Planning Commission Regular Meeting   6/10/2025

Alrighty, I believe we're ready to begin our deliberations for the evening.

We are going to mix the agenda up just a little bit.

Once the applicant arrives, the applicant that's speaking the two special exceptions will be moved up in the agenda.

And we're also going to move a little later in the agenda the presentation by NDS of the work plan.

But until the applicant arrives, we're going to move along with

Let the agenda as it is begin with reports from the diocese.

Thanks, Chairman Mitchell.

So I will give our standard UVA update on some of our capital projects.

And let's start off with housing.

So the Darden graduate housing is currently under construction.

And that's still on schedule to be completed by the fall of 2027.

And that's just to remind people it's 348 beds will be included there.

And that is immediately adjacent to the existing Darden parking garage.

So it's kind of tucked up in the northeasternmost portion

of the Darden sort of grounds.

Jumping to the Emmett IV corridor, so second year housing, we've achieved, we've received state art and architecture review board approval for that and our BOB approval for that project.

That is currently under construction and that'll be unscheduled to complete the fall of 2027.

And so that is 780 beds.

So between those two projects, we're looking at just over a thousand beds.

Jumping to parking we have two project updates there We have the Fontaine garage and that actually as a structure is near.

It's nearly complete There's a lot of the work happening right now is not parking garage related But it's the access roads and some of the utility hookups outside of the garage But that is expected open early this fall and that's 1250 spaces.

So you should see a dramatic shift when it comes Regarding parking particularly with our health system workers

Jumping to the North Grounds garage, that's currently under construction.

That will follow in 2026, and that's an additional thousand spaces, so that should change event parking, athletics parking, and also help with commuter parking issues in and around grounds.

And so jumping now to a quick athletics update, the Olympic Sports Center, which is immediately south of the John Paul Jones Arena on Massey Road, that's nearing completion.

It's going to complete this fall.

With the completion of that facility, the teams that are currently located in modular units along Copley Bridge near the railway, those will be removed, those modular units, with the plan to restore that area as a grass practice field.

Jumping over back to Fontaine, but this is the Manning Institute of Biotechnology.

If anyone kind of drives by the Fontaine area, you can sort of see the steel is now coming up out of the ground.

That's on schedule for a fall 2027 opening, and sort of a parallel project to that is the new, the next generation heat plant at Fontaine.

So this is kind of a first for UVA, but also sort of

A fairly innovative project at higher education institutions, but it's a non-combustion geothermal plant.

So it'll be providing the thermal energy to power the Manning Institute of Biotechnology.

So it's a lot of excitement.

It's an incredibly efficient way to help the university meet its carbon goals.

Jumping down to the Emmett Ivey Corridor, we have the Karsh Institute of Democracy.

If anyone's driven on Ivey Road, you can see the steel is nearing completion.

That's scheduled to top out in early July.

And the exterior skin of that will start to appear later this summer and fall.

And so that'll be on track to open in the fall of 2026.

The Virginia Guest House, which is immediately adjacent to the Karsh Institute, that's nearing its substantial completion this fall, and it'll have its public opening in early 2026.

Jumping down to UVA Health, Oaklawn.

The planning study is wrapping up.

There's a public webinar that I just want to share as a public announcement just to get the word out.

It's taking place on June 18th in order to talk about sort of the recommendations for the Oak Lawn property.

There's more information on how to log into that online event.

It's at UVA Health's Fifeville Community Engagement website.

So if you just Google UVA Health and Fifeville, it pops right up.

And you can take part in that and see what the recommendations that came out of that planning study.

The Wirtland Foundation project for the housing, that is currently still working through redesign with planning to resubmit to VAR after the previous submission.

The last I was going to close on were just two adjacent sort of high visibility projects.

They are not UVA projects, but I just wanted to share with the public that the VRV development, which is on JPA and Emmett, and then the Bloom on Ivy, which is on Ivy and Copley.

If you go to facilities management's construction alerts page, they have provided information regarding street closures or day-to-day work for both of those projects.

And so with the thought being that they are

The big one I just wanted to point out for those

who aren't aware is yesterday started the closure of Jefferson Park Avenue and Emmett Street.

So there's now a detour down Stadium Road.

And that's going to be all vehicular traffic is closed day and night for 24 hour work.

And that's going to be seven days a week until August 1st.

So plan accordingly.

And yeah, more information as it becomes available will be shared through the FM website.

For my commissioner's report, I actually wasn't at the last two pre-commission meetings.

I was out of town, but I did have a committee meeting with the storm water staff.

of the city.

So this is all kind of going into, so the tree commission as most of our commissions, you know, it's volunteer and there's a lot of people with, um, you know, that are there to really make change.

So they, uh, wrote a letter to, um, city council, a city manager lately,

because there was a tree that did not make it through the Kindlewood development.

And I'm just looking at the letter.

So this was on April 24th.

So it's been a little while, but I think it did help the tree commission get together and do some bullet points to be more specific about things just by using that example, what might've gone wrong.

So some of the things, and I'll share this if you haven't seen it, I'll send it to you all.

Looking at the site plan checklist, making sure everything has happened there to preserve trees that are supposed to be preserved.

Again, tree preservation plans.

Shoring up the tree removal permit.

okay I'm kind of going down here we were looking at the stormwater fee but also I think as the committee is noticing that as many organizations are silos and so kind of checking in with all these departments and figuring out like are there tweaks at NDS or tweaks with the stormwater fee or so that I think that this letter helped to kind of make that clear and now some of the work is just meeting with all of these different

to see if there are places for improvement and then more incentives for tree preservation which is their last point.

So I'll send that around but it did get, you know, some

Feedback from the city manager and some council members saying, you know, yes, we acknowledge this.

And I've also mentioned to them in terms of zoning, you know, if there are any amendments that we're working through that could help with some of this, that maybe there should be some discussion there.

I attended a meeting of the MPO Citizens Advisory Committee.

The MPO has a couple different committees, and I know Rory is on another committee, but the purpose of this committee is really to connect community to the MPO, I think provide input in both directions.

So in that spirit, there are three community surveys right now that the MPO is trying to get the public to respond to.

There are two VDOT surveys.

One is focused on the

29 pipeline study that is happening looking kind of I think at the bypass and up north a bit.

The other is looking at Fifth Street starting close to the intersection with Fifth Street Station and going down to the county.

So those are the two VDOT and those surveys are open until June 16th so we really would like people to

Reply to those soon.

And then there is a third survey, community survey out from Jaunt, which is the regional kind of, I don't know, micro transit, paratransit provider.

They have a community survey out as well.

Sorry, can I jump in there for a quick correction?

I think the 29-1 that's currently open is the 29-64 interchange.

Ah, you're right.

The one that was 29 up north is already closed.

Gotcha, you're right.

I have submitted a new code change proposal for the Virginia version of the 2024 International Building Code.

You know, B1006.3.4-24.

It's a good one.

This is a number of changes, basically literally copying the national discussion from last year, saying that what was being proposed at the national level should be considered for Virginia.

This is inspired by our work on the comprehensive plan, which looked at a walkable, more pedestrian scale, historic compatible design, rather than

Texas Donuts.

I don't hate Texas Donuts, but it's good to allow some other things, especially in more historic, pedestrian-friendly areas.

I am hopeful that it will reach consensus.

Okay, so let's see.

HAC, I guess we've got April and May to play with here, right, met to discuss the updated revised land bank ordinance which caused a good deal of consternation on the HAC because it was a pretty profound departure from most of the principles which we've been working on for well over a

a year or even two.

Not sure how that's going to move forward, but it's pretty clear that the HACS vision for how this thing was going to work is not in alignment with city council or staff.

So that's that.

We did take a look at a slightly deeper dive into the affordable housing tax abatement program, which was presented to city council a couple of meetings back.

and we got an update saying that we would be getting in some consultative work because one of the, really the nexus of trying to work with that is we really need to figure out one, what our data set really is and number two is that if we engage in, if we put together such a program before we even start discussing on how we would structure it is, is it worth it?

because you don't want to be of course in a position where you're giving

We are giving away money for something that was already going to happen.

But on the other hand, we are dealing with this in track.

The idea behind this is to make it, to exempt in some way the taxation on affordable units or developments that have affordable units on it to make it easier on the, particularly on the long, on the carrying cost and financing of it.

And we're not sure that this is,

actually going to work.

There was another one that was tried up in Cambridge.

And they spent a good amount of money and a good amount of time on it.

And then they realized, oh, we shouldn't have done it.

So not even that it cost them money.

It just lost a lot of effort.

Nothing happened.

So there's that.

Then we took a fairly deep dive in response to the land bank ordinance, but I'm not really sure what's going to become of that.

Miles.

I mean, it's a very— We're talking a year.

Oh, from getting it done, getting one implemented?

They're ambitiously saying the end of the calendar year to actually have an ordinance that exists that has been approved.

That's the short version.

There are three steps they're going to take through, but if one of them goes sideways, we're doomed.

It's going to be better.

So there's that.

TJPDC, a couple of things.

April, we got a very, very interesting Safe Streets for All grant proposal presentation that is being co-driven by UVA and Honda, who has thrown a couple of hundred here.

Honda, you know?

And this has to do with, amongst other things, in focusing largely on scooters.

and they are being very comprehensive.

It's very exciting.

I encourage you to read it even though it's a grant.

It's very interesting.

I think they gave a larger scale presentation to the MPO on this.

I mean, it's pretty cool that they're going to try to integrate everything from the vehicle to the design of the streets to social behavior to the injuries to cross-referencing all of it.

and trying to get a comprehensive view of the impact of scooters.

I was very interested in it and even wanted to volunteer until I realized they wanted to put a live camera on me.

You know, I'm a firm believer in the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution, so no.

So there was that.

Also there is a new regional housing study that is in its infancy that we are working to pull together and scope that is being run by the Virginia Center for Housing Research at Virginia Tech and of course the

ubiquitous Jonathan Knopf at Housing Forward Virginia.

That one, they're still trying to scope exactly what this is going to do and how they're going to make it happen, but they are very interested in providing not a toolkit, but concentrating as they round the back end of the study, concentrating on one or two things that are actually implementable, that have a chance of political survival, that have some support, that have some utility.

instead of giving us seven, you know, here's 16 things you can do.

Here's two and a half things that you can do in each one of these localities.

So there's that.

The TJBC did elect its next year of officers.

Michael Payne is the sole elected official serving as an officer at this point.

Keith Smith of Savannah County is the chair, of course the secretary position is held by the executive director as a matter of course, and the treasurer is me.

And actually, a large portion of that is that I am the second signer on all the checks.

And I happen to have an office in downtown Charlottesville, which is apparently 90% of the qualification for the job.

So I think I covered most of that.

We've had one meeting since our last meeting that was LUPEC this month.

We had three interesting presentations.

One was on the Innovation Corridor, which is a regional project to essentially an economic development strategy focused on biotech defense and regular tech.

We also had a presentation on RWSA's northern area utilities improvements.

They've been doing quite a bit of work up there to accommodate growth up to 29 and at UVA's North Fork Research Park or Discovery Park, I believe now.

They are adding a new pipeline crossing the Rivanna River.

They recently finished the airport road pump station which will also eventually be able to be expanded with on-site tanks and at some point they will phase out and dismantle the small water treatment plant that's way up 29 in the Camelot area.

And then lastly, we had just an update on VDOT projects that are ongoing.

Obviously, as you've probably all seen, the hydraulic bridge, as well underway, should be complete in October.

The Albemarle bundle that they're doing, which is

the roundabout at 240-250 out by Crozet, the one at Rio and John Warner, the green tea at Rio and Belvedere, another roundabout at 5th and Old Lynchburg, and then one out at 2053.

That is underway.

They're starting with the one near Crozet, but the rest will be soon to follow.

And then late this year, actually, I believe this summer, they're going to issue an RFP for the Fontaine Hydraulic Bundle, which is closing the left turn.

on 29 onto 64 West, reconfiguring the Fontaine and 29 intersection.

Now our Fontaine streetscape has been added into the VDOT bundle and the Stonefield roundabout.

And so that should be awarded late this year and go into construction next year and take a number of years.

Those are, I think, the highlights.

Yeah.

And then there was the Avon Street Multimodal had a public meeting that I happened to attend.

It's a project that the MPO was awarded, gosh, a number of years ago, to add a shared use path bridge over Moores Creek

And then it was originally going to be bike lanes and sidewalk up Avon.

All right.

So for the Board of Architecture review last month,

We denied an application for demolition of the Wharton-Baker House, and I understand that that has already been appealed and would be seen by council at some point in the near future.

We got a presentation on, the city is gonna finally fix up the downtown mall crossings, so they will be looking nice in the near future.

And another update on, or,

We looked at the potential hotel at 218 West Market again and we did not give them, we deferred them or they requested a deferral and I think we'll be looking at that again next month.

So that's all the exciting stuff for the Board of Architecture Review.

I should disclose that I was contacted by the developers

Let me see if I get the address of this right.

I think it's 843 West Main Street.

And the developer is LV Collective.

So it's the parking lot that's directly between the

the standard and the bridge on West Main.

Yes, yeah and former U-Haul if you've been here long enough.

So they just wanted to talk to me because I'm on the BAR and the Planning Commission and just want to run show show me what they're looking at I don't it does not look like they're gonna be seeking any exceptions from the Planning Commission but they obviously will have to go in front of the BAR they have I know they're already speaking with the

Westhaven, and they are trying to get on a neighborhood meeting for 10th and Page.

But anyways, potentially development happening there at some point soon.

Right.

So Parks and Rec, it's that time of year, so we're very busy with the opening of the pools and all of the outdoor activities.

But believe it or not, the thing that's been driving most of our cycles has been our garden plots.

We've been given a lot of thought to putting term limits on garden plots.

How long can you be a steward of a garden plot?

Because we think that maybe other people want to get involved because once you get a garden plot right now you pretty much got it until you say I don't want it anymore.

But we're backing away from that.

We've got a lot of feedback from the public suggesting that a little more thought needs to be given to

be given to placing term limits on garden plots and the nature of those term limits.

Because as you guys know, you think about properization and things like that, it takes a little while to cultivate the ground to get a garden plot to do what you made the investment to have it do.

So we are not going to move on that right away.

We're going to give it a little more thought just to be respectful of all the work that other people have put into the garden plots.

The BZA met about a week ago, maybe two weeks ago.

And the topic of that meeting relates to the property that we're here to talk about today, 2030 Barracks Road.

But we did approve an appeal, the appeal that was before us, because the applicant was seeking a bill with administrative modification.

And we made a very, very

and the Bill DeWitt modification that we did grant that for all the reasons that were outlined in the applicant's application.

But it was a very narrow ruling.

It had nothing to do with the critical slopes and had nothing to do with the feature exemption that we're here to talk about tonight.

It was only the Bill DeWitt because the critical slope and the feature exemption is something

The Planning Commission would need to make a decision on.

Ms.

Sure, just wanted to note we don't have a work session scheduled for the June 26th opportunity, but we are very much planning our July 8th meeting, so definitely plans to be in attendance for that.

We will likely not have the July work session, as I will not be around.

Not that that is a necessary item because we can have those covered.

But we're also into the week of the summer and then we'll get into the fall.

But yes, for the 8th we have a

And that already includes a presentation on the tax abatement activities that are going on so that you all will be up to speed on the front end of that.

As I mentioned earlier, I'm going to move the agenda around just a little bit.

And what I'd like to do is, and this is a little different from what we talked about, but I want to help some folks get out of here as well, the consent agenda.

Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda?

So moved.

Second.

Ms.

Kretzke?

Sure.

Alrighty, as I mentioned before, what we'd like now to do is to move the two special exception applications to this part of the meeting.

Good evening, Chair Mitchell, members of the Planning Commission.

My name is Kelsey Schlein.

I'm a planner with Shimp Engineering.

We've been assisting the property owner with their development plans for this project.

After review of the staff report and looking through some of the staff's concerns, we would like to request a deferral for both items that are before you this evening.

And I'm happy to provide further justification if the commission needs that.

Is there a motion to accept the?

I so move.

Second.

Ms.

Ms.

Yes.

And Mr. Mitchell?

Yep.

Alrighty.

And I believe that brings us to matters to be presented by the public that are not on the formal agenda.

Ms.

Creasy, is there anyone in the lobby waiting to speak?

And we'll give three minutes to our speakers.

If we don't have any in-audience

We don't have anybody in the viewing audience, but our virtual audience, we have an individual.

And if you're interested in speaking, please raise your hand in the application.

Okay.

Um, all right.

Right.

And that is the end of the, um, public's opportunity to present tonight.

We are now,

William, to have the honor of talking about the work plan.

And our director is going to walk us through the work that they've been doing.

And once again, let us get through items one through four, page 34.

Thank you.

Good evening.

I'm happy to be here with you tonight.

My name is Kelly Brown.

I'm the director of Neighborhood Development Services Department, and I'm looking forward to sharing with you a presentation on our department's progress in implementing the development code adopted

in 2024, and also our fiscal year 2026 work plan, so our plan for work for the coming year.

I'm here with a number of members of our team, Matt Alfoli, our development review planning manager, Osea Kinlotan, our long range planning manager, Jeff Werner, our historic preservation planner.

And they will be participating in the presentation tonight as well.

Oh, Missy Creasy.

She's also going to be our deputy director.

She'll be participating as well.

So we can go ahead in advance.

Thank you, Patrick.

Great.

So I will start off with a brief overview of how our department is organized.

It will be similar to information I have presented in the past.

Again, just trying to provide some context as to who we are as a department, some of our key accomplishments over the past year, key work plan considerations and how we prioritize our work, recognizing that there's always many more priorities, many more projects than we have

And then we will move into kind of a deeper dive into several of those priorities as well as a deeper dive on the development code amendments that we have been working on that really kind of represent the bread and butter of our

of our implementation of the development code.

Mr. Alfelli was with you for a work session last week, so some of this information will be a repeat of what you've heard before, but we also have some updates for you based on feedback that you shared with us on how we see our process moving forward.

Also, I'll note that I will be presenting this information to city council on June 16th as part of the city manager's

4 p.m.

work session.

This is a request that he has made and City Council has been interested also in an update on our implementation of the development code.

So the feedback that you provide to me tonight is information that I'll be able to incorporate and reflect in the update that I share with Council next week.

So NDS as an organization is dedicated to creating a sustainable and vibrant community.

It's really in support of the city's mission to be a place where everyone can thrive.

And you might recall from previous presentations the organizational chart that I've shared with you.

This is essentially the same information but with little description of what each of our groups do.

We provide a wide array of services in NDS, ranging from code compliance

in zoning, buildings, inspections, property maintenance, also development review.

And then we have historic preservation work, both reviewing applications relative to the design guidelines for the city, but also promoting and interpreting historic sites and structures, ensuring that new buildings complement those resources as well.

We also have a long-range planning team, a transportation planning team, and then a support services group that

supports our work with our online development application portal and all of our GIS services that supports the department as a whole.

We are a group of 31 people.

We have two vacancies right now, and I will report on all the work we've been doing in terms of recruitment.

But proud to say that really as a unit, our divisions work together to promote responsible development, foster community engagement,

and again work toward a community where everyone in Charlottesville can thrive.

All of the work that we do in the department is in support of the city's strategic outcome areas.

I've listed them here for you.

We, given the breadth of our focus areas, we really, you can go ahead and advance Patrick.

We work in all of these areas.

Something that I'll go ahead and mention at this point in time is that our services are actually going to be expanding in the very near future.

The city manager's office has made a decision to close the Office of Community Solutions, which included the housing program staff, and I'm happy to report that the housing program staff

will be coming back to NDS.

I understand that that has been their home and they are coming back.

And I'm very excited to have them as part of our team moving forward.

That team will continue to do all the work that they have been doing.

And I'm very excited to support their work in working toward all the goals of the comprehensive plan relative to affordable housing and housing in general.

Looking forward to coming back to you with lots more updates once they're on board.

So my focus right now is going to be just

Getting a sense of who they are, what they're working on.

I won't be prioritizing any sort of physical move in the very near term.

Teams has been a great tool for collaboration and we're just right across the street so we can get together whenever we need to.

I anticipate that that would be something we would do at some point to bring them into the fold physically, but not something we're worried about in the near term.

Thanks, Patrick.

So in terms of our key accomplishments over the past year, we've been very busy.

I think some of these things I've mentioned previously, but there's also been some very recent accomplishments.

We have moved forward with the creation of a regional transit authority known as CARTA, and our team is going to be working on

Funding mechanisms and planning initiatives for that regional authority moving forward.

Adoption of the Move Safely Blue Ridge plan and a pilot project.

Installation of a pump track at McIntire Park.

Our transportation planners have worked with Public Works to identify over 60 urgent transportation improvements.

to support some of our really most critical safety needs and also pilot some strategies, test some strategies that could potentially be implemented in a more permanent way moving forward.

The transportation planning team is not here tonight.

They presented an update to council on June 2nd and so if you have any questions I'm happy to go back to the team and get some information from them but also encourage you to review

that really comprehensive presentation that they shared with council.

Did I say January 2nd?

I meant June 2nd, just a few weeks ago.

In terms of other accomplishments from our department, our historic preservation team brought forward updates to the cafe standards to support the way the cafes operate on the mall and also on the corner.

Court Square and Carver Inn historical markers,

We've been working really hard on development review process improvements, which Matt will talk a little bit about.

Code amendments, another area we'll get into more detail on.

We have been working to refresh and update our NDS web page.

I don't know if you had a chance to visit our pages recently, but

We've added a lot of new content, wayfinding information for folks.

We have a how-to guide to apply for a short-term rental application.

That deadline is coming up, by the way, and Hosea will speak to that in a moment.

We have a new development map, which I'll highlight here in a moment as well, but lots of new information on our website to just try to increase transparency and improve the accessibility of information for the public who is looking for support from Neighborhood Development Services.

And then finally, we're working on a stabilizing property task force that Missy will speak to in her remarks a little bit later.

On the recruitment side, we've been staffing up to be able to work on all of these items that we've identified in our work plan.

So that includes a development review planning manager in Matt Alfafelli, Osayo Kinlaton, and our long range planning manager.

We now have a long range planner on board, a new permit technician.

We are still working to recruit our student housing property maintenance inspector, but we have a transit planner on board, and then also working across the board in our certifications.

career development.

So lots of focus in that area.

Okay so in terms of some just slightly deeper dive on some of our accomplishments I didn't want to let the night go by without reflecting on the work of our building inspections team.

They have been hard at work day in day out processing permits, conducting inspections around the city for

everything from your kitchen renovations to new decks to accessory dwellings and also our much larger projects.

We have been able to track the number of permits issued, inspections, permits reviewed over the past several years.

You will note that there has been a gradual uptick over the past several years and there's been a notable increase in the first quarter of this year.

We anticipate that that trend will continue

You can see in the development map that's a screenshot from our new development map on our web page.

We have a number of projects under construction or that will be moving into construction very shortly, such as the Verve, 2117-IV, the Bloom.

And so all of those projects will add additional workload to our building inspection team.

And we do anticipate that there will be a slowdown in review times as they manage that additional capacity.

We have shared that information with our contractor community so they understand what the situation is.

And we will do our best to meet the needs of the community and continue to provide the complete review and inspections that we need to do.

Great.

So now just kind of looking ahead, our key considerations for what we're anticipating over the next year.

This is information I've shared before, but I think it's really helpful to always

reflect back on what grounds us in our selection of priority projects.

Patrick you can advance.

So our first priority is timely accomplishment of our non-discretionary core mission services.

So all of our code compliance work has to be our first priority.

And then secondarily, we have to focus on efforts that work toward health, safety,

And then also the implementation of the new development code.

And those are all things that we need to focus on before we add new initiatives.

We continue to consistently apply an equity lens to the work we do.

So asking ourselves who benefits, who's burdened, who's missing, who's left out, and what are we going to do about that?

We use data to inform our decision making about how we select priorities and also how we do the work we do.

And then finally aligning our work plan commitments with staff capacity.

Recognizing again that we can't do it all but we're going to do the best we can and also just try to think as creatively as we can about the capacity that we do have in growing that capacity and using our partners and the community and consultants to the extent that those resources are available for us.

So I have presented a list, essentially, of what our work plan priorities are by strategic outcome areas.

And then our team will do a deep dive on some areas that I thought would be of particular interest to you all.

So just running briefly through this list in the area of organizational excellence, we will continue, as I mentioned before, focus on our regulatory review, permitting, and enforcement,

We are continuing to improve City Works the way that portal is accessible to applicants and also our internal reviewers.

We've made a lot of progress in that area over the past six months and there's happy to know that I think there's a light at the end of the tunnel in terms of making that system really workable for everybody.

So props to our support services manager for all of his focus in that area.

Training and professional development will continue to be a focus.

We've had a number of staff able to go to various conferences over the past six months.

And they always come back with great ideas for how to do their work better or future projects for future years.

And then we're also continuing to work on development review process improvements.

In the area of housing, one of our key focus areas will be kicking off a 10th and Page and Rose Hill visioning plan effort, which will have a heavy focus on housing, the communities where the folks live already and collaborating with those residents in terms of what their vision is.

We will be continuing to work on

providing resources, materials to make the development code more accessible.

We've added information to the web page that seeks to address some of those needs, but I think there's a lot of creative work we could do in that space to help people understand what exactly is possible that would be otherwise difficult to discern in just reviewing pages and pages of the development code.

We are monitoring and evaluating the development code and where there's opportunities to tweak the regulations.

That's very much a part of the work we're doing in terms of amendments that we're hoping to bring forward and that we've been working on with you.

And again, we're focusing on the creation of an interdepartmental stabilizing property task force, where we're really trying to bring forward folks from a number of different departments to help support the needs of property owners that struggle to maintain their properties, recognizing that it's often a number of intertwined and complicated

Now this list will grow significantly over the next year, again as we bring on our new team members from OCS in the area of housing, but this is what we have been focusing on thus far.

And then this is a list of other priorities that really span across a number of different strategic priority areas.

We're continuing to work on short-term rentals and bringing forward recommendations for potential changes to the ordinance to better support our community goals and also working on enforcement.

We will be hiring a zoning inspector to support us with that and also in the final stages of procuring some software to help with our monitoring.

of the short-term rentals that are operating in our community already today.

We'll be working on an environmental policy review and ordinance revisions.

That's another item that I'll focus on in a little bit more detail in the presentation.

We will kick off a scoping effort this year for reviewing our design guidelines, focusing on what are the key policy issues that

We want to make sure our maintained and our district guidelines where there is alignment with our development code, where there might need to be some revisions to help better balance those needs.

on identifying all of our accomplishments in historic preservation and cultural resource recognition over the past several years and maybe where there's some opportunities for additional work in the future.

And then we'll be conducting our mandated five-year review of the comprehensive plan, looking to probably pull in a lot of the work that we've been doing through other initiatives, documenting that and making recommendations where

additional changes to the comprehensive plan might be necessary over time.

Now these are our transportation priorities.

Again, I'm not going to go into detail on these tonight, but I'll just briefly list.

We will be focusing on the creation of a comprehensive transportation plan, scoping that effort over the next six months, hoping to kick off that effort in 2026.

At the same time, working on policies for

Safer Streets, testing strategies such as through the urgent infrastructure program, studying opportunities to potentially lower speed limits on low volume streets, designing our sidewalks and spending the money that was allocated through the CIP for the completion of our pedestrian network.

I mentioned the adoption of CARTA, and so that will continue to be an area of focus.

The regional transportation planning, promoting our bike network and looking for improvements, ways to improve our bike network.

This also includes our Safe Routes to School program.

continuing to improve access to bikes for children in schools and focusing on the safety of children as they walk to school.

Neighborhood walking tours are still happening on a monthly basis and just need to check the webpage to see where the next one is for the upcoming month and then micromobility.

So we are working on

updates to our permit right now for the scooters, our dockless mobility initiative to really improve the enforcement and address a lot of the community concerns that have been raised about the scooter network.

Okay, so I think with that we now can dive into a little bit more detail into a couple of these initiatives.

The first one I wanted to highlight is our environmental policy and regulatory review.

So as I

you all may be familiar with.

This is an initiative that really emerged during the creation of the development code when it was identified that there were a number of environmental regulations that also needed to be studied to see where some misalignment might exist or where some refinements might be needed to help balance all of the goals in the comprehensive plan.

So this is really focusing on not only housing but also how do we

achieve our community vision for healthy air, water and ecosystems, high quality and accessible open space and also a preserved and enhanced tree canopy as well.

What we are learning through the initial work we've been doing on existing conditions is that there's a number of opportunities.

to refine our policies and refine our regulations.

A key emerging question has been around our stormwater management and is there a different and a better approach to managing stormwater to meet our state stormwater requirements and also work toward our housing goals and allowing for the additional housing that's enabled through the development code.

So we are going to be working with, and we've already started working with our interdepartmental partners and utilities and public works and then the Office of Sustainability on what might be the opportunities to come up with a new approach to managing stormwater, again within those state stormwater parameters.

Are there any potential impacts that need to be mitigated at a network level or through a different way to managing stormwater on site, on individual development sites?

And we will be collecting all that information and coming forward with really up scope of work this summer for kind of a plan to start to make some changes to policies and recommend some revisions to regulations.

that help meet and balance our comprehensive plan goals.

Let's see.

At this point, I'm going to turn it over to Ms.

Good evening.

So bear with me now.

I like to take notes.

So the 10th and Page planning process, which was previously outlined as

Well, 10th and Page and Rose Hill visioning process was previously outlined as the 10th and Page small area plan.

We are shifting from just the one specific neighborhood to encompass both of those neighborhoods.

And it's to set a clear community-driven vision for the next five years.

We are beginning to outline a specific timeline for these processes moving forward.

Just so happens that 10th and Page and Rose Hill

be the template moving forward.

So we will be identifying both immediate actions and areas that need further study.

We are moving towards implementation, not just planning.

How often do plans just sit on the shelf?

And again, that is not what we intend for this and future planning processes.

Of course, it will align with the comprehensive plan and be adopted under it.

So our engagement approach, well, just our approach overall is to acknowledge past harms from disinvestment and urban renewal.

from being displaced to replaced into this community or these communities, the use of trauma-informed and trust-building engagement, a focus on healing, empowerment, and long-term equity.

This will be a co-led process with community members, not just the city in a leadership role.

So again, this will be a justice-centered approach, which prioritizes fairness, equity, and dismantling systemic oppression in planning itself and community development.

Again, it's a collaborative approach that articulates the defined future state of communities and outlines the concrete steps to achieve it within a defined five-year time frame.

It is led by North Star of Just Communities,

And that is a collaborative process.

That is that collaborative process that I previously described.

Pardon me.

It leads with cultural responsiveness and equity-centered engagement, restorative practice engagement.

It facilitates storytelling by our community members.

Small dialogue groups and inclusive feedback loops.

Within our outline for this process, within that work plan, it identifies feedback loops not just at the end of the process, but throughout the process.

And having the community members co-lead this process will ensure that we are reaching as many people as possible, not just

having those, also, sorry, really reaching those people who have been left behind in these processes.

So being very intentional.

Sorry.

So currently, it is a vision with actionable recommendations.

It has immediate, no zoning required initiatives.

It will also serve as a roadmap for future planning and coordination.

Our timeline for now, of course, it's an agile process and because it will be co-led by the community, this timeline may shift.

We are moving at the speed of trust.

If you know me, you know that's one of my favorite phrases.

Due to that, our current timeline has engagement taking place now through the summer of this year with adoption and launch in winter of 2026.

Well, I apologize.

spring slash summer of 2026.

But again, it's an agile process.

We have not spoken with the communities yet for update on where we are.

And due to that, it'll be based off of their input and the time they need to digest it.

So that's the overall process thus far.

Also, sorry, I didn't even realize these were up here.

So as you can see, all of these phases have different titles, not titles, but engagement.

levels of engagement next to it, as you can see, organize, inform, consult.

All of these are from the International Association for Public Participation, or IAP2.

And so we are truly leaning into that approach moving forward and integrating that with that justice-centered approach.

So that is all I currently have.

I'm sorry.

I will also be here for short-term rentals in the absence of our zoning administrator.

For this process, we are attempting to update our regulations, potentially based off of the feedback we received.

We are having targeted outreach thus far.

We have utilized newsletters, emails, neighborhood associations, and et cetera, which has led to increased registrations for those home state permits.

We also have a public survey that closes on the 15th, so next week.

Thus far we have over 100 respondents, which is great.

We hope to have more, so share it with your networks.

Also, the deadline for short-term rentals was June 1st, and we will have a late fee applied after the 15th, but we are working with applicants, you know, engaging with them early enough to ensure that they are aware of their status in the system.

So the next steps, of course, are to analyze the survey and permit data, which will inform the refined regulations.

And the project team that has been identified internally will meet pretty soon.

Of course, we were attempting to wait until the registration of permits or execution of permits.

in that late fee, as well as survey results so that the reconciled information can be provided to them.

So we also have a compliance tool that has been procured, and that tool locates property listings and owners, educates hosts, and increases revenue, hopefully, to support important initiatives and priorities.

That information will be integrated with our data analysis and updates for that will be coming soon.

So the timeline, was there a timeline slide here?

There we go.

So of course, we are in those initial phases.

We've already done our prep, released our materials, and we are going to look to actually move into internal drafting after we have our engagement process.

Of course, the survey is one form of that engagement, but we hope to have additional inclusive engagement opportunities.

Additionally, we will have

And we will determine at that point if we need to actually update the ordinance or not.

And of course, we'll be back to you for work sessions, hearings, again, updating early and often, not just the community, but you as well.

And that is not only, which I forgot to mention, not only for the short-term rentals, but also for the 10th and Page and Rose Hill planning processes.

All right, so this is an item that I've been a part of as I'm now working more with our enforcement and building side of the department.

There are a number of properties, not a huge number, but a handful where we've been, our enforcement crews have been working on them for a very, very long time.

They're very complex situations both from the bricks and sticks all the way to the human elements that are involved and Sometimes we can get progress and sometimes that progress is really challenging to get we have

We have attorney staff now that has a great amount of experience with this and is very supportive of helping us through those processes.

And that's something that it's been a while since we've had.

And so what we've started with is working with some of

A couple of very challenging cases where we've set up a process where we get a number of different entities involved.

And so it's not just the enforcement end of things, though that's a piece of the puzzle because that's the paperwork part.

But making sure that the human elements are being considered as part of it.

Are there circumstances that we have a program within the city that can be helpful?

Maybe the person isn't quite ready for that, but maybe as we continue through

So far we kind of we come together as needed.

We bring in different parties as we find that there's an opportunity for them to be a part of it The anchor team which is a team that was set up as a multidisciplinary

group to help support in a lot of different situations has been very integral to this.

And once we've kind of started working with them on a property, they continue to outreach to the individuals in that case, which has been wonderful because, again, we're trying to these are hard situations, challenging and a lot of things that are really hard to accomplish.

But we're hopeful by bringing both

Good evening again, I'm Jeff Werner, the city's preservation and design planner, and in that job I have three primary responsibilities.

First off is as staff for the board of architectural review, or the BAR.

Second, I'm staff for the Entrance Corridor Review Board, which we refer to as the ERB, and that is you all, the Planning Commission.

And third, I'm staff for the City's Historic Resources Committee, so I'm here tonight wearing the first of those hats.

and to provide some background and context for the necessary updates to the BAR and ERB design guidelines, Ms.

Brown asked me to briefly summarize the city's design control districts and who has purview for the design review of projects within them.

So the first slide here, as permitted by state code, city council has established four types of design control overlay districts,

First, we have the three types of historic districts, the Architectural Design Control District, or ADC districts, the Individually Protected Properties, or IPPs, and the three historic conservation districts.

And the BAR has purview for reviewing those.

Second slide is

This is the fourth type of designation.

These are the entrance corridors.

The city has designated these corridors that lead into our historic areas.

And for these, you all, the ERB, have purview for the design review.

And when we're, next slide Patrick.

And for all of these we have, for the BAR they apply

either the guidelines for the ADC districts and IPPs or the guidelines for the conservation districts.

And I think all of you know the criteria for the ADC districts and the IPPs are the most rigid and comprehensive.

And then for the entrance corridor projects, you all apply the EC design guidelines.

And you can see there the

All of these guidelines must be

All of them must be periodically reviewed and updated.

And to be clear, everything, the guidelines are approved by city councils.

So they don't become effective without that.

A lot of people say, well, it's the ERB's guidelines or the BAR's guidelines.

But they are actually councils' guidelines.

Obviously, we're overdue for the periodic reviews.

And we've known that.

But the updates are also necessary, and this is somewhat why we waited, but we need to assure that the guidelines align with the comp plan, which was

revised and adopted in 2021.

And of course, the subsequent code update adopted in 2023.

And then the last piece of this, Patrick, just to offer some context, some spatial context, the design control districts cover approximately, and I know it says 22%, but it's actually slightly less than 20% of the city.

We're refining some numbers.

And also,

Between 2005 and 2024, so that's 20 years, the BAR and the ERB formally reviewed.

So that's projects that were brought to you all for a review.

There were roughly 1,400 COA requests.

Of those, there were only 63 denials.

So the design review is not something where projects come to die.

And then, of course, there's a lot of projects that we are able to review administratively.

And so that's a very, very quick drive through the

design control districts and the guidelines that we apply to them and who has purview over the review.

And I suspect there will be questions as we go, but I wanted to make sure you understood that context.

I just wanted a clarification.

I won't report back to my team over at UVA.

It is.

We will have workshops for both just 10th and Page and Rose Hill.

Thank you for laying all that out.

It's a lot just to like clarify what people can do and

get everyone's plans made.

So I just appreciate hearing about all of that.

It's a lot of work.

Excited for the 10th and Page and Rosehill planning to start.

Yeah, I don't have any more questions.

Excited to see NDS, you know, getting, getting staff on board and

I did have one question and some others as well.

Excited about our friends at OCS joining us.

I've actually been troubled that it's been difficult to communicate with them sometimes because they are often not here.

So I'm hopeful that this will lead to a better partnership.

I had questions for them, which I suspect things have changed.

Inclusionary zoning update.

There's been a lot of public comment and concern on that topic.

And I suppose you're wondering if there's an update.

Yes.

So I guess there's two ways to answer the question.

The first is, what are we seeing in terms of development period coming out of the new development code?

And I think Mr. Alfelli's presentation will illuminate that a little bit.

And then there's a question of how

How many units are we seeing that are affordable?

Um, and so it is a question that's top of mind, I think for us internally as well to understand, um, you know, if there are barriers, what are, what precisely are those barriers and you know, what, what are the tools or what are the, um, you know, policy considerations that, that staff should be bringing forward for planning commission and city council.

Um, happy to report that, um, OCS brought a consultant on board,

to help do this sort of evaluation of pro formas and just take a look at the mandate itself, that 10% requirement and what that means in our current development climate.

The tax abatement study

will illuminate, I think, a lot of those questions for us.

Just excited to see NACTO on a slide.

That's a big change like it.

Question about stormwater updates.

We're not the only people who manage stormwater in the state.

There are other localities struggling with the same headaches that we are struggling with.

Are we in communication with them?

Do you mean there are other localities in the state that are struggling with stormwater management requirements and also trying to add more housing on small lots?

Yes, I do.

Yes, we are in communication with other localities that are focused on that.

In all seriousness, that was definitely a significant source of concern in Arlington in bringing forward missing middle regulations.

So I bring a lot of context to the conversation from that experience.

And if anyone has any understanding of best practices from other localities, please share them with us.

There's a big change, as I understand it, with the 10th and Page small area plan moving to 10th and Page and Rose Hill vision plan about zoning.

A big concern running through the zoning update was, well, we haven't really done outreach in those areas for, you know, parcel by parcel zoning changes.

Yeah, so the thought is that this process will really be focused on very near term changes that could be brought forward.

We understand that the RNA zoning is not only located in the 10th and Page neighborhood, it's really, it's a district that was applied throughout the city in a number of different contexts.

And so our recommendation is going to be to look at that separately as part of a citywide initiative.

I was told that we couldn't do mold enforcement on rentals.

I'm miss crazy.

We don't have a mold ordinance that we can rely on.

There is not one.

So we do get a number of calls from people with that concern.

I think it's legislative.

We can't grab a code that exists and implement it as a city.

doing many planning processes at once.

This is something that we have a bad habit of doing.

People talk about planning fatigue.

OK, so I think what we're proposing over the next year is actually a limited number of processes.

So it's interesting to hear from you that it sounds like a lot.

It's essentially moving forward with the 10th in page and Rose Hill vision plans.

OK, right, one.

And then the environmental policy review, that's two.

Now, the short-term rental study, we anticipate wrapping up by the end of this year.

So that's three.

Oh, yeah.

But that probably won't start until next year.

So there's a little bit of sequencing, I think, that we're building in.

We're now planning to start all of them all at once.

Some of them are over a much longer time frame.

Some of them are more targeted.

We can certainly think about opportunities to use one study to perhaps leverage engagement or understanding of other studies.

But I don't know if I see a clear path toward wrapping any number of those things together.

Question about, I'm running out, I swear.

This is for Jeff.

So we have a pretty substantial amount of the city covered in the entrance corridors.

And we haven't really talked about how or why one thing is an entrance corridor and another is not.

Barracks Road came up today as not an entrance corridor.

I couldn't tell you why it isn't.

It is.

You mean the shopping center?

So the shopping center is.

No idea.

Right.

Well, I mean, you can certainly go back and look at that.

I think primarily because it was in an EC.

I don't look at anything that's a residential two-family or single-family.

So you may have looked at it that way.

But you'd have to go back.

Meeting minutes in the city are really not helpful as you go back in time.

And I can tell you, even going back into the 1850s and looking at the town council minutes, you're like, all right, what exactly did you do and why?

But I mean, that's a good question.

I would argue we don't really need to be adding design control districts.

It's difficult to stay on top of what we have.

But my best guess is because of the residential nature.

I know that there had been discussion about adding Cherry Avenue.

This is years and years ago.

Mary Joy had mentioned that I think that was because it was primarily a commercial corridor.

So I think one of the benefits of taking some time this year to scope the study of our design guidelines is an opportunity to ask those kinds of questions.

What is it that we really want to be looking at when we evaluate our districts?

What are the key questions we want to be asking?

as we evaluate the regulations and the districts themselves.

Oh, OK.

And this is my last question.

Years ago, when we were talking about changing the development code, there was an interest in more of a form-based code to try and streamline some of these design concerns that came up a lot in planned unit development discussions, as well as in BAR discussions, with questions about what

Tint Glass should be, things like that, where it's not a parcel by parcel issue, it's just sort of a general standard that could be applied regardless of parcel into a form-based code.

And the dream was that while we add all these new restrictions and then we remove some of the sort of more custom processes

because we already have the rule in place.

We did the one thing, but we didn't do the second thing.

Well, if you want me to tell you if the design review process is a problem, I would say look to the facts.

And I hear this entirely too often that, oh, we don't because of this or because of that.

substantial amount of stuff.

We just approved the VRV.

We just approved a large development on JPA.

So there's things that have been approved that have never been built.

So I think that anyone that says that the design review process is an impediment isn't paying attention.

That said, I think that to sort of put it back on you all is you're appointed officials and we have elected officials.

What is it that you want Charlottesville to be?

And I'll offer an example that my colleagues have heard me say over and over again.

Take High Street at the top of Second.

sort of a run of buildings that are two and three stories, predominantly brick, predominantly 20, 30 feet back, predominantly spaced 10 to 15 feet apart.

There is a rhythm to that architecture.

You can go taller and respect that architecture.

You can do really good in-field development and respect that architecture.

Or do we want to

Dispose of what the current architecture and the current built form of Charlottesville is and I think that's a really that's I can't answer that I have my opinion I live in a historic house.

I live behind your desk And I I understand that but I think that's a question for the city to say you know are of these

Are there architectural elements and places in the city that are important to maintain?

And they can be done.

Good design can accomplish that.

Or do we want something new?

And you all can answer that.

We'll see.

Regretfully, I don't have quite as an extensive list of questions as you do.

But I will riff off a couple of things you asked about.

And the first riff is in regards to your question about stormwater management elsewhere where they're trying to increase density.

Before, I have comments on that part.

But in terms of stealing from our neighbors, is there anyone anywhere

who has got short-term rentals right, and can we plagiarize from them?

Are there working models elsewhere?

I had a conversation with the Greene County's chair of the Board of Supervisors saying that, he said, well, we're working on regulations.

And my immediate response, which everyone, it was, all right, well, let me know how you screw that up.

because I can't really see anything that works elegantly and efficiently.

Do we have some sort of inkling of what that's going to look like?

So I'll just say that Charlottesville was really one of the first jurisdictions, as you might know, to put regulations on the books and a lot of localities looked to Charlottesville to create their

to create their regulations.

And I think there are a lot of examples.

That is something that we have already done, actually, is conducted a study of other jurisdictions and what seems to be successful.

Some questions that we've posed to ourselves about potential modifications, are they doing those things?

And we will bring that forward as part of our study when we really get it going, is what we've learned from other localities.

Something to keep in mind is that, you know, we are in Virginia and the Dillon Rule State, some things that other states have done, you know, was probably not going to apply here.

What seems to be necessary to do this well is have strong enforcement.

And so fortunately, we are going to be bringing on a new inspector.

We're going to be adding some software that will allow us to get a better handle on who is actually operating in our community.

So that's a step in the right direction.

But in terms of the regulations themselves, a wholesale change is, I mean, I think we're doing a lot of things right.

Some modest refinements and tweaks,

All right.

So then also to continue the theme of, oh, well, we're trying to do density and stormwater management at the same time.

Sort of at the end of the presentation, other items previously identified, one of them is the alley study.

It would seem to me that that

is absolutely crucial to both the increased density and because of what we can do in alleys if the city owns them.

Stormwater management too is there and you cite the lack of resources in the city attorney's office.

Very gently I'll say waiting for them to have the resources.

I mean, anybody got a date in mind for that?

So is there some way, because I know that once we start scratching the surface of the alley, we're going to discover that in many places the alley's ownership changes on the same block.

The way it was conveyed changes.

There's a disagreement between ancient county records and almost as ancient city records as to what they look like and where they are.

And it seems to me that particularly if we're going to use these alleys for access for higher density, but also there, is there some way, even though you've said, and you've said we're doing too much at once,

Is there some way to integrate that?

Because it seems to me that that is a very personnel intensive matter, but it's also sort of a partnering and intern and assistant sort of plowing through stuff that is just sort of scut work, frankly.

But that there may be a way to leverage some of our resources to do that.

Because I'm

Yeah, that's good feedback.

Those are some helpful suggestions.

I do see the connection there between the questions we're asking, stormwater-related, how these alleys can be used as resources.

I will say that that question of researching ownership of these alleys is going to be very expensive, very time-consuming, as you said.

The intern idea, interesting one.

My sense is that you have to be pretty proficient in reviewing, doing title research and that kind of thing.

Well, one thing that you might want to consider is that in the title insurance industry right now, there is a massive move to consolidation of data and AI and electronic movement.

I think in the intern front, I think UVA is also sometimes an underutilized resource.

If they have a law student land use clinic, that might be something they'd be interested in.

Because you're right.

They are very labor intensive.

I mean, the joke I make is, oh, there's an alley issue.

Let's figure out which real estate attorney in town needs to make a boat payment.

It's interesting you mention AI and consolidation.

I do think there is a lot that could be done.

to help just by OCRing and making deeds searchable.

I don't know what it would take to get the clerk to agree to that.

I don't know if it's like a product of our license with whoever scanned it, but those are very tightly locked down right now.

Even, you know, Jordan Yeager did that whole covenant study, and I understand he's not allowed to

to publish the raw deeds, just because that's the terms of his access to deeds.

It's a nine-headed, hairy monster of a problem.

Yeah, I mean, I will say the city attorney is very motivated to recruit for the positions that are

Bacon in the office, has made some headway recently, given a new crop of unemployed professionals in the region, country.

But paralegals are also part of the recruitment, and that would be the type of individual who could support us with that type of work as it stands now, even for some of that work that we need to do for

Yeah, I only have a couple things.

First off, I want to say it's great to see this work plan and all the exciting stuff going on and just to have a work plan.

I remember, you know, a very long time ago when I first had the Planning Commission, our old chair, Chair Green, would say things about an MDS work plan, like, is this on the plan and where's the plan?

And I was like, I've never seen a work plan.

Well, thank you.

I'm glad you appreciate it.

I sometimes know that we have to build a plane while we're flying it, but that's not my preferred approach.

Yep.

And on the vision plan for 10th and Page and Rose Hill, I really like the idea of a sort of short-term actionable plan that can move immediately into implementation.

I do wonder though if there is any room for kind of

We're starting to think about a longer-term re-envisioning of what Preston the road looks like.

It's an overbuilt road that was expanded and tore down a lot of stuff in order to build a highway to Emmett that was then, well, Harlan Bartholomew was fired because he tried to expand Preston to look like that through the Barracks-Rutby neighborhood.

If you have anything you want to chime in on, please join me.

But what I was just going to say is that we anticipate that this visioning process will identify near-term action items and also items that could be follow-on work.

Awesome.

So yeah, and during the community conversations, you know, certainly we'll be open to the feedback.

that might be expressed about the zoning.

Cool.

And then the other thing I had was sort of just a very

Very conceptual, like with a lot of these things as we plan to do things that are going to take multiple years, you know, maybe I'll pick like the environmental study as an example.

If it's planned to take two years, I feel like it's very easy to build it up into one big, adopting one big change all at once.

as the culmination of a big effort.

And I'm wondering if there's any room to make things a little bit more incremental to make tweaks along the way?

And I'm sorry, that didn't come through clearly.

I think the work plans that we come up with this summer for what we view as the real problems we were trying to solve and the real opportunities to address those problems,

It will recommend kind of a phased approach.

So what is the low-hanging fruit?

What are the biggest wins?

Cool.

And I guess last thing, just a very technical or a very matter-of-fact question.

I understand OCS, there's been a lot of time about the housing division moving to NDS.

Are there other parts of OCS that are going somewhere else?

So OCS is actually a very small office.

I think there were seven staff, so don't quote me on that, but a small number of staff.

So there's a team of grant specialists that will be moving into

I believe they will be moving into the budget office.

And then, does that sound right from what we heard today?

I mean, I have to admit, I've been mostly focused on the housing, on the housing relocation component.

So, yeah, that's really all the information I have at this time.

Okay, that makes sense.

It was, but it was only for CDBG and home.

There's now a overall grants coordinator and there's somebody who's specific to those grants.

Fair enough.

So, lots of unbelievable, lots of good work.

The devil is in the details, so execution and implementation will be important.

Just a couple of things that made me go.

One is, in 20 years, we've never denied an ERB application.

Either Jeff, you are an incredible coach, you do a great job coaching the applicants, or we are very lazy and lenient.

I want to just suggest that Jeff's a great coach, frankly.

The Transportation Authority, will that be governed by a board or advised by a board?

And if it is governed or advised by a board, what type of people are there?

I think I do.

It's basically the outgrowth of the old regional transit partnership.

So I think it's elected.

And then the way it had to work, because of state law, is it was Albemarle and Charlottesville.

And then they added UVA.

And UVA maybe had to be non-voting it first.

I think the outlying counties then had to be invited in later.

I'm not sure if that's actually happened yet.

Yeah, and the current.

I want to say it's one from each.

On that note, there used to be something called the Charlottesville Area Transit Advisory Committee, which was intended to be riders.

What does a UVA property maintenance inspector do?

So UVA funds a property maintenance inspector position for us to focus on the neighborhoods directly surrounding the university where the predominance of student housing is located.

So right now, we only have one inspector in addition to the code official.

And that inspector and the code official kind of team up to conduct citywide inspections, including those areas around the university.

Well, thank you, Michael, for the assist.

We are grateful.

Just something to think about.

Does the city have a formal people development program?

I mean, you mentioned that we send the folks off to conferences, and you talked about general career development.

But I don't get a sense that our city, our government, does a really good job of developing these people.

That's so interesting that you said that.

It was just a new conversation today with somebody where I talked about that as a real need for our staff to demonstrate

that we care about their career development.

So my understanding is that we have with a new HR director on board, he will be focusing on a number of different initiatives.

There has been a learning management system and a beta testing space for a period of time that will come on board and will provide staff with access to a wide range of training opportunities.

Having said that, the idea of a real intentional career development program, I think that's great feedback and something that I can certainly share back as something that has been identified as a great opportunity.

There's something else I was going to say about that.

Oh, sorry.

But there are sometimes classes that are offered by HR, such as opportunities for aspiring supervisors or comprehensive training opportunities for new supervisors.

I mean, that kind of development is good, but also mentoring is important.

We've got a couple, three incredible leaders in our city, a government that could be great mentors for people that are just beginning and want to move up the ladder.

Short-term rentals.

So I've got a little experience with that through the BZA.

The couple of things that we've looked at since I've been on the BCA, and actually we sided with the applicant on a couple of occasions.

Even though the applicant broke the spirit of the law, they did not break the letter of the law.

So hopefully, as you guys are rewriting the ordinance, you'll take a look at the spirit of the law and marry that to the letter of the law.

Because I think the BZA is going to be the organization that actually gets appealed to.

Because the theory is it'll be appealed to the court, and the court won't go with the letter of the law.

I think you served in the housing authority too, didn't you?

So one thing that we dealt with a lot, mold.

There's a huge problem there.

And we couldn't get our heads around it because we didn't know where to go to find what the rules are.

Ms.

Creasy, is the state responsible for developing the regulations regarding mold in Mildew?

Or is there something we can do as a city?

I'm not really sure.

I mean, I know that we don't have a code that we can readily grab to say we can implement this as a city.

Ms.

Frank Krueger, what do you think?

Currently the housing authority is in pretty good shape with the executive director.

Yeah.

And so a lot of those problems are going to be demolished.

I mean, honestly, and, you know, rebuilt in a way that hopefully won't produce mold.

But I do know that particular residents have used legal aid services to be relocated or to document

the medical issues related to mold and so from my experience it's been more on a

case-by-case basis in terms of just how the housing authority is dealing with it.

There's Landlord Tenant Act is going to be the default source, which requires civil rulings.

looking to Mr. d'Oronzio because of your background in the housing and the hack.

How many thoughts on anything?

I think Ms.

Creasey is right.

What you've got as the central landlord tenant is this place a dump or not and the presence of the mold is we have a health and safety.

Really, those are alarmingly slow.

They're all civil.

The matter of fact is that the tenant is stuck.

So we need to find some sort of mechanism.

I don't know where, I mean that sounds to me like that if there is no real, and you say you've got no sense of what in state law we've got and you don't think it's anything, we don't think it's there.

I wonder if it's more general health

Equity and air quality because you can measure the air quality Even like new materials now, we know a lot more about what should go into buildings and what shouldn't go into buildings So again, probably not inspection but the on the building end at the beginning it's much better now, but also maybe there's a Just more of a healthy living

Yeah, I mean, not to be cynical, but once you identify a problem like that and codify it, then you're sort of obligated to do something about it.

And mold remediation is horrifically expensive, horrifically.

I mean, knocking the building down is your best solution in a large number of cases.

Yeah, I just had one quick one popped in.

Thinking back to the visioning plan for Rose Hill and 10th and Page, one of the things I was going to suggest as you sort of begin to do public outreach is sort of maybe contextualize

role of the visioning plans and also sort of cast a wider net and give examples down the roadmap.

Future potential visioning plans, just something to sort of couch it that this ideas is an ongoing effort.

I think people were more aware of the Cherry Avenue.

So there's been a lot of studies there.

So yeah, like you're showing kind of on a website, like we've done this, we've done this.

Oh, OK.

Got it.

Yeah, it's not that this is like a one and done.

We're doing these neighborhoods and then.

I see what you mean.

First, I'm going to echo Director Brown.

Additionally, we will attempt to have, or intend, pardon me, to have an open house at the onset and the end of the process to really provide information for a more informed approach to engaging in this process.

That's one aspect of it, but also to provide an overview of

Visioning or strategic planning.

We haven't finalized the name yet.

We're utilizing vision and envisioning for now, pardon me.

But again, like you said, to differentiate between the small area plan versus a visioning plan versus a strategic plan and what those processes look like and how you can better engage.

Also, we do have the public engagement.

Sorry, one more question that I think we brought up in the work session, and this relates more to the code amendments.

Charlottesville is very small.

We all know people who are like, oh, I would like to build this, but I can't, or whatever.

I don't know what the right forum would be because it would need to be a publicly advertised session, maybe it's a work session, but to hear from developers and builders, affordable housing providers because I know there is information that might be helpful and I know there's, I'm not sure how to get it sort of

Before we do that, I think Rory had a question.

Sorry, real quick.

First, for the short-term rental study, is that being run in the zoning administrator's office, or is there a planner in charge of it?

So Mr. Kinlotan and Mr. Brodhead are co-leading it.

The other question the UVA inspector talked made me think about this.

With the sort of, you know, constraints for inspections with the new buildings going up, you know, I noticed in the portal that those buildings are paying, like,

I think it's close to a million dollars in fees between the two of them for inspections alone.

A few that I've missed and a few that are new.

I've told you that you have too much work to do.

Now I'd like to add more work for you to do.

So last year, on sort of an ad hoc basis, we created a new program to recommend legislative changes to move towards the legislature to hopefully adopt.

To my knowledge, that turned into new legislation, but it was an exciting step forward.

I would be interested in ways that staff could assist us in that, where we have

We are always available to bounce ideas off of and to the extent that we have resources and time to be able to support that kind of thing, we are here to provide whatever support we can.

Thank you.

We have never collaborated, to my knowledge, with the public health district.

There were sort of separate silos, but I think the mold issue specifically, I think there's a great deal of common interest and concern.

Okay, thank you.

Star Hill implementation.

It's a great vision plan.

It's the only vision plan I know of that we have.

To my knowledge, we've never done anything on it.

Yes, so the Star Hill implementation plan is on a slide that I actually haven't presented yet, and I probably should have bumped that up before the development code updates.

But that is one of the items that we haven't prioritized for this year.

It continues to be an item that we're tracking.

It's just not something that we're looking at right now.

We are focusing on 10th and Page and Rose Hill, but it is certainly still on our radar Thank you

OK, so I will now turn it over to Mr. Alfoli to talk about the development code updates.

And I'll just sit back down.

I think we're on a popular term.

Planning Commission.

I'm Matt Affley, the development planning manager at NDS, and I'll be going through the proposed development code amendments and closing out the department's FY26 work plan.

As you can see on the slide,

As you can see on this slide, staff has been busy engaging with our development community with 90 pre-application meetings in just one year related to the new development code.

But as you can also see, out of those 90 pre-application meetings, only 20 projects have moved forward, and the last number on this slide has been updated just in the last couple days as four applications have been approved, including the 217 Oak, which was an approved minor development plan,

back in August but that was only for one unit.

There was 1609 Gordon which was approved major development plan back in January for nine units.

117 Harris.

It was an approved minor development plan back in August for one unit, but that was to get the site into current compliance prior to submitting a major development plan for 14 units that is currently under review.

And then finally there's 211 Albemarle, which was an approval of a major development plan for a commercial use that was approved at the end of May.

That was the Pilgrim Baptist Church for their use there.

Next slide.

This slide provides a snapshot of key developments currently under review.

Looking at the left column, we see that most unit counts fall within the 6 to 12 range.

While 2030 Barracks Road appears to offer 24 units, it's actually the result of dividing the existing lot into two zoning lots, each lot capped at 12 units.

This means we are seeing some missing middle housing emerge in these projects.

However, as shown in the far right hand column, significant challenges arise during the review process.

Obstacles such as closing of public streets, navigating discretionary approvals to modify development standards, and addressing utility service upgrades are proving to be key hurdles to moving these projects toward approval and into construction.

Next slide.

This slide presents the number of approved accessory dwelling units in the city as of May of this year.

While the term accessory dwelling is still commonly used, it no longer appears in the development code.

Instead, all residential units on a zoning lot or sublot are treated equally with no designation as accessory to a primary structure.

This shift in terminology reflects a broader approach to residential development, ensuring that every unit is counted

as part of the overall housing framework rather than secondary or in addition.

As we transition from the overview of our current development landscape to our vision to the future, our primary focus is on updating and amending the development review procedural manual in key sections of the development code.

This effort is designed to streamline the creation of residential units aligning with one of the core goals of our comprehensive plan.

To achieve this, we are exploring strategies to shorten review times, enhance the efficiency and value of a development plan, and establish clear expectations for both staff and the development community.

These changes are well underway, and we are synchronizing this implementation with the adoption of the development code amendments scheduled for later this fall, early winter.

As you may recall, the next few slides are from the Planning Commission work session on May 27th.

This particular slide provides a broad overview of our development code, highlighting its origins and the reasons behind our proposed revisions.

Our current code, adopted on December 18th, 2023, was designed to support a form-based approach aimed at increasing density and aligning with the goals of the 2021 Comprehensive Plan.

More than just a regulatory framework, this code serves as a guiding tool to shape the neighborhood's growth in a structured, yet adapted manner.

However, over time, staff has identified several areas needing refinement, ranging from minor grammatical corrections to more substantial changes necessary for officially advising and achieving the city's objectives.

To manage these revisions, we've structured the process into tiers.

Tier one focuses on minor grammatical corrections, small adjustments, and to ensure compliance with state regulations.

Tier 2 addresses overlooked details from the original drafting offering needed clarification and refinement.

Tier 3 involves more significant policy changes that require thorough analysis and meaningful community engagement.

These adjustments go beyond simple refinements shaping the broader impact of the development regulations.

Importantly, this revision process is not a one-time effort.

Tiers 1 and Tier 2 will be updated annually to maintain an adapted code that reflects best practices and supports sustainable community growth.

This ongoing process ensures our development framework remains responsive to both our current challenges and future opportunities.

Tier 1 amendments are essentially refinements that keep our development code clear, precise, and up to date.

This phase focuses on correcting copy editing issues, filling in missing text, and making small but impactful adjustments to ensure the code accurately reflects its intended meaning.

A key component of Tier 1 is to integrate legislative updates based on recent actions passed by the Virginia General Assembly.

These changes help maintain the compliance with current regulatory status,

while ensuring the code remains both reliable and functional.

The scope of these amendments is narrow, centered on technical corrections and minor refinements.

They improve clarity and consistency without altering policy directions.

This is about fine-tuning the language rather than making large changes.

Next, these proposed Tier 1 amendments will be presented

At an upcoming public hearing, looking ahead, we see this process as an ongoing effort where we collect these changes and move them forward on a yearly basis.

Next slide.

And this slide outlines some of the Tier 1 changes that were moving forward.

More information can be found in the materials that were tied to the May 27th work session.

Next slide.

This slide focuses on the Tier 1 amendments incorporating updates based on changes to the state regulations that go into effect July 1st of this year.

It's essential for our development code to reflect most current state mandated language and compliance requirements.

One of our key responsibilities is to ensure that references in our code align with the latest enabling requirements from the Virginia General Assembly.

The two bills that recently passed were HB2660, which changed the deadline for subdivision site plan and development plan, shortening it from ten days to five days, and SB974,

which changed the authority to review site plans, development plans, and subdivisions from planning commission to staff.

Many sections of the development code will need to be amended to stay in compliance with the updated state regulation.

Next slide.

Now we move on to the tier two amendments aimed at refining the development code by addressing gaps and ambiguities to improve clarity and usability.

This phase focuses on adjustments that enhance interpretations and implementations ensuring the code remains effective.

One example is the fee schedule where minor amendments will help refine the development review process.

This will include adding an application fee for sublots, which is currently not in our fee schedule.

Tier 2 covers a broad range

of modifications, additions, and removals to ensure regulatory support supports planning objectives while maintaining consistency.

Staff will gather additional feedback from the Planning Commission in August with select amendments moving to a public hearing in the fall.

Like Tier 1, this will be an ongoing process with annual updates to incorporate these changes.

And what staff is planning for August at that work session will be presenting the materials in the same kind of format they would go to a public hearing.

So you would see the existing language, staff's proposed language, and the analysis behind it, giving you an opportunity to go through each change to make edits and suggestions before moving on to a public hearing.

Next slide.

Here we see a few proposed amendments and draft language aimed at addressing key issues within the development code.

First, the current code prevents attached dwelling units in the R districts.

While staff has worked with applicants on a sublot-based work-around, this approach is costly and ineffective.

hindering efforts to expand housing options in the city.

This issue was discussed in the Planning Commission's work session on May 27th and further updates will be provided at the August work session.

Next we're introducing a pathway for residents and developers to make small improvements to their lot without resorting to expensive additions to front yard structures solely to meet build-to requirements.

This amendment facilitates the inclusion of shed and outbuildings while preserving the code's intent for a more urban streetscape.

Finally, a proposed update aims to codify an existing policy related to one- and two-unit construction by improving the development review process.

Under the current code, all new construction and additions require a development plan and a final site plan, adding significant time and resources before a building permit can be issued.

The existing policy has allowed the building review process to substitute for development review, but tracking has become challenging.

Staff is recommending exempting one and two projects from development review, allowing them to proceed directly to building permit review while still ensuring full compliance with zoning regulations at that stage.

These amendments are designed to reinforce

These amendments are designed to remove inefficiencies while maintaining regulatory oversight, ensuring the development code better supports housing growth and land use improvements across the city.

Next slide.

Now turning to Tier 3 amendments, which focuses on comprehensive policy changes and addressing development issues that go beyond simple language tweaks.

Unlike the technical fixes in Tier 1 or the minor refinements in Tier 2, Tier 3 amendments are fundamental to the City's policy direction and often require long-term planning strategies.

These updates aim to establish or refine key policy directions requiring thorough analysis due to their broad impact and complexity.

Given their significance, community engagement is essential.

Outreach efforts will be designed to gather feedback and ensure proposed changes align with public priorities.

Because of their complexity and resource demands, Tier 3 amendments will be integrated into future Neighborhood Development Services work plans.

This phase-deliberate approach allows for detailed research, stakeholder input, and extended review periods ensuring thoughtfulness and well-vetted implementation.

This slide highlights three key policy issues that could lead to Tier III amendments, focusing on fundamental changes that require thorough analysis and broad community input.

The first issue involves clarifying acceptable height and building length for townhouses and other in-field housing types in residential districts.

Proposed amendments would refine standards, including definition of building, height requirements in feet and stories, height bonus for additional units, and build to width.

The second example focuses on refining goals for the RNA districts, ensuring a clear distinction from other residential districts.

This review will weigh the benefits and challenges of RNA requirements leading to potential policy adjustments.

Finally, further study is needed to explore opportunities for neighborhood service retail within residential districts.

This includes zoning amendments and policy changes

that balances accessibility with community need.

Each of these policy decisions will shape long-term planning and require careful consideration to ensure that they align with the city's broader development goals.

Next slide.

What we have here are even one level down, digging into specific examples of Tier 3 amendments staff has identified.

including great developed standards for field lightings, clarifying mid-block pedestrian paths and related amenities.

This slide here has our updated timeline.

This updated timeline reflects the next steps and key milestones following the May 27 work session.

A newly added work session with the Planning Commission in August will focus on Tier 2 amendments and be structured similarly to how the October public hearing materials will be presented, kind of as I stated earlier, where you'll have an opportunity to see the language.

See the staff's recommended language and see the analysis behind it.

Not included on this timeline, but equally important is a proposed listening session in July with builders, developers, and the Planning Commission.

This session, requested during the May 27 work session, aims to provide firsthand insight from those who work with the development code daily, highlighting what's been efficient and what needs improvement.

While this timeline shifts everything back by one month, the expectation remains that Tier 1 and a portion of Tier 2 amendments will be adopted by the end of the year.

Next slide.

To wrap up, our final slide highlights additional areas of need that have been identified but not prioritized for FY26 due to staff capacity and focus on other

I'm excited for the feedback session.

Also the Star Hill, this is not necessarily in the work plan, but I think with the city-owned properties and the upcoming West Haven redevelopment, again those tunnels that go under and could potentially connect kids

to the Jefferson School in an easier way.

I'll just add that there are a couple slides in the presentation that had some interesting data points, one showing the, I guess what we used to call access for dueling units over time, and the other one kind of showing how many

A few things.

I'm having trouble understanding the side setback problem.

It seems like the regulatory tool is creating problems.

We're enforcing side setbacks where we don't want any setbacks at all.

That has been a discussion point, but we also want to take into account any unforeseen circumstances.

There's been the conversation about offsetting, so you're currently right now in the R District we have the four foot setback would be allowing zero on one but eight on the other so that you're keeping the original intent

But you're shifting that off.

That gives you a chance actually to maybe plant more trees.

I've heard a lot about our dimensional height restrictions and all the excitement that those create.

When we were talking about the development code, we talked about shifting to regulating stories instead of dimensional restrictions.

What we ended up with was stories and dimensional restrictions.

Double the regulations, double the management, double the headaches.

What a choice.

There's been focus, but actually more in the residential district the opposite way, going back to just feet and not stories, where we have a lot of terrain.

And what we're running into is that terrain is creating issues where you're getting something you weren't thinking was a story.

Now you don't have that height.

And just we don't want to necessarily use our old code as an example.

A big idea we talked about a few years ago was creating a catalog of pre-approved accessory dwelling unit designs where anyone could just go on the website and say, I want that.

I contact this person.

I give them this much money.

It's already approved.

Boom, let's go.

One of the things that kind of changed in, under our old code, an accessory dwelling had to be a certain percentage smaller.

I mean it had to be accessory to the large, to the existing home.

That's gone away.

There's no more this accessory to, it's just number of dwellings.

So you could have

All three dwellings could be the same size or triplex.

We're not going to see the triplex most likely because you run into the commercial building code and you have a sprinkle so you're going to see duplexes or the cottage court where they can all be the equal size.

There's been talk but it's not really gained traction just because of that shift in what we still use that terminology accessory dwelling because you're thinking about building a

Something in your backyard you're going to rent out, but in the regulatory framework that no longer exists.

So would this be something that would be considered for a future work plan but is currently not in the work plan and not formally proposed for a future work plan?

We have the item in the work plan where we would develop educational materials to help people understand how to use the

the code, make it more accessible.

I think the idea of focusing in on some of the housing types that seem most attainable or realistic for a homeowner to pursue on their own is something that we can continue exploring.

I think we are mindful of wanting to manage expectations, though.

that when it comes down to it, every site is unique.

There's, yes, what sort of box you can plop down in a site, but then how do you make sure you've got the right utility hookups and stormwater?

Are you going to hit your stormwater regulatory requirements?

So just some things that we need to work through if we were to start to explore that idea of some

Thank you.

So to follow along about that, about 10 years ago, design develop Bob Pinio pushed out a sort of a, he tried to create a Sherpa or guide for doing accessories.

I think that if someone and it may not be in the city can get their head around how to do that efficiently

that that is an enormous opportunity for that person or organization, particularly if they've got a connection to a modular or panelized building operation where once they've learned how to do it, they can start plopping those things down with a lot more efficiency than we've seen heretofore.

We've just got to find somebody willing to

There was a brief discussion also about 10 years ago about trying to put together a pilot program for that that Habitat and PHA were sort of sniffing around.

So I mean, that's out there.

We just got to figure out a way to implement it.

The city contracted that guy, right?

I'm not sure.

At this point, not particularly, I think that the height versus story thing is going to continue to cycle through repeatedly.

And we've got feet people and story people and a couple of meter people.

I'm a meter person.

Apparently, the only people still using the feeder, Liberia, Myanmar in the United States.

So I mean, it's not exactly the most sophisticated company we're giving.

I'm going to restrain myself for making the feed joke.

You said, uh,

You said most of tier two by December and not all.

I think the August work session is going to kind of determine that.

I think you're going to have in front of you

a booklet with each an amendment on each one and it's gonna kind of be you know if we can get through eight of them fifteen of them that's what we'll move forward but I don't want to move forward ones that if let's say there's 20 and we get through

Yeah, I definitely agree with that.

I guess another sort of related question, the initiation as an action, we could just do like a vague initiation kind of whenever, right?

Correct, and I'm going to actually be in Scotland.

Fair enough.

Okay.

And then I guess on the side setback thing, and again maybe more broadly, like,

We plan on having what we feel staff is a solution in front of you all and we're hoping that you know that might be a little tweak or that and we can move forward but we I will say if we're finding we're sitting around that table in August and we're spending 30 minutes on this I'm probably gonna ask that we move that

You know, down because we're not getting consensus.

And the one thing, you know, it'll pan out in the analysis from staff.

But the one thing we want to consider too is this isn't just about new regulation.

This is about existing.

Yeah.

I guess while we're on the subject of side setbacks, I'll throw out, I hate the double side setback on the opposite side.

It seems to me that the purpose, if there's any, of side setbacks is to keep the building a little bit far from the guy on that side, the neighbor on that side, and that doesn't, yeah, it's not just to, you know, have breathing room on the sides, I would think.

I think generally on the schedule, I'm okay with it being pushed a month.

I appreciate the extra feedback the Planning Commission will get.

you know not getting to any of these tier three things feels a little painful and if we can squeeze any of those maybe the lower hanging fruit into this I think you know some of them in particular are

I don't think that complicated and are serious problems that people are facing.

I mean, again, the one I'll throw out there is the C1, C2.

If you have townhomes on sublots, they can't be three stories, but if you have the same townhomes in

in a condo on one lot, then they can be three stories.

It's just sort of an absurd outcome.

It seems to me to be pretty easy to fix to just say it's three units or more than one unit on the zoning lot.

I think that that was our understanding in 2023.

I might write an email about this where I dig a bunch of transcripts.

And I would say we wouldn't, you know, we're not opposed to exploring it, but we would want to explore the counter to that too is how do we handle then the allowable maximum width.

Are you getting now, because in that scenario where each one of those townhomes is an individual building, in certain districts each one could be 60 feet.

But if now we're considering that one building, that whole thing is a total of 60 feet.

Yeah, though, I mean, the way we've been enforcing it now is already the opposite, right?

It hit it when the first time it came through, they were individual lots, so they weren't hitting the 60 feet because it was each individual building.

But they weren't getting the height they wanted, so they removed the lot lines to get the height, but then it became too long.

Yeah.

Interesting.

Okay.

Huh.

Okay.

Simple.

Yeah.

Fair.

That's fair.

I guess I'll also throw out, I was reminded of one thing I didn't bring up last time about another thing that's on the list.

I don't know if this is the appropriate menu to throw it out there.

I think it's a pretty simple-ish, maybe a B1, but should I send an email or should I just toss it out?

Right now sublots are only allowed in our zones.

There's a lot of the city where the existing lot

The historic lot sizes are very small.

In some places we've thrown ex-stones where it has been single-family or single-family appearing buildings.

And we're basically saying you have to consolidate lots.

You know, to do a feasible development and you couldn't do a sublot townhome arrangement, it seems to me that we should probably allow sublots elsewhere.

I think we would need to, to me that would need something that would need study because you need to look at the uses to what uses would you be permitting now that could be landlocked through a sublot.

So it's not that they couldn't be explored, I just think it just needs that exploration.

I want to go back to the development data that you provided.

So the fact that only four applications have been approved out of 90 pre-application meetings and 20 submissions, are we considering that a problem or is that just

It takes more than a year to get these things through.

I think one of the reasons we're kind of wanting to change our development review process is we intended the development review to really be a zoning check.

And it's turning into more of a mini site plan where elements.

So that is taking a lot more rounds.

Because when you start to think about how long does the site plan take to get, we envision the development plan to be something you've got approved in one or two rounds at the most.

And what we're turning into is they're including a lot of the utility, a lot of grading.

And so there are many side plans that are taking longer.

So I think that's one element.

I think there are some legitimate issues that arise when someone comes and sits in our pre-application meeting, talks to the whole team, which includes planning, fire, utilities, traffic, all these groups.

They're finding out some issues that maybe they need to keep working on.

Or maybe, sadly, maybe there is something that came up that

So is it, is that issue that when someone, when a developer comes to a project they're trying to put too many units on the, like we've sort of kind of up-zoned the city but not putting form-based code on top of it.

You made it so that theoretically you could do so many units, but in reality you can't?

I think we're running into that.

You see what your maximum build-out would be, and then you see the reality about getting utilities, getting the actual space, meeting all that becomes, you know, you might say, you know, in some of the districts it might say 12 is your max, but in reality, four is your max.

All right.

Page 46, the critical slope wave of a bullet at the bottom of page 46.

If I can get my iPad up again.

Give me a second.

Oh, there it is.

It's up.

I can't find it.

It's not moving.

Oh, there it is.

The reason I'm asking is there was a debate that raged for a couple of months.

James and I were involved in it.

The engineer was involved in it.

And there was some thought about maybe the Planning Commission didn't need to be involved in critical slope waivers anymore.

Maybe it should be a ministerial sort of thing.

Because most of the decisions needed to be technical.

I want to make sure I understand what we're trying to do with this.

I think back to South Perth Street, the public housing property there, where there are all kinds of environmental reasons not to do that.

Again, you guys know that I'm big on protecting the critical slopes, but I actually voted to move that along because the greater good, the greater public good was suggesting that we ought to disturb the critical slopes.

So this bullet is recognizing that there are some questions about how critical slopes have been defined.

I think sometimes it refers to true natural resources and then sometimes we see critical slopes that were basically like a very man-made and aren't actually serving a environmental purpose.

Yeah.

Part of the debate we went back and forth on was

The physical stuff as opposed to the social stuff.

And there was an attempt to separate the social stuff from the critical of the physical criteria.

And wondering what we're doing here.

Well, so through the, I mean, and I've indicated that this would be something that we would really be studying through the environmental policy and regulatory review.

We view critical slopes as a natural resource.

And so I think what we'll be intending to do is just look to see if these are the right criteria to be

deciding if we do or do not need to be protecting these critical slopes through in a development process or not.

At this point in time, we don't have any specific goals.

We're just trying to get to a place where there's a better, I think, set of expectations for what isn't appropriate for disturbing critical slopes.

So if you have specific feedback on what should be included in our review of those criteria, you can share that now, or we will be coming back with

Part of the debate was just to focus on the physical stuff.

And my pushback was, it's more than that.

So that's my only point.

It's more than just protecting the environment.

That's important.

Like the public benefit, right?

Public benefit, yeah.

Yes.

Yes.

So I think we'll be looking at that to see if that's really something that from a staff perspective is easy for us to evaluate or if that's something more so that should be in the realm of the appointed or elected body.

That'll be important.

Okay that's good feedback to receive, thank you.

Do you guys remember that?

I just wanted to add a comment on the last slide.

So I just wanted to sort of separate that so the the other items that were previously identified and so I'm taking off my UVA ex officio hat and I just wanted to acknowledge the downtown mall study and I have to say personally as the city resident I was disappointed to see it sort of drop off the work plan and I just wanted to make an impassioned comment.

I had the benefit of working with Jeff a year and Rory we sat on the downtown mall committee and

Full disclosure, my wife owns Alakazam Toys.

I'm a big fan of Lawrence Halpern.

And I think with next year being the 50th birthday of this spectacular vision, I do hope that this can sort of come back into focus on a future work plan.

Because I think it's been, the can's been kicked, I think, down the road a little bit too often, I think.

Make sure we're all on the same page.

Because I know I actually had asked them, I said,

Is this the study of the downtown relative to zoning and issues like that, or is this the mall?

No, appreciate that feedback.

There are a number of different ways that we could approach a study of the downtown mall.

It could be focused.

It could be a very comprehensive study where we are looking at the vision for the mall in its entirety, the height and massing of the buildings, the opportunities for investment in the streetscape, what we want those investments in the streetscape to look like.

Excuse me, the hardscape, not the streetscape, the hardscape.

how to plan for the investment in the tree canopy that is needed over time.

I know that there was a plan that was completed last year that has a lot of comprehensive recommendations.

Is there an opportunity to pull those recommendations into basically a small area plan?

That would be a very comprehensive way of looking at the downtown mall.

We could also just look at height

And how that does or doesn't line up with our design guidelines and where to create some consistency between the development code and the design guidelines from a height and massing perspective.

So there's a couple different ways that we could look at the downtown mall.

I will say that in scoping a study of the design guidelines, there might be an opportunity to look at the downtown mall kind of from that angle, more so than from a small area plan perspective, at least in the near term, start to give it some thought.

But given the complexity of that issue, it is something that

is not being brought forward at this time as a recommended work plan item.

I appreciate that and agree with that.

I just want to just make a case to not lose sight of it because I think it's a space that really benefits a wide cross-section and it's also sort of our tourism and everything else that sort of helps drive the vibrancy in this community.

So during the comprehensive planning process, and then again during the zoning process, we got quite a bit of public feedback asking for map changes.

We discussed that issue over great periods of time.

I know staff worked a ton on it.

Consultants worked on it a ton.

We worked on it a ton.

One thing that I said after things became sort of set a little bit to the public was that don't worry.

This is a little document.

We will be making changes over the time as we see errors, as we see problems, as we see opportunities.

We will be changing the map to ensure that it serves the public.

Are we changing the map to serve the public?

We don't have any plans at the moment to look at any sort of zoning map changes.

Yeah, and I think we would be.

And this may just be a me thing, is to go through correspondents asking for those changes and for us to just have a conversation about it.

A lot of them were just individual owners saying I want to do this with my property and you are down zoning me, oh god fix it.

So a question to add on to the downtown mall question.

You said there are many different ways that this could roll out.

Yes, and nothing that I recommended precludes that sort of work being undertaken.

It's being managed through Parks and Rec.

Summer's here.

I mean, if not officially on the calendar, at least in terms of the amount of perspiration.

And I'll just point out as we adjourn that today is both National Iced Tea Day.

It is also National Black Cow, aka

root beer flow today, but if those two things are too wholesome for you to undertake this evening, I'll also point out that you can go home and engage in National Bed Bug Prevention Day.