Planning Commission Regular Meeting   10/14/2025

So just a fairly brief report.

If you guys recall, last meeting we had was days before the Buildings and Grounds Committee meeting with the BOV.

So I just wanted to quickly run through and just do some confirmations.

I went through the agenda, but I didn't have clarity on how things were going to go.

And so the first was a concept site and design guidelines approval for the School of Data Science in Atrapush.

I'm the director of entrepreneurship building, so that's basically the follow-up project.

It's immediately adjacent to the existing School of Data Science along Ivy Road.

That project is going to begin design.

It's kicking off its design process later this month, and so more to report on that as that takes shape.

The schematic design approval came through for the 220,000 square foot Center for the Arts, which includes a 1,200 seat Richard and Tessa Ader Performing Arts Center.

And I can also add that project received design approval from the state at their most recent meeting of the architecture review board.

Schematic Design Review of the Fontaine Research Data Center.

That project will now go back for a final design approval at a future buildings and grounds committee meeting.

The B&G approved the renaming of the Federal Executive Institute property, the FEI, to Sycamore Hill.

And the final one of note was they approved a two-step process to transfer the ownership of the five-acre oak lawn property in the Fifeville neighborhood from the university to the city of Charlottesville.

And so that's the historic residential property that UVA Health purchased back in 2023 for $3.5 million.

The idea is that the initial arrangement is to lease the property for $1 a year as they work out a way to ultimately hand over ownership from the state to the city.

UVA had recently completed a planning study exploring how the site can be redeveloped to include community amenities, child care, and child development.

And so those materials are in the process of being shared with the city to give them sort of their planning team a head start as they begin to look in opportunities to address education on that property.

I'm taking over Chairman Mitchell's spot on the City Parks and Rec book.

I was on it several years ago, and so I just noticed some changes.

Mainly this month was a lot of talk about bylaws and the inner workings of the actual commission.

So not a lot of meat yet, but the budget

has yet to be approved, and I think that is on par for next time.

I did miss my tree commission meeting.

They are amazing, but I know that they are working on, well, first of all, the arborist, the city is always working on planting more trees and doing great things.

They have the new CHIP, which I can't remember what it stands for, but

They are teaching people going neighborhood to neighborhood looking at invasive vines.

So the big push is to save what we have in terms of the older trees that are providing so much green infrastructure for us.

And then they're working on

Lyle Solla-Yates.

Friday, October 3 was the second general stakeholder work group meeting on the building code update statewide.

I proposed allowing single stair apartments at the fourth story and smaller and more affordable elevators in R2 residential multifamily six stories and below, so not towers.

Single-stair apartments moved forward with a consensus recommendation and elevators went forward with the recommendation of non-consensus.

I am hopeful that the board will adopt the changes and that we will start seeing safer, more affordable, and more accessible homes along these lines built starting with the 2027 building code statewide.

City Schools Capital Improvement Planning Committee met on September 25th.

I am pleased to report that a school's facility planning effort is planned under staff effort to coordinate how we spend money on capital maintenance and investment to match current and long-term needs.

now proceeds a series of things we're paying for.

I've cut most of them.

CHS roof replacement is done.

It will be solar ready.

$6 million of work took three years.

CHS turf field replacement, $1 million budget, looking for installation this fall.

Early childhood learning center on the Walker campus, that will be pre-K, $30 million budget.

It's going to cost more.

It's going to bid in fall 2026.

They're in schematic design phase now.

It is a beautiful terraced design, which will provide play space right outside the classroom.

And that beautiful design does add $10 million more.

The CATEC solar installation, $800,000 budget.

The roof was not solar ready, so it was harder and more expensive.

It is 262 kilowatts.

It is the biggest system that we have ever done on a public building.

And we are pursuing an income tax credit.

and the Greenbriar restrooms, a matter of much discussion for many years, I have here written, the worst restroom in the city.

So, worst bathroom in the city, I mean, is that a challenge?

Clearly, I've never been to Christian's in the corner at 3 a.m.

So I'll hopefully have a...

A brief intermezzo here between these two.

HAC met mid-September.

Most of that meeting was taken up with the first round of data and the attempt to generate a template for this feasibility of the possible tax abatement program that we've talked about a couple of times.

It's interesting work.

And Councilor Payne and I were both sort of of this opinion that the more we look at this, the more likely it is it's going to have a bigger effect on smaller developments because there is actually going to be some bang for the developer's buck.

But jury's still out.

We're still gathering data at the beginning.

It's just sort of what our mutual gut feel is.

There's that.

Thomas Jefferson Planning District,

Most of that meeting was not particularly germane to the city of Charlottesville.

There was some discussion of commuter and movement of people and where they are and the efficacy of the park and ride.

Some of that data is a little clouded because it's difficult to tell.

The data set, we think, completed parts of Albemarle and Charlottesville, and we are dissolving the regional transportation partnership in favor of the new Charlottesville Albemarle Transit Authority, which is taking over those duties.

All right, I had two meetings this month to report back on.

First, we had the now annual SAW MPO and Charlottesville Albemarle MPO joint meeting.

SAW MPO is the Stanton Augusta-Wainsboro MPO.

So we're talking about issues about transportation crossing the mountain.

We got a great update on Athens Express, which is expanding, currently proposing additional frequencies and a new schedule, including reverse commutes.

Various VDOT projects have been completed.

If you're in a runaway truck going down the mountain now, you can get caught with a fancy new system, and they've already got one already.

Also, the statewide rail plan effort will be beginning next year.

And so there should be interesting things from DRPT on that to report for a future planning commissioner.

Later last week, we had the Charlottesville Albemarle MPO technical committee meeting.

The two big updates, first, the 29 STARS studies to figure out new smart scale projects.

So there's sort of combined technically two studies.

One is the 250-29 intersection, and the other is just 29 going north of there.

The goal was to have it on kind of a very compressed schedule to get it done in time to have SmartScale projects to submit in the next round next year.

But unfortunately, it will not be ready in time.

So there was a discussion about potential projects for the MPO to submit in round seven for SmartScale.

And unfortunately, with the changes that the CTB made last round for MPO projects, it's pretty constrained on what they can do.

Effectively, it has to be something that comes out of a pipeline study or a STAR study, or it has to be related to a highway or highway interchange.

So last time we submitted the project to build two roundabouts on Barracks Road by the 29 interchange.

That ended up pricing out at like 90 million for the small scale project, way more than any project that got funded.

They are not going to resubmit that.

Currently they are looking at two versions of simply widening the off-ramp going northbound on 29 to Barracks.

Either extending it or adding a second left turn lane at Barracks.

The second one of those, the turn lane, would include a sidewalk under the bridge and connecting to the city sidewalk a little bit west of Milma.

But the extension would not include any pedestrian improvements or anything other than the extension.

We had a lengthy discussion about how the MPO is not, simply submitting a highway expansion is not in line with the MPO's priorities and we would like to see at the very least in exchange for highway widening getting some improvements.

for bikes and pedestrians.

And the tricky part is making that happen, working with the requirements for it to be effectively an interchange project as the primary improvement.

So they will be coming back to us with more ideas.

They're also talking about submitting old IV and 29 interchange expansions as well.

Lastly, I'd like to read an email that was forwarded to me about an incident on West Main about a week ago.

It reads, yesterday around 5, 10 PM, I was on my cargo e-bike heading east on West Main after picking my eight-year-old son up from his tutor session in the education school.

I was traveling in the bike lane by the Amtrak parking lot when a driver opened their car door into the bike lane.

I wasn't able to stop in time and tried to swerve around the door, but it struck my handlebars, broke off my brake lever, and forced us to the ground.

Luckily, I have a protective cage around the cargo area meant to protect the child occupant so he was unhurt other than a minor scrape on his knee.

If it weren't for that, he could have been gravely injured.

Also, fortunately, there's a doctor in traffic and she looked him over.

What is particularly frustrating is that last November, within 100 feet of the accident yesterday, I was hit by a car that crossed the bike lane to grab a parking spot.

I'll also note that I've been a bike commuter for 20 years, have a motorcycle endorsement where fluorescent and reflective gear have now had three incidents with cars in total,

two in the last year, and all three on West Main and Charlottesville.

Over thousands of miles of riding, all of my incidences have happened within blocks of each other.

This is an infrastructure problem, not a cyclist problem.

Now, as you all remember, there was a proposal to do, effectively, a quick build re-striping project on West Main to create protected bike lanes or a protected bikeway.

with Simple Paint, sort of a low cost improvement after the West Main streetscape was canceled.

That effort was put on hold or canceled because it turns out the utilities department is doing major work on West Main over the next couple of years.

And we were told, our feedback was told that when they finish that work, they will have to mill and repave the street.

And that would be potentially be a time to add

that sort of bike improvement.

So unfortunately, I'm hearing this week that the NDS work plan does not include any money or staff time for even investigating this new striping plan.

All we need to do is plan it out.

We already have to pave and strike the street anyway.

But apparently, we are not intending to do that.

Now, as somebody personally who has suffered permanent injuries from

the mediocre infrastructure on West Main.

And the Board of Architecture Review did not reach a quorum last month, so nothing to report from there.

Yes, and before I get started with that we had a number of people come in since I gave the announcement.

We have a couple of sign-up sheets for this evening.

We have a sign-up sheet for matters from the public and this is for anyone who's speaking that is not going to be within the listening session, meaning on the zoning code that we're doing later this evening.

If you're here

and what to speak on our critical slope item that's on the agenda.

That is a good place to sign up as well.

If you're planning to speak during the listening session, we ask that you sign up on that sheet so that we can call folks in an orderly fashion to make that happen.

So please take the opportunity

to do that in the next little bit here.

Chair asked me to provide an update that we had provided before on what's called the Meadow Creek Interchange Project.

And this is up in the Hillcrest Lane area.

There's been some community interest in there.

The last update that we had was, let me confirm, that was in August.

and this is the only change that we've had since August for those who are engaged in this is that we've provided comments on the major development plan to the applicant in this case and so there are a number of items that are part of this project and

There's a lot of detailed information here that might lose traction if I speak all the words here, but if one out there is interested in the details of the Meadow Creek Interchange Project, please go ahead and send me an email or give a call.

Email CrecyM at Charlottesville.gov.

and I can give you the details of this.

But if you've been following this for a while, we have sent out the third round of comment submission.

Our portal has all of this information if you're interested in that as well.

I have a question.

I've spoken with several members of the public on this item.

The main item that I've heard is concerns about safety.

I don't have the staff comments with me so I'm unable to answer that at this moment but if you've got a contact we can provide the comments for them.

Okay, also we have a work session on the 28th of October.

It's been a little while since we've had a formal work session and this is going to be on the environmental review project.

For those in the audience, one of the commitments that came from the comprehensive plan and zoning ordinance review was to

spend additional time digging deeper into environmental related ordinances and codes and so that process has been going on for for quite a while on the staff end of things and they're beginning to move into the

work session and next steps of that.

So the commission has that work session on the 28th.

Also, our next meeting will be November 12th.

That is a Wednesday.

So just as a reminder, I did check in with you guys.

You might not remember because it's been a few months ago.

Veterans Day is on the 11th, which is the Tuesday, and so the building will be closed.

So we will have the meeting on the 12th.

And at that point, we are not going to be in this room.

we are going to be ever in city space again we'll have all of this online but we'll have

whatever regular items on the agenda that come up for that meeting and then we will have a work session on the code amendments.

So tonight we have the listening session to gather comment from the community on this item and then you all will have an opportunity for a more focused work session at that point in time.

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

And this would include, if you want to talk on the steep slope waiver, that would be the time.

Okay.

Thank you so much.

So we will work this how we work most of our public comment sessions where we take the opportunity to have one of our in-person speakers go first.

You have three minutes to provide your comments to the commission.

And that'll be timed.

And then we will alternate to our virtual audience.

And so we'll check in with our virtual audience.

If we have anyone in the virtual audience now who is interested in speaking, please raise your hand in the application.

This is for the matters from the public.

Again, the listening session will come later, but you'll raise your hand.

We don't have anyone on the phone line, but if we did, then we would provide the instructions for raising your hand, that method.

We'll go back and forth until everyone who has or wants to take the opportunity to speak has that opportunity.

And that's pretty much what we do.

So we'll start out.

Our first speaker signed up is Max Chambers.

Hello, my name is Max Chambers.

I live at 410th Street Northwest, the dairy apartments.

I recently moved to Charlottesville over the summer, and so far I quite enjoy living here for the outdoor space.

The walkability and the bikeability in many parts of the city is great, but there are a few areas where I think it's lacking, and it sounds like the Commission has been investigating these issues already.

I try to bike as much as I can around town.

But on Rio Road, for example, and other areas in the city, the bike lane will just suddenly disappear.

You know, people on online forums have complained about bikers ending up on Highway 29 or Highway 250.

There are no signs indicating to bikers that they should not enter those spaces.

There's no indication that there are other alternative routes for bikes.

And so, again, on Rio Road, in a lot of parts of the city, on barracks, for example, coming into Preston Avenue,

The bike lane is on again off again, and it makes it really difficult to be able to ride safely around cars.

I think it also contributes to a lot of the traffic that ends up building in those areas.

In addition to that, I think the sidewalks could certainly be more continuous in certain places around the city.

I don't know the city well enough yet to give too many specific examples of that.

And it's interesting, you know, with the somewhat lacking infrastructure in terms of pedestrian friendly and cycling friendly

I know that roundabouts can be expensive, but they are a really good investment.

if it means avoiding expensive improvements in traffic signals and just trying to maintain a system that really doesn't work.

So I think that roundabouts at Preston and I think it's 10th Avenue right near my apartment would be a great improvement.

Ridge Street and Preston, Ridge and Main Street, all of these areas seem to be really problematic areas for people making left turns, right turns.

All right, I'll check in on our virtual audience.

I don't see anyone with hands raised at this time.

We will come back to you in a moment.

Please raise your hand in the application if you are interested in speaking from your online.

Hi.

Hello, planning commissioners.

My name is Joe Leung, and I live in Lambeth Field Course 474 in student housing.

I am a third-year undergrad urban planning student at UVA, and I wanted to share my thoughts on the zoning code and student apartments developments that are recently coming out.

And as a student, we represent obviously a very transient population and many of the proposed developments under new zoning ordinance appear to be targeted towards just students.

And while increasing housing supply generally helps reduce costs, assuming demand remains rather stable, the nature of these by right projects has like

Understandably raised concerns among long-term residents as there were several I think last month who spoke on it and expressed concerns because these developments are permitted by right.

There are obviously very limited opportunities for negotiation and I think these developments that rapidly like increase supply for students is generally just

very helpful for students but not perhaps very helpful and probably contributes to gentrification for local residents.

So while benefiting as a student I think there definitely needs to be significant steps that needs to be taken in first communicating towards local residents about

just these zoning policies as residents seem quite confused or like surprised about this by right these developments being by right and seem rather stressed about it so one solution I have to suggest is to create perhaps a GIS map or some kind of interactive map where you can look at the

areas within Charlottesville, and then simply click on the area that you are located in.

And then not only do you see the zoning district that you are located in, but you also will see the exact definition of that, like CX-5 or some kind of district, the exact definition.

So you will know the exact height limit and the density that's required for a district, rather than I know the city already has taken steps to create

a GIS searcher where you can find the definition of your zoning district but I think a simpler interface and a interface where it directly tells you the definition will be very beneficial for lay people just trying to understand the zoning ordinance.

I just want to remind people, thank you for that.

We will have a listening session for the zoning code coming up later on in the evening.

So right now, this is things not related to zoning code or if you want to speak on the steep slope waiver.

But you were great.

Apologies.

Great.

It's fine.

Thank you.

Just to be clear, I think we had billed this as a development community listening session, like architects and builders problems.

All right.

Just going to check in with our online audience to see if anyone's interested in speaking during Madison in public.

All right, I don't see any hands raised there.

Do we have any additional in-person speakers for matters from the public?

Okay, I'll check virtual, check in-person one more time.

Yeah, our next item is a special exception for a critical slope.

Consent agenda.

Oh, excuse me.

Consent agenda.

Yeah, sorry.

Thank you.

Chair, I move that we accept the consent agenda as subject to the correctness of the Scribner's errors described during the pre-meeting.

All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Nope.

Okay.

All right.

So yeah, now our next item is the special exception, which is the critical slope at 1000 Second Street Southeast.

Good evening, commissioners.

Let me get those slides up.

I'll be happy to begin.

Project number PL25-0066 is for 1000 Second Street Southeast for a critical slope special exception waiver.

This project is right next to XR Park right off of Second Street.

It is a sublot that is zoned RA.

The future land use designation of that is that of just general residential within the sensitive community areas.

And this is for a critical slope special exception for the purpose of future residential use.

You can go to the next slide.

Critical slope regulations are as follows, that if there is a slope with degree of 25% or greater, whether or not a portion of the slope

has a horizontal run greater than 20 feet and an area of 6,000 square feet or greater, and that a portion of the slope is within 200 feet of any waterway protected by the standards and design manual of the Chapter 10 of the Charlottesville Code of Ordinances.

So in those areas, development is regulated and controlled.

However, there is an option for relief to pursue this critical slope special exception permit.

to allow and looking over to the right-hand side under section 5.2.16d criteria for review and decision of the critical slope special exception waiver.

City Council may grant this special exception if it finds that due to unusual topography, shape, location, or other unique or unusual physical conditions, whether or not development would be unreasonably restricted as a part of these regulations and that there is a public benefit of the proposed encroachment

and that would outweigh the potential issues created by allowing for development within it.

City Council are supposed to review the criteria to the following standards that the amount of impact is limited to the greatest extent possible and that whether sufficient mitigations have been proposed to limit impact of the proposed encroachment and whether steps have been taken to prevent those impacts and whether or not the proposed project is consistent with the zoning district and comprehensive plan.

You can go to the next slide, Patrick.

So this is the location here.

Here's our critical slope map.

You can see the large development X right across the street.

So this is a sublot, meaning that the property or the parcel south of this and this parcel are sort of tied together with their development rights.

So there is one existing residential unit already existing.

So this sublot area could propose to construct one to five additional units.

If they are proposing three or above, then affordable units are required.

or are required to reach those density calculations.

So this development could be between one to five with the possibility of affordable housing units being provided.

Pat, you can go on to the next one.

Right, yeah.

So the applicant has expressed their willingness to obviously meet the minimum engineering requirements and exceed them as a part of their application.

stated that they are willing to produce advanced erosion and sediment control measures.

Actually, Patrick, can you go to the next slide, please?

Here's the building envelope shown and that the entirety of the sublot are to be disturbed.

You can go to the next one.

And finally, they have, you know, we're willing to provide advanced erosion and sediment control measures to be in place before, during, and after construction.

that there are engineered retaining walls designed to blend with the natural landscape and that a detailed landscaping and revegetation plan using native species to permanently stabilize the disturbed areas upon completion of the project.

So considering all these, you know, the benefits of the added density allowed if this were to be approved and these contingencies in place, we are recommending, our staff recommend approval of the critical slope special exception with these conditions attached to it.

that when they go to develop, their engineering documents be reviewed to meet these criteria as they go forward.

So yes, we are recommending approval with those conditions.

So looking at your report on page 8 of your report, you suggest that

If once the development review process is completed and it's not quite what you were expecting, there's an opportunity to do an amendment to the critical slope waiver approval.

What is that process?

If they were to

Well I mean so let's say you know if they do go through this and you know it's determined that they're not meeting these criteria they would have to either re-engineer it to meet these criteria or they would be required to get their special exception permit modified and that process is to pretty much treat it as if it were a brand new special exception in which you would come back before this Commission and then obviously

This is all assuming it's approved by city council after this.

Right.

In what way?

In what way they develop it or in these engineering criteria?

All of the above.

All of the above.

Well, I mean, the criteria or the conditions that I've recommended

I don't really have to do with the built form of it.

It is strictly tied to the engineering components, but this commission would have the ability to add stipulations on the built form if you feel that's appropriate.

What's generating the difficulty in putting together a development plan is just because of the nature of the

Well, I mean, the applicant is here, so I'm sure they could speak to that as well.

But from the discussions, you can probably stand up, if you'd like.

It's up to the chair.

Sure.

To answer your question directly, just due to the subjective nature, I'm a small-scale builder and allocate resources

prior to approval to have a construction set to appease your desire to see the final form frankly would cost me an enormous amount.

And to enter a subjective process paying an enormous amount before I gain approval is prohibitive to me.

One of the difficulties I've got is

If, in fact, I elect to support and recommend the waiver, the reason I'll do that is because what we're going to get by granting the waiver is to, for the betterment of the community, we're going to get more housing, for example.

And I can't tell how many more houses we're going to get yet.

and in terms of the actual development plan that you're going to submit.

That is in the application, yes.

The potential to get six total units on that lot is there.

My understanding is I'm limited to the scope that this body approves.

I would be limited to what the application suggests.

It's the only explicit conditions that we include in the approval.

So we could add a condition that says, we'll approve this if you build four or more units.

My application, I suggest, I'm a builder of homes, I'm not a farmer, so I will build homes.

If it's one home, the economics are not such that I can build a technically affordable home.

It's not going to happen on this lot.

I mean, it costs roughly between $40,000 to $50,000 to put in sewer and water.

So, I mean, you can do the math.

It's just not going to be a $250,000 house.

I would have to

I would have to pay for that and I'm not in a position to do that.

I'm limited by the realities of the cost of building.

As more of a personal note, I've grown up here, my family is here, my friends are here, I'm not trying to

You know, I want us to do well by the community.

And I don't think the community necessarily needs another million dollar home because you can look on Zillow currently and see that there's an abundance of 1.2 million dollar homes.

It's not what the community needs.

It's not what I want.

It's not what inspires me to build.

So I want to place as many units as possible.

And at this point in time, I cannot look you in the eyes and say, this is absolutely what I will do.

because of many different factors, but I'm going to attempt to do the best that I think I can on this trigger a lot within my ability.

Thank you.

Were there any other questions for staff?

OK.

Well then are there, I keep forgetting to look down this way, any questions for you guys?

No comments from me Jeff.

Mr. Barber, thank you for speaking.

The conditions proposed are a comprehensive mitigation plan that goes beyond standard requirements for site stability and downstream protection, which will include an advanced erosion sediment control measures to be in place before, during,

Anything I build has a native species replanted.

So I do that just by philosophical alignment.

So yeah, that's not a problem.

And then all of the rest, I would have to have an engineered routine structure.

I mean, the site, honestly, it was graded when the adjacent homes were built.

So it's really just, if you look at the site, there's a couple humps.

From my perspective, it's not a complicated build topographically, because it's just not.

And I will note that these criteria come from your request letter.

So I imagine they do sound familiar, because I did pull them from what you wrote.

Oh, sure.

Oh, sorry.

I was talking about a whole report, not necessarily

Oh, cool.

Are there any more questions?

All right.

I guess go with comments.

OK.

My comment is just that this is an odd,

little piece of, I mean, just that it's under critical slope, but it's not really critical slope like you're talking about.

I mean, it is, but I'm all for adding more housing with the conditions.

This is not the first time this parcel has come before me on the commission.

No, one next to it came.

Oh, was it the next one?

Excuse me.

This is relatively fresh on my mind.

Yes, it's a challenging site.

Given the existing uses and the planning history of this area, I foresee development on this site.

In terms of environmental value, I would argue this is probably not the most valuable site in the city, but a potentially very exciting place for housing.

Yes, me too.

I second that from Mr. Solla-Yates.

I would say that, and again, as we've discussed, it's a critical slope, but really it's

How critical is it considering the rest of the topography and where you got to go to get to the water?

Having said that, I do, speaking to Commissioner Mitchell's point on what we might get, it would seem to me that this is not a cheap lot to build on because of what we're doing anyway.

I could see putting forward a density requirement of say, fine, make it two units at least.

But in terms of an affordability requirement on this lot, I just don't see the math mathing in any way that would really work.

But other than that, other than a possible condition to insist on a minimum of two units, I'm not really sure.

A couple quick comments.

First, just for reference, if it ever did come up, this is maybe not the most suitable parcel for it, but there is a reduced TAP fee available from the city for affordable housing, and that cuts at least a grand off that cost.

For this lot, I think it's interesting, is there a call from last time, I don't know that it's fresh in my mind because it was like 2018, but

This is, like you said, all man-made slope from when they created this for the ICS property and then these surrounding worker cottages.

It's what the county would call a managed slope rather than a natural preserved slope, which might be something to think about as you go into the environmental review.

Personally, I think it's a great place to put housing.

It's a very little parcel, which will be interesting to build on.

I don't know how much attention you paid to the commissioner's reports there.

But as of 2027, it's overwhelmingly likely that a single stair will be allowed for apartment buildings up to four stories.

Cool.

This is the perfect site for what Lyle was proposing to the building officials a couple weeks ago.

So once again, not happy, not knowing exactly what we're going to get.

I would love to get at least three units on the lot, but the

The mitigation recommendations that have been outlined by staff give me some comfort that you're going to at least protect the environment with the sediment and erosion control, with the retaining structures, and I do like that you're working on the landscaping and revegetation.

Yeah, I think that this application meets both reasons that council can create a critical slope exception.

both the public benefit and the fact that the slopes make the site pretty much unbuildable.

Is there any traction at all for a unit, minimum unit here amongst the others?

Well, I'd love to see three.

A requirement we might add from this application is that it be a residential project.

I would like to avoid that precedent, Mr. Chair,

not adding additional requirements that are presented by staff because there are going to be applications that are going to come for us and we're going to brainstorm and find a reason to add additional requirements.

So I'll back off on my minimum request, but I would just like to avoid that precedent.

Maybe just an exhortation.

Please stuff in as many units as you can fit.

It's a great location for housing.

bring the mitigating activity into the recommendation that has been provided by staff.

I move to recommend approval of the critical slope special exception for tax map and parcel 270050001 as requested with the conditions that the applicant provides a comprehensive mitigation plan that goes beyond standard requirements for state stability and downstream protection which will include

and advanced erosion and sediment control measures to be in place before, during, and after construction as approved by the USMP administrator, engineered retaining structures designed to blend with the natural landscape, and a detailed landscaping and revegetation plan using native species to permanently stabilize all disturbed areas on completion of the project.

Did we need to state what reason we give?

Yeah, typically we do, that's true.

It would be B for me.

Is there a second?

Yep.

Sure.

Mr. Mitchell?

Yes.

Mr. D'Oronzio?

Yes.

Miss Rooker?

Yes.

All right.

So now we are moving into our

Evening City Planning Commission Chair.

Tonight you'll be holding a listening session with our local builders and developers to get a better understanding of the opportunities and issues they are facing navigating the development code.

Next slide.

The format tonight will include a brief refresher related to proposed amendments to the development code and the development review process.

As you may recall, we were preparing to hold this listening session back in July, but actions outside of our control required us to pause

that effort and here we are tonight after that has been temporarily resolved and following that we'll open it up to the listening session to the parties that have signed up and then anyone online we'll do it the same format that we did the matters by the public where we'll take in people signed up go to our online go back to in our in public next slide as you remember as part of staff's effort to improve the development

We have proposed amendments placed into three tiers.

Tier 1 covers minor grammatical errors, small adjustments, and additions that ensure compliance with state code.

Tier 2 is making modifications to address any oversights from the original drafting of the code and to provide clarifications where needed.

and to ensure that there's a common understanding of the code.

These are small changes that will add to the intent sections but not necessarily alter the intent sections.

And then Tier 3 are the larger issues that we are gathering that require more staff time and a robust community engagement process.

Next slide.

This is just outlining kind of the general purpose and scope of the Tier 1 examples.

You saw this during your work session back in May.

And then next slide.

And this outlines again the Tier 2 that these are

The Tier 2 are more of the meat of these.

These are planning to be something we do yearly, where we're gathering these small changes.

And again, I want to emphasize these are small edits to better clarify the code, take away confusion, not alter the intent or the policies in place, but to just add clarifying changes, and that the engagement process is the public hearing that would be held at Planning Commission and City Council.

Next slide.

Here we have examples.

To date, staff has prepared 26 of the Tier 2 amendments to move forward.

Here are some of the examples trying to address the allowing attached units across property lines in the R district, creating a path to allow accessory buildings without making the main building come up to current standards.

and updating the development review process to remove hurdles for smaller type developments.

Next slide.

The Tier 3 are the more complex issues.

The takeaway from the Tier 3 is that they could impact policy and they need that, again, that more dedicated staff time, more robust community engagement so that we are making sure we are getting what the community wants.

And so we are definitely gathering these, but these are basically heavier lifts.

These are things that need to be put on the NDS work plan moving forward so they can get the resources, time, and engagement they deserve.

Next slide.

Example of these includes the conversation around height, the reevaluation of our RNA districts, and to reexamine allowing things like some level of commercial in neighborhoods.

Next slide.

So here you see the updated outline of the steps moving forward.

You see where we were back in May and June.

Tonight is the listening session.

And what we are anticipating is on November 12th, again, which is a Wednesday, over in city space will be a work session to go through the 26-plus amendments, the Tier 2 amendments.

We'll also be initiating

the zoning text amendment at that meeting and then following into coming out at meeting this what we're planning to do is in December hold the public hearing with City Council or excuse me with Planning Commission and then in January hold public hearing with City Council.

Next slide.

This, just to prep you for that meeting next month, this is an example of how the work session would go.

The amendments are broken down into the section, the page, the working document reference number.

Then you have in black, you have the existing code language.

And then in red, staff's recommended change.

And then the analysis and the reason for the change.

How I anticipate that meeting going is we will just go through each sheet, have a conversation.

We'll try to move through them as quickly as possible at that meeting next month.

Next slide.

So now we're going to turn it over to the public to speak.

Again, each member of the public will have three minutes trying to frame the conversation.

We have these two questions.

Basically, we do have a new code.

And so as part of that code, we know there are some good things.

And so we want to hear a little bit about that, mainly just so that we don't mess them up in any kind of change and find ways to maybe enhance them.

And then also, what are our local builders and developers running into issue-wise?

And so how can we address that?

Again, we have probably members of the public online or watching could not come tonight.

If you want to provide comments, you can always reach out, send your comments directly to the Planning Commission or to myself.

All right, so I'm going to reiterate a few of the things that Matt noted, because it's always good to hear things more than once.

It's very similar to how we handle all of our public comment.

If you are in our virtual audience, this is your opportunity to raise your hand

the computer so you would you would raise your hand if we had the phone again we would provide those instructions what we will do is alternate between in-person and online each speaker has three minutes and again as Matt noted

If you have passion for saying and communicating more than the three minutes will allow, we encourage you to put that in writing and communicate that to us.

We have the contacts up there and we can reiterate that throughout the

So we'll go ahead and get started.

Our first speaker, again, if you are online and you plan to speak, I do encourage you to raise your hand now.

We do plan to alternate, but if I don't see hands in the virtual audience, we're going to continue to move forward with our in-person audience because they have signed up.

So just keeping that in mind as we go.

Okay, so our first speaker will be Anna Bernstein.

Anna.

Good evening commissioners.

My name is Anna Bernstein.

I live at 538 Laughlin Hill Drive, Charlottesville.

One of the opportunities I want to note that's been great, and I work at a civil engineering firm, getting rid of the parking requirements, parking minimums,

We've been able to have a lot less land disturbance as we're not grading out so much area to provide these parking minimums.

So we'd love to see that continue.

And then going on with the parking theme, one of the challenges we've encountered is with the bike parking requirements.

For residential units or apartments with more than four units you have to have one-to-one long-term bike parking spaces, and I think this is great for many areas in Charlottesville, but

We were working on a site on Route 29 and it's very un-bikeable and we have to provide close to 200 long-term bike parking spaces and those are going inside so it's taking away a lot of space for additional units.

Route 29 is not the most bikeable area.

In fact, it's pretty unsafe and I wouldn't want to bike there.

So either having more investment in bike-ped infrastructure along that area or having zones where if you're along Route 29 or in that corridor, you don't have as harsh requirements.

All right, we'll move to our online audience.

And our first speaker is Jeffrey Levine.

Mr. Levine, can you hear us?

Ken.

Oh, look at that.

Is that my picture I'm going to use?

I can't use that.

Yes, hi.

And I'm very passionate.

So I will submit something in writing that has more detail than refers to actual sections.

I will say that for the opportunities, there are so-called opportunities because a lot of landowners feel that their land is worth a lot of money under this new zoning.

And so there's a lot on the market

which is different for Charlottesville.

The problem is there's really no way to underwrite anything under the current zoning because, and I guess I break it down, first of all anything in a BAR zone is

is basically not a zoning because it's not as of right as long as the BAR under a section has the right to reduce height, massing, and require step back.

And as I went through with Vital Crown, there's no way for BAR to actually approve a massing.

They have to go put it in condition at the end of a year plus process.

And so a developer can't go down the whole road not knowing what

you can build.

So this form-based code concept and what's as of right is completely out the window with VAR last right to look at something and modify it.

There are also a lot of things in there that are not really applicable to an urban setting and so all properties are not created equal obviously.

The woman before me mentioned parking and it's great that there's no parking requirement but the market is demanding parking.

and so on a lot of larger developments you need to provide parking above grade and with the active depth requirement it's impossible in a lot of these sites to have 30 feet cut off your building line and be able to have parking behind it.

That's a very suburban Texas donut type concept.

So you really need, you can't just swipe with a broad brush and think everything works for each site.

And to that end, the code does allow for some administrative review, but it's really not broad enough.

There's like a 10 or 15 percent waiver right.

and anything that has to go back to city council or frankly to your group just makes the approval process uncertain, too long, and stalls everything.

This business is hard enough and takes years and years to get done.

So my overarching theme is you gotta try to make, if you want housing built, and I'm not talking about student housing or hotels or anything that's being, if you want market rate housing and affordable housing to go along with it,

You've got to make this as easy as possible for the developer.

You've got to invite us.

You can't look to frustrate us and to take second bites of apples and see how much money we're making and determine we need real estate tax abatements, which is not in your field.

But if you're going to have a form-based code and you're going to have as of right.

And the last thing I'll mention is you have these heights of 184 feet or whatever it is, and you can fit a lot more than the stories, but somehow

I don't know if it's arbitrary or not but you've got like in certain zones 184 feet but only 13 stories and you can fit probably 17 stories in that so if you've agreed to the height just fill the box with as much as you can let the developer decide what can fit in that box

The height of all these projects is where we can make up for affordable housing or the construction costs.

So there's a lot of it.

OK, can I see my summary?

Yeah, OK, I'll write something.

Good evening, I'm Ashley Davies with Riverbend Development and current chair of CADRE.

I think the code that we've written is really aspirational and I appreciate what we are trying to accomplish.

I think in reality it's too complicated and we're finding that as developers we really can't work with it at all.

Mr. Schwartz hosted an amazing event as we were writing the code called the Break the Code event.

And at that time, I thought it was very, it was well attended.

It was enlightening.

And there were a lot of great suggestions that came out of that.

I don't think that any of those suggestions were

Incorporated.

I think that the form-based code as it's written gets too far into the weeds.

I think we can have a form-based code, but the layers of complexity really do not address the sites that are left in Charlottesville and the topographical issues that we face.

So therefore, every project is forced into multiple waivers.

And the way the code is working now, you can't even get a waiver

in advance.

So you have to totally design your project, your building, and all of that before even knowing whether the waivers associated with the project will be granted.

So that's a huge problem.

I think on our small scale sites, I'm really kind of a tier three woman.

I want to dig into those issues sooner rather than later.

I hope they don't take till the end of 2026.

So I think on the smaller sites, we do really need to look at the stormwater regulations and how we can have a stormwater light for those areas, because there is no way.

I mean, we heard from the previous application tonight.

There's just no way that these small-scale projects can afford the large underground

retention tanks and stuff of that nature.

So let's find a solution that actually gets the infill off the ground on those smaller sites and stormwater's a big piece of that.

And then finally, the affordability requirements, we need to keep looking at those and getting those right.

I think they have to be adapted regularly based on what's happening with the market.

As of now, we have projects that are barely feasible to be constructed and

When you add on the affordability requirements it knocks it into the realm of not being feasible anymore.

So that's why we're not seeing a lot coming forward at this time.

So really getting the developer incentives packages right and just making sure that all comes together for a complete package that actually makes it so developers can bring forth new projects in the city.

Hi there, thank you.

My name is David Schmidt.

I live at 1204 Agney Street,

and I work for Habitat for Humanity.

And as an affordable housing provider in the city, things that we have appreciated is the added density allowance for affordable housing, the affordability terms, length of affordability has been very much appreciated and is in alignment with what

We have run into some challenges, though, when it comes to making for an affordable project that works on these smaller parcels that come up.

Hard to jump at it if we aren't sure that the finances will work.

And it has been a challenge, as some others have already spoken towards.

While there isn't a requirement for on-lot parking, we are mainly providing home ownership opportunities.

And parking is a need.

And so one example, we have been working on a project on 6 and 1 half street, which is a tight, one-way street that

If we could have allowed for some more on lot parking, that would have lessened the impact that it will have on the neighbors.

And so we're trying to work within the context of the neighborhood, but it is RNA.

And as such, we were limited to two and a half stories.

If we could have gone three stories,

potentially we could have gotten some additional off-street parking also if there was an allowance for affordability to allow for garage front-loaded parking.

I know you've given me plenty of time I appreciate it.

The requirement or the desire to have relegated parking once you get above two units does make for a challenging requirement for both providing parking that we desire to have for families but also maximizing the density on the lot.

So we just keep kind of coming up against the max coverage on lots in addition to the height restrictions.

in some of these neighborhoods.

I understand trying to fit within the context and provide additional protections in some of these neighborhood districts, but it is providing some complexity for someone who's trying to provide all affordable housing.

All right, we still don't have anyone in our virtual audience with hands raised.

So we will continue with our in person audience.

I'm Dan Bracey, city resident from birth in a partner with Two Street Studio, an architecture firm based in Charlottesville in Richmond, primarily focused on mid to large scale multifamily developments, generally projects of 100 units or more across Virginia.

Ashley just mentioned this, but before the new code was adopted, several local developers I worked with asked me to conduct a comparative study.

of the large sites that they control for multifamily development.

The study showed that in many cases, the previous code produced stronger development metrics than the new one.

As a result, we resubmit site plans for vesting before the new code took effect, which I'm certain was not what you guys wanted.

The details were presented in the Break the Code session and we currently do have two multifamily sites under review under the new code, together providing about 240 units in a central Charlottesville location.

I mentioned that background for a couple of reasons.

The points that I have to make aren't hypothetical, and they arise directly from the context of large-scale multifamily buildings, which is what the city needs and what the new code was intended to support.

Given my time limit, I don't think I'll make it through the full list of 15 items, but I've got specific code sections and proposed solutions, and I'll share that after this meeting and in the November 12 session.

The summary, Ashley hit on this, and the previous speaker hit on it, and David hit on it, too.

Section of the new code make it more difficult than the previous code and comparable city codes to develop large-scale multifamily projects on the remaining large sites in Charlottesville.

The challenges generally stem from a blanket application of a form-based code that doesn't really adapt well to a city of this size with complex topography, waterways, and complex street and block layouts.

They're made worse by a misalignment between the code and the realities of multifamily construction, standard building types, financing models, today's construction costs and interest rates.

I've got a little time left and can jump into some of the higher level points, but one of the really sort of, I don't know if this is tier one or two, but there's a number of like,

functional dimensional requirements in the code that when you start like layering multiple segments of the code onto like the build to width is the easiest one to point to.

There's like I could probably identify 50 plus sites in Charlottesville that aren't developable under the new code in any meaningful way.

The easiest example of that would be like an NX lot

I mean, 85% primary street minimum build to width.

And so then you have a type B transition that's 15 feet that overlaps with that.

You can't develop a lot that has a shorter primary street frontage than 100 feet.

That's a problem.

And that's a real problem we've run into.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mr. Chair, commissioners, former colleagues, we're all clustered down here.

It's nice to be here this evening.

I am city resident, and I'm also president of Preservation Piedmont.

And we participated in the process, not to the extent that we would have liked to, but we know the constraints of that era.

And I would like to remind you that historic preservation is part of the development process.

Every time that a building is rehabilitated, every time that one has an adaptive use or is converted to add more,

units, when there's infill adjacent to nearby historic buildings, that is historic preservation and it's also part of development.

So I'm saying don't forget about us, make us part of this to a greater extent than we were perhaps before.

When you ask about opportunities, there are more opportunities for large historic properties.

Some can now have

expansion that they might not have been able to have before with the sublot process.

They might be able to have an addition or an auxiliary

I asked you to keep that in mind when you look at some of these projects on small parcels with small buildings.

That might still be affordable.

At the end, you got a little slap happy with your map.

And I guess you do that at another time, not right now.

But some of the properties that you added and changed at the last minute in historically African-American neighborhoods with greater density.

than they have now were definitely concerning to us.

So that's probably something for another day.

So I'd also like to say to you, we did not oppose this process.

We just tried to work within it.

And that's why last year, we asked the city to sponsor with us bringing Sarah Bronin to Charlottesville to give her extraordinary talk.

And I'd like to remind you that this major proponent of density

of Zoning Reform in the United States began her remarks by saying, I am a preservationist.

So it means we can have both.

And that's what we would like to ask you to do.

The only real suggestion I'm going to make tonight, I'm probably more of a tier three person, too.

Those of you that know me know that's the case.

I'd like you to consider exempting existing buildings in historic districts from some elements of the form base code, particularly in terms of fenestration.

It may be more expensive and become a more cumbersome process.

They're already subject to BAR review, and so the BAR is probably

Better equipped to make those suggestions because we're already looking at the rhythm of the street and sometimes it's needless to go to the foreign-based code.

It makes it a little more cumbersome.

So we look forward to continuing in this process with you and it was great to see you all tonight.

All right, again, no virtual speakers.

My name is Wendy Gao, and I'm an organizer at FAR.

As you may know or have heard or witnessed, FAR, 10th and Page residents, including West Haven, have been making noise about the 11-story luxury student housing building proposed by LV Collective on West Main Street.

FAR and 10th and Page are joined by the neighborhood associations in Fifeville and Rose Hill in calling for immediate fast-track changes to the zoning code, specifically in regulating the height of buildings built in Commercial District on the edges of core historically black residential neighborhoods and corridors.

This LV Collective building is significant because it will join the Standard in overshadowing West Haven, the most political site in Charlottesville, the first and largest public housing site, born out of urban renewal and the raising of Vinegar Hill.

It is significant because if built, it will set a precedent for future luxury developments under this code.

It's significant, but it's also deeply unexceptional because it is not the first luxury building to encroach in these communities and it is not the last.

The mark by the owners of the standard on 7th Street and Fifeville is just a few steps behind and in a few years, 10th and Page and Preston Avenue will see the dairy market expansion, bring a hotel and more outsiders into the neighborhood.

These are gross oversights made possible and allowed by the current zoning code that must be amended and addressed immediately.

As the body that is responsible for passing the current iteration of the zoning code, this commission as a whole and each of you individually have a moral obligation and responsibility to fix it.

Not in a slow bureaucratic tiered approach, but an expedited fast-tracked timeline that is responsive to the looming, literally, deadline that is the two buildings proposed on West Main right now.

It is incredibly telling, I think, that the first listening session you're hosting is specifically for builders and developers rather than the neighborhoods and the actual human beings who live in them who have to bear and live out the consequences of the actions and mistakes of this commission.

You all should rather be listening to how residents are struggling to live and survive and pay rent to have shelter and make ends meet under the code, not how builders and developers are struggling to build and develop and make money.

Instead of making it easier for developers to build and make gross stomach-turning profits at the cost of the lives of human beings, we should be making it easier for people to live and survive in this city.

At ends with developers, black and brown, low income, working class residents need more community oversight over developments.

The BAR is the literal only thing standing in the way of the two developments on West Main Street.

Residents need more participatory discretionary opportunities to give input on these developments and they need this body to pass these changes on a fast track outside of the tiered system.

Ms.

Joy Johnson, the FAR board chair, couldn't be here today, but I wanted to say a few words on her behalf.

I'm here today because the Planning Commission needs to immediately correct the mistakes in the zoning code that allow 11-story buildings to be built by right on the edges of low-income black communities.

Communities need more opportunities to provide input on buildings and the buildings need to be smaller.

This was an oversight and mistake in the zoning code and the Commission needs to fix it.

You will have the power to do it.

Please listen to the concerns of 10th and Page, West Haven, 5th and Rose Hill residents and correct the zoning code on a fast track outside of the tiered system.

All right.

Hi, my name is Jacqueline Kim.

I'm a resident in Pantops and I work in the city and I'm a former UVA student.

I'm here to support far West Haven 10th and Page residents and I would just like to echo all the comments that Wendy just made.

But the bulk of my time actually I'd like to spend sharing some comments from Sheri Lewis I'm not sure if y'all have received a report from bar from their August meeting or watched that meeting or you know received any feedback from them but if you haven't like I would encourage you to watch that recording where there's literally four hours of testimony from community members who are going to be impacted by this massive development that Wendy was talking about and

At the end of that session, when Sherry Lewis, who is a former member of this commission and also a member of Bar Now, was providing comments to this developer, you can see her get visibly emotional.

I want to read an abridged version of her comments because I don't have time to share all of it.

I tried to be faithful to what she said during her time.

So she said, it's the fault of our city for having adopted this ordinance because now we're realizing that it's not what we really wanted.

I believe it was sold to us by outside pressure from professional planners from the beginning who told us that it would be our path to get affordable housing in Charlottesville and it just is not that.

We're going to see this over and over again.

Our board, which has very little purview, is being asked to be the backstop against something that none of us stood up and stopped.

I was on the steering committee for this zoning ordinance and I checked out because I didn't think that I could oppose it.

And she goes on to list other folks who were on this planning commission did not oppose at that time and also city council members who voted for this.

She said, I really regret that now.

This is my fault.

This is Carl's fault.

Also, as he said, he voted in favor of it.

Everybody had reservations, but in the end, we adopted this.

So it's all of our faults that we're sitting here and everybody from West Haven and advocates from West Haven have sat here for four and a half hours to tell us what's wrong with our zoning ordinance.

We should have known that.

This is our fault.

It's my fault and I'm so sorry because we shouldn't even be in a place where we're looking at something that is 15 stories above your house.

It's not right.

Sherry's right.

This situation where a development company wants to build housing that is very much not affordable on land from which black and brown people have been displaced is going to reoccur under this zoning code.

And also, the community pushback that you and other city bodies have observed over the past couple of months, thanks to the organizing efforts of FAR and other community members, will also continue to happen unless there are some significant changes made to the zoning code to protect vulnerable neighborhoods from gentrification and displacement.

Hi, my name is Sophia Marrero and I'm a community organizer at the Public Housing Association of Residents.

I really want to echo what the two comments, especially the last speech that was just given, because it really gets into the fact that these are people's lives that we're talking about.

This is not just some foreign concept or some abstract concept that we can just pretend

is not important or doesn't directly impact people's lives.

I'm here to ask for the following zoning changes.

First of all, proposing changing the zoning along West Main Street and potentially parts of Fifield to CX3.

This zoning allows three stories by right and up to five stories by right with the affordable housing bonus appropriate given the proximity to core neighborhoods.

encourage affordable housing in the area by removing the ordinance language that currently excludes on-site affordable housing within a half mile of UVA.

Many low-income students and university staff would benefit from access to housing near campus if the rents were within reach.

Advocate for stronger, more consistent community input for any development proposals over five stories or including more than eight within core neighborhoods and corridors.

Community engagement should be early, ongoing, and meaningful.

Build a proactive community-oriented culture at NDS to encourage people to actually come and give their opinions and not just have people make decisions for them.

So I'll end by saying that I am a former UVA student.

and I'm not from Charlottesville, I'm from Florida, but I moved to this town because I thought it was really pretty, honestly, and I wanted to go to school at a really pretty school.

In my time here, I have had the privilege of meeting people who have absolutely changed my outlook on a lot of different manners, but specifically in my position as a community organizer now.

I have been impacted by the work and the words of people who

do every day what they have to do to survive.

And that should not go unrecognized because no one in this country should have to fight to survive every day, fight to have a place to live, a place to call home.

Good evening.

Neil Williamson.

to members of the Planning Commission.

It's been a minute.

So I will take forward some umbrage that this board and the city council did not listen or care when they took care developing this code.

That being said, when the code came forward,

The Free Enterprise Forum, which I represent, said, this is not a perfect code.

And we listed a number of problems with it.

You're not going to be surprised by the three things that I think that needs to be changed.

But it's not because of a lack of effort on your part.

But this listening session itself is a fulfillment of a promise.

And I'm appreciative of that.

First and foremost, these three very attainable changes.

Number one, which has been mentioned

and some of this is policy and some of its zoning code.

Increase the amount of disturbed area that triggers a stormwater plan from the current 6,000 square feet to the state mandated 10,000 square feet.

That will make a huge difference and people a whole lot smarter than me can tell you why.

Also redefine what a major subdivision is.

Four units is not a major subdivision and it changes the way it goes through the process.

Now, I've heard people tell me that's a state code issue.

Let's go to the state and change the code.

I mean, I do this.

I go to Richmond every winter.

So I'm happy to bring with this request.

Finally, and this is the one you were waiting for, fix your flawed inclusionary housing policy.

The current requirement of 10% of all new housing product being affordable to 60% median income for 99 years is untenable.

Can you imagine this economic restriction on any other industry?

To encourage development, the AMI must increase and the term should match, as was discussed at this commission actually, federal housing affordability regulations of about 30 years.

I'm very, very appreciative of the work you guys do.

I'm appreciative of this listening session.

And I do hope that we can continue to make this zoning ordinance what it was meant to be, which is more housing everywhere for everyone.

Thank you.

All right.

Hey.

So much to say.

My name is Nicole Skrow.

I'm a land use attorney and also a real estate developer and builder.

I work for myself, so I'm small.

It's just me.

Gosh, I think back onto where we were when we first started this process.

And this was the comprehensive plan that led the guiding vision for the zoning ordinance.

And we were nowhere near where we are now, where we have this more allowable code that allows more density in housing.

And the trigger for what changed was 2017.

It was cultivated in this zoning ordinance actually happening.

It had nothing to do with the cries of the developers.

They cry all the time.

We cry all the time.

It's very hard to do what we do, honestly, truly.

But it was not them.

It was the social activists that really made this order to zoning ordinance happen.

It was Jaylene Smith, Emily Dreyfus, Joy Johnson.

Those were the people, Matt Gilligan, like an endlessly number of people.

Those were the people who got this zoning ordinance passed.

And it was because it wasn't about the developers or builders.

Who cares about them?

They're going to do exactly what you think they're going to do.

They're going to maximize profit.

We live in a capitalist society for now.

That's what they're going to do.

It's not about them.

It is about the people living in those homes.

And right now, we don't have enough housing.

And we have so little housing that landlords have so much power.

They have so much power.

And they have that power because we don't have enough housing.

So I would please, please, please listen to people, like a social activist that got this zoning ordinance passed.

We should not be quoting Sherry Lewis.

We should be quoting Jaylene and Emily and the other Emily and Molly and that's who should be quoted, please.

But that being said, so what works with zoning ordinance?

What doesn't?

So I think of the zoning warrants in two separate ways.

We have RA, RB, or C. It's a totally different world than RX, CX.

And what's being served right now are we're getting student housing and we're getting luxury housing.

So it's not doing what we want to do.

And that's clearly because it's so hard to build in CX, RX.

The design requirements do not allow you to do what you want to do.

People much smarter than me who are professionals and architects in this field will give you what you need to know to change

and get people to build more housing in the CX world.

There are some, I will say, we have been able to make it work at 80% AMI in the RBA and RC, and we've got a few coming online.

That's really exciting.

Having townhouses that even are $600,000 are actually affordable, crazily enough, given what else is available, not that it hits on the true affordable by no means,

It is better than what we have currently, and we're continuing to make improvements.

I will send, I'm out of time, so I can send my more detailed list to you all, but yeah, focus should be on the people in the homes, not the developers.

Thank you, Ms.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the Commission.

I'm Valerie Long.

I too want to just reiterate my appreciation for you hosting this session and for considering the input and experience that those of us who work with the ordinance every day are struggling with.

I want to echo in particular some of the comments that you've already heard.

I won't repeat them, but those from Jeff Levine, Ashley Davies, Nicole, those are the same comments I would add with emphasis.

In general, and actually this is similar to what Jenny was saying, she phrased it as this is a tear down ordinance.

I personally wouldn't use it quite that way, but it does in a sense articulate a challenge we've encountered.

which is that the ordinance seems to contemplate or be structured as if the city is all greenfield sites, which there might be three or four in the city, or complete teardown sites.

And I know that's not what was intended or envisioned, but it's very challenging to make small changes to existing sites without, and then have to come into compliance with all the development standards

I don't think the ordinance is clear enough that you don't have to comply with all development standards that are not applicable or related to the change you're making.

And that's been a real challenge.

And just saying, oh, don't worry, you can get a special exception for anything that you can't meet isn't practical either.

That's effectively a special use permit.

It'll take six months.

There's only been a couple of them so far.

It's discretionary.

It's time consuming.

There's significant uncertainty.

I would suggest that you consider streamlining that process substantially and just have it go straight to council.

Ideally, it wouldn't have to go to council at all, but I think there's case law that requires it.

If staff reviews it and supports it, it should go to council within 30 days.

That would be the one situation where it could possibly work.

But I think there's some minor clarifications that you can make to the ordinance to make it more clear about what's a site modification, what's renovation, what's maintenance, what's a change of use, and what that means in terms of development standards that you have to bring into compliance.

Candidly, I know you all want the litigation to be resolved, perhaps as much as we do.

But the existence of the ongoing litigation continues to be a real challenge for everyone.

I would ask that if there are any mechanisms for the city to adopt some interim rules or processes that might give applicants some comfort that their investments will pay off if the litigation does not go the way we hope it will.

Just something to consider.

All right, that is the end of folks who have signed up, but I'm sure we have others who would like the opportunity to speak.

Again, I'm going to communicate to our virtual audience.

If you would like to speak, this is the opportunity to raise your hand in the application.

I will check in with our, okay, we have a virtual audience person, then we'll go to our in-person again.

So our virtual audience member, Bob Pinnio.

Yes, I can.

Thank you.

Outside a swim team meeting here, so I'll keep this brief.

One of the things that I do want to talk about is, especially when we're talking about missing middle development and the zoning code, one of the things that we're doing a project right now, trying to get a four family into an RA, which we're keeping an existing building.

One of the complexities that I guess is dawning on me is,

When it comes to doing more of these kind of units, we're into the Virginia Building Code, which is not the residential code when you do more than two units.

and in this case four.

So the idea, the things that need to happen because of the building code and stepping up to this higher use class, we have firewalls, we have sprinkler systems, we have egress paths.

The complexity of all of these things is another inhibitor to this idea of populating the city, especially RA or C, A units.

So one of the things that kind of struck me was the zoning code is great in that it gives you more capacity, more number of units, but the complexity of the building code applied to that.

And with the stormwater regs and all these other zoning regulations, it's almost like the idea

That was born from the zoning code was more density, but what we think we all forgot was how complex it gets, the complexity of actually doing these things.

So in an ideal world, it would have been, hey, here's the add the density and we'll leave you alone.

And there isn't that much more that we would ask of you because simply doing these more complex building types takes a lot of energy.

And the building code doesn't distinguish between a four unit

apartment building and a hundred unit apartment building is the exact same code.

There are things within that code, height, you know, number of floors above grade and all these other things, but there is no designation.

There's no simplicity that's allowed.

So as far as missing middle goes, these sites are very complex.

The storm water is very complex.

The building code is very complex.

All of these things are leading to a difficulty in activating these spaces.

And this is from somebody who I think I've been doing this long enough.

I'm actually really surprised at how difficult and I'm on board for trying to get as many of these units online as possible.

But I think we all need to take a deeper breath and understand

and really understand what the development community is saying.

These are very, very, very, very, very challenging things to do.

And while you're seeing, I had a developer tell me this one time, a hundred unit apartment building is about as easy or the same amount of effort as a four bedroom or a four unit apartment or a six unit apartment.

And I kind of thought that was a bluster.

But trying to do it myself, I'm realizing that there's a lot of truth in that.

You're out of time.

Last thought?

Thank you so much.

All right, we'll move to in-person.

Do we have another interested party?

Yes.

Come forward, provide your three minutes.

My name is James Snyder.

My wife and I have a cottage at 206B 5th Street Southwest.

This is in the Oak Lawn Condominium Project.

It's across the street from the Oak Grove Condominium Project, also six units on a third of an acre.

That's 18 units an acre, by the way.

And next door to the Fifth Street Flats, which were built about 20 years ago, another 13 units, by a local architect and a local builder.

That's missing middle.

And you've rezoned us to seven stories.

Let me tell you, that's bad.

That needs to get fixed.

We put in a proposal back in June to this group, and I think I had a bad, I was trying to talk to you remotely, it didn't go very well, but we asked to be looked at.

We could end up with 100 foot buildings next door to us.

You should be looking at how these projects were built because that's what you're struggling to do here today.

And this was done by this council and the Planning Commission twenty-some years ago.

These projects are great.

They're what other people are trying to do around the country.

But you've rezoned it, so it's really negative.

Plus, historic houses, the Ward House on Fifth Street, which was built in 1850, has been zoned to seven stories.

If you want to keep historic neighborhoods, if you want to keep missing middle, don't zone them wrong.

Some big mistakes have been made and they need to be fixed.

We've suggested an emergency resolution to cover the Fifeville, West Haven, 10th and Page neighborhoods and the areas in between for two years so that you can take a look and do some real community planning.

October is Community Planning Month in the USA.

It's Community Planning Month in Virginia.

There are a number of communities that are doing that kind of planning right now.

You should take time to take a pause and take this controversial area and relook at it.

Do some real community planning.

No one knew this was happening.

By background, maybe this is just planning karma.

I've spent the last 14 years as Director of Community Planning and Economic Development Services in the City of Falls Church.

We achieved a lot.

We got a lot of development, we got a lot of grocery stores, we got a lot of affordable housing, and we cut the tax rate, 14 cents, and we built a new high school.

There are better ways to do development.

Wish you luck on the other parts, but please don't ruin Fifeville, West Haven, 10th and Page,

They need help and they need your help and leadership to do that.

Thank you very much.

All right.

Um, uh, don't have any hands raised in our virtual audience, but that is still an opportunity.

Are there any other in person?

My name's

Jim Duxbury, and I work at Mitchell Matthews Architects.

I've worked closely with this new zoning ordinance on probably six or seven projects in our office.

So I've run into a number of items that could be looked at.

And some of them, again, somebody mentioned

This is not a flat site.

It's not greenfield sites.

Almost every project that I've looked at of the six projects, I've dealt with a steep grade.

I've also dealt with the issue of entrances.

So you've required 40 feet every 40 feet to have an entrance, which is nice if it were on Main Street, downtown mall,

But at 40 feet, that's a lot of doors in a larger project.

And I think the real intent is that you want to have a facade that is flexible, because that's what historically larger buildings are flexible, so that they can add a door, remove a door, depending on tenant use and need.

So I think that's one thing that can be looked at,

requiring a physical door or allowing a facade to have some flexibility in the future as it grows over time.

I think that's one element.

So the doors are, I think, a real problem that's being very specific about dimensions.

In a Bill 2 requirement, there's no provision for a full block building design.

They're always a partial block.

So I ran into issues of the open space.

And I think it's just maybe a word change that could occur that would allow you to have a facade that's 280 feet and have a break.

You're required at 275 feet to have a break in that building facade to create some undulation to that.

But it only applies to one side of the building or one street face.

We're working on a project where we had four faces that were on four streets.

I couldn't figure how to get two open spaces when the code only says I can only do it one per building.

I think it should be one per building face.

So I think that's a word change.

I think that's about it for this list.

I think I'll submit the rest of them.

All right.

Still no hands raised virtually.

Any additional in-person speakers?

Hey, good evening chair and members of the Planning Commission.

My name is Kelsey Schlein.

I'm a land planner and development consultant.

I'm also a city resident.

Thank you all so much for taking the time to hear from us this evening.

It was a big thing you all did with the zoning code and we still have a lot of work ahead of us.

So I'm glad that you guys are listening.

because I think we can we can certainly make this code much better than it is.

I wanted to start with the kind of in the format that was given the

opportunities.

I think some of the largest opportunities that I've seen with this development code is specifically in the RA, RB, RC districts.

The sublot opportunity is huge.

Removing road frontage requirements significantly reduces the cost for subdividing land.

That was huge.

That's a big plus.

One, I guess, additional area where we could look at for that that I've run into on a few projects is also looking at how the standards and design manual works with the zoning ordinance.

And I know this is on your radar, especially with the stormwater regs, but also for utility requirements.

For example, for sublot requirements, if we're sublotting lots one behind another away from the street frontage where water mains and sewer mains are located, is there opportunities to extend laterals or service lines through other lots rather than extending the main?

Is there the opportunity to install water manifold systems rather than cutting up the street in 10 different locations to tie in those service lines for

I think that these are somewhat simple and I think conversations that we can be having across departments to try to figure out how to make this work, especially in those RA, RB, RC districts.

I think so going through some other specifics and items is removing the four-foot side setback in the RARBRC district for zoning lots.

That would permit townhome development on zoning lots, not only on sublots.

There's been a lot of talk tonight also about the build-to-width on some lots.

There's definitely I think all the points that have been brought up were excellent that the build-to-width has caused

quite a few issues on quite a few projects, especially where you have a lot where you can't meet the minimum build to without exceeding the maximum building size.

So there are definitely quite a few examples of that.

And in my last few seconds here, I do also just want to echo the comments made about the Break the Code session.

That was a really, really excellent and I think fruitful conversation that we've had now that

A bunch of engineers and architects and developers have had the opportunity to really look at this and how the code takes shape on certain sites.

I would love to have an additional conversation similar to that because I think a lot of us have some really good feedback from all the sites we've looked at.

Again, no additional hands are raised in the virtual audience.

This will be probably close to your last opportunity.

So if you're out there looking to speak, please raise your hand.

Hello, thank you for the time, and thank you also for your service.

I appreciate it.

My name is Andrew Baxter.

I work for Chris LeBlanc at Noll Build and Design here in the city.

I'm a county resident, but my wife and I, I'm sorry, my wife and I a year ago purchased a home in the city for our adult son with autism and an intellectual disability, so we have a keen interest in affordable housing for that community in particular in the city.

I don't think anyone would disagree that the code is complex.

Layers and layers of complexity, in fact.

And I don't have a particular comment about the code.

What I did want to point out was I think an opportunity that I would hate to see missed, which as the city enters its FY 27 budget planning cycle,

I think a voice needs to be heard about the resourcing of NDS and making sure that NDS is resourced and aimed from a leadership perspective in a manner that is equivalent to the goals that we now have as a community for housing, in particular for affordable housing.

The number of folks and the complexity of the work that they're required to do now

The slopes of those curves need to be the same and I don't know that we've seen that and I'm hopeful that you as a commission find it an appropriate use of your voice to encourage council and then the city manager to consider that during the budget planning process.

All right, any additional in-person speakers?

Okay, I'll check with our virtual audience.

This will be the last opportunity unless we have hands raised now.

Okay, anyone else in our in-person audience?

All right, thank you.

Yeah, and again, if you guys have more comments, please email them to us so we can look at them at our work session.

That's not the way it's necessarily set up.

You all are going to be going page by page through the review items.

One of the audience members seemed to imply that.

I just want to make sure that was clear.

There are a couple things that I heard tonight that I think we ought to talk a little bit more about.

We could have been invited.

All right, but I think we ought to do it again with an eye towards helping the developers develop, but also an eye towards helping develop in a way that's people oriented, because I do worry about

I worry a lot about West Haven and the new development there.

I actually voted against the standard, probably before most of you guys were born, and Jen and I dealt with it.

We voted against the standard because we knew that would have created a cavernous effect over West Haven.

So I think, again, the

That idea was a great idea, but I think we just need to make certain that we're people-centric when we think about that.

The other idea, Mr. Baxter, yes, I agree.

We're asking the India folks to do a heck of a lot of very complex work.

And frankly, I think they're way under-resourced.

I was going to say the same thing about the brief code.

I'd love to do something like that again and really dig into the technical details of how these problems arise on specific sites.

I would like

for it to happen at an open meeting where other planning commissioners besides Carl could be there.

I know it was tough because we were doing it with like developer specific projects is what they were bringing and trying to bring the new code to that.

And so maybe we do something where we tweak the format and just like throw a dart at a map and pick some random sites across the city and make all the development community do a bunch of extra work to think through these sites that they don't know.

And that way they'd be comfortable having these discussions in public.

But it does seem like, you know, where the rubber meets the road is actually applying this to specific sites and ideas of projects and doing that.

kind of makes it clear where the pain points are.

So I get why the last one was private and we weren't invited.

But I keep hearing about how great it was and how productive it was and how many problems it brought up.

And then I didn't learn about any of those problems because I wasn't there.

So of course, I won't be here for the next one anyway.

On the NDS resourcing issue, I think those are all good points.

So just a couple of comments, not to address all of the facets here, but I want to sort of look at the ones that were driven towards the smaller development in R-A, R-B, R-C.

That does dovetail very nicely with being people-centric.

These are individual lots, opportunities to develop in small areas for relatively

I'm not going to say modest.

That's not the right word.

For less than exorbitant and outrageous pricing in all circumstances, and I think we need to look at that.

There's some efforts that Lyle and I were working on in terms of the financing of those arrangements, but also the building code.

I am hearing screaming from every small developer about, look, I just want to build a triplex on this thing.

It's got a 60-year-old ranch, and I've lost the will to live.

essentially to get that built.

I can't but see we have to look at that and go revisit the idea that we need to build with what we've got.

And if we're going to persist on having a broad form-based code style, we need to look at the dirt we're building all of the stuff on.

I think that that's going to be an interesting development.

And to Valerie's point about

Special exception permits, we've actually asked the, or we're asking the city and the planning district to ask the general assembly to allow council to delegate such authority to commissions because that would be even faster.

And if you don't like the answer, then you can appeal it.

And that would probably get a higher quality result.

So that's just sort of a mismatch of interest that I'm showing here.

I'm of course interested in the technical tweaks to make things work better.

Something that I've been saying for a long time.

The people problem, I'm sensitive to the people problem.

We have people here who are not developers, who are not architects, who are not engineers.

And we need those people to be comfortable and safe in our community.

I'm very interested in an event that we could do that speaks to that problem.

Well, thank you all for speaking up and coming.

I think as much of this as we can do would hurry things along and just improve discussions.

I don't know, you know, the tier one and tier two sounds like we're going to vote on those soon.

The tier three, maybe as everyone's sending in their comments and if staff and if we can look through them,

Maybe there's some Tier 3 that look like they're more burning issues so that we can set a timetable and rank the priorities of those, which we haven't even gotten to, I think, how that's going to happen yet.

Yeah, I appreciate both developers and neighborhood people being here for

Kind of different reasons, but also the same.

Everyone wants everyone to be able to live here comfortably.

And I do wonder about this.

What was it called?

The emergency, the 10th and page in Fifeville, emergency resolution.

Has that been drafted and submitted to the city at all?

It came to us?

Okay.

Sorry, sometimes these emails don't always go in the inbox.

Oh, okay.

Okay.

I just haven't seen it yet.

Anyway, so obviously we need to plan something to discuss that, as Lyle has mentioned.

But I really like all the creativity and everyone sharing your thoughts about all of the little pieces that are getting in the way of getting more housing built.

Well, as UVA's appointed nonvoting member of the board, I don't have any sort of formal comments in my capacity on this commission.

As a resident of Charlottesville City, I just wanted to thank everyone for coming out and appreciating the diversity of voices and kind of the sort of holistic sort of take we've witnessed tonight.

I think that

Community engagement is a promising start as we start conversation about refining this ordinance.

And again, just as me as a resident here, I'm echoing sort of this tier three theme that came up.

I understand it takes time, it takes resources.

I think some type of way to

Most of my frustration seems to be that the tier three stuff is the stuff that I really, really want to get at right now.

But I understand that it's going to take a long time.

We've had this code out for a while.

Ideally, applications coming in and being reviewed is the break the code process.

But I don't know how much of that is actually getting.

I don't know if staff has the bandwidth to collect all these issues as they appear.

But there may be issues that pop up that just get resolved because the applicant goes ahead and either finds a way to just work around them and comes up with a project that may not be as good as it could have been, or the project just doesn't happen.

I don't know if all these little pieces end up making it into some depository that staff has, that they see all these issues that could make for a better code.

Again, I don't know if you guys even have the bandwidth for that.

It would be great if there was some way that as developers are looking at projects and instead of trying to squeeze something on there that works with the form-based code and works with the building code, if they see things like this could be a better project if we did it this way instead, if there's some way to

collect that feedback.

I don't know if that would be possible, but I think it would be helpful for this process.

I mean, some stuff is not going to fly.

I mean, just because a developer can't get every single unit they want on that property, that may not be a good example.

But again, there are plenty of examples where the topography doesn't work, or it's just stupid to have a door every 40 feet, or things like that.

So anyway, now I'm rambling.

But yeah, I would hope that there'd be a way that now that the code is in action that we don't have to redo a whole workshop.

And theoretically, we should be getting this feedback.

Yeah, and I think we really thought about that special exception process as that outlet, that release valve to make things still work and to figure out that those are issues because they keep coming up for special exceptions.

Certainly that is made Bill 2 with Get on Our Radar.

It's interesting to hear that everyone sees it as a very onerous and lengthy process.

Well, to really jump in on that, one small piece that might be helpful is one of the special exception being to move from May to Shau, that unless there's a really strong reason not to grant this special exception,

The assumption is it's going to be made.

And that still gives a stop gap, but it gives a little more certainty.

Unless there's a really good reason for this to stop, the Planning Commission is going to be inclined.

The Planning Commission, having reviewed this, shall instead of may.

And that may not be that deliberate just in terms of word tours.

It may be an attitude.

throughout the entire thing.

Yes, this is going to require a special exception, but it's a common sense thing.

Breathe.

The Planning Commission's going to grant it.

And frankly, we have.

I mean, to the ones that have come, we've been very sort of straightforward.

Yep, this makes perfect sense.

I mean, I would rather get to a point where zoning code wasn't requiring common sense things to be not allowed.

Are we legally allowed to expand how much stuff is administratively approved?

So a number of the concerns or things that have been coming for special exception that seem a bit

challenging or not challenging just strange that they're coming forward or some of the tweaks that are in the kind of the earlier phases.

The last thing I'd add on a different note if we're done talking about that topic.

So I probably won't be here for the tier three things.

I expect I'll probably be here for next month's work session.

If not, I guess I'll send in some comments as a member of the public.

But I would like everybody to keep in mind that the goal here is to provide more homes for people to live in.

The idea of just

Broad stroke, slashing the amount of homes allowed in broad swaths of the city is deeply concerning to me, particularly on greenfield sites where there is no displacement occurring.

I would

recommend that we first instead look at how the affordable housing requirements changed late in the process as a result of discussions at council and how those apply and work with the affordable housing manual that was approved by HAC and council but never referred to the Planning Commission.

It seems to me that many of the concerns that people have with specific developments are coming out of

The manual, in my view, misapplying how the code was written as it pertains to in lieu bonuses.

I do think it's probably a good idea to explore why we're banning onsite affordable housing development for student housing.

But I do think when you talk about reducing all homes or all buildings to four stories or five stories, you're talking about removing hundreds of potential homes that people would live in.

And yes, some of those people might be students who won't live here in the long term.

But ultimately, an apartment is an apartment.

And I think you should do that with extreme caution.

And I might add that the draft resolution that was sent to us would prohibit the West Haven redevelopment site plan that has already been submitted.

And our goal here is to redevelop these housing sites with the funding that we have dedicated and our commitment to resident-led redevelopment.

All right.

Well, Mr. Chair, there's a lot I could have gone with today, Battle of Hastings for one.

But I think as apropos, today is the 78th anniversary of Chuck Yeager's smashing of the sound barrier.

And in honor of that, we should adjourn and get out of here to honor him as swiftly as possible.

All right.

All in favor?

Aye.