the model agreement that would be signed between property owner, the lender, and the city of Charlottesville.

So item on the agenda tonight is amending

So I believe and I can defer to our attorneys who are I believe is also I think Rob Hubbard may also be on but the action is to amend city code to add this section to chapter 30.

I guess those go along with the program when it's in place.

So I'm sorry.

Attachments A and B. Yeah.

Attachments A and B to your packet go along or attached to go along with the amendment.

And I know Holly and I are available if you have any questions.

Basically, it's a statewide program, and the city, by opting in, means that our residents have access to state money to have loans to do various improvements.

Sorry, I meant local, not residence, but like Charlottesville people.

Yes, got it.

a developer or property owner, they don't have to figure out how do we do this in Charlottesville, how do we do this in Albemarle, how do we do this in Richmond, it's the same.

And it doesn't cost the city money to participate.

Thank you.

So an additional way to look at this is it becomes a toolkit item for climate action.

It's a toolkit item for climate action.

We're identifying opportunities for active development that leads to the promotion of climate action.

And the downside, if we didn't participate in this, it shuts off that avenue.

Hi.

But happy to answer any questions, but if you have any.

Is that the idea?

Because there is engagement of the treasurer in this action.

that it would be our preference and our opportunity to delegate that collection or that enforcement to the CPACE authority and the financial institution.

So just a few quick, because I'm not 100% sure I understand, but just to kind of summarize, would it be accurate that opting in allows private business owners of commercial properties to connect with private capital to basically get an upfront loan, and then they're able to pay off that loan with the cost savings that the energy efficiency upgrades provide?

It's minimizing risk to the property, and then that loan can be paid back over time.

basically sees the commercial property.

So Holly, I'm going to let you answer that one.

Does that answer your question?

And are there any enforcement actions that would be taken against that business owner who went delinquent?

I think that's between the financial institutions and the sea pace of the awardee.

So, okay, I'm just trying to understand.

And most likely their mortgage lender would get, the mortgage lender would get involved way before.

It's just too complicated and would have required at its staff time to be able to pull it off or contract out administration and now it is contracted out by the state and we just hook our wagon to that program.

Thank you.

And so I think there's a public hearing now.

Council, is there any further discussion?

To me, it would make sense to move to a consent agenda.

Does it have to be in the action items or can it be on the Consent agenda?

It can go to consent.

Take care

Mr. Matthew Alfell will introduce the item for public hearing.

but Charlie Armstrong, the Southern Development is here to answer questions.

Mr. Armstrong, would you like to say a few words?

It's really all I have but happy to answer any questions that you all have.

Are there any clarifying questions from Council?

My initial inclination is to think that in terms of access to the outside world, someone access from Flint Hill is going to be easier for people who are living there than people living at Stribbling, at least for the foreseeable future.

Any other questions?

Right.

In our packet, when it says the motion passed six to nothing to recommend a rule, that's from Planning Commission?

Yes.

Nothing for me.

Is there anyone here who would like to speak on this item?

But I don't think you are all asking enough questions based on what I'm remembering right off.

Councilor, is there any discussion?

The units that are now going to be deemed more affordable, are they going to be, how are they going to be distinct at all from the remainder of the units at Flint Hill?

But at Flint Hill, these would be fore sale condominiums would be the plan if they move from Sribling to Flint Hill.

But if I were to tour Flint Hill, would I be able to tell a difference between one of the margarine units and one of the affordable units?

whether you will be able to see it or not.

But it's not going to be like there's an appreciable downgrade in materials.

No, no, between the two projects, no.

Between the market rate and the affordable.

It's been my experience with them.

in the development process.

It seemed like a pretty easy win-win.

before, you know, waiting on shriveling, I think that is a appreciable benefit.

And the units that you were going to build at shriveling the same number would have been for purchase.

There are some of each at Stribbling, so this is substituting for sale units at Stribbling for four sale units at Flatt.

And then at Stribbling, what would be kind of the ballpark of when the first units would get built?

We expect we'll be starting some homes and ready for them to start if they want by January.

And when you say sight work, you mean like gradient and gradation type stuff?

Yeah, January, February.

So is Habitat is going to be doing the affordable units at Flint Hill?

We want them to be able to do 16.

Yeah, I think that's reasonable to assume.

Okay, is there agreement to carry this item to the October 21st meeting for a second reading?

Mr. Alfley, do you have a sense of what the city gains by this?

There's the real possibility, I don't think Charlie intends not to build them at Flint Hill, but he has the choice not to, but by amending it, there would be two additional, or not two additional, two of the units that has to be provided would have a lower AMI.

Is there any downside from the city's perspective to doing this?

Realities of when you're building and especially partnering with someone like Habitat that's not necessarily as feasible But that's the only drawback we saw was we would like to see these spread out more through each development

So for these eight units, if Habitat is the partner, do you know if they would be going significantly lower than 50% area median income?

So yes, I expect it will be significantly lower than 60 or 50 on average, but they're just not quite ready to promise that.

Thank you.