Planning Commission Regular Meeting & Joint Public Hearing with City Council   12/9/2025

Oh!

We'll start with commissioners reports.

Thank you.

I don't have anything to report.

So there was still a lot of internal talk in that meeting and had two great interviews with potential new commissioners.

A couple of interesting ideas that I'm hopeful about, and I'll share more information when I have it.

And that'll be through sometime in February, except it's going to take longer than that.

Probably refer back to my earlier reports from previous months.

Nothing to report.

Does NDS have anything to report?

Very, very lengthy ad we've been working on for January 13th for the public hearing is what we're aiming for.

Well, Dan, would you mind moderating this?

Is there anyone in person who would like to speak for matters of the public?

Now I think we wait until six o'clock for council to arrive.

And so they're hopeful that they can address the gap if we figure out what we want to do with it.

Just a clarification, you said the Fontaine bundle, but then you said the hydraulic roundabout.

Round 53?

Yeah, it's 53.

It is.

Thank you.

So we have 20 more.

Mr. Mayor, does Council have a quorum?

And Clerk Shih is on virtually so that I wanted to let her know who was present.

Thank you.

And so that was added in.

Chrissy, I got it.

Oh, you got it?

Yeah.

Thank you.

So what project did you say we've added funds to?

Which project did we add it to in education?

Yeah, you said it was Oakland.

Good evening.

The change in the value of that project doesn't have anything to do with the siting though, that's just a site item that's happening at the same time.

One thing as we're here we've gotten a lot of comments on the bike infrastructure and so Ben Chambers is going to come and speak to that a little bit.

While we're doing that, we're also going to be looking for opportunities to align with any repaving or utility work that's going on and may come to you in the future saying we need additional funds, but for now I think we have the funds that we need to move forward with the work that we have.

Did you have a question?

I can't give you 100% certitude because we're still working with

But we do think that $300,000 is going to be a pretty good starting point and probably wouldn't be able to advance much planning beyond that.

for the operating budget that could potentially increase our capacity there.

We're still trying to figure out what that network needs to be before we identify the staff that's needed to implement it.

OK.

And so with that, I'll leave you here for any questions or discussion that you may have.

Thanks.

Is that what we want to see or are we trying to move away from that having so much coming from prior years?

Okay.

I don't have any other questions at this time.

And it would be interesting to have just a, like a session with everyone involved

But we can definitely share that schedule with you.

Would it be appropriate to push the funding back a year and pull something else ahead?

And yeah, it's a step back, but hopefully we'll reuse as much of that design process, if not the actual drawings, as we can.

Two acres downtown worth $10 million is potentially useful for many public purposes.

I defer to your friends on council.

We love committees here in this community.

Is my math right?

In terms of energy savings, is that where you're going with that?

Exactly.

I don't know if that answers your question.

Gets me there.

Thank you.

And how it aligns to our 10 million a year commitment?

Talk about this more comprehensively.

I will note that the $10 million a year objective set in the affordable housing plan was for 10 years for $100 million.

And we're coming to an end of that.

I can assure you we haven't put a sign on the door that says close your business.

So I don't think it's going to continue on.

Or it's 30 year 10?

But I probably would have to go back and look at it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But OK. You and me both.

I think we're sort of meeting in this head, but we're just formally adopted.

Welcome to my last year already.

Is it to, for example, understand our future financial fixture or just to sort of keep track of projects that are coming down the pipe?

I don't know if you counselors want to add something different or if you had other questions, if that gets close to what you're asking.

James?

But part of that is also when we look ahead, these are the projects that are upcoming and being able to share that with the community, which is part of the reason we're also trying to be more specific in those lines around what the use of the funds are.

What's the $10 million doing?

I don't know.

There's also $5 million in the current fiscal year.

We'll get back to you with an answer.

Counsel, do you guys have questions?

And is that money reflected in here?

We don't know the answers to those things right now, but we do have some funding through neighborhood transportation improvements to be able to do that going forward.

Should we decide to harden a couple of those, we'll be able to do it.

Correct.

Do we need more?

We'll know that after we do some of this work this winter.

I'm getting a nod from behind you.

I'm not going to look behind me.

For the affordable housing portion, something that Rory had asked during the work session was, what are our plans for the approximately $11 million that we're going to get from the three big projects we have coming online?

OK.

I know that's a conversation that we probably have to have, but just to put it out there as something to think about.

That's what I got for now.

With CATEC, are we anticipating that at any point over the next five years a request for additional CIP expenditures related to CATEC will be coming?

Nothing has come through yet or even sort of a hint of anything but I should say that we're in we're conducting a planning exercise for the long-term future of all of our school's facilities right now so if something's going to come up it would probably come through that process.

So there's not yet a known sense of scale of what a request may be?

Not yet, no.

Related to that, if the state legislature approves and it's passed one cent sales tax for school facilities, is there at this point an expected date for when that additional money would get reflected in the CIP?

Yeah, we're poised for that.

So it sounds like in the next, say, two years, there would be the existence of a list of priorities throughout the school district that would be ready to be plugged in with funding.

I anticipate that we're ready with a list of projects to get started on, and we'll flesh that out even more the more time we have between now and when those funds become available.

Is that correct?

I would say yes, and I would say all of those decisions would be coming back to council for your decision.

How are you measuring how it gets spent?

Is this something that's actually making people feel safer so that they can use these facilities and actually feel like they have a mode choice given these infrastructure improvements?

Can you all hear me?

Yes.

So as we looked scoping and building out that plan, I think it's an opportunity to, Councilor Payne, as you're asking, identify what are we looking for when we fund and build these projects.

But obviously, some of our larger projects are still experiencing a significant amount of delays and cost escalations.

And I was gonna say something else, but I agree with your point there.

you know it's obviously important there and transparency for the community but I do think part of that transparency is being able to clearly communicate to the community what are we prioritizing and what are we not prioritizing and I do think part of the transparency is the community to be able to understand that which I think we've made a huge amount of progress on in terms of the budget explorer tool and the amount of information and transparency that anyone can access there compared to say you know five or six years ago.

What's that going to be for?

Put something in there to identify we are going to have to expend some funds here in the next several years as we try to address ADA issues as they come from these power poles.

If it's not ADA compliant, why is it not the obligation of the folks who put it up in an ADA non-compliant fashion to fix it?

And while Dominion may move the pole of their own cost, we have to give them a place to move to, if that makes sense.

We're, in a sense, grandfathered.

It may be simpler in some cases and cheaper to just extend the sidewalk around the pole to get the space we need.

What's the right-of-way impertinence?

So as they get struck, it's repair remediation of those.

Maybe not Ms. Hamels.

We are working through the details of the loan agreements and expect to be able to just disperse funds for those projects within the next year.

So it wouldn't be necessary to allocate other funds into the CIP to do that because that money is already allocated?

That's correct.

Do we know?

I'll check on that.

Is it your thought that perhaps the $1,082, or probably $1,082,087 in this fiscal year is what is going to be necessary for this fiscal year?

Did you want to add?

I don't remember the exact language, but I believe minimum discouraged the idea of coming back to the city for additional funding.

What is to be done in 27, 28, 29 for $227,000 a year?

Thank you.

Again, that's not specifically your problem.

Chair.

Rory, did you have a follow-up question?

Right.

It would replace funds that had been allocated already towards affordable housing projects.

Wasn't the new ordinance specifying, or is it simply the proffer that would end those cases?

I'd have to check the new one, but I think it does.

I didn't hear you.

But that $11 million is all under the old ordinance.

The question I was bringing up was not can we use those $11 million for other things, but if we already have money allocated from the general fund that we're putting towards certain projects that are affordable housing related, does that $11 million replace that or does it add to that?

Yeah, I mean, I think there's a policy decision there.

No, that's a discussion to have, but yeah.

Dan, would you moderate?

And is there a clock that I need to pay attention to?

You got it?

Yeah.

I was looking at that thing.

If anyone would like to speak, please come forward and state your name.

Did you provide your address?

We were collecting those for minutes, right?

You can, but you don't have to.

OK.

I don't see any online speakers, so the next in-person speaker can come up.

Because I feel like the money should be allocated towards affordable housing also.

Thank you.

We got to do better as a community.

Next in person speaker.

That's it for me.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Krebs.

Next in person speaker.

Thank you very much for your service.

And we're in person speakers.

Thank you.

Any more in-person speakers?

Any online comments?

You can indicate by raising your hand.

Pointing to what?

Chair.

Yes.

Who's responsible for that?

That's CRHA, the ones within the community.

That's CRHA.

Why don't we start with, no you're not ready, all right.

So typically if we're going to be doing amendments already, we should put a motion on the table that we can then amend.

Okay, would somebody like to make a motion that we can then discuss?

I strongly advise that we have projects ready to go for state funds to spend on broadly.

I have a question.

If we had just general comments that are not tied to an amendment, should we get those out of the way first and then transition?

Okay.

All right.

So that's all I have.

Any other comments or do you want to start?

But yeah, I think that that's a very difficult process to have a conversation about the cash flow and the strategy at the same time.

Roadmaps versus things that are maybe new to it and if you have the thing people can then have a breadcrumb trail to find those comp plans because I think getting public engagement getting people to understand how it's working all cohesively that's almost impossible looking at the CIP document because like you said and I don't think this is the document but I just wonder how how we can create links to help facilitate that engagement help facilitate that understanding so that we can get the consensus and continue on.

And that's line eight of recommendations from last year's, in case anyone's wondering.

Now we can amend that motion.

Who's got an amendment?

Keeping it broad.

I agree.

Probably not the following year, but beyond that.

I think fiscal 30 is where we see the drop off.

I'll sign on to that.

So I guess my also urging that is, and capacity is a big part of all of that, too, because we don't have it.

Next one I've got is increased funding for West Haven in out years.

I think it would be good to have a list of all this stuff because you kind of skipped right over Phil's capacity issue in that last statement.

But I would agree it's also not a capital item.

Yeah.

That's a way to get to items in the CIP.

I can't explain it, but it's true.

I'm still very confused as to what the $15 million that's already been allocated is.

And unless it would be somewhere other than the request table you gave us, I didn't see a new request for more.

And they do have other funding in the planning of that as well.

And their development plan has two slash three phases.

CRHA, if it needs it, I mean, next year's CIP may have out year funding that we don't see, but back to city managers' plea not to throw money at something that they don't have a plan for yet, I'm not sure that out yearing makes sense at this moment.

So it's fully funded.

Increased money for quick builds for next fiscal year.

Would that be the neighborhood transportation improvement line item that sounds right you're discussing?

Is that what we're saying here?

And we could this time say, there should be funds.

Chambers, would this be helpful to you?

That sounds a little more reasonable.

My language was increase.

We're starting to understand the scope of the West Main and Cherry Avenue repaving projects, that we fully fund anything that needs to be done in the near term, that can be done in the near term.

Is that correct?

It was ensure that funding commitments are adequate to address all urgent projects that are known to be pending or may come up prior to completion of the comprehensive transportation plan.

Increase money for solar in out years.

That's not what my recommended path on solar would be.

I think we're so much in a we don't know, we don't know.

But we need to create a plan and allocate the funds, if necessary, to make that happen.

The wording I have is create a plan and allocate any funds required, including in this fiscal year, for IRA solar projects for all contemplated projects.

To obtain safe harbor for IRA solar projects.

Thank you.

Any thoughts from this side?

We're creating this program particularly focused on the out years, where we don't have projects now, but we know we're going to be spending money on affordable housing.

Right.

You might recall, I had a different proposal, a slightly more expansive proposal last year that was argued down into what that became.

Well.

but there isn't a mountain there.

So why don't you read back what you got for all of it.

And we talked about just copying and pasting item 8 from last year as well.

Which I think if we scroll up to our second item, we can sort of mishmash together, which was

to create a plan for the process by which the $11 million in expected in lieu funds and following expenditures will be spent on affordable housing projects.

Increase expenditures on affordable housing in FY30 and FY31 by creating a plan to create a process for how those expenditures will be selected.

I have increased expenditures on affordable housing in FY30 and FY31 by creating a plan for the process by which those expenditures will be selected.

Do we have it?

competitive program for selection.

Yeah, I think that would be a problem.

It should be FY30 and FY31 and the incoming in lieu payments.

Or for incoming in lieu payments and

I'm seeing nods.

And while we're on that topic and Councilor Payne also

You know, fungibility, no mistake.

So I won't be here to remind you.

So I think we've combined some and kind of gotten rid of some.

I'm doing some formatting.

But I wasn't sure how the rest of the commission feels about maybe asking for an amendment for some specific clarity around the park's master plan.

I mean, that's sort of why they're in yellow, right?

I think the exact amounts might be in yellow, but I would be surprised if they were going from 500 or 2.5 million total to 70 million by February without some

explicit discussion about whether we want to implement the master plan as... And the reason I bring that up is that we have this core thread about being a culture of planning and a culture of implementation and it feels like this is a case in point where we see a completely divergent path.

That is the path we're taking rather than identifying a lump sum each year for kind of a vague master plan implementation plan.

One is increase expenditures on affordable housing in FY30 and FY31 and the incoming in lieu payments by creating a plan for the competitive transparent process by which those expenditures will be selected.

Why do we have to go out?

But I would be open to moving it further.

I'm just looking at some of these zeros out here that we know are going to be filled up.

True.

you know like we want this to happen.

So now you're starting as early as fiscal year 29.

Yeah I mean we want to be ready you know this whole tying in with the planning of how to spend these making a process for how to spend the funds that needs to happen sooner so I don't know if that would help to just back that up.

Create a plan and allocate any funds required, including in this fiscal year, to obtain safe harbor for IRA solar projects for all contemplated projects.

Or is it just?

Oh, yes.

Although it may not be that bad.

I'm adding that into item one.

OK.

They're happening first.

Great.

That make sense?

We probably can vote over the blocks since we seem to have consensus.

I think Lyle said there were four, but I have three.

And then figure out whatever conjunction didn't work and make it more.

Create a plan and allocate any funds required, including in this fiscal year, to obtain safe harbor for IRA solar projects for all contemplated projects.

And ensure that funding commitments are adequate to address all urgent projects that are known to be pending or may come up for bicycle facilities prior to the comprehensive transportation plan's completion.

Is that a separate item or is that replacing?

Second sentence.

Ensure that funding is adequate to address all urgent projects that are pending on bicycle transportation prior to the transportation plan.

Things like Jerry's getting repaved.

Could we say time sensitive?

Time sensitive.

Yeah, I think that makes, OK. That makes more sense now.

I'm crazy.

All right.

Commissioner Rucker?

Yep.

Mr. Stolle-Yates, could you please email those, that list to me?

You want two?

Yes, please.

I'm the one who has to write the memo now.

I'm sorry.

Since, I think, forever.

2018.

No, y'all had a very robust conversation.

Can we get it one more time?

What did you want to say?

We're emailing us.

and to follow along as a parting gift when I joined the Planning Commission three years ago we recognized that apparently with all the equipment we had we did not have a dedicated laser pointer and I donated it the official stolen from the Charlottesville Planning Commission laser pointer and cat toy which I hereby present to you properly.

And you can come to the Planning Commission meetings, and you can email City Council.

Appreciate it.

Stick to the arguments or issues you've changed my mind on and I just really appreciated that perspective you've been able to offer on the Planning Commission and as others said I think you've made you know a direct positive impact on multiple areas in the city so thank you for your service thanks I just wanted to add and please don't interpret this as damning with faint praise it's not intended that way it's actually damning with high praise you think differently from the way that I do

Thanks.

And I know you're going to get some time back, but hopefully we continue to get some input from you.

But I just appreciate having that knowledge in the group.

Thank you.

I gave you the laser pointer.

So thank you.

So thanks, Rory.

So thank you all.

Good night, everyone.