Planning Commission Regular Meeting   9/9/2025

All righty, ladies and gentlemen, I believe we're ready to begin our deliberations for the evening.

Thanks, Chairman.

So I have a couple items here to report on.

First off, I just wanted to acknowledge that the BOB is meeting this week.

And so this Thursday will be the Buildings and Grounds meeting.

And so I'll have more to report at our next meeting about specifics of what comes from that.

But I just wanted to touch on some of the key agenda items that will be discussed there that are

So this is the second phase of the School of Data Science.

It sits immediately adjacent to the existing School of Data Science.

It's just the next site to the west of it along Ivy Road.

Then the next item I just want to highlight was the schematic design approval for the 220,000 square foot Center for the Arts.

That includes a 1,200 seat Richard and Tessa Ader Performing Arts Center, so that one's really exciting.

We have a schematic design review for a research data center at Fontaine Research Park.

There's a couple sort of smaller items.

There's the proposed renaming of the Federal Executive Institute to Sycamore Hill.

There is a discussion regarding the future use for the Oak Lawn property that will be discussed as well.

So I look forward to giving sort of feedback on how those are all, how the various votes go relative to those items.

And now moving into some project updates, I'll start with housing.

So Darden graduate housing, you can see that progressing if you ever sort of go along the bypass there.

They're under construction and on schedule to complete for the fall of 2027.

That's 348 beds.

The Emmett Ivey Corridor second year housing is under construction as well.

And that's on schedule.

And that's going to complete the fall of 2027 as well.

And that's the P3 project with capstone development.

That's 780 beds.

Parking projects.

This is exciting.

We opened a garage this week.

So Fontaine Garage is done.

It's starting to, parking is available this week.

That's 1250 spaces.

And what's really exciting about that is it's a dedicated sort of commuting resource for many of the UVA health staff.

And so hopefully that'll streamline some commutes for really important and hardworking staff.

We have the North Grounds garage that is currently

Making great strides in construction.

If any of you driven by Massey Road heading up to Leonard Sandridge, you can see precast panels are going very rapidly and that is slated to be completed in 2026 and that's an additional thousand spaces.

Athletics, the Olympic Sports Center that actually the ribbon-cutting is this Thursday.

That's state-of-the-art training spaces for all of UVA's varsity teams with dedicated locker rooms for seven of the varsity sports and that means we can remove the temporary modular units that are over by the Copa Bridge and the railway.

The Manning Institute of Biotechnology, the structure is nearing its topping out over at the Fontaine Research Park, and that's on schedule for our fall 27 opening.

There's a heat plant, a next generation heat plant at Fontaine as well, and that too is nearing completion.

And that's the first extensive non-combustion geothermal plant that's going to provide thermal energy, not only to the Institute of Biotechnology, but the upcoming data center as well.

The Emmett Ivey Corridor, we have sort of two big updates there.

The Carstens II Democracy, you can see the exterior envelope is progressing quite rapidly.

It's about two-thirds complete, and that's on track to open the fall of 26.

And then the Virginia Guest House Hotel and Conference Center,

It's principally complete on the exterior.

They are working on guest room interiors and that's shooting for substantial completion later this year with public opening in 26, early 2026.

And then just going to the foundation's housing updates of Wirtland and Piedmont, both projects are moving ahead.

And so each site is unique and continues to progress on its own timeline.

The timing for construction depends on financing and entitlements.

Based on conversations with the developers, the earliest start date for construction is 2027 at Wirtland and 10th, and the Piedmont will be following by one to two years pending completion of rezoning and project funding.

Can I ask a question?

Sure.

Yes.

Yeah, so UTS is going to optimize all of the loops for commuters to the medical center.

Cool.

I think they're all currently, as soon as it's made available, those put them into place.

And so I don't know what the timeline is to strategically move people.

I'm not totally in the loop of how they're trying to communicate to the staff.

But I think the idea is in the coming months, you'll see a movement there.

Because again, it's more convenient to come off of from further points to get to that garage and then to get on a bus.

Cool.

Yes, so I have a report from the tree commissioners meeting.

The tree commission actually needs two new members, so if anyone is interested, please, you can reach out to me or look on the website.

The tree commission continues

multiple fronts dealing with trees.

One of them is invasive species control.

And there's been a really good group of volunteers in different neighborhoods learning how to cut vines, et cetera.

The other big thing that we discussed this month, well, Kelly Brown from NDS came in to talk about

Some of the Tree Commission's worries and ideas around tree removal and all that goes into the site planning

with that.

So she gave a great presentation on what the city's doing, and there was a lot of back and forth.

A lot of ideas on more educational materials and pre-meetings with developers about potentially keeping existing trees.

This all came about after there was a public tree taken down

by Friendship Court, which kind of sparked a lot of interest in digging into the details of the process of how the tree removals are actually kind of not patrolled but approved.

So I am on the Citizens Transportation Advisory Committee of the MPO and we have not met but last week the MPO Policy Board did discuss kind of what the role of this of the committee should be in the future since not every MPO has a Citizens Transportation Advisory Committee and

The way that citizens engage with the MPO has kind of shifted over the decades since this committee was formed.

So I think it's a really important discussion for them to have.

They're considering whether we should have the committee and if we do, what should that committee do?

And I think that discussion will be ongoing at their next policy board meeting as well.

I have two things.

The 2024 Virginia Code Development Cycle, this is a statewide organization working to update the building code that affects all of us, is holding the second general stakeholder work group meeting on October 3rd.

Two proposals from me on behalf of the city of Charlottesville will be considered.

One of them regarding permitting more affordable elevators in R2 residential development, I think up to six stories, which historically were permitted but were banned a few years ago.

The hope was that everyone would just build larger elevators, but no, expensive, we just didn't do it.

I think that was good intentions, but things cost money.

The other one was about permitting a fourth story of single-stair development.

We could call it point-access block development.

which incorporates a number of safety improvements which were recommended by the fire safety people at the state level which I am optimistic about.

I'm hoping for consensus on both but who knows, it is a consensus driven process so if everyone can come to Kumbaya then that's a wonderful thing.

Also, there was a meeting of the Charlottesville City Schools Capital Improvement Workgroup wherein we considered two pieces of information about possible costs for updating existing facilities.

One of them was $70 million and one of them was $100 million, and they were two different

We will be meeting next week and apparently we'll be getting an update on the restructuring of the housing staffing at that point.

Planning district, most of our last

Two meetings have not been, quite frankly, relevant to the city of Charlottesville.

We've applied for the housing preservation grant, but that's a USDA project, so that is inapplicable to any money going our way.

We have played around with how we are going to be scored for smart scale, but the MPO is excluded from that district.

is going to stay the same.

And we had the caper slash home report for the consortium come through and had the public hearing on that.

I have a short report.

MPO met last month, right before our last meeting, so my only meeting was LUPEC.

We got an update on Albemarle's now adopted solar ordinance, which includes, by right, sort of small-scale commercial and industrial.

and has sort of more set rules for larger utility scale projects to apply for special use permits.

We got a pretty interesting update on the IV Landfill Solar Project that was approved a number of years ago but is now very much under construction.

and an update on the water supply pipeline that has been underway for a bit now.

You may have heard about the blasting as they go up through Observatory Hill and updates on VDOT transportation projects.

A couple are plans in process.

We got

29 North and the 29-250 interchange.

There is the project at 29 and 64, also planning, and another pipeline project at 5th Street and 64.

No huge updates with those, and of course the city's

The VDOT study in the city of West Main Ridge which I hope you all submitted the now closed study for but no major updates on those other projects.

I guess we'll wait to hear what comes out of the West Main Ridge public comments and what they come up with as their preferred alternative out of there.

and then on construction of projects that are in process by VDOT.

I guess the big news is just that everything's a bundle now.

VDOT loves bundling things into very large contracts to pull in big contractors and sort of peak their interest so they're willing to do it.

I think I've talked previously about the Fontaine District Avenue roundabout.

All of those are getting bundled together and should be going out to bid.

For the BAR, we had just a couple of projects.

We had a second story addition to what used to be a floor shop on 300 Ridge Street.

So a small little project there.

An interesting infill duplex project also on Bridge Street, but the residential portion that kind of parallels Fifth Street.

And that was an interesting project.

way of fitting in some higher density using our new zoning code.

Then we had two pre-application conferences.

We had one on 835 through 847 West Main Street, which is the parking lots that are just south of West Haven.

And that is proposed to be an 11-story student housing building.

And there is a significant amount of public comment

And if anybody is interested, the BAR video was available online to listen to that public comment.

It was, I think, more directed at us and council than it would be at the BAR.

Then we had a pre-application conference for another large student housing project on the, there's a very large

So nothing much to report with the exception of Ms.

Roettger will be taking over as our rep to the Parks and Rec advisory board.

And this will be my last meeting as the moderator.

I think I've done this for four different seasons and hurting you cats has been quite a lot of fun, I've enjoyed it.

So with that I segue into Ms.

Okay, I'll do the report on behalf of Roy and myself, the nominating committee.

First, I would think on behalf of the whole board to thank Mr. Mitchell for his service this year before we move on.

So the committee had some good conversations with our commissioners and we are ready to nominate.

We have a nominee for both chair and vice chair.

So should I make a motion now or just say who we are first?

Okay, yeah.

So we would like to nominate Carl Schwartz as the new chair of planning commission and Danny Yoder as the vice chair for the planning commission.

And as a side note, we would love for Lyle and Phil to continue their leadership on the legislative issues, if possible.

So any discussion?

Yeah, I think you tossed the ball back to Ms.

All right.

All right, so we have a slate of officers that have been provided from the nominating committee.

Mr. Schwartz for the chair and Mr. Yoder for the vice chair.

This is an opportunity for the commission to provide any additional nominations.

If there are any additional, please raise your hand or call it out.

All right.

I'm going to take the silence.

It says no additional nominations at this time.

All right.

So at this point in time, we have a slate of officers to vote on.

And that would be Mr. Schwartz for chair and Mr. Yoder for vice chair.

Okay.

All right.

All right.

Okay.

Any opposed?

Any abstentions?

All right.

Take your sign with you.

Thank you.

I know, right?

That's more where my mind's at right now.

Great.

Oh, love.

Oh, God, it's coming.

You've already got the platform on your stage.

Do you stand?

Sure.

So sort of a limited report at the moment.

We're not planning necessarily for a work session for September, but we're getting geared up definitely for additional work sessions coming forward.

Because the

The zoning case that's under litigation has been stayed and we continue to move forward with the code at this point in time.

We're going to pick back up where we were with our zoning amendments.

If you all recall that we had a work session where we discussed tier one, tier two, and tier three changes to the code with

Tier 1 being more administrative, Tier 2 being more middle level, and then a Tier 3 being something that would require significant public participation opportunities.

You all directed us at the last work session, which again was in the spring, so it's been a little while, directed us to schedule a listening session so that the community would have opportunities

More specifically the development community, but of course open to all community, to provide feedback on the tiers and the zoning amendments at that point in time.

And then we would move forward to a more formal work session.

So we're working to schedule that.

At this point in time, we've got the listening session for the regular meeting in October.

And then in November, our Tuesday regular meeting is on a holiday.

So we will make sure to make that adjustment and we'll let you guys know.

Usually it's the day following a holiday is when we attempt to schedule the meeting.

Sometimes we have conflicts and we'll get that straight.

We've got a little bit of time to work through that.

All right, I guess our next item is matters presented by the public, not on the formal agenda.

Sure, this is the because of how the agenda works this time this is the opportunity for public comment and we'll run that the way that we typically do where we take an individual from our in-person audience and then we alternate with our virtual audience and we continue to alternate until

Our speakers have all had the opportunity.

It's a three minute limitation.

We have a clock that can help you gauge the time for speaking.

Sure.

I've got that.

All right.

So we'll start in person.

So if we have someone in person who would like to speak first, we have

We'll have time for everyone.

No problem.

And if you just note your name and address for the record, that'd be wonderful.

I live in the Hall of the Drive and my name is Joy Johnson, but the hat that I'm wearing tonight before you, good evening everybody, friends and foes.

Good to see some of you all.

Some of you I've never met before, but don't stop my three minutes yet.

But anyway, I'm here tonight as the far chair, and I'm here tonight to talk about the

12-story building that is being proposed in the very back of West Haven.

So the residents in West Haven doesn't want it.

The residents in 10th and Page doesn't want it because it overshadows our building.

When they were doing the standard, they said the standard was a mistake when it was eight-story, but now you're

I'm thinking about putting a 12-story building.

What is so disrespectful about this whole thing is that we have at least 23, maybe 26 residents, some of them who doesn't speak any English, but they still participate, who have been meeting for the last three years to redevelop what West Haven would look like.

And this company waited until we came to a consensus.

We all didn't agree on everything.

We just came to a consensus of what our site plan would look like.

And then they decide in April to go ahead and do a design and then to put up a 12-story building that block

The main theme of what we were trying to do was how we accessed the West Haven because if you know, West Haven was dug out so many feet down to build so that people on West Main Street, when they were going by, they wouldn't see poor people.

And then they came to one of our meetings and said, oh, let me tell you what we're getting ready to do.

But that's not how it works with our residents.

We don't want you to come and tell us what you're going to do, but you should come and participate with us.

Let us be a part of the process of what they're doing.

Then they also singled out just talking to West Haven, but not talking to the whole 10th and Page neighborhood.

And we challenged them and said, why are you not talking to the whole neighborhood?

Why are you just talking to West Haven residents?

Well, we did have a meeting at the Jefferson School, and lo and behold, the people who were there from 10th and Page and West Haven residents were pushing back on the 12-story building.

We're still pushing back on that 12-story building.

and then the fact that from April you had an opportunity to engage with us and you didn't and about what get built on the skirt or in our backyard.

I think something needs to be changed where it goes back to City Council or we have more opportunity to speak on what is it we don't like about what is being built in our neighborhood.

All right, we'll look to our virtual audience for our next speaker.

We have one person in our virtual audience.

If you are interested in speaking, you can raise your hand in the application and we'll call on you.

Hi, my name is Sophia Marrero and I live at 1950 Beachcrest Court.

I'm a community organizer at the Public Housing Association of Residents.

I'm here to speak to the zoning policy, which you just heard Ms.

Joy give a wonderful account of what's been happening on West Main Street.

I'm here to first ask that priority of land use should be given to those most negatively impacted.

Second, impacted communities need more than one opportunity to comment on massive buy-write developments in slash next to historically black neighborhoods.

Third, we need to bring back special use permits and discretionary approval for developments around 10th and Page, West Haven, Fifeville, Rose Hill, Sixth Street, Preston Halls, Kindlewood, etc.

We must not forget the history of Vinegar Hill and the impact it continues to have on black and brown communities in the area.

Finally, we need to implement a core neighborhood overlay district from 4th to 10th Street to protect historically black neighborhoods and promote neighborhood friendly development.

All right, we'll check in with our virtual audience.

No speakers there.

Do we have another speaker in person?

Hello, my name is Wendy.

I'm a community organizer at the Public Housing Association of Residents.

I'm here to discuss the 11-story luxury student housing apartment building proposed to be constructed by Wright at 835-843-847 West Main Street.

Not only would this ginormous concrete building overshadow and loom over the West Haven community, it would enclose West Haven residents and restrict access to West Main Street, which they have been working so hard on for over three years to achieve through their redevelopment site plan.

Across the street, our neighbors in the Fifield District are fighting the exact same fight against a seven-story luxury student housing apartment building that would sit right on top of a hill above the Fifield community, bringing more students into the historic Fifield neighborhood.

The fact that these gigantic buildings of such density are allowed to be built by right in these historically black neighborhood corridors is a blatant error in Charlottesville's zoning code, despite the historic wins achieved by the zoning ordinance.

It's West Haven and Fifeville fighting these buildings today, but we'll be fighting Inventable and Rosehill Drive and South First Street and Garrett Street tomorrow.

And as Joyce says, they're developing while we're sleeping.

To remedy these flaws and the transitions between areas and repair historical injustices from urban renewal and the destruction of Vinegar Hill, FAR advocates for the following changes in the zoning code.

First, give priority of land use management to those most negatively impacted.

Two, impacted communities need more than one opportunity to comment on massive by-right developments in and next to historically black neighborhoods.

We need to bring back special use permits and discretionary approval for developments around 10th and Page, West Haven, Fifeville, Rose Hill, 6th Street, Crescent Halls, Kindlewood, Venable, etc.

Lastly, we need to implement a core neighborhood overlay district from 4th to 10th Street to protect historically black neighborhoods and promote neighborhood friendly development.

All right, we'll check in our virtual audience so we have no speakers there.

Do we have any additional speakers?

Good evening, everyone.

My name is Latricia Gals, and my address is 911 Nassau Street, and I am the executive director of FAR.

You've already heard a few things, and I'm going to mention those same things.

Our residents, I want to start with, are not anti-development.

They've drafted redevelopment plans, named priorities, and envisioned healthier and safer neighborhoods for themselves.

Yet, at the same time, LV Collective can propose an 11-story student tower right next door, by right, with no meaningful process for residents to respond.

That is not equity.

That is not collaboration.

So what we're calling for is that residents deserve to have an opportunity to be heard more than once.

and if you could establish a core neighborhood overlay from 4th to 10th Street.

We already know that overlays exist here in Charlottesville to protect corridors and commercial areas.

It's time to use the same tool to continue to protect or be used to protect historically black neighborhoods.

So right now the zoning commission gives maximum certainty to developers and minimum certainty to residents.

That is backwards.

We already have the tools and it's time for us to use them.

All right, we'll check our virtual audience and don't have any speakers there.

Do we have any additional speakers in house?

Okay.

My name is Paul Reader.

I live at 211 Fifth Street, Southwest and Oaklawn, who was shocked.

We were basically shocked when this seven-story proposal for student housing got lobbed into Fifeville.

There will be more students living in that property as proposed at the moment than are in the entire section, say a historic black

Community in Charlottesville is once again being dumped upon.

So one thing with this RX zoning is we noted that you had rezoned our properties

which we were unaware.

The much vaunted consultation process did not make it clear that these properties were going to be rezoned.

That my property, which is six two-story cottages on a third of an acre, exactly the type of development that you want to have in this city is now zoned

supposedly to be able to put a seven-story building on there, which is just patently ridiculous.

I invite you in passing to walk this area, to walk Fifeville.

If you have not walked Fifeville, please, please walk Fifeville.

Please walk West Haven.

Go and see what they look up at every day.

and I'm very pleased to hear that you are considering amendments to the zoning code.

The only thing I would urge on you is you have to do this quickly because as Joyce said, they're developing while we're sleeping.

It's no point if you say, in two years' time, we'll reconsider this.

By that stage, you'll have an 11-story development on West Main Street.

You'll have a seven-story development in Fifeville that will completely blow out the existing character of Fifeville, which in passing is a National Historic District.

Unbelievable.

So the action that I can personally take is, and that we will be taking for both our little six-unit housing developments, there are two either side of the street, is the earliest opportunity we will be applying to down zone

All right, checking out our virtual audience, and we don't have any speakers there.

Do we have any additional speakers in person?

All right, I'll check both groups.

Just checking our virtual audience and our in-person audience one more time.

All right.

You've already spoke, Ms.

Ms.

Joy?

All right, well, chair, turn the time back over.

Excuse me?

Turning the time back over.

Mr. Chair, would you be willing to consider letting Ms.

Yes, if that wouldn't get us in trouble.

You're the chair.

Okay, I guess that's mine.

Yes, for this one instance, yes, Ms.

Joy Johnson again.

So the other part of it is that I'm asking the Planning Commission.

The Planning Commission should use the opportunity right now to change the zoning for West Main Street.

Number two, change the zoning.

Change the zoning should consider the neighborhood connect to West Main Street.

Change the zoning should recognize that West Main Street sits on top of a hill and all neighborhoods on both sides

below it, therefore height is an issue.

Transition in height are needed to protect a neighborhood on the West Main Street.

Special use permit need to be utilized to bring democracy to city planning and that can compel community benefit arrangement.

There are at least two students bringing a negative impact to the neighborhood next to West Main Street.

These issue and more like it.

were continuously brought to city council if change of the zoning is not made.

Are you going to say something?

No?

OK.

About to make a motion.

Okay, so our next item is the consent agenda, which includes minutes and the annual adoption of electronic meeting policy.

I know we already have some comments in the minutes.

I move that we adopt the consent agenda, subject to the amendments and edits provided by Commissioner Stolle-Yates.

All in favor?

Aye.

Anyone know?

Presentions?

Okay.

All right, so our next item is our one and only Commissioner's Action item is a special exception of a Bill 2 requirement on 1107 Myrtle Street.

Good evening, commissioners.

We are, let's see, let me get those slides up if you can, Patrick.

Cool.

Great.

Thank you.

We are here for the consideration of a special exception permit of the Bill 2 requirements at 1107 Myrtle Street, project number PL250118.

Go to the next slide.

1107 Myrtle Street is an RA zoned parcel with no overlay districts.

The future land use designation of it is general residential.

The purpose of this special exception permit is to facilitate the construction of three attached dwelling units behind the existing house and part of their intention is to create four total sublots and preserve the existing house so each dwelling unit will be on its own sublot within the parent parcel and with the existing structure preservation in the RA district they're permitted to have those four dwelling unit totals

So there's no issues there, but there is an issue with the Bill 2.

In the RA zoning district, the developer has the choice to meet the Bill 2 requirement.

The front setback is between 10 to 20 feet.

or utilizing the existing range, which that calculation comes from the two properties on either side of the subject parcel and any new construction or any construction to be considered conforming with that would have to be no closer to the street than the smallest setback in that range and no further back than the largest setback in that range.

utilizing that consideration, they are meeting the existing range component of this project, but they are not quite meeting the build to width requirement.

So the build to width requirement is defined as the cumulative building width that occupies the build to zone relative to the width of the site at the street lot line.

So this is a 50 foot wide parcel.

And the existing house is 21.9 feet in width, making a 43% Bill 2 percentage, which is shy of that 50% requirement that they would need.

So therefore, they are coming in to request a special exception permit for that Bill 2 width requirement.

You go to the next slide.

And you can see the site plan here.

That existing house is being preserved.

You can see the general lot layout of the sublots and the formulation of the attached dwelling units off the rear.

They're proposing improvements to the alleyway to a certain extent, where it will be a 10-foot wide asphalt driveway to service each of these sublots and the dwelling units on top of them.

You can go to the next slide.

So to consider what we approve, special exceptions for those consideration points are whether or not the development is harmonious with the patterns of development in the area and on the same side of the road.

And I think it's pretty fair to say that the existing house along Myrtle, which will be preserved, that house is in line with the area.

It's of a similar size, of a similar shape.

They all have the same sort of porches on that side of Myrtle.

So I think preserving the existing house really does speak to how harmonious it will be.

And generally in this area, the houses are relatively smaller on the same size lots, so the additional dwelling units wouldn't really pose an issue.

And that said, if the special exception wasn't required, if they were meeting the bill too, then there wouldn't really

Those three units in the rear would be permitted by right.

So while I believe that it would be harmonious with it, that doesn't really touch on the criteria of the special exception.

Item two of the criteria we're supposed to be looking at are, is this development or would this approval be meeting the goals and the strategies of the comprehensive plan?

And I think that this sort of infill development is pretty

One to one, it's overtly one to one in line with some goals outlined in the comprehensive plan.

Per table two of the land use category descriptions on page 29 of the comprehensive plan, the general residential areas should allow up to four dwelling units if the existing structure is maintained.

That sort of goal and strategy was directly ported over into our development code, and this is right in line with that pretty much exactly.

Additionally,

Planning Commission and City Council can consider weather with conditions, then if a development would generally be consistent with the public necessity, convenience, general welfare, and good zoning practices.

And I think that this project sort of hits all those criteria in order.

This is the sort of development we're exactly looking for.

Maintaining the existing structure also speaks to

the goals of the comprehensive plan to bear with me one of the goals oh yeah in chapter four goal three of the comprehensive plan one of that goal is to protect neighborhood identities while allowing for infill development and again you know with existing structure preservation I think this hits the mark there as well so therefore you know given

the harmonious nature of the development, the goals of the comprehensive plan.

And sorry, let me back up one second.

We did consider alternatives that would make this compliant where the applicant wouldn't need the special exception.

For example, there could be an opportunity for subdivision in which the existing house does meet that ability requirement.

But given the state of the lot that the house is sitting exactly pretty much in the middle of their lot,

Subdivision isn't really a viable option to meet the Bill 2 requirements there.

Alternatively, an affront addition on the house could be a viable option on meeting the Bill 2 requirement.

But in my opinion, that's not a reasonable requirement.

It's going to be costly and would more alter the feel of the neighborhood, and it would just

be more harmful to the streetscape than just approving the special exception permit.

We did consider an administrative modification.

However, the criteria on an administrative modification are sort of hardship standards, whether there's like topographical or geographic interruptions that would allow for an administrative modification of the 15% of the physical dimensions outlined in the code.

you know in my opinion doesn't really meet those hardship criteria so special exception would be the most viable path.

So all that being said, staff are recommending approval of this special exception permit in the RA residential A zoning district at 1107 Myrtle Street to permit the construction of those three single unit attached.

All right.

Is the applicant here?

Quick question.

All right, so the pointy end of the spear here is that this building is 19 inches too skinny.

Or feet, I thought.

No, it's 21.9.

So that's 22 feet.

The administrator can give the modification, but it still has to be a hardship.

Correct.

Gotcha.

So it's three feet.

All right.

Yeah.

So I guess it's another conversation of how we define a hardship, because in order to proceed by modifying that building, that would be expensive in a substantial way.

Well, no, and the hardship under the administrative modifications are spelled out.

That's all set by state law.

Yeah, that's right.

Never mind.

I just remember you guys asked to change it.

That's right.

Beautiful.

I don't really have a question for the applicant, but it seems like, maybe for staff, that the code is incentivizing people to keep the existing building, but then the build-to requirement is working against that, so I don't know if you're looking at the

I don't know if this is in tier two or tier three of the things you're looking at to adjust.

Can we kind of undo this cross, the parts of the code that are working against each other and make preserved buildings exempt from build two or something like that?

Looks like an exciting project.

The only ad hoc comment I'd make is that this use of sublots and putting the four in there and preserving the structure, this is right down the line exactly what we were thinking with these sublots.

Yeah, I don't think either of those were questions, but I agree with both of them.

It seems like, particularly in residential zones, the Build 2 requirements and the way they're formulated aren't quite hitting the mark, and I hope we'll pick that up at some point in this revision process.

Just one question for clarity.

You mentioned that you guys explored subdivision as an alternative, but the house was in the way, but this is a 7,500 square foot lot total, right?

So to subdivide, you would need at least each lot would have to be 6,000 square feet.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, if you correctly determined that it could not be subdivided practically.

That's a good point.

Commissioner Mitchell, do you have any questions?

Nope.

All right.

Since we kind of have gone into comments already, are there any comments from this side of the room?

Any further comments?

I move to recommend approval of this application for a special exception permit in the RA residential A zone at 1107 Myrtle Street to permit the construction of three single unit homes outside of the Bill 2 requirement with one condition the size, location, and use will be consistent with the material submitted in application PL 250033 dated February 12, 2025.

Second.

I think Lyle got there first.

He lulled me.

Ms.

Ms.

Roker?

Yes.

Yes.

All right.

Well, I guess that is it.

Mr. Chair, I have a motion.

As you all know, we acknowledge the birthday of this nation as July 4th.

That's when we mark that occasion.

But I will point out that September 9th, 1776 is actually the fourth, might have been the birth, but September 9th is the christening.

Today is the day the Continental Congress called the country the United States and formally obligated that, which is, you know, an interesting bit of fact.

But what I rather want to close out on is that today is the 25th anniversary of the establishment of the holiday of wonderful weirdo gay.