Planning Commission Regular Meeting   7/8/2025

We're good to go?

OK.

So yeah, welcome to this planning commission meeting.

So we're going to start with commissioner's reports.

I just want to start by saying that there had been a listening session that had been proposed for this meeting.

It has been postponed.

But if anyone wants to speak to that, they're welcome to during matters about the public.

And that's going to happen after a report from NDS.

But we will get to that.

All right.

Ms.

Roettger, would you like to start with your report?

and they are actually recruiting some new members.

We had a pretty small meeting this month and they continue to work on policy, education, advocacy and they have a really cool new program going on where they're

educating neighborhoods about invasive vines on trees.

And they've been doing some cool walks and training for people to chop their own vines.

Anyway, and that has been, I'll send the summary of what they've done this year, but it really seems to be taking off as just kind of like a very person-to-person activity.

And then, yeah, I think it's been a hard couple weeks talking to residents in general who have nothing to do with UVA, unsure about the future partnerships there.

I have a draft change to the Virginia Building Code for 2027, additional to what I've mentioned before.

This one is called More Affordable Elevators.

I'm trying to make it with a very approachable name.

The current building code

banned what I consider an elevator, a classic safety elevator, mandating only elevators that can accommodate an extra large stretcher, with the hope that while everyone wants an extra large stretcher, that would be great.

But what has in effect happened is that it's just banned all elevators for all missing middle housing, which was not intended.

They were not trying to get rid of elevators or harm people who need elevators.

So this proposal is to re-permit affordable smaller elevators as needed.

And the Virginia AARP is joining on this, which is exciting.

So I think it may succeed.

The PAC meeting was focused on the dissolution of OCS and a discussion of the land bank work program January 27th is sort of the target date for OCS.

passing a land bank ordinance.

But there is going to be some continued development work to be done.

and hopefully make some adjustments to where we are presently.

So that's that.

TJPC did not meet, as they do not in July.

And I can report from other parts of my remit community development block grant, it looks to me like we actually know what the money is.

And yesterday, council took the appropriate actions to actually take the money and allocate it.

We had an MPO tech meeting on June 17th.

The big news is that CAC is applying for a federal low no emissions grant for basically an expansion of

the cat yard down Avon including new facilities for charging electric buses and new maintenance facilities.

That grant deadline is coming up in a couple days so we'll know in a few months if they received it and if so they'll have significant expansion in their capacity and newer facilities to maintain buses.

Also, a TDM, a Transportation Demand Management Study, is just getting underway at the MPO.

They will be looking at mode share, how to get people out of cars and reduce VMT.

That is updated from the initial scope that was essentially, do we have enough parking downtown?

Flupak meeting was canceled.

I did attend a DHCD building code cycle single-stair study group meeting on behalf of Lyle who was at the beach.

We managed to achieve consensus with all the code officials and fire officials in the room on Lyle's four-story single-stair proposal with some sort of minor caveats that I won't go into here.

Since our representative from the university is not here, my report is at the June BAR meeting.

We reviewed actually a number of interesting projects.

One was a

I think we approved the hotel on 218 West Market Street, so we'll see if that moves forward through construction.

That is a six-story hotel.

We looked at an interesting addition to a house over in the Rugby Road 14th Street area.

It's on 17th Street.

And it was an interesting interpretation of zoning.

It's adding a duplex on the back of an existing house.

But there were eight bedrooms in each unit.

Obviously student housing, but the BAR was supportive of that project.

But that was just a preliminary pre-application conference, so there was no action taken.

Then we had another pre-application conference for a seven-story apartment building on 7th Street Southwest.

And this is on the site of the large radio antenna that is just south of West Main Street.

which I didn't realize is not used at the moment but anyways it's proposed for that and the big issue is that there are two houses from the 1800s, very small houses but very historic located on the site so the discussion is how to either incorporate or respect those houses with the construction of this very large apartment building directly behind them so that was

That was the BAR, and we will not have a meeting this month.

All right.

So I'll go ahead and start while Kelly is getting up for another piece of the puzzle.

I wanted to let you all know that Chair Mitchell is out of town today.

He also has some other circumstances and may not be here in August.

So he is already getting way ahead of the game.

He's already appointed a nominating committee.

As of in September, we have our annual meeting where vote for new chair and vice chair.

So the nominating committee will be reaching out to people.

about your availability on that.

We'll report the nominating committee at the August meeting, and then they will officially do their business, but they will be out there doing things and just wanted to make sure you guys knew about that.

Good evening.

So I was asked to present a brief update on the current state of affairs regarding our development code.

So I'm just going to offer a couple of brief remarks this evening.

By way of background, on June 30th, the Charlottesville Circuit Court granted a default judgment in the case of White versus Charlottesville after the city's outside counsel failed to meet a required deadline to respond to the plaintiff's amended complaint.

As of today, we are still operating under the 2024 development code.

All right, we'll try again.

As of today, we are still operating under the 2024 development code pending the circuit court's issuance of a formal ruling.

Despite the June 30th decision, building permit applications, including trade and fire permits, are continuously being accepted and processed.

All zoning related applications are temporarily on hold pending further legal and procedural guidance.

Affected applications are those listed in sections 34-5.2.1 through 34-5.2.17 of the development code, and most notably include new construction, additions, site modifications, and changes in use.

We are continuing to review applications, but we are not issuing any approvals until we have a formal ruling from the judge.

So again, I just wanted to provide you with that update, and if you have any questions,

If I was a developer, homeowner in limbo, working towards the new code but wondering if they

Are they able to come in and meet with someone about that?

Yes, they're welcome to reach out to us.

We do have a statement on the main Neighborhood Development Services web page that includes the information that I just shared with you today, contact information for Mr. O'Felly as our development review manager.

So they're welcome to get in touch with us about their specific circumstances.

Well, good evening commissioners.

I'm Alan Pure with the city of Charlottesville housing team.

And on April 21st at a city council work session, staff gave a presentation on the topic of an affordable housing tax abatement program.

Tax abatement had been raised and briefly discussed during the zoning rewrite process.

the process that culminated in the inclusionary zoning ordinance in late 2023.

At that work session, council expressed interest in looking at the tax abatement concept, so they charged staff with taking a deeper dive to perform due diligence, researching whether an affordable housing tax abatement would be an effective jumpstart to progress towards the city's goal of increasing affordable housing in Charlottesville.

As part of this due diligence, we are conducting a great deal of community engagement to discuss this idea.

And thus far, we have made a presentation to the Housing Advisory Committee, to the Chamber of Commerce Developers Group, CADRE.

We've met with representatives of Livable Seaville.

And this evening, as part of this community engagement, we'd like to make this presentation to all of you with the Planning Commission.

So what is tax abatement?

Tax abatement for affordable housing would be a reduction in real estate taxes to serve as a financial performance-based incentive to building affordable dwelling units.

At this time, we're focusing on rental housing projects, not for sale housing.

In particular, the larger projects that are subject to the inclusionary zoning ADU requirement.

The purpose would be to improve the financial feasibility of building affordable housing while preserving the revenue tax base.

So what is the recent history and the legal mechanism for this concept?

In 2022, the Virginia General Assembly approved and codified in the Industrial Development and Revenue Bond Act

a provision to allow local governments working with economic development authorities to reimburse a defined amount of real estate tax on the new incremental value of new affordable housing projects.

It's under that authority that we are considering the program.

Other jurisdictions in Virginia have created similar affordable housing tax abatement programs including the City of Richmond and Albemarle County.

The county's program provides a 15% tax abatement for up to 30 years for projects that provide at least 20% affordable dwelling units.

Because Virginia law does not allow local government to directly abate the real estate tax owed for affordable housing, programs may create a tax abatement calculation at the front end

of the program with a performance grant distribution at the back end.

In other words, the incentive is a formula calculated through a real estate tax abatement and the abated tax amount is then reimbursed to the developer after they have paid their full tax bill and the abated incentive amount would be refunded.

And Virginia law requires that an affordable housing tax abatement be administered jointly between local government and an economic development authority.

Or should Charlottesville create a land bank authority, we believe it may be able to be administered jointly with the land bank.

Next slide.

Let's look at an example to be sure we understand how this works.

So let's say under the tax abatement program, the tax incentive is a percentage applied to the increment tax due that is based upon the new increment value of a new housing construction project.

And that amount would be refunded to the developer.

The increment value is the difference between the higher assessed value after construction and minus the lower assessed value before the project.

That's considered the base.

And the increment tax due is the difference between post-construction tax and the pre-construction real estate tax.

So on the screen in front of you,

We have an old property that needs to be developed that's currently valued at $100,000 and pays $100 of real estate tax.

After the construction, that same property is now valued at $250,000 and pays $250 of real estate tax.

So the increment would be that post-construction value, that post-construction tax minus the base, the $100,000 and the $100.

So in this case, if the tax incentive was a 50 percent

abatements on the increment tax, then in this case that increment tax due is $150.

The developer would receive a tax incentive of $75.

So when that developer receives their first post-construction tax bill, in this case it would be $250, because we can't abate that tax directly, they would pay that full $250 and then they would receive a $75 tax abatement credit.

So the outcomes of this example are that the developer gets a real estate tax abatement that defers some or all of the cost of the ADU requirement.

And of course, developers can monetize today the value of that tax abatement so that they could use that to get the financing for their construction.

The city then would get the remaining portion of the non-ebated new revenue that would not exist but for the new housing construction.

So that in this example, the city now gets $175 of tax revenue, the $100 from the original base and the remaining $75 increment.

And of course, in this situation, the ADUs that the inclusionary zoning ordinance are striving for would be built and increase the affordable housing stock.

Next slide, please.

Why tax abatement research and a market analysis now?

In part because the new zoning ordinance includes the 10% ADU building requirement for larger projects.

And this creates a new financial constraint to the ongoing operating revenue of rental housing.

That constraint can be quantified as the difference in revenue between market rate rents,

and the affordable rents for those 10% ADUs that are required.

And there was discussion that this financial constraint may be a material impediment to rental housing construction and I've heard some call this an unfunded mandate.

At the same time, the affordability of housing construction is rising.

including land costs, construction costs, labor costs, and of course interest rates remain high.

Will those costs remain high and potentially trend higher going forward given our uncertain environment?

And what is the quantifiable impact of the ADU requirement and how significant is that cost within the context of all these other increasing costs?

Would a tax abatement incentive have an impact to jumpstart housing development?

For example, the city of Boston in 2024 found that a tax abatement would have little to no impact on housing construction within the context of all of those other higher costs.

They determined this after they conducted a due diligence market analysis and a study.

So at that time, they did not create a tax abatement program.

So a tax abatement may be an option to provide a financial incentive to make market rate housing developers whole in part from this new financial constraint, but frankly we don't know that yet.

And while the primary driver of this idea is that 10% ADU requirement for larger projects,

Questions for future study could be extending an abatement opportunity to smaller projects that don't hit the ordinance requirement but still build affordable units.

Perhaps the abatement would have no minimum size to be eligible.

That is an option that will need to be studied more and discussion as part of a future effort due to the complexity of smaller infill projects and their potential for subdivision.

Next slide.

So would tax abatement be a good strategic fit for Charlottesville?

Well, that is why the first step will be research, study, and a detailed data-driven market analysis.

The benefits and costs are mostly understood, but whether the Charlottesville market demands this program is not fully understood, hence our study.

The benefits of tax abatement include it supports long-term housing, affordability goals.

It aligns with the 2021 affordable housing plan and the 2023 strategic plan.

It uses future revenues, not existing general fund allocations to fund affordable housing.

Therefore, it may be a more sustainable option to fund affordable housing going forward rather than using grants and current revenue from bonding.

It spends city funds after projects are delivered.

at the end of the pipeline rather than early in.

But of course there are costs.

Committing future revenue for as long as 15, 30 or more years in a tax abatement is certainly a risk and a cost.

Committing future revenue well in advance of knowing what the city budget needs will be, what the priorities will be in those 15, 30 or more years down the road.

and therefore creates budget risks going forward in the event of an unforeseen budget emergency.

Next slide, please.

But wait, let's circle back.

How do we know this program would indeed be needed?

Aren't market rate rents so high in Charlottesville that the market rate revenue will subsidize the 10% ADU reduction?

Or if not, how much should we abate taxes?

Well, starting in late June, city staff is working with the consultants of 3TP Ventures on a comprehensive city housing market analysis to help us establish the extent to which the program may or may not be needed.

3TP is looking in detail at those cost drivers of housing construction to ascertain the specific cost of the ADU requirement to help determine what the true cost impediments are to housing construction, such as material labor financing, et cetera, and help us keep those costs distinct from the actual costs of the 10% ADUs.

This analysis will also help us determine the degree that market rate rents can indeed subsidize the ADU cost.

So the goal of this analysis will help us achieve three things.

Clearly and objectively establish if an abatement program could jumpstart housing production or if the project would still remain infeasible despite an abatement.

And if so, if an abatement is called for, the study will help us quantify the need and help devise a tax abatement formula

that may keep the developer whole in all or in part from the ADU requirements so that we can effectively incentivize housing construction.

And finally, this analysis we hope may guide us to the consideration of whether to target different abatement levels to different geographic areas of the city.

Perhaps tax incentives should be higher where market rate rents are lower and incentives should be lower where the market rate rent is higher

can potentially subsidize the cost of the ADUs.

We hope the analysis will allow us to consider other incentive options as well.

Next slide.

What are the policy options, the other tools that city government could use to address the new ADU constraint?

Well, there are the grant programs that we currently have like CAF and HOPS.

And we could increase the funding for these grants, but grant funds, of course, cannot be awarded to for-profit developers.

And grant funds come from current city revenue or obligate bonding capacity, committing current funds today for ADUs that won't be delivered until the future.

And current revenue and bonding capacity may well be needed for other city government priorities, like education, public safety, and parks.

On the other hand, a tax abatement program uses future real estate tax revenue that will come from the new added increment value of future development.

You protect base revenue that government services depend upon and commit a portion of that added increment revenue for new priorities like affordable housing.

And this, again, may be an optimal way to make funding affordable housing more sustainable for city government going forward.

In the meantime, while we are working with 3TP to complete our due diligence market analysis, some of the policy issues that we will be looked at include starting with the high-level options.

If we did a tax abatement, should a tax abatement simply make the developer whole from the 10% ADU requirement, or should it potentially be more generous in an attempt to kickstart

Housing by adding an additional tax incentive beyond that 10%.

But if that were the case, how much more generous would need to be identified?

And of course, it may be that the option that we fall on is the tax abatement does not provide a meaningful ability to address financial feasibility given all of those other costs, and we come down where Boston came down and opt not to go forward.

from these high-level framework concepts that we hope to address through this market analysis.

We might also want to consider the maximum

But we would need to consider other policy options, such as the maximum percentage of new incremental tax revenue to reimburse an abatement.

In the example I outlined earlier, I hypothetically threw out the concept of a 50% tax incentive.

Is that the right number?

Could it be 10%?

20%, Richmond's model goes up to 100% tax abatement on that increment tax due over 30 years.

We will need to consider, we would need to consider, should eligibility for the abatement start at just meeting the 10% requirement, or again, should we require something more than that?

Should eligibility also depend upon just meeting the 60% AMI requirement, or should eligibility for an abatement require going a little bit deeper?

Other policy questions, how many years should the abatement last?

15 years, 30 years, something else.

Should abatements be granted anywhere or targeted to specific areas?

And could an abatement payment schedule be front loaded and scaled down over time?

Some developers in some areas prefer that as it allows them to front load the revenue that they're going to get, which can improve their financing options.

And finally, should an abatement program, should it go forward, provide bonus opportunities, again, for building more ADUs than are required, building deeper affordability.

Next slide.

So once again, the outcome options of this due diligence effort are likely to be either determined that this is an incentive that makes sense and consider a recommendation to go forward or determine the tax abatement does not provide a meaningful

ability to financially incentivize affordable housing and through the study look at other options that we might be able to consider if we feel that we need to do something to incentivize construction in the face of an unpredictable future.

Next slide.

So once again, toward this goal of completing a market analysis, we are working with the consulting team from 3TP Ventures, which includes Mike Callahan and Jeremy Goldstein, who will be managing this project, in particular the market analysis and data research.

We introduced Mike and Jeremy to our CADRE presentation, which was also attended by folks from Liveable Seaville.

We did that so that

communications could be opened up to help them gather real data from developers who are

doing or considering real projects here in Charlottesville.

So it was important to open up that lines of communication.

As 3TP moves towards completing their research and analysis, we will work with them to present a preliminary report to allow additional community dialogue about their findings and preliminary conclusions.

So the study has been launched.

We're rolling.

And we will keep you all informed as we go forward.

And that's all I've got at this point.

But if there's any questions, I would be happy to respond.

I've heard good things about the Baltimore program, which rather than a fixed percent, say 100 percent or 20 percent or 50 percent, looks at the specific unit and says, okay, you are charging 50 percent of market rate, therefore your credit is 50 percent of market rate.

It's actually a model that we are looking carefully at and doing some extended research on.

My understanding of the Baltimore model is that indeed it requires that the developer

Submit detailed financial statements that say here's what we're charging in rent for the affordable units, here's what we could charge if we were doing market rate rentals.

There's the difference in Baltimore-Bates and a portion of that kind of real-time actual gap between market and affordable rates.

I'm not aware of exactly what percentage of that gap they're abating, but that's kind of the basics that I know about the program.

So indeed, Commissioner, you're right, that's a model that merits a lot of attention that we're looking at.

We've gone to some trouble to create a comprehensive plan that outlines areas where we want more activity, more services, especially around park schools and places with adequate transportation facilities.

I'm making note of that, and that's exactly

When we, in the scope of work, we gave to 3TP Ventures, it included looking at various sub-markets to look at those other incentive goals that we have in our plans.

You know, when we talk about transit line, you know, workforce housing that might be located on transit lines or

Again, so submarkets that are also going to depend on the developability of certain geographic areas, construction types, and then, as I mentioned, the rental rates.

Again, there are some abatement programs I've seen where the abatement is lower, where they know that the market rate rent can be pushed up a little bit because it's a high demand area.

So we're asking 3TP to look at those things as well.

What's the timeline for the 3TP study?

We're hoping that they will wrap up sometime in early mid-fall so that we can then have them present some preliminary findings to the community, kind of a next to final draft and allow some dialogue and have them hear input before they move towards a final one.

Maybe mid to late fall, but by the end of the year everything should be wrapped up from the consultant perspective on this is our timeline goal.

Yeah, and then I guess another question on kind of process and timeline.

Do you know if, you know, so let's say recommendations come out of this study.

You know, here are some options for a tax abatement program.

Do you know if this would then come through the Planning Commission and then to Council or is this purely as kind of a city council decision about the city budget?

That I'm not sure of what the process will be should something go forward in terms of moving from an idea to a recommendation to an actual proposal.

This is really more of a suggestion.

I would suggest be ambitious.

We will learn things as we go.

But we have a pretty clear idea of what happens when we are not ambitious on getting what we want.

I think to echo that, one of the fundamental questions here is, do we do it?

or do we not?

And I think just to sort of emphasize that, you know, yeah, I think we do it but my gut tells me that we go big.

You know, go big or go homeless or whatever.

I don't know.

But yeah, I think that we should be ambitious and look at being aggressive with this.

And I'm very curious to see what the consultants come up with in terms of numbers and how they approach this.

Well, if I may respond, commissioners.

One of the reasons we selected 3TP is they've got experience in this area.

They're currently working with Charleston.

They've worked with Tampa.

on very similar questions and what they have built, which is their intention for us.

Regardless of whether the market analysis recommends that we go forward, they are going to build us a model that we can use to be able to project out what different incentives would do to help make a proposed housing project pencil out.

That would include abatement options, but it may include other incentive ideas that they've been working on in Charleston, Tampa, things we learn from all of you in our community engagement.

If I could throw in a suggestion, maybe this is more for 3TP, but I think, you know, when we've seen these sorts of financial models of developments in the past and whether things are feasible or not, we often view it as a very black and white question.

The model puts in certain inputs.

It says

you know here's the output for this type of development that type of development you know it's a yes and a no but I think in reality what you find is that every development and every site is different and so seeing how the market would react to each

Each input or each assumption changing by 10% up or down and really looking at what the incentive would do to that marginal project rather than assuming that kind of all projects are the same and will all succeed or all fail.

Thank you, Commissioner.

That's an excellent suggestion, and I know that they're aware of that, and I know that the model that they demoed for us that they have built for Charleston very much does that, but I will reinforce that message.

All right.

Okay.

Yes.

So we'll follow our normal procedure on this.

I am going to have Patrick assist me in this because my technology decided not to work.

What we do during matters from the public is we ask if there's anyone in chambers that would like to speak in three minutes on whatever topic you would like tonight because we have no hearings.

and then we'll rotate to our virtual audience we'll ask there and if anyone is interested virtually in speaking this evening you can raise your hand in the application or if you are on a telephone you can hit star 9 and that will raise your hand in the application so we'll begin with our in-person audience

And I don't see anyone desiring to speak.

Okay.

Okay.

All right.

Okay.

All right.

Well, let's let Mr. Snyder have an opportunity to speak.

Yes.

Yes, we can hear you.

Okay.

Thank you.

Um, I'm, um,

addressing you to bring to your attention some concerns that the owners of Oak Grove, Oak Lawn, and Fifth Street Flats condominiums have.

about the zoning, the RX-5 zoning between 4th Street and 7th Street.

This is the area between 4th Street and 7th Street.

Our properties are on 5th Street, southwest.

There seems to be a long delay in my speech.

We're not sure either, but continue forward.

So we saw the article about the seven-story student housing project.

I'm going to try another microphone.

Let's see if this works.

There's a long delay, but at any rate,

I'd like to take the chance to talk with the planning folks about the impact that the seven story zoning will have on our properties, which unbeknownst to us, our cottages, which are 20 years old and stable,

were rezoned to seven stories and we had no idea.

So we've prepared some maps and other exhibits that we can share with the commission because

because the impact of the seven-story student housing project on historic housing project on historic properties and on our properties would be devastating to our property values and I think to Clifville in general.

Cottage-style housing, the cottage-style housing that was built 20 years ago is a stable, well-maintained transition between the Roettger's developments of proper scale that are really the kind of things we've done all over the country.

This kind of cottage and small scale development has been a very good transition and has been very stable.

And we've been rezoned to seven stories.

We have been rezoned to seven stories.

Our properties are directly adjacent

Our properties are directly adjacent to the new properties owned by and purchased by the Housing Redevelopment Authority.

By the Redevelopment Authority.

This makes no sense in terms of what's on the ground and protected by film.

in Feiffeld.

There are also several historic homes that would be dramatically affected, that would be dramatically affected, and the excavation with no setbacks required in the current development

This would be, would undermine our properties and really make us untenable to continue these properties.

Untenable to maintain these properties in the future.

We collectively had no knowledge that we had been rezoned to seventh story dumb moves.

No knowledge that we've been rezoned to seven-story development.

So we think this is a good time to take a pause and talk to the Planning Commission and the planners and see if we can't pause and take time to talk to the Planning Commission and the planners and the staff and see if there isn't a better way forward.

Seven stories on the south side

of the railroad tracks is bad planning.

And there is good planning and what's been built is actually being copied all over the country.

So I would just want to let you know we'll be trying to be in touch with folks and see if we can

in touch and see if we can have a dialogue, maybe a walking tour so you can see what we're talking about to see what is on the ground.

I apologize.

I think the audio is actually becoming a little cumbersome.

I think we'd welcome your feedback.

I'll see if I can do that.

Thank you for your feedback on this.

Just lastly, these properties are on Fifth Street Southwest

All right.

We'll check in with our in, okay, audience.

And then are there any other individuals on our, no, not on our hybrid either.

So Chair, it appears that we've,

OK.

Well, next would normally be our consent agenda, but we have no items there, and we have no public hearing.

So at this moment, we are now the entrance corridor review board.

Do I really have to do that?

Yeah.

I do have to say, Lyle, that when you say the word Baltimore,

There's no T. It's a D. It's Baltimore.

It's even more mumbled-mouthed where I grew up in Baltimore.

Nice to hear my hometown is doing something good.

Good evening.

I'm Jeff Werner.

the city's preservation design planner and I'm here tonight wearing my my hat as staff for the corridor review board and before you tonight is a certificate of appropriateness request COA request for the redevelopment of the 1185 Seminole Trail.

Next slide.

We think Carl should we try these at the BAR?

The slides.

This COA request is for the redevelopment of a 4.04 acre site on the east side of Route 29, approximately a mile north of the 250 Bypass.

There's an existing single-story commercial building there.

It was built in 1995, and it will be raised to accommodate construction of a multi-story, I believe, 267-unit residential building and a parking structure.

This project has an approved preliminary site plan, and with that, the project is being reviewed under the prior ordinance.

So that was the one.

Next slide.

A little bit off from my text, but 1185 Seminole Trail is within Subarea A of the Route 29 north entrance corridor.

You all serve as the entrance corridor review board, and it's your responsibility for the design review within the city's entrance corridor overlay districts.

This development requires a site plan, and with that,

then requires a COA per the provisions of section 34-309 of the city code.

And per that code, the ERB shall act on an application within 60 days of the submittal date, and that's when we have a complete application.

And you shall either approve it, approve with conditions, or deny the application.

And any appeal would be to city council.

Next slide.

So just sort of the arrangement of the site.

It is unique.

It's a skiddy site and long on the east-west axis.

But it's fronting on Route 29, the primary facade.

So on your left, we'll have a five-story elevation.

And at the rear on the right, facing Hillsdale Drive, the building is six stories.

The new building is aligned on an east-west axis, so from front to back.

It has three bays that extend from that building into the north and enclosing two courtyards.

And at the rear, you see the large rectangle.

There's a parking structure or structured parking garage.

It's concealed from Route 29 by one of the bays.

And I say that because when you're reviewing an entrance corridor,

It's essentially what is visible from the corridor unlike what we look at with the Board of Architectural Review.

Next slide.

Just a selected rendering from the application.

But the bays have gabled roofs.

And there will either be standing seam metal or asphalt shingles.

I think either is acceptable.

The applicant hasn't made a decision on which they'll use.

And then in the sections of the building between the bays are flat roofs behind a parapet.

The exterior walls are articulated as we require, and they feature brick panels, cement board siding, and cement board panels.

On the ground floor, the doors and windows are set back within the opening, so sort of that traditional punched opening within a masonry.

On the upper floors, the windows are not recessed as much, but there's a, and I ask because sometimes renderings

There's some issues with colors, but on this you'll see there's that L-shape shadow around each window, and that is a separate colored brick panel that's set back about one inch, so sort of creating that image of the traditional punched windows.

The design is, I guess you would say, a contemporary interpretation of typical and traditional architecture in elements, style, and its building materials, gabled roofs, flat roof, wood parapet, bricks, and siding, enclosed courtyards, covered entrances, private balconies.

So fairly typical of Charlottesville.

Next slide.

In reviewing a COA request, you all, the ERB, will apply the standards set forth within Section 34310 of the City Code, which requires consideration of certain features and factors in determining the

The overall architectural design forms, style of the building, structure of the building or structure, including but not limited to massing and scale.

Two, the exterior architectural details and features of the subject building.

Three, the texture materials and color materials proposed for the building.

Four, the design and arrangement of the buildings on the site.

Five, the extent to which the features and characteristics in the prior four items are architecturally compatible or incompatible with similar features and characteristics of other buildings.

within the same entrance corridor, and finally the application of the provisions of the entrance corridor design guidelines.

So next slide.

Briefly, the staff recommendation is that the project generally meets the standards and guidelines for a COA within an entrance corridor.

We recommend approval of the COA with the conditions that I've listed out in the suggested motion for approval.

I know the applicant is here.

I'd offer to them that

They can certainly review the project, but maybe jump to any questions if you all had any and not go with a 10 minute review if that wasn't necessary.

The suggestion motion we have has some conditions and I'm curious are these conditions I guess like I don't know much about lighting from the garage and how it impacts things and the report doesn't go into detail about kind of why these conditions are here I wonder if you could just tell us more about that and I'm also curious if

Yes and no.

One, the lighting issue has been one for at least the seven and a half years I've been working for the city.

And we've gone a long way in solving some of that.

The primary issue was with the new LED lighting technology, the lamping.

You can't say light bulb anymore.

So the lamping was sort of that glare bomb that you see.

You see some of these cars today have the headlights that literally blind you.

So that's probably like around 10,000 K, the color temperature.

The BAR, several years ago, came up with a condition of 3,000 K, color temperature dimmable, and a color rendering index

80, preferably not less than 90.

Color rendering index, if you will, it's more when you have a lot of lights like this.

If you're in a stadium setting or on the mall, it's how realistic that light renders colors.

So the dimmable means we can, if somebody complains about it, the ability to

lower the brightness.

The color temperature seems to be pretty good with that brightness and glare.

And then I said the color rendering index is an aesthetic.

So we've applied that for some time to the BAR.

Planning Commission, it's

been applied in other situations.

So that's where the sort of development of that lighting thing.

Now it was adopted in the code that was the 2020

but it's not in the old ones so that's why we continue to use it as conditions.

But it's always helpful to explain how and then the thing about the garages and this is actually Carl brought this up several years ago on a BAR project is when you have a garage without walls you get lights shining into other buildings and houses so we've tried to as best we can

address that with the vehicular lights.

And I think the first time that really came up was with 2005 JPA.

So this condition is from that.

And then, of course, going back to the interior lighting

Our rules address exterior lighting, but sometimes the lights that are just inside the garage can be just as bad.

So that's the evolution of that.

Hopefully, it's fully codified.

OK, so these are things that would be required if this were under the new zoning.

That's right.

And it's sort of the evolution of things that

For example, entrance corridor signage, I review that administratively.

One thing we've been trying to do for years is get away from internally lit signs that give off a red glow.

Thanks.

Good evening, commission members.

My name is Chuck Rapp.

I'm a landscape architect and planner with Collins Engineering.

My last name?

Rap, R-A-P-P.

I'll briefly talk about the site landscape and lighting for the site and pass it on to a member of our design team from the architect's office here.

All right, next slide.

Next slide.

One more.

All right, just to orient everyone, as Mr. Warner said, it's on the northern end of the city here, right at the City County line, Route 29, Hillsdale is on just the one side of it, property fronts on both.

Next slide, please.

It's just a bird's-eye view of that site.

Again, you have the Route 29 primary frontiers there, Hillsdale to the rear, and the post office immediately adjacent to it.

It's a relatively flat site, existing parking lot out there now with what we all know as the Hibachi Grill restaurant right now.

Next slide, please.

Just some existing photos of the site.

As mentioned, primarily it's a large parking lot, relatively flat.

There are two entrances off of 29 and one secondary entrance off of Hillsdale.

Next slide, please.

Next slide.

This is illustrative of our site plan with landscaping on it.

shows the general layout of the proposed multifamily building.

As mentioned, there's the large structured parking there attached to the building, and then a small amount of surface parking as well.

We have two amenity courtyards.

I will say there are some unique challenges to some utilities that run through here.

There's multiple gas lines and major sewer lines that are running through the site, which are kind of highlighted there with some of the utility easements that we're working around with some of the landscaping and building configuration.

did our best to avoid those.

We were able to accomplish some street trees along Route 29 using some more of a columnar tree, the Regal Prince oak landscape screening adjacent to the parking lot to screen the adjacent property, make sure a tree is there and shrubs.

And then there are a few existing trees along Hillsdale, and then we've added in some Little Leaf Linden as well as Serviceberry to provide a little variety back there.

And then there's this large open area adjacent to Hillsdale there where we've added some additional plantings to help reforest the site and bring that urban canopy back to an extent.

Next slide, please.

Site lighting for the most part is just really lighting that outdoor parking lot.

It is kind of a typical razor type fixture, full cut off, dark sky compliant, just to illuminate that exterior parking.

As I mentioned, majority of the parking is interior within that deck.

That's the only site lighting that's proposed at this time.

Hi, good evening.

My name is Ryan Kautz with Copeland-Macht Architects.

And I'm just going to briefly talk about mostly the exterior of the building.

If we can go to the next slide.

It's probably the one after that.

So in general, and some of this may reiterate what was said previously, but starting at this, the closest spot to you, that is a five-story facade, and it does drop off to be six stories in the back.

Basically, the site is relatively flat, but towards the back it does drop off enough to get a six-story at the base.

We're designing that as a type 3A construction primarily, but the back portion that does have the six stories has a small concrete podium area.

In general, the layout of the design is sort of this E shape with these two courtyards.

The courtyard that is closest to you

in this picture here is slightly larger that is more kind of a public active courtyard the secondary courtyard is maybe a little bit more private and then we have these three wings that are kind of these they're basically identical wings kind of protruding out from that as well you can see maybe if we can slide the image to the left a little bit or to the right

In general, the architectural language for this, as was said, is sort of this modern interpretation of a vernacular architecture.

And we are using that in a lot of ways to, one, to create kind of this dynamic expression

in the city, sort of this gateway element there and it creates a nice visual break with the massing and the roof forms where we have on the right side of the image you can see these larger roof forms and then it really kind of steps down as you go

to the left which is to the north on Seminole Trail.

And so we're stepping that down in scale and using a number of scaling items, scaling techniques to break that down as well.

You can see that we have

a kind of a light gray brick as a primary facade material along Seminole Trail and those three other facades in the courtyard that step back they're all kind of facing out towards the front and we have a secondary material which is this wood look fiber cement panel which is basically at this smaller gable as well

The gables, we have the large gable on the right side of the image and then the smaller.

And what that does, besides just creating kind of a dynamic expression, it's allowing us to have a flat roof area on the backside where we can have mechanical units on the roof as well.

Flip to the next image, please.

So again, this is kind of looking at the from Seminole Trail.

And we are using those scaling images, scaling techniques, I should say, at the corner creating large ganged windows.

These are all basically punched windows, but we can kind of cobble them together, if you will, to create larger looks.

Those are kind of getting together.

At the base is where we have our amenity space, so that is really going to be, have almost a retail look to it, where it will be kind of glowing at night, very active at the base, which is something that we want along the street there.

That amenity space spills all the way through the building to the other side, so it's going into the courtyard as well.

And as we go to the left side of this image, you can see in the distance, that's where we have our precast garage.

I'll get to another image as we come along.

But that's the precast garage there.

And okay, yeah, let's go to the next image here.

So this is looking around the corner.

This is the longest part of the facade and one of the main reasons that we wanted to introduce the gable forms.

And we can imagine if this was all flat roof, it might be a very long, linear design.

But these gable forms really provide a nice focal element for your eyes to kind of stop on and diminishes the effect of the length of the building.

Again, we are breaking up, even within the hyphens between those gable forms, the light gray and the black, breaking those up a little bit as well to help reduce the sense of scale of the building as it goes down the street.

Next.

And then on the Hillsdale side, we don't want to forget the Hillsdale side, so we're taking that, what was sort of a secondary material, the wood look fiber cement, and that becomes a primary material on this facade here.

Because we do have a secondary lobby entrance on this side and some amenity space at the base there.

And so that is basically a way to create

A focal point at this side of the building as well.

And you can see the bottom, what's in the kind of the gray brick at the bottom of the image here, that is that lower sixth level that is in the concrete podium.

Next image.

And so the final image we have here kind of wraps around the building on Hillsdale.

You can see how we are wrapping the garage.

The garage is completely wrapped.

It's either wrapped by units on the south side or by screen on the north and the east side.

These panels, these screening panels, are conceived of as these vertical battens.

You know, we've done this a lot where you have vertical battens that are sort of randomized so that they can block the light, as we were talking about, blocking light from the cars and the lights from the interior as well.

But a lot of this, honestly, you can see the trees in the foreground.

They're kind of faded back.

A lot of this is actually going to be screened by the trees as well.

Next image.

Oh, and then here's our final image.

Just kind of looking at the courtyard, you can see how we have different sides.

On this side of the courtyard is primarily a fiber cement panel above that amenity space at the base.

You can see all the kind of the glazing and the openness of that.

I wasn't really going to go through the elevations.

I don't think they read quite as well, so we can maybe flip through those.

And if you want to just go to the materials slide, yeah, that one there.

So we have two different types of brick, the light gray and the dark gray at the base, multiple colors of fiber cement panel, and then the fiber cement wood look siding, which is on the bottom left.

That's it.

Basically the typical plan, just kind of showing the typical arrangement of the units around the courtyard and then the parking garage.

Thank you.

Are there any questions from the public?

No.

All right.

We don't know for ECRB?

No.

Okay.

If I may ask, do you have any issue with the proposed language from staff?

That's acceptable.

Are there any other questions for the applicant?

I think it's a super hard site because no one wants to be next to 29 North, as I'm sure you guys know.

And I think that the scale, the breakdown of the scale worked really nicely.

The gables have a little bit of a Danish or European look.

It's nice and clean.

Yeah, I guess this is unrelated to the entrance corridor.

The pool seems like it's on the north side.

Are you trying to block the post office building or the cars coming up 29?

I feel like it kind of buffers.

The pool will be not on the traveling side.

Yeah, as far as the pool in that corridor, we'll try to push it out as far as possible so that you do get some sun.

That's kind of been a focus.

But mainly, you have a large gas line that runs through the parking lot, which is why the building is on the side it's in, unfortunately.

Sorry, unrelated.

But I do think that this is going to be new for us.

You know, we're obviously hoping 29 will

become a more walkable place and we need housing.

But I think it looks pretty clean.

I think the materials are nicely laid out, as you were saying, to kind of like get the scale toned down in a place where scale is kind of meaningless out there right now.

So hopefully this will set the standard for some of what's to come.

Do you have any questions?

No?

No, thank you.

I just want to agree with you on most of that.

Considering the neighbors that you're dealing with, particularly to the south, I mean, that particular parking lot, the back parking lot of the post office is

I don't have a diplomatic way to describe the aesthetic of that parking lot, so I won't.

And I don't know if we can embarrass the United States Post Office.

We've been trying to do that with their delivery service for years, and that hasn't worked.

But yeah, I don't really have anything else.

Yeah, I've got a couple of things.

I guess I'll start with a couple for the architect.

These are mostly out of curiosity.

So I guess first, on the gables, you have these vertical dark elements.

Can you talk a little more about why those are in there?

Are they aesthetic?

Yeah, it's primarily aesthetic.

Basically, when you have that large kind of gable end, it could become visually maybe too massive, too monotonous, if you will.

We do sometimes get vents at that area as well, so that could be incorporated.

OK.

The shade of brick, we didn't want to go for kind of a reddish brick.

We wanted to do something a little bit more modern, contemporary, but it's also kind of an earthy feel to it.

It feels kind of natural as opposed to like a bright white brick or something like that.

The way that we were approaching it almost feels like stone, if you will, but it's done with brick.

And that color with the wood tone, it just seemed to have a nice combination with that.

Okay.

And then I know Mr. Werner made some suggestions along the lines of a more prominent cornice-like feature.

I'm assuming those are for the flat roof segments.

Well, again, I think in a more maybe contemporary roof form, we wanted to keep it relatively simple.

And instead of having a more traditional roof overhang or cornice piece, again, just kind of keep it more modern, simplified.

We did actually.

Basically, to respond to that comment, we did increase the dark brick at the base a little bit around certain areas.

We just didn't want to take it all the way up to the base, all the way up to the top of the first level.

Okay, thanks.

Yeah, to echo Betsy, I'm pretty impressed with how this project looks.

For an old zoning ordinance project done by Wright, it actually looks pretty good.

Even with gabled roofs and no cornices, I'm okay with it.

I guess I do have a few questions for Mr. Rapp.

These are going to be centered around Chapter 3, the site design chapter of the ECRB guidelines and in particular the connectivity portions.

Can we pull up the last rendering?

I noted in the first off, looking from Hillsdale, I noted in the text that it said there's going to be a sidewalk and there's currently a sidewalk, right?

In the rendering it almost looks like there's a large grade change.

It's a rendering issue.

The sidewalk along Hillsdale there has actually expanded to eight feet where possible where we don't have the bump out for the parking.

But no, it's accurate.

The whole sidewalk runs along Hillsdale.

The building exit out there, the backside near the post office is almost level with Hillsdale.

It just was an issue.

I think there's a fence line along the post office that might have been grabbed when the surface model was created.

I see.

OK.

Freaks can have it.

Great, that's good.

I'm glad to see the pedestrian connection to Hillsdale since that's probably where most residents will be going on foot or on bike.

They're not going to be going up 29 on foot most of the time, right?

And throughout the site.

I do have a little bit of a concern about that sort of that sidewalk crossing the garage entrance.

and I hope you guys will do some kind of treatment to that entryway just so if a pedestrian is walking up from Hillsdale and trying to get to the western part of the site that they can cross that safely.

But I think my larger concerns are just about how this site connects with adjacent parcels not

Vaya, 29, and Hillsdale.

It's like 800 feet deep.

The guidelines talk about pedestrian pathways within a site and between adjacent sites.

As I assume you guys are aware, there's a proposal for a development on the adjacent site on the Albemarle side.

Are you guys working with them at all?

Okay.

I mean, I guess what I'm looking for is some sort of interpersonal connectivity, you know, at least for pedestrians, right, to get through that parking lot to that next site over.

You know, in particular, you know, I think, you know, if two large buildings do end up next to each other, people are going to know each other, be walking between the buildings, but you do also have that wah-wah at the corner that people are going to be walking to.

In your case, if someone lives on the wing next to the garage and they need to walk to Wawa by going all the way to 29 and then walking up, it's gonna be twice as far as just sort of cutting across in the way the adjacent site is currently proposed.

It would be nice to see, you know, some sort of accessible pedestrian pathway to interconnect or provision to do it, right?

You know, I think obviously in Albemarle County, there are much more stringent requirements to interconnect between parcels than we have in our old zoning code and even new zoning code.

But I'm wondering, you know, if you guys give any thought to sort of

I think it's a valid suggestion.

As it is now, obviously we have the eight foot expanded sidewalk along 29.

I think a lot of it would have to do with how that site shakes out as to where that connection should be.

If you don't want a sidewalk that's going to run right up a building.

I remember some of the original plans for that property from years ago and I know it's kind of evolving and so certainly I think not opposed to trying to make a connection once that site is fleshed out as far as how it works with the timeline on this project.

Yeah I guess the tricky part you know that I'm thinking about is you can't know that that is guaranteed to happen as a project and what the final design will be but you know I want to make sure that there's provision for that happening in the future for whichever project happens second that it will be able to connect somewhere.

I might defer to city staff to figure out what the language would be appropriate for how they like to do that.

I know each locality is somewhat unique with that language with how they like to craft it.

As far as where it would go though, I guess the site is tight as it is now, so I hate to break it apart.

The only spot I could think of would be at the end of the parking bay before you get to that open forested area or the grass area right now.

That seems like about the area except that I think that that is because on the north side right there's there's actually two properties right one's the Via site and one's that site that's being talked about for development.

I'm not sure that the big one goes that far back.

You might be right yeah.

I think you know the way to do it would probably be to cut across

through one of your landscape parking breaks.

But again, I don't want to be overly prescriptive.

Yeah, that's a good question.

And I do want to say you said walking to Wawa.

I think that's as optimistic a thing.

I love it.

Oh, man.

Oh, yeah.

If I lived in that building, I'd be walking to Wawa.

You're having a conversation now, or if it doesn't work, they can even ask counsel about it.

What we've traditionally done with the BAR is when there's something like this, treat it as a recommendation.

And I know that's not binding, but there are ways to suggest it, recommend it, encourage it without

So I guess the way I'm thinking about it, though, is that it would be like a stub connection that wouldn't necessarily connect to anything if the next site didn't develop, but that when it develops, it will be there for them to connect to.

Of course, Albemarle will make them do it, probably.

Yeah.

I mean, it makes perfect sense.

This is one of the complicating things of,

at what scale can you start to extend things when you're just looking at the site.

And I hate paper towel tube planning.

I just don't know how you would word it.

I do think this is in the scope of the CRP because we have these extensive guidelines on mid-site connections and particularly for this corridor we have such a long block length that those mid-block connections become really important.

I applaud and endorse your intent.

I think that you never know what a kitten's going to do.

And the next sight over, frankly, who knows how they're going to flesh out and develop?

Anything beyond recommend strongly that they be very proactive in putting in some sort of mid-block

in conjunction with the neighboring property, et cetera, et cetera.

I don't want to cause an expense for them to put somewhere that goes nothing, and then the neighboring property says, too bad, and we're doing something else.

It dead ends at our transformers.

Have a nice day, or whatever.

I imagine what I'm suggesting.

My only fear is that we don't have a sidewalk over there and so it's a sidewalk to kind of

So nowhere until it's to somewhere, right?

Correct.

Which is how roads work in new subdivisions in the county, though.

Well, not for pedestrian.

That's just for vehicular, which totally makes sense.

But I guess I have a hard time a little bit pushing the sidewalk there when we have a couple hundred feet to one side.

And as was stated by your fellow commissioner, we have no idea what's going to happen on that adjacent site.

Yeah, I mean, you say a couple hundred feet, we're talking 400 feet in either direction from the middle of the site.

That's significantly more than a city block downtown.

Or they could orient it the opposite direction, right?

Would it be difficult to add it later?

I think the difficulty of adding in later is that they could say no.

I would be fine with with putting it in a condition that if they ever build it that you guys have to let them build a pedestrian connection to the pedestrian network on your site because those guys are not gonna be able to get to Hillsdale otherwise, right?

And then that those people are not gonna be able to ever bike to anything in our in our new mixed-use area in our plan.

So are you talking about if you just like an amenity courtyard to say let's extend one of those sidewalks

as a crosswalk.

So all it is, is a sidewalk.

That's all we're saying, yeah.

And either take out one of those grassy strips or lose one parking spot.

I mean, you're way over parked anyway, so that.

But you're not prescribing where it goes.

You just want it somewhere along that line because events may overtake us.

I don't want to be overly prescriptive here.

I mean, I would rather you not put it right at the first spot next to 29, obviously.

Somewhere in roughly the middle area would be ideal.

But I want to

And Lyle, maybe let's come back to this thought.

But all right, a couple of questions for the architect.

And I know these may sound a little picky, but I guess what I'm getting at is I'd like to know that what's being proposed in the renderings is what we're going to get.

So are there going to be downspouts?

Yeah, so there will be Dallas Spouts.

We've done this condition on other projects in the past where we have that kind of, I think it's a one or two foot separation between the brick, that's what you're talking about, right.

Yeah, I think there will be a transition piece there.

When we have the Dallas Spouts, we typically

sometimes try to color match it so it goes away, but then we will have that transition piece as it goes down to the brick portion as well.

And we also try to minimize the visual impact of that, putting them in locations where they're either kind of tucked into a corner or things like that.

I know that's not really possible on that facade.

I guess it'll be the same thing for the flat roofs.

Are you expecting to drain that off the side through scuppers?

Typically downspouts, courtyard.

So we'll be seeing some metal tubes.

There will be, yes.

You've mentioned fiber cement.

It's a lot of fiber cement.

What are the joints going to be?

Are you going to use battens?

We prefer to use reveal joints between them rather than the battens when possible.

Would there be opposition to us putting a condition that you'd have to use an extruded joint?

Because what I'm getting at is if you do battens, it's going to be a very, very different look from what we're looking at, which then moves on to the wood look fiber cement.

What is that?

Are they planks?

Are they panels?

What makes it wood look like?

So primarily the main wood look fiber cement that we use is a product called Nichiha and there's other ones out there as well so but that's the kind of main brand for it and it's a panel they come in lengths I think they're like 10 feet by 18 inches and they have like three

Grooves.

From a distance, they're very convincing.

They have a lot of variety and texture to them.

The color kind of changes, so it doesn't just look like, you know, like a painted piece of something that's painted wood color.

Okay, so that only has visible horizontal joints, correct?

Exactly.

So when we have them vertically oriented, you won't really see the joints this way, but you will see at every floor level.

OK.

Let's see.

There are wall sconces in the application.

Those are primarily at the entries.

OK.

I don't think we have them at Balcom.

That was most of my concern with those is that they're going to be all over the building or just down the entryways.

The mechanical units, I think you said they're going on the roof.

The project narrative talks about utilities being screened from Hillsdale.

What kind of utilities are we thinking and where exactly are they going?

Our services, I think, was the word that was used.

We will have transformers.

To be honest, I don't recall exactly where those are located.

Yeah, as far as utilities, HVAC condensers would be on the roof.

The only thing that would be on the site, trash is internal, so there's nothing like that.

I think those are all my questions.

I think some of you already kind of broke into comments.

We can go through if we want to get more comments.

I've got my own comments that I can tack on now or wait for you guys.

No, I think I'd like Rory's suggestion, and I'm not sure how to word it, but it's difficult because that whole area

There's nothing to respond to.

So a suggestion that someone might cross a boundary would be great.

Can I suggest for that crossing, maybe we just have a mid-block crossing or a mid-parking lot crossing as a condition of the site plan approval because we're almost, we have a few more comments to address in the site plan, we're pretty darn close.

That seems like that could be taken care of with site plan because we've got a lot of stuff, utilities and things.

Yeah, that's fine.

That sounds good.

My only other comment would be that it would be nice to find a way to activate that sort of grassy area on the northeast.

We will come back to you.

I guess my comment was I know the entrance corridor is 29.

It seems to me, and you guys correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like Hillsdale is going to be the more urban corridor at some point.

So we're kind of stuck in this weird thing where 29 has to look nice, but then Hillsdale

I feel like this project is ignoring it.

I'm curious why you guys haven't put more building mass back there and kind of wrapped the garage more and followed along Hillsdale more.

I'm also curious what's going to happen in this big, you have a clump of trees and you have a big grassy area.

No, there is a primary sewer line that runs through there, and then there are two primary gas lines that run through there.

So that's why it's, we can't put a building there.

We can't put road through there.

Because I see the utility easement.

I put some trees where I could.

There's another one that doesn't show up on the rendering.

Gotcha.

I just couldn't get the line work to gray back properly.

But it, so, yeah.

The open areas are where there's an easement, basically.

So the stormwater for this site is underground, underneath the second amenity space, the courtyard there, and then it does discharge into that area where there's a culvert that goes underneath Hillsdale.

So right now, that kind of area is essentially acting as a small stormwater basin.

To add to your point about Hillsdale being the main corridor, I think that really is true and that's sort of the fundamental idea with this whole parallel grid system that led to the Hillsdale extended project that got Hillsdale extended all the way to hydraulic and our guidelines predate that project.

So I do think they're a little outdated in that respect.

I'm sure you'll keep that in mind as we update them.

If I can offer a perspective.

I was, you know, in my

20 years fighting the bypass.

I was actually very instrumental in the whole grid network in that discussion.

And so I almost feel a little bit of ownership to that.

But I was just going to say, to your question and something Carl asked me earlier, relative to the hydraulic 29 small area plan, and maybe I'm sort of giving

looking at this as success in a way in that what had been shown here in the plan was for this parcel to be a road connecting to and beginning to create that network of streets.

And, but in fact that the result is, in fact, a street.

I mean, we all know, I mean the old Kmart bypass, this will be the new bypass, slightly north of Kmart.

So we've got, it's resulting in a street, it's resulting in also a sidewalk connection between 29 and Hillsdale.

It's accomplishing some of the things, at least east-west, that had been envisioned in that small area plan.

So I was going to say, it's not a total loss in the sense of connectivity and moving towards what we had hoped would be realized with that small area plan.

Not a perfect solution.

But I'm just saying, as far as that middle of the parcel connection,

Yeah, Carl, I see your brain.

Yeah, no, I mean, yeah, it's frustrating.

I can now, I think it's a, is the utility easement a really fine, light-colored line?

I've got the, you want to see, I've got the, I think I see what's going on.

I think I see that too.

So yeah, I guess there probably isn't much we can do with it, but it is,

It seems a little unfortunate, even because it looks like you can't put trees there either.

But I want to talk about the garage and screening the lights.

This screen concept you guys have provided, it's vertical slats.

Well, yes, you would, but primarily we think you're going to be seeing it kind of obliquely.

Yeah, I guess my concern is just that garages, because safety concerns, tend to be very brightly lit from the inside.

And that tends to be the problem that we see around town is the parking garages are just glowing so brightly that it becomes a little bit,

It becomes a problem.

And you've got so much of this garage exposed to your neighbors and then to Hillsdale.

I do wonder if that technique is going to be sufficient.

I know we're going to potentially put a condition in to tell you to make those lights dimmable.

But at some point, you or the owner is going to say, no, I don't want to dim it anymore because it's not safe for people inside.

So I do kind of wonder about that being, if that's going to be a problem.

I'm not offering any solutions, just complaints at this moment.

I apologize for that.

Oh, the inset.

OK.

Yeah, I get it.

I get it.

That's unfortunate.

Although it does look like there's a stormwater outflow right there in the middle of it.

You do have a small, so that's where the underground retention will eventually discharge, but it has to discharge in a location that is not within an easement.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah, no, I get that you guys are stuck.

I mean, you guys have

Again, I think you've done a good job with the massing of materials.

Just I would like to know that it's going to look like what you've proposed.

So I think the Nichi Ha, I don't know how we can craft our motion to, I mean, you're going to review this, so something similar to Nichi Ha.

And then using an extruded joint for the fiber cement panels elsewhere.

I think, I don't know if you guys agree with that or not, but I'd like to throw that in there.

Yeah, I can give you some language for that.

Where are West Main Street?

Oh, like the standard and the flats have the battens on their fiber cement so it becomes very heavily gridded.

and then it ends up collecting dust and mildew and looking great after 10 years.

I have lots of opinions about fiber cement.

I apologize.

Yeah, I guess it's not worth pushing back on much.

I mean, I don't know what to do about the garage.

I don't know if anyone else is going to feel that way, so maybe.

We let it go.

I definitely would have preferred more building on that side, especially if it would have gotten more units.

It sounds like the site can train to make it pretty difficult.

Like I said, I would like to see that area activated in a way that might work with the utility easements.

Throw picket tables down, some bike racks.

I don't know.

Is there a bus stop in this vicinity?

Would that be over there?

or potentially could be over there if there's two very large new buildings going on.

There's one that's down at the shopping center.

Yeah, well, and there is one just a little.

Right.

Why don't you start with your motion.

Having considered the standards set forth by the City Code in the Entrance Corridor Design Guidelines, I move to find that the proposed redevelopment of 1185 Seminole Trail is consistent with the guidelines and compatible with the goals of this entrance corridor and that the ERB approves the Certificate of Appropriateness application as submitted with the following conditions as listed in the packet.

Additionally,

I suggest a new language, a pedestrian walkway, which will enable pedestrians to walk safely and conveniently from the site to the adjacent property to the north.

Not specified.

Okay, to be located at the applicant's discretion.

Okay.

Okay, that at the the wood look fiber cement panels they will use a product similar or equal to Nichiha to be evaluated by staff.

They'll use a product similar or equal to Nichiha to be evaluated by staff.

The goal being that it looks like plank siding and will be long-lasting and durable.

And that at the other fiber cement panels to use extruded metal joints to minimize the appearance of the joints.

All right, Mr. Stolzenberg.

Mr. Scholl-Yates?

Aye.

Ms.

Roker?

Yes.

Yes.

If I could just offer a comment quickly for help.

So in the ordinance

The Board of Architectural Review has to have a pre-application conference with a project of anything in excess of $300,000 or if it's a public project.

There's no such provision for entrance corridor and it does leave me sometimes guessing a little bit at

And I don't know how far you all will go sometimes.

And so I would like to find a way for projects of this scale, because I think we are going to start to see more of them in the ancient scrolls, that we're able to come in and sort of have the BAR type of thing.

Because I said a lot of what Mr. Schwartz raised, I had also

We don't quite have a way to do it.

We've done first looks and second looks.

You suggest that it's

Again, this application itself, the iterations that Mr. Warner took the applicant through to what you all received is a very, very different

application.

I know I've said it before to you all, it's my relationship with you is very different from the BAR.

I wish we had.

There was some way.

I don't want to say, gosh, I wish I brought you more stuff, because the code's even allowing less things to possibly come to you.

But when we have a project like this to try and anticipate what your questions might be, it puts me out on an island sometimes.

And I need to, you know, Missy and I can certainly talk about it, but it is a, you know,

It's a gap that we should close if we really want to, you know, we're talking about making this process more predictive for the applicants.

I think those pre-application or some sort of preliminary discussion would really be helpful.

But thank you all.

I'm not sure how to even, I like what you all said about this one architecturally because it's like

I don't know.

There's nothing else out there.

What am I evaluating this against?

I even asked the BAR last month, what do you guys think of vertical siding?

And it was a very interesting response.

They were very, yeah, we like it.

It's contemporary.

It's this.

All right.

But thank you.

Have a good evening.

I think that's it for our agenda.

Chrissy, do we have, I guess, yeah, we are

No longer in the ECRB, we're now the planning commission.

Mr. Chair, I have a motion.

Look, July 8th is a fecund ground for me to try to riff off of things.

It is Eli Lilly's birthday.

It is John D. Rockefeller's birthday.

It's Nelson Rockefeller's birthday.

It is von Zeppelin's birthday.

We can talk about all of that.

It is the anniversary of the Center in the Hands of God speech in 1741 by Jonathan Edwards.

But we've all kind of, I mean, we've kind of been beat up the last two weeks.

So I'm going to leave you with this.

And today is also in 1994, the day the space shuttle Columbia lifted the mast, the majority of the International Space Station into the sky.

In 2011 on this day was the last day with the flight of the Atlantis, which was the last day of the shuttle program.

And it's also, coincidentally, the 78th anniversary of the Roswell incident.

So in putting all of those together, you know, we've sort of been beat up and are looking at the ground, and I'd encourage us all to look up and be a little more optimistic, ad astra per aspera, for lack of a better expression.

And since it is National Ice Cream Sunday Day, that we all get some comfort from that and try to get our eyes up and adjourn.