Board of Architectural Review Meeting   10/21/2025

I always feel like we're in the airport.

Next step is they just need to fix the lighting.

Is it just bad?

15 years.

What's the matter with it?

We're just waiting on staff to begin the meeting.

Sorry about the delay.

I'm going to give them another few minutes.

They're present, but participating via Zoom.

Do they need to do anything?

They can share screen from here or is there?

If they're panelists, but nobody requested to be a panelist.

And are we about to point to... Yeah, the coalition in here.

Okay.

There are going to be three of us.

There's one there.

Are we ready, Jeff?

Okay.

Welcome everybody to this regular monthly meeting of the Charlottesville Board of Architecture Review.

Staff will introduce each item, followed by the applicant's presentation, which should not exceed 10 minutes.

The chair will then ask for questions from the public, followed by questions from the BAR.

After questions are closed, the chair will ask for comments from the public.

For each application, members of the public are each allowed three minutes to ask questions and three minutes to offer comments.

Speakers shall identify themselves and provide their address.

Comments should be limited to the BAR's purview, that is, regarding only the exterior aspects of a project.

Following the BAR's discussion and prior to taking action, the applicant will have up to three minutes to respond.

So first part of the agenda here is matters from the public, not on the agenda or on the consent agenda.

Are there any matters from the public not on the agenda?

Yes.

Yeah, my name is Isis and I live on Green Street in Belmont.

I wanted to voice my support for Bikeville, which you'll talk about later, and also for the residents of West Haven and 10th and Page, none of which want their neighborhoods gentrified by rich college students.

We don't need more housing that most students can't even afford, and we certainly don't need it in a location that would cast a shadow over black and brown communities that the city already has a long history of marginalizing.

And City Council has continued to say that zoning needs to be changed.

That should be a priority.

But in the meantime, anyone with any ability to stop or even just stall these luxury student housings from being built has a moral obligation to do so.

And by that, I mean you.

Thank you, Isis.

Anybody else?

Yes, sir.

My name is James Snider.

My wife and I own a house at 206B 5th Street SW in the Fifeville neighborhood.

It's one of the Oaklawn Cottage condominiums.

and I'm here to talk to you about what I think is an emergency situation.

The zoning ordinance that was put in place, which was supposed to create affordable housing in the neighborhoods, instead has dumped a huge buy-write set of developments in two of the most fragile neighborhoods with no review and very little that anyone can do about it.

And so I recommend, I've presented this to council and I'll give you copies,

that the City Council and the Planning Commission do an emergency ordinance to protect the Fifeville 10th and Page and West Haven neighborhoods.

is suspending the ordinance in those areas, including the development areas, so we can have two years to actually do planning.

Clearly, there was no planning done or discussion done with you all about which historic properties might be upzoned, like our houses, which are missing middle, are zoned for seven stories.

The Wade House, which is directly adjacent to a case you're going to hear about, probably one of the most important historic houses in the area, is zoned to seven stories.

You all should not be burdened with bad planning and nobody talking to you about historic properties getting rezoned to be redeveloped at ridiculous heights.

So this does get to the point of acknowledging the history, displacement, and there are abilities within the state code to give the city authority to regulate these properties and that's included in this resolution.

I've also got maps of the Fifeville area, which also shows the area along West Main Street.

If Fifeville, West Haven, and 10th and Page, and the areas in between them are suspended for two years so we can have time to actually do planning and talk to the community, who is not talked to,

then you can do your job and maybe give advice on properties, how they ought to be zoned.

You shouldn't be having to deal with historic properties of value being zoned to seven stories or missing middle housing like ours being zoned to seven stories.

And we need your support frankly to the Planning Commission and the City Council to zone these things back to a reasonable level.

Sixteen hundred units in

The poorest, most fragile neighborhoods in the city, while in theory you're trying to do good with affordable housing in the rest of the community, that's a bad plan.

You've got bad advice from your consultants.

It's bad zoning.

And you all need to be able to take a break as a city and do planning with these communities.

So I'm happy to pass these on to you.

Thank you, James.

We appreciate your input and your resolutions.

You're passing around.

I'm just going to ask for the sake of allowing us to conduct our immediate matters at hand.

Anybody else that has comments on the 7th Street project to hold, we're going to have a discussion period, or we're going to allow public comments for that project when the project is presented.

And Mr. Chair, if I may just offer the discussion on 7th Street is just a preliminary kind of a discussion of where things are with the project.

You all are not taking any action.

You're not voting on it.

Correct.

I don't know if the result of tonight's discussion will even be a formal application, but it's not before you to vote it up or down.

Okay, so let's move to the consent agenda.

Okay.

So, do we need to say anything specific?

No.

Then the motion that is, the draft motion that's in the staff report will be, was adopted with the consent agenda, so.

Okay.

So now we're on to the new items.

This is not an unusual one, but one you all don't typically see.

It involves signs.

This is 1409 University Avenue.

The business there is Insomnia Cookies.

And they are within the corner ADC district.

And because our design guidelines for signage

Let me take a step back.

All commercial signage in the city requires a sign permit.

Typically, zoning reviews those, and if it's outside a district, we don't see it.

When it's within a design control district, we look at it and apply the design guidelines.

And 99.99% of the time, we are

The code allows us to review them on your behalf.

However, when something, and what we do is say, does this meet the design guidelines?

Yes or no.

When something exceeds what's proposed in the guidelines, then the option is to bring it to you all for a decision, similar to what we did with Grit a couple of months ago.

here is to install a projecting sign, a blade sign above the awning that you see there, that purple awning to the left of the Z. And they've got, back in 2015,

Mary Choi had worked with them and approved a signage package and that was all installed.

Now with this sign, and there it is, you can see at the top left, is

It exceeds the number of signs that are allowed or recommended per our design guidelines of two building signs per business.

So now, we're not going to get into the details of what's on the windows because there's a

There are signs adhered to the interior of the window that had under the previous ordinance if it was inside or just inside the glass was not considered a sign.

So the purpose here is not get into the numbers, but to put that blade sign up there exceeds the two signs that we recommend within a design control district.

My recommendation to you all is that the corner is somewhat different from downtown in West Main and you see there are blade signs.

There's a lot of signs on the corner and on the buildings and projecting signs over the entrances is not unusual.

So I think that given the circumstances of the location and given that the other signs are not on the building but primarily on the window, we don't have a problem with you all approving.

Thank you, Mr. Warner.

Is there an applicant somewhere out there that would like to talk on this project?

Do we have any questions from the public?

Is the applicant online by any chance?

No applicant.

So can we get questions from the public?

Anybody online weighing in?

Anybody other?

Questions from the board?

Oh, I'm sorry, no.

And then they've also offered, this is the deal that we liked, there's a lot of wire and conduit on the facade and all that will be cleaned up.

I'm sorry, and there's also the sign on the awning front, the text on the awning.

But no, this is not illuminated.

So there's three signs, essentially?

Well, let's not get into the definition of signs.

It gets a little clunky.

Suffice it to say that this is allowed by zoning, by the sign regs.

Other questions from the board?

Actually, I do have one.

So we're talking about the round blade thing that would be perpendicular to the building.

What's, I guess, why are we seeing that drawn line above the,

the height of the building.

It's a dimension string, so it's showing it's centered between.

That's all.

But that's not the height.

Yeah, which is not.

I have an issue if it covered up any of the architectural features of this building, and it doesn't.

Well, in that case, let's move to this.

No, no.

I thought we were on to comments.

Sorry.

Yeah, let's move on to comments.

Go ahead.

Sorry.

Just one quick comment is the attachment.

I would say the attachment point should be through the mortar joints and not through the brick.

Anybody else?

Okay.

Would somebody like to make a motion?

Having considered the standards set forth in the city code, including the ADC district design guidelines that move to find the proposed blade sign at 1409 University Avenue, satisfies the bar's criteria and is compatible with this property and other properties in the ADC district, and that the BAR approves the application as submitted with the following conditions.

Unnecessary wires, conduit, or cables will be removed from the storefront facade.

Excluding removal, any alterations to the existing signage and or decorative graphics

Per the current photo, including the open sign, will require a new sign permit and or COA.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Let's take a vote.

Mr. Rosenthal.

Yes.

Mr. Schwarz.

Yes.

Ms.

Lewis.

Aye.

Tabony.

Yes.

And I vote yes as well.

All right, so now that you've voted, Kate, put that image back up.

So signs are going to be something we're going to have to discuss also with our guidelines update, and we've been

We're working on organizing it, and I'll bring you guys into the loop at some point, because a lot of complicated questions.

But for example, on signs, just one of the things that we're wrangling with.

If you notice in the upper sign there, you see, I thought it was a moon.

It's a half-eaten cookie, so it wasn't really paying attention.

But you see the illuminated sign inside the glass has opened.

Under the old ordinance, that's not a sign.

So we're going to have to go through and say, all right, what is this called in the sign regs?

What's it called in our guidelines?

In fact, we have signs in the sign ordinance that

use terms we don't use in design guidelines.

So we're trying to, that's one more thing on our to-do list of trying to get the two documents talking to each other.

And we know we might have to modify the guidelines a bit.

But we're still trying to, well, find the time to do that.

So I didn't want to get into it earlier.

So yes, it's just three signs, four signs.

Well, is that illuminated sign a sign?

Basically anything visible through the glass or on the glass.

In the old regs, if it was inside the glass but six inches away from it, it wasn't a sign.

But now we've got some dimensions to it.

The zoning folks never used to, anything that was on the door, they didn't consider a sign.

Well, so that was one of my questions.

I was looking at Kayla, like, what's this on the door?

Do I remember correctly that when the signage ordinance was approved as part of the new zoning code that there wasn't a lot of time to review it, like it was always very much in draft form until the end?

No comment.

We are working towards that.

We had a wonderful intern a year ago, went through and compared them.

Unfortunately, she saved it in a document at like eight font.

So I'm not sure.

But we have the basis to work on it.

But as you know, we've been trying to work on the guidelines update for some time.

So I'm careful what I throw.

your way and I think we'll have to make a determination of whether some of that will have to go to a consultant or not when we look at the guidelines.

So I just wanted to just let you know I wasn't trying to gloss over the questions about signs but this one's a little bit, it was more important of are you all okay with this blade sign and you are.

and where and when.

All right.

Okay.

Thank you all.

Next up.

Next up.

The fig?

Yep.

So I'm not used to sitting up here, but this is a COA request to paint the exterior of this circa 1960s, probably 1965 building on West Main.

It is in the West Main ADC district, although I typically kind of think of this as the corner.

And in that regard, I also talk about in the staff report the context in which I looked at it.

So originally, for the old maps, this was a vacant lot.

And at some point in time in the 20s,

this trolley car.

Some reports it as a former railroad car.

I don't think it is.

I'm not sure what it is, but it's a sort of a mobile place.

And I know that the last meeting a couple years ago was a lengthy discussion.

Everybody was remembering that you could get like a

What was the special thing that you could get here?

The ice cream sandwich on a donut.

And my aunt and uncle who were here, and my uncle was at UVA in the 60s.

That's the first thing.

Oh, I remember that place.

And then in 65, that was removed and replaced with the structure that you see on the right and continued to be used as a university diner.

And I think it's been a couple of things in recent memory.

Some years ago, the BAR approved.

There's that decorative masonry on the exterior of the entrance.

When I refer to the entrance, I'm talking about the piece that's protruding out on the right-hand side.

That's covered with a cement board and has been painted.

The request that's before you now is to paint the unpainted brick on the building and to paint the wall.

We had a discussion back in 2021 and the BAR had sort of a hung jury on it.

It was a 404 vote, so it wasn't an approval, it wasn't a denial, and the applicant deferred it.

But that's passed.

This is now a new application, so we're not picking up where the last one left off.

The applicants offered three color palette schemes.

And as you know, I typically can review if this were a painted building, I'd review the colors and approve them myself.

So unless you all feel strongly about the proposed color scheme, the question really is whether or not to allow the unpainted brick to be painted.

And with that was also a request to paint the metal

I did a little homework on

the least longevity be, but if you do it right, if it's prepped right, you can paint the anodized metal frames.

I think the painting of the wall, and I included the minutes from the last time, some really good points on what painting would allow.

and Breck even said it would allow features of the building to be more easily read.

So I have no problem with the painting of the wall and particularly if it gets that wall repaired and now if they paint it and haven't done that, that'll be a problem.

as far as painting the unpainted brick.

And the side of that building is painted.

So if you go around that corner, there's paint on that masonry wall.

So you're really talking about this area of exposed brick on that front elevation.

Laid out in the report, it's sort of two ways to look at it.

One, it's an interesting brick coursing.

It's a long, slender brick.

I think it was pointed out last time

The coursing of the brick in and of itself is a nice feature.

There are also some of the comments that BAR made that really the feature of this building is the window and the masonry around it is sort of the plain second fiddle to that.

So there's some thought to that.

I think another point that you all made several years ago that resonated was this is a non-contributing structure.

And I think this goes to a conversation, again, we're going to have as we move forward on the guidelines on a lot of things.

when you have what's considered a non-contributing structure.

And to you all in the audience, when something is determined to be non-contributing, the BAR will still evaluate any alterations and changes.

The owner of this building could have it knocked down and it would not require BAR approval.

So we're discussing what can or can't be done to this building, but if they were to knock it down they would not have to come to the BAR to get approval for that.

I have no problem with it.

I know we don't like to paint brick, but that's traditionally been not reversible.

But also, if this were a 1910 building or an 1890 building, I would adamantly say we can't paint it.

But this is more or less contemporary, at least contemporary to me.

And so I think there are paints that can be used.

So that's where I stand.

And my recommendation, I think, is laid out in here with some options.

Yeah.

I believe so.

You said non-contributing.

Why do I think...

Now I have to think.

Yeah, because there was a comment in the... Well, hey, you know what?

It's contributing, so there you go.

Oh, you know, it's not in the, I'm sorry, you're right.

It's not in, the comment that was made last time is it's not contributing to the West Main Historic District on the National Register.

They didn't include that, but we did include it as a, that's where I, yeah.

So it's on the local, locally designated, so they can't knock it down without your approval.

But it is not on the National Register District as contributing.

It's good to know.

Do we have an applicant out there?

Good evening.

My name is Joseph.

You can still get the grill suite.

Did you know that?

We kept those.

That's why all the alumnis come in right now and just see the sun.

And they're happier than anything.

They see the grill suite.

And it's also priceless.

I'm doing some marketing here.

Do you have any questions for me regarding this building?

The only reason why we want to do this is if you look at the bricks, somebody previously already did some kind of white posh on it.

The bricks, you need work.

We have no issues with that.

We're going to fix all those bricks and use proper paint to bring it up to be nice.

But right now, if you look at the bricks, they're not bricks.

They're all just white, posh, red.

You're going to see a lot of spots around the building.

It's not presentable to us.

So we just want to make sure to clean it up nicely, get rid some of those flower pots, and come up with something else nicer, and just make a nice, clean look that will

Are there any questions from the public?

I have a question.

I think I know the answer to this.

You've got some renderings with the different color schemes on one of these sheets.

And it looks like it's just someone did a 3D model and maybe wasn't super careful with it.

But are you intending to modify the brick, like add

The brick piece to the left of the window is a lot thicker looking in these renderings.

This is a 3D, so the thicker brick that's on top right now, if you look on the right side, which you're not going to see it here, there's a flower pot.

We've removed that flower pot, and there's about seven bricks that are missing.

I guess I'm talking about to the left of the window.

To the left, nothing will be done, nothing will be added to it, but I know on the right side, once you remove the part, it looks wider.

To see underneath, there's a lot of white, and it's like somebody just saw the paint.

But we would basically just fix the bricks, make sure that it looks really nice when you paint it.

You guys know when you put the paint on, it just sucks it in and there's holes.

So that's not going to happen.

Along the same lines, I did notice the wall change of dimension, but I did notice the

The front wall, the landscape wall, the existing is on three levels, and you're showing it as one level.

No, and I'm sorry I'm interrupting.

I really tried to emphasize these were just conceptual for the color palette.

For example, the band across the top there that's at an angle, that's the garage to the back.

at that when they did the whatever paint thing on the web page, it captured that.

So look at these singularly for color palette only and then refer to my other drawing with lots of arrows for what is and will not be painted.

I guess I had another question just about the glass.

The glass will be kept.

We're going to try to paint, if you guys approve, the frame of the window.

If not, we're going to try to replace and get it some point.

Painting, it's going to work, because we only got estimates, and we know it's going to work.

It's going to be black, solid.

It's going to be nice.

And will the same color of paint wrap the building and go down that side?

It can be.

That's a center block.

We're trying not to put white around.

If it looks nice down the road, we can.

But usually you have a lot of people standing around, putting their feet.

It's going to get a little dirtier.

But it shouldn't be a problem.

It's only a center block.

There's no breaks around.

Those are the only breaks up front that you see.

The entryway also is cinderblock, where you have your sign, the door, Lester Buell.

That's cinderblock.

I think it's something else.

It's been covered with a... Yeah, it's already been approved.

Yeah, we used something different.

It's a kind of a stylized cinder block.

It's in the older photos, but it was covered up with a cement board.

So right now what we have is the right side, but the third one would be ideal because the right side is already painted and it's approved in grayish, so we would basically just do the white bricks to that and then we will refresh the gray, it's the same color, just to make it new.

So you like that?

I like the last one here.

I didn't prepare those.

That's all from us.

Any other questions?

Comments from the public?

And for clarity, the signage is not included.

Again, they're conceptually, so this is just fix the brick, paint the brick, and paint the unprinted metal.

Yeah, like I'll just say,

like three years ago, I'm in favor of this.

I think Mr. Schwartz was at that time, too.

I think we had a longer discussion than other members that had some heartburn about painting the brick.

And there's really not a whole lot of brick on this facade anymore, but I'm in favor of it.

Having considered the standards set forth within the city code, including the ADC district design guidelines, I move to find the proposed painting at 1331 West Main Street satisfies the BAR's criteria and is compatible with this property and other properties in the ADC district.

And the BAR approves the application as submitted with the following conditions.

that any brick or mortar be repaired and repointed prior to painting.

The paint be appropriate for application to unpainted brick where it's currently unpainted.

Prior to painting, the metal storefront and entrance are framed.

I second.

And let's take a vote.

Mr. Schwartz?

Yes.

Ms.

Ms.

And I also am yes.

Excellent.

OK.

Next up is a request for 530 East Main Street.

So that's just across the mall here.

This one was an interesting one.

It involves a fence and our new ordinance.

And Andrea can tell you all about how she's become an expert on designing a fence and getting special approvals.

It's proof that something simple can be complicated, unfortunately.

But this building is, again, directly across the street of the mall.

originally built in 1910 and then was added on to in the 50s.

And then in the 80s, the multi-story building that you see there

Actually, that's from Water Street looking west.

So portions were kept.

The upper stories were dropped.

And then the brick building that's out there now was built and incorporated in a courtyard that's accessible off of the mall.

The applicant contacted me earlier this year about installing.

In their courtyard area, they have these raised brick walls.

And on the brick walls in the back, there's existing fencing.

And the question was, can they replace that?

Can they install new?

I try to treat railings and things like that.

If I can approve it administratively, I will.

So if it were replacing what's there, staying within the height of what's there, I would have been OK with it.

Then we found out that this is DX zoning, which does not allow fences in front yards.

So we had to learn all about what's needed for that.

even determine what exactly is the front yard.

So if you're looking at the image here, the line, I'm sorry, down there or up here, whichever, where I've drawn it in red is the front yard as determined by zoning.

And therefore, if they want to put a fence in the front yard, they need a special exception from city council.

If you all were to approve this, they could proceed with, I'm sorry, take a step back, along with the fence that they are adding onto these, I call it an upper wall and a lower wall, they're also replacing, there's a gate between the two brick piers there as you walk up to the building, and then where you see that rather simple handrail on the sloped section of walk that would be replacing with that, something a little more ornamental.

and it's in the packet.

So your approval of a COA, if you do, would

Then they could construct the gate, install the new fence in yellow, install the handrail.

However, they would have to then go to council and get approval of a special exception in order to install the segment of fence on that front wall.

Clear as mud, I know.

So as far as the

We have typically, well in our guidelines, fences that are at the street or what we've traditionally at the street or at the sidewalk, no higher than four feet and that's in total fence and wall or if it's just a fence or if it's just a wall, but in total four feet at the front that succeeds that.

We've typically in front yards up to the face of the building required those fences to be no taller than four feet.

That's the preference.

It's not a requirement.

You all can allow something taller.

And then the side yards and the rear yards, six to eight feet tall.

So for purposes of this, the fence that you see in yellow is in the side yard.

So it could be four to six feet tall, but I think the design guidelines and what I'm talking to the applicant about is, does it work aesthetically?

Does it fit the design?

Does it overwhelm?

Does it underwhelm?

Is there a height would be acceptable?

I think the design of the fencing that's proposed and the gate, all of that's fine.

So the question is really about the height.

and the location.

And if you all have any particular comments about the fence on the front wall, I said that will then become a recommendation.

It could be a COA.

If council approves the special exception, then your COA is valid.

If council says no, you can't put it in there in that front wall, then it doesn't matter that you all approve the COA.

So I think that the

The recommendations I've made said I have no problem with the design.

Yeah, I have no problem with the design.

I have no problem with the handrail.

I have no problem with the gate.

The question really comes down to, is a fence appropriate at that front wall?

And is a fence of the proposed height appropriate at that front wall?

And per your guidelines, you would suggest that that fence from the sidewalk, the top of the fence, be no higher than

48 inches.

So it's a little bit quirky, and I know Andrea is here, and you answer any questions that you have.

Yes, sir.

I believe they are, but I actually haven't confirmed that.

I mean, they can remove that if they wish.

Yes.

No, that's not the scale.

I'm just trying to illustrate it.

And it continues on the right-hand side.

That lower wall is in two sections.

And it goes up.

There's another entrance there that it curls around to.

Yeah, so there.

It comes and it curls there along that lower wall.

No.

The fence is 40.

No.

The fence itself is like 42 5-8s.

I mean, remember when they set the fence, they'll level it in the ground.

So just assume 42 inches.

And then the height of that lower wall is.

Oh, I see.

Right there, yeah.

15 inches.

Now that's at a grade, so it's pitched, but it is continuous in height above the sidewalk.

Whereas the upper wall starts at three feet and it drops, I think, five or six courses by the time it gets down there.

Would the applicant like to come up and present?

Good evening.

My name is Andrew Nelson.

I'm representing 530 East Main Street.

So just for context, we've been trying to spruce up the building internally and externally.

So this is part of a bigger project.

We're using Stokes of England, which is a local blacksmith.

So we're really excited about that.

And we have put a lot of thought and effort into the design.

As Jeff said, we think it will add a lot of great value to the building and just to

the area in general.

Any questions from the public?

Well, the reason for the fencing, so as it was shown, we actually already have the gate

and then we have internal fencing that we are actually gonna rip that out and the reasoning is because it's very old and it looks very deteriorated and so because we're doing that anyway we just wanted to continue it and we think that that's the best way that it looks.

I will say also so we are also like for security measures as you can see we have really big windows

And so anyone that doesn't have ill intent, I don't think that this would apply to you.

Yes, yep, we're replacing the, and there was a picture of the gate, I don't know if it was in this presentation, but we are replacing, and it's already an iron gate.

And then anything that's internally like the zigzag that was mentioned, it doesn't show it here, but it's really deteriorating and like orange and kind of falling apart, as is the gate.

I had a question.

I think you said this, so I apologize if you're repeating yourself, but there's a fence kind of in the planter already.

That's going?

In this front section, did you ever just think about adding shrubs or other landscape instead of the

Is the landscaping going to stay behind the fence?

All right.

Oh, no.

So any comments from the public?

I think the applicant's been very nice not to mention this, but we know the reason that this is being done is that there are trespassers that not necessarily may be trying to break into the building, but they're using these planted areas to urinate and defecate and possibly even sleep there.

The first two are much worse probably than the third.

But it not just happens at night or during non-business hours.

There probably could be other solutions, but frankly another solution is to build out to this building volume or increase that brick wall so it would be, you couldn't see through it.

It would also achieve the ends, but it wouldn't be as appealing as it is.

So I think this is a good solution.

There are difficulties with running a business in any business district, but particularly the downtown mall is having an error right now.

I think it's too high.

In particular, the corner condition where you have the sort of lower wall meeting the higher wall and the sort of jump in scale of the fence I think sets up a kind of precarious condition.

I would recommend, I think if it could come down a foot in front, I would be happy to see that.

probably a couple of feet on the yellow side.

It's hard for me to understand really the sort of elevation of it in the drawings in total.

I think the gate portion, just fine, proceed.

What's marked in red down there, I would not support that.

I think it would be very odd to put a fence on top of that low wall.

And I apologize that you have a problem that you would need to fence off that little grassy portion.

But it's too tall.

And our guidelines say don't add fences in areas where fences don't exist.

And I know this building has fences, but downtown doesn't have fences.

So it's very odd to have this.

very fenced off area on the mall.

So I would not support that lower portion.

Perhaps if you absolutely must have the fence, maybe you just keep it all to the upper wall so it turns back towards the building where the yellow ends and then cuts back back there as opposed to blocking off the lower planter.

And then the other comment is, while the handrail looks nice, I don't think it meets code.

So I would just check into that.

Handrails need to be graspable, and there are specific requirements for that.

So yeah, just make sure.

So we don't have to see this again after it goes to the building office, building permit office, that that does comply with code.

Why don't we get all the comments from the board and then you can respond.

I think the addition of the fence is a bit unfortunate just based on the overall existing design.

I think the overall existing design looks and works really well and adding railing is going to kind of fussy up that.

That corridor, there's already a railing on the other side.

On the other hand, I would be in support of it just based on the needs that you're expressing.

But I think my question before

If you considered shrubs or some sort of landscaping in place of that, that could act in the same way.

That creates a barrier, an area that wouldn't allow folks to walk through.

I think that would be a much more appropriate way of handling this.

And then I just also would like to say that the design itself is, I understand,

You could put up any kind of fence, and this is a nice fence from a good craftsperson.

So I think that's a plus as well.

So while I think that there's a better way of handling the frat, I would be in support of it.

Where do we stand?

I just wanted to touch on the railing.

That was put together.

Jeff had actually asked, and so we had him just do kind of the just for the design sake, just so you know.

So that was very preliminary.

The standard cap at the appropriate height.

And I had also asked Andrea about that corner where it turns on the lower wall and just to make sure that the red and yellow came together, that that's engaged and that's in the drawings.

Right, right.

Yeah, absolutely.

In fact, I think the fire department, we've learned more about.

Fences in the last, when did you first contact me?

May.

So I'm sorry I make light of it, but the humor keeps us going.

It has been, yes, she's, Andrea's become an expert.

We're going to hire her to get her on the BAR next, maybe.

But I think I will just add candidly, you know, again, this has to go to counsel.

I don't, I can't make any predictions on that, I think.

But it's,

But to be clear, if you're OK with the yellow, that does not require counsel.

I have a question.

I like Carl's suggestion of pushing the fence back to the second wall.

No, but I raised that, and I don't want to put Andrew in a difficult position, but that would solve the question, at least on this side.

Remember, there's also, as you see to the right of this photograph, there's a large picture window and offices there.

So I don't think that the African really wanted to concede something along the front, because that served a purpose.

And I think also David's recommendation for planting that would be a deterrent for

Everybody up here has gone and looked at this, right?

OK.

I was surprised by how small the space is, which again is why it seems to me that putting a fence on that lower wall feels very awkward to me, and even more awkward on the piece that's

I guess the little triangular piece to the right of this picture.

That would feel very, very strange to me.

But there's spaces big enough for, I guess, people to sleep in?

Well again we just suggest it's best to just take this from sort of continuing the discussion we had earlier.

What's the design element here and how is it looking at it through the lens of the guidelines?

There are fences and railings at other places nearby so it's not unusual to have that here.

We already have an iron

We have an iron fence there.

We have the iron gate.

Well, you said there's fences and gate.

There are no yard fences, but there are railings, and there are certainly railings already existing in this courtyard.

Yes, that are just tall.

Right, and you've got a 42-inch railing there, but we know that because it's pitched.

railings and barriers around the cafe spaces.

So this is not totally unheard of.

But I think, to me, a sense of scale.

The design is perfect.

If they had come in, like you said, and had something they bought at Lowe's and started putting it in there, I'd have a problem.

But this is an elegant design.

And I think that, yes, from my recommendation to you all, the height, if it was reduced, it would fit in nicely here.

That's a good picture, I think, to talk about the fact that there's going to be a lot of fence there now, you know, when you put the one along the building.

So this is where property lines on the mall are.

Traditionally, if you were to walk along the mall, you'll see that soldier course along the front wall.

Our assumption is usually that's the property line.

I mean, it may very well be the face of the wall.

But I don't know.

I would assume, given that they were allowed to build this wall in the 80s, that that's on their property.

This is not in, but that would be part of the building permit review and all that data, you know, but.

But a sidewalk.

It's just over 2%.

It's almost imperceptible.

In fact, I took that photo intentionally, because I ended up chatting with Andrea about how, when they build this fence, are they going to fabricate it at a rake, or is it going to be segmented?

So having a handrail there wouldn't necessarily make sense.

So I'm just thinking, like, is there a way you could make an offering to the public instead of a sort of deterrent with a handrail?

And maybe you could also do the same thing.

I don't know if that's a reasonable request.

Can you expand on a handrail or where that would be?

Rather than adding a fence that's clearly articulated as a fence, like don't go here, that's an architectural language that says keep out to me, whereas a handrail may structurally act in the same way.

but be sort of more inviting.

I don't know if I'm not articulating this well, but it's still structurally creating a sort of barrier, right?

So this currently drawn, the little laser pointer, so this at that sloped

Walk here that has the less adorned segment of fence that will have a handrail on top of it.

You're almost suggesting that railing replicate along here, a handrail, and then it is a physical deterrent.

So you could still go under it, but it does create a barrier.

It doesn't show the upper wall here, but that upper wall.

Exactly.

Again, I'm putting you on the spot.

I understand what you're saying.

So Kate, we'll scroll down, and there's the image of the handrail that we included.

It's on the last image.

or last page, sorry.

No, I don't remember that.

It mentioned our materials.

So Ms.

Tabony, I understand you're essentially saying something of a

a lower height.

So you'd have something at 36.

Right.

Does any of this resonate with you?

It does.

No, it does.

It has already been mentioned, so I will bring it up.

My staff are having to pick up feces on that brick wall and that area, which is not something that they should have to handle or try to prevent as it's happening in broad daylight.

And so I understand the

Hope to transition to something like landscaping, but we have landscaping, and that doesn't prevent them from even that back area.

And like I said, it's not only that.

We've had pretty unfavorable symbols carved into our building.

So I do understand what you're saying, that we don't want it to look like, and we're not doing a huge fence at the front, because we do want to still be inviting.

We want to make it look good.

We want to add value.

Where do we stand?

If someone's in favor of this, they should make a motion.

We'll see if it flies.

I think there's a bigger.

I have a question.

Sorry.

Having this go to council, would that be a positive discussion to have again, meaning like the reasons this is happening?

Is that a forum in which this could be a larger discussion?

I think that you have to, almost like with the demolition of Wirtland, realize that your conversation is going to serve as the record.

because on one side, and I understand from talking with Andrea, that this is what they wish to take to council.

So there was a hesitation to say, all right, well, then we could throw in some alternatives.

Because then the first response from council might be, oh, well, then do the alternatives instead.

Now, if you felt that it was really a strong design reason to do that, I think it's reasonable.

But I think it's that fine line of deciding, are we trying to find a solution that's

Acceptable to council or find a design solution that's acceptable for the guidelines.

Having said that, I don't believe council

There are, I get contacted frequently, people who are concerned that things that the BAR has or should have looked at serve as impediments to the unhoused or the mall.

But that's the distinction of this is private property, this is not

or not, this is what's, you know, I have a fence in my backyard, you know, and my side yard.

It's to keep a giant dog in, but it's my, I have a fence and that's my business.

So this is a, looking at this as a private property, I think they have every right to ask that.

However, I know that the BAR, that council will be asked about that because that is a pervasive question.

So I think,

That's why I think your solution, if I were advising the applicant, is really an ideal one.

It creates the barrier that at least has a separation, and it is a design solution, and that continuing the fence around the corner on the upper wall would allow them to, at the very least, construct that, regardless of what the council, that that would not be going to council.

But I think that you all,

You are welcome to make in your recommendation acknowledgement of the situation.

It sort of goes to what we were saying earlier about the use.

It's not in our purview, it's not in the BAR's purview to disagree with them for wanting to install a fence.

We don't have to agree, but to at least understand why they wish to do it.

and then B, how does that then fit with the guidelines.

But I think when council gets this

I don't think they'll view it as time for a broader discussion.

I think if we vote to approve it, and then it goes to council, the council's going to look at that as just we recommend they should approve it.

Correct.

So I don't think the discussion will happen.

I would think if we denied it, if they

I think they're going to come up no matter what.

I'm just saying that I think they're going to come up.

I just don't think that the BAR should be

Well, I don't think, yeah, we can't use it as a reason.

Cheri, you wanted to make a motion.

Why don't you make a motion?

And we'll see if it succeeds.

I'm just going to make a comment.

Mostly two things.

One, that our purview does not go to zoning.

and that there is a portion of approval for this that's out of our hands and they need to be at city council and that has to do with zoning.

This body does not deal with zoning.

There's the next item we're looking at on our agenda.

I think that the public's concerns are more with zoning than they are with our purview, which is very limited.

I also support this because there are extreme circumstances facing this property owner and

weighing the guidelines against those circumstances and frankly wanting for businesses and you know without businesses folks the downtown mall shutters and there would be nothing there and it doesn't pervade every decision I make but you know the comfort of the people that come to this place every day and it's a very large employer and not just comfort that's a light word but

None of them should be asked to clean up somebody's feces.

I'm sorry.

That's just a shame.

It's extreme.

They're not being bad neighbors by doing this.

They are protecting their property.

And I don't think that what we have in the guidelines or the zoning objection outweighs my support for this.

So I'm going to make a motion in favor.

Having considered the standards set forth within the city code, including the ADC

District Design Guidelines, I move to find a proposed fence gate and rail installation at 530 East Main Street satisfies the BAR's criteria and is compatible with this property and other properties in this ADC district and that the BAR approves the application as submitted.

I also want to say that I can sit here and come up with other solutions of how this could be done that may have achieved some of the goals

but I'm not the applicant and we can't second judge and we can't design for the applicant and we have to take a vote on what's before us and that's what my motion's about.

I second.

Motion?

Aye.

Mr. Schwartz?

No.

Ms.

And I'll vote yes.

So the motion passed 3-2.

Thank you.

So Andrea, I'll talk to Carrie tomorrow and so the next step is whatever she has to prepare for Council and we'll see where that goes.

As a downtown resident almost 30 years, I understand and this is a tough one, but I am often asked by people if the BAR should be, and I've just had to say to folks, this is private property, this is, I can't, and if it violates the design guidelines, well then the BAR can decide.

But there are gates around our fountains, let's be real.

The downtown mall is full of barriers.

And some of them installed by the city of Charlottesville.

And not all of them are at handrail height.

The ones around the fountains are even larger.

And is there really a public purpose in keeping people out of that water that's greater than a private property owner protecting its boundaries?

I don't know the answer to that.

I think timing played into it for me as well.

I think that it seemed like there was an urgency and that they've been working on this issue for quite some time.

It is part of the tree plan.

And Paul Chosie pushed something.

It wasn't just about trees.

She's also recognizing other elements of them all, such as the fountains, and that they need to be freed and opened up.

And I can tell you, Kate and I quietly bang the drum as much as we can.

You have to be good civic employees, but not all the time.

So when we get the opportunity, we remind everybody there actually are three small fountains and one large fountain.

You can't get to any of them, and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

So keep it up.

You're being heard.

You just need to keep nudging things along.

So fingers crossed.

OK, the next item up is find my notes.

So this is a discussion about the project of 7th Street.

I don't know quite what to call it yet, 202, 204, 208, 613 Delavan.

So just 7th Street is what I've come down on.

But you all have had a pre-app conference about it and a preliminary discussion.

This tonight I'm not bringing forward for any action.

It is, I think, maybe that the

It's about the last turn, if you will, to advise the applicant if there's anything in these 78 pages that is unclear or needs to be expounded on so that there's understanding of what they are proposing to do.

I mentioned briefly in the pre-meeting, but the city has, neighborhood development has a new process for presenting

Preliminary projects and preliminary discussions, and this one sort of straddled that line a little bit, but I won't get into the details, but the point being certain things need to be demonstrated on site plan or development plan, either concurrently with the BAR review or prior to it.

I don't think this project's as presented.

I think there are still some questions that will come up in the site plan development plan discussions.

However, I think they've demonstrated thoroughly what they're hoping to do and planning to do, at least as far as the extent of this site is involved.

As I mentioned in my note to you all, it's a complex project.

There's a lot going on here.

And the greatest difficulty that we've had, I think even discussing amongst ourselves, but certainly expressing it outwardly, is the only reason that you all are seeing this is because two parcels

on Seventh Street are individually protected properties.

This is not a historic district like on West Main or downtown.

The reason that you all have purview is singularly because of those two late 1800 brick buildings.

If this project were to have moved forward and not touched those, there would be no design review whatsoever for this.

There'd be no public process, in fact.

And that's some of what we're seeing is that because of the way the ordinance was written, you all are now, the Board of Architectural Review is seen as a

a place to voice concern and I think as we talked a month and a half ago or two months ago about the West Main project, we're a town that takes great pride in public participation.

I spent almost 20 years before here getting people stirred up and going out to public meetings so I know all about it.

I like seeing the good fight be fought but the challenge that you all have is that

There are some concerns with this project that are zoning and there are some concerns that are related to its design and particularly related to its design as a function of how this new project interfaces and interacts with these two historic houses.

That's not to say that we don't care what happens around the three walls away from these two buildings, but the primary focus is the preservation of those two buildings.

and that this design is compatible with them.

Additionally, I know this is within a National Register District.

Fifeville-Tonsler neighborhood is on the National Register, but it's not because of that National Register District that you all have purview.

When that district was created, I think 2016 or 2017, much like Belmont, North Belmont neighborhood, the neighbors did not want a local designation.

So they

accommodated being on the National Register but they did not, as I understand from Mary Joy, did not want local designation which would have afforded district status to the entire neighborhood and you all could be looking at this project somewhat differently.

Now I'm not trying to give you a way out or I'm just saying the facts are is where your purview comes from and what your guidance, what your instructions are from council.

is entirely comes down to these two historic houses.

And I think we need to be, I think it's valid to consider how this project height matching in scale and its relationship to the setting.

But there's also in the zoning where it's adjacent to a neighborhood of a different

Zoning, it has to have step back and a height reduction.

So some of that is built into the code, but you all cannot

This is a residential project, and it's good to know that because it does help in the context of the design.

What are you looking at?

You're looking at something that's being designed for residences.

Who lives here is irrelevant under what you all are charged with looking at.

You can't consider whether or not this should be a residential project.

You're not allowed to do that.

But you can consider what this residential project

will look like.

And then I spoke with some of the folks who have been communicating with me.

It's very helpful to get comments, but ask what's within your purview to do that.

And I know Mr. Snider has talked to people, my colleagues, about having a zoning amendment for this area.

Fair enough, but that's not, you all don't even review or comment on Sony text amendments or Sony map amendments unless they're associated with expanding or reducing historic designation.

So it's not something that you would even comment on.

Sorry, now to get to the, Mr. Matthews is here tonight and I've asked him to

you know keep it brief let's you know get to what his questions are get to what anything that he wishes to point out and really make this an effective conversation from his point of view and then from you all it really if there is something in here that

is lacking, if there's additional information, if there's a question, now is a good time to ask.

One of the key things that I had asked you all in my note was John didn't want to come over here tonight with a U-Haul full of samples, and I told him not to bring any, but if there are some things that you all would like to see, you know, whenever this comes to you as a formal application, now is a good time to ask.

I mean, you can always

make a comment later, but that's one of the questions that I thought you all should talk about.

And the other thing was there's a lot of information at the end of the submittal package about the two houses and have they adequately addressed how the two houses will be treated.

And the last thing I'll say is that

The thing about the buildings, those two old houses, is we don't review maintenance and repair.

So there's a lot there.

But I think knowing that they're going to be preserved and that there's a plan for them, and there are going to be some slight alterations to them as long as we're OK with that.

Jeff, before we get to this,

So I don't know what's involved with the zoning side of things or I know there's still some site plan issues.

I don't know, I mean that was part of the

result of the new zoning ordinance that there's a lot less of the give and take.

But you all will have, you can certainly, anybody can send me an email whenever they want.

They can send something to the BAR.

They can send something to the city council.

It gets circulated.

You can share comments.

We have, we allow comments during work sessions.

I think I would like, I would encourage you to keep those limited and germane, but, and then whenever this

If it does go forward for a formal request, that's an advertised public hearing.

So those are the opportunities for people to speak.

As far as the design review process, we don't have required community meetings.

So I guess I'll just reiterate that no action is being taken.

This is just discussion.

We'll leave public comments until after the applicant has a chance to present.

I did.

Well, typically.

And that's SOP anyway.

So I will set the time clock.

This doesn't have a score on it.

That's the hardest part.

All right, so I see 10 minutes, but then I see 7 minutes.

What's down there?

I see 7 on mine.

Well, it says total time 10.

Oh, there you go.

You got up to 8.

You go up to 9.

Well, what does this thing say down here?

All right, it's fine with me.

So good evening.

I'm John Matthews with Mitchell Matthews Architects.

I'm here with my colleagues Alan Wong and Jim Duxbury.

We're joined on the line by Dan Robinson.

He's our landscape architect.

I think Jeff had a good recap.

We can go as quickly as you're comfortable with.

We can just zoom through this.

I thought we should give a brief recap for folks in the audience.

It's your 10 minutes.

Didn't want to bore you with that.

So this is our third meeting in front of BA.

As you can see by the title, we assumed that this was going to be a vote on this, but the city

Planning asked us to come back for yet another discussion.

That wasn't our choice, but we were asked to do that.

So very quickly, this project is, as Jeff said, is not in a design control district.

It complies with the COMPR and the project complies with the zoning ordinance.

The project complies with affordable housing manual.

The project rescues and retains those two buildings.

And if you visited them or looked at the package, you'll see how

how poor a quality they're in or shape.

This project furthers the city's vision for more housing and this project rejuvenates those very seriously declining, dilapidated, almost falling apart buildings.

Let's go through this so briefly we're here to ask for your permission to remove

non-contributing aspects of those existing buildings.

We're also asking for your permission to build behind those buildings.

You've supported those requests on other projects very close by, very recently.

So this is doing virtually the same sort of thing.

The site, I think everyone knows where it is, tucked up against the railway line.

Enlargement of that site showing the two IPPs, 204 and 208.

This is the site history.

I don't want to read that to you.

This is the front view on 7th Street, 204 is on the left.

That has not been occupied for 23 years, according to the current owners.

And again, if you have a close look at it, you'll see it's barely hanging on existing photos.

Next.

So the inside is severely dilapidated.

More detail on that first request.

This is showing those non-contributing elements of the

IPPs that we're requesting being removed.

They were the post shade areas.

This is them in more detail.

Next.

These are the projects.

Some of the projects you've supported.

Some of them you have actually approved.

Others you've just verbally supported.

Next.

The second bar request, and this is how we're honoring those two houses.

We're really honoring them by retaining them, rehabilitating them, reusing them, repairing them.

And then we're doing a number of other things that you I'm sure have read.

These are those precedents that you had previously approved.

Very, very close.

Probably the Doyle is maybe the one that most people might recognize.

Next.

So this is sort of important for you and maybe more for Carl.

He probably knows this by heart.

But this site is zoned RX-5.

But the previous ordinance was also zoned hot for higher density.

So nothing has really changed on this for decades.

It's been high density for as long as I can remember.

Thanks.

Next, this is really just the topo.

There's a three-story drop that goes down seventh.

This is in response to your comments, previous comments, some of you were at those previous meetings, where you asked us to move the building back.

So this building starts at the high point along the railway line and drops down as it approaches Dalvin Street.

And so these are the responses to your comments from our last meeting.

And I'll go through these quickly.

The first comment was, can you provide more detail on the proposed opening at the rear of 208 7th Street?

So this is that view of what we call the pocket park behind 208 on the right, and then the new building kind of wrapping around this courtyard, where 7th Street is sort of glimpsed through on the right there.

and so this is the next step where the plan on the site plan or landscape plan on the right there demonstrates where that pocket park exists and then how we're proposing opening up the rear of 208 so that it has a connection to that courtyard.

This is covered later.

The second comment was they asked for a clear understanding of how the brick ribbon band would create a better visible shadow line.

And so this demonstrates that where we have our belt course.

And then also what didn't show up well in the last rendering was that the idea is rusticated across the base of the whole building.

as well.

The idea there is that it has enough brick detailing to be complementary to the IPPs but not try to mimic the brick design.

And then VARCOM in three was it would be helpful to have a cross section through Delavan and the project and to show how the transitions and step downs occur along Delavan.

And so we have a face to face building of about 51 feet and then the minimum step back is about 20 feet.

So this is a view from 7th Street and this view sort of represents many of the requests that you had made and we've incorporated those requests to step the building down, to step it back.

That center portion you may recall, we stepped back 100 feet further than it was initially.

Next.

Looking up 7th Street, the two IPPs are here.

Next.

Looking down 7th Street, the two IPPs are here.

Next.

This is detail up close.

I think, Cheri, you were interested in the activation of the street and how it would handle those IPPs.

These are folks coming out of the Pocket Park that you mentioned.

Next.

This is a view of that park, Pocket Park.

The proposed building is here.

Existing buildings are here.

This gentleman is walking out onto 7th Street.

And these are some of the elevations that we showed previously where we're identifying the material palette.

I'm just going to flip through these real quickly.

I keep talking.

Jeff?

Jeff.

OK, so there's a.

Okay, so we met with the folks in Fifeville and one of the gentlemen there had a good question about, he wanted to understand, if I remember correctly, what this project would look like from his

House.

He lives generally at round number one and we thought that was a very good question so we incorporated, we took that question and expanded it and within a block of the site we started to take photos and then impose the building on that.

You may see on this the tower, that's the existing radio tower that's there and this is from about a block away.

I think the gentleman lived here approximately and so that's his view out in the street.

Next.

and we just go through these.

These are from 6th Street and the map in the bottom corner shows where they're taken from in case you're wondering.

This is from 5th Street, quick tune.

From 7th and a half, 7 and a half street.

From Dalvin, this is across Dalvin so obviously it's not visible.

This is further down 6 and a half street.

We're going to run out of time.

This is the landscape.

I'll just say at the very end there are several sheets regarding the historic

And I will add that what we're following is your guidelines and the Secretary of the Interior's guidelines as closely as humanly possible on the rehabilitation of those.

So we're not cutting any corners.

OK, I can tell you, but I thought Jeff clearly outlined that.

But we had answered that previously, and there are going to be some type of amenity space for the larger project.

Exactly what that will be, whether they're meeting rooms, a little coffee shop, we're not sure.

But we figured that they were too small.

I know Cheri had a different opinion about that, but too small for actual units by the time we

I'll just jump in, too, and say hopefully it was evident how much care is being given to that courtyard around them.

And that is because it's meant to be some kind of active space that contributes to the streetscape.

Yeah, just to be clear, I didn't say, I mean, you all had mentioned last time how they saw it as almost like the, think about like the cracker box on East Range and some of the smaller outbuildings on the Academic Village, but they had discussed the potential use for it.

And so just, we're all clear and folks in the audience, you

You can ask what the use is and we can talk about the use.

I think knowing what something is going to be used as is helpful in understanding what the space has been designed for.

So when I say it doesn't matter what the use is, it's not to say

We're ambivalent to that, but that you don't have a say.

You don't get to say, I don't want that to be used as residential, or I don't want that to be offices.

But understanding what that use is helps put that design in the right context.

I'll just jump in, too, and say on the sheets that we submitted, we did include a brief history of what happened in the structures.

that we do intend on having some sort of permanent marker to talk about that history.

And I'd also like to point out that the zoning ordinance

Also, we're using these as active depth, to meet the active depth requirements.

So that requires us not, we aren't allowed to put storage or certain uses in there that make it inactive.

Are there questions?

OK.

Thank you all.

Thanks.

Anybody from the public would like to come up and make a comment?

Yes.

Please state your name and your address.

A little slow.

My name is Lorna Facto, Dr. Lorna Facto.

I was the chief nurse at the health center and also a member of the faculty at the School of Nursing.

So I have mixed feelings about a development.

As a chief nurse, I liked to hire nurses from town.

They make good nurses and they can

come in at moment's notice.

But school, I was worried about faculty not having space to live in town.

So from a perspective of what they want to build, I have mixed feelings.

On a personal level, they would be building in my backyard.

I live at the very end of Walker Square, which

If I walked through my doorway, I would hit the lovely pictures of my neighbor's garage, I guess it is.

There's a boat back there.

There's a variety of things that are pretty just not pleasant.

But the thought of building a seven-story building that would absolutely destroy the texture of Fifeville

is just I bought in Fifeville because it felt right.

It felt like a community.

I sit at the Fifeville meeting every month trying to understand the history of Fifeville, which I happen to be a New Yorker.

So Seven Stories is sort of silly to me.

I lived in town.

I went to school in New York.

So the height is not the issue.

It's where the height is.

The Baptist Church would be adversely affected.

You couldn't see that church.

I want to say one other thing.

I took a drive today on Delavan and all of the up and down neighborhoods.

I'm curious.

There's not as much space there as I was thinking based on the pictures.

So it's curious to me, other than the garage that's sitting at the end of Delavan, what's going to be torn down?

What possibly could they put that building on that space?

I'm not an architect, I'm a nurse.

Heaven forbid you give me that kind of opportunity to give advice to.

If I were a millionaire, and if I had a piece of land in town,

Not there, but perhaps close by.

I thought the pictures were gorgeous, but I'm a nurse.

What do I know?

They look pretty.

But I ask, I don't know where this goes, but this is not the place for a seven-story luxury dormitory, with all due respect.

Thank you, Ms.

Hi, I'm Stephanie Lawson.

I live on 7th and a half street south west.

I went to UVA, graduated in 88, excuse me, 92, came to Charlottesville in 88.

Bought my house in Fifill in 2001 and I've lived in that neighborhood ever since.

Watched a lot of changes.

Watched Walker Square get built and I remember the hoops Walker Square had to go through.

I am all for using the land we have in Fifeville to put extra housing, 100% behind that.

Do I like the type of housing that's being proposed?

No.

I think my big objection to the whole thing, and I think the Architectural Review Board can help with, is that I do not feel that the building that we're putting in, that is being proposed, while beautiful, doesn't really protect the scale and character of the Fifeville neighborhood.

I feel like it is

while a lovely building if it sat on Main Street and all the examples given were on Main Street.

It does not suit an actual neighborhood where you have small children, where you have a lot of family, single family homes, you have duplexes, and you have people that have lived in that community.

I noticed the comments from

the man there about like what people have done or not done in the past and I don't think that's really at play.

I think you have a community that is slowly becoming educated on how they need to take action and what they can do.

So I just wanted to say I don't think the building fits the scale of the neighborhood.

And that's it.

Hello, my name is Carmelita Wood.

I am current president of the Fife Field Neighborhood Association.

Thank you guys for listening to us tonight.

Several of us are here.

I come before you to talk about this project on 7 1 1 2 Street.

Years ago, this neighborhood and the streets were not built for luxury cars, big tall buildings.

It's a small scale neighborhood.

I also ask that you scale down on that project that's coming down.

If you come down Main Street, at one time you can look over and see the sun going in a direction.

You can see the mountains going in a direction.

With all the tall buildings coming up there, it feels like you're in a dungeon.

You're going up the street, there's a tall building here, there's a tall building here.

No sun coming in.

How would you like to be in your home?

Seven story building being built.

Your kids are getting dressed for bedtime or for school.

Someone in a tall building is looking over in your yard.

Your child is there getting ready to go ahead.

That's not good.

We ask that if this project goes through, that it be scaled back at least to a minimum of four to five stories.

Also, I want to ask that you think about the impact and the quality of life the elderly will have with this project coming into the neighborhood.

Some of the elderly people there, as it is, can't get around.

You need to add in more cars coming in, more people coming in.

Walk a square on one side, this project on the other side.

It's not good quality of life for the residents in this neighborhood.

It does not fit into this neighborhood.

And we ask that you think seriously about this project and what it will do to the neighborhood.

Hi, my name's Hannah and I live in Belmont, but I'm a long-term Charlottesville area resident.

Could you repeat your full name?

I ask that you one listen to the residents of the people who already live in this neighborhood and the fact that they regularly have said please don't build tall buildings in our neighborhood so that we can have light and have mobility and a lot of these streets are one way like you can't build something this tall and expect it to have the same feeling of the neighborhood that it does now but anyways

I also just this is this is similar to the other building the other luxury apartment building that's going up where we don't need luxury apartment buildings like just period we don't need luxury apartment buildings in town we need affordable housing I know that there you've had a lot of talk about purview and what this board and this committee can do I ask that you listen to Miss Carmelita of at least scaling it back or putting pressure on them

and I ask that you think about the fact that a lot of residents in a lot of these black neighborhoods specifically thinking about like West Haven have been pushed out of other neighborhoods and so if you're thinking of I can't imagine who could have made those decisions about raising Vinegar Hill or about destroying black homes and black businesses you are in the position of power right now to push back on that I know that you would say it has to go to City Council

but you can at least make them waste their time waste that money because they should not be able to build something like this and block out people's light that is that should be illegal we shouldn't let that happen there are things that need to be that need to happen in Fifeville like there needs to be access to food there needs to be access and like food systems there needs to be more bus routes and more access to equitable transportation there doesn't need to be luxury apartment buildings that are here to

Yes, my name is Todd Hill, H-I-L-L.

I currently live at the Cedar Condominium building right near Barracks Road Shopping Center.

Hopefully next year I'll be living in Pride Springs.

I'm not going to stand here and say I'm in support of the building or not in support of the building.

What I would like to say, speak a little bit about the context of the building, the fact of the matter is we've jumped the shark in Charlottesville regardless of whether anybody likes it or not or for better or worse we are gentrifying and we have become more denser and denser and basically if you look at the whole Main Street corridor at this point

any sense of small community, small town, historic is gone and has been gone for a while.

What I like about this building in the brief presentation that the architectural firm put on is the fact I think they really went above and beyond to actually consider where it's going and what is already there.

The fact that they are taking so much consideration of the two historic buildings there to me

You know, if you're going to put something there, I think they're presenting a very good option.

If you look back on some other situations in town, I can't give you the exact address, but I know you'll know the building I'm talking about right across from the Omni between Water Street and South Street, large

High rise was put up there and attached to one of the original buildings that was considered historic.

My guess is none of you were on the architectural review board at the time, so I won't blame you.

But whoever thought of that idea, if you look at it from the back, it's absolutely heinous and hideous.

and it ruined that South Street there, definitely, without a doubt.

So once again, I'd just like to point out that I'm not saying yay or nay in the building, I'm just saying if it went through, I was impressed by what this architectural firm has done.

That's all I have to say.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hey everyone, I'm Matthew Simon.

I live on Dice Street.

celebrating my 20th anniversary of living there this year, actually.

I also own the property right behind that which is on Delavan Street, which is at the very, very end of that street.

I think the presentation is fine.

It definitely doesn't really match what the actual realization is.

You look at a lot of green.

That's happening in those pictures.

There's Walker Square on the other side of 7th Street.

No one's going to look in on that view of the courtyard.

Ever, really, honestly.

I think it's gorgeous, but I don't think it really fits.

And I think that's what my plea to you all here is that just to maybe consider a little bit more, you know, when we were walking over here from our house, we were looking at all the other houses, like our house was built in like the early 20s, a house next to it was built even earlier than that, around the corner.

around the same time.

It's all brick.

It all looks old.

It looks like a neighborhood.

I grew up in Willoughby where all the houses looked the same.

We have a little bit of that, but in the same time, it has a definition.

It has a character.

You might not like the code building, but at least it's freaking brick that matches all the other brick that's on the downtown mall.

I just don't think this matches.

I really don't like the facade.

There is that little bit of brick on that first level there, but as you go up, that is not what it looks like.

And that is not what our neighborhood looks like.

It just doesn't fit on so many levels.

I know that we don't have time to go into the traffic calming and parking and all that stuff today.

I know that's not really any of your surveillance here, but currently what's happening in Fifeville on those streets right now are traffic calming.

initiatives and they've been happening for a year and a half and no one's been talking to these guys about that apparently because there is no way that this structure is going to be able to sustain what they've got going on right now.

The neighborhood is moving, getting a co-op hopefully.

There's a lot of energy in this neighborhood.

Thank you.

Good evening.

My name is Sarah Malpass.

I live at 626 Bailey Road in Fifeville and I'm also the vice president of the Fifeville Neighborhood Association.

I think you've had a lot of community members and neighbors of mine who have spoken tonight about the feel of the fit, the sense of the conflict with the history of the community.

So I just want to affirm what's being said from those residents and also add that

As you think about community fit and the historic nature of this community, history isn't just about buildings.

It's about the people who built them.

And I want to make sure that as you think about the impacts on the neighborhood, you're thinking about not just the impacts on the architecture, but the people and the communities that created that architecture and the people in the communities that continue to steward that architecture going into the future.

So I'm just going to point us back to the Cherry Avenue Small Area Plan, which came from residents, which has been adopted into city code, and which reflects the vision that our residents have.

So as you're thinking about community impacts and fit, please keep these items from the Cherry Avenue Small Area Plan in mind.

First, the neighborhood vision.

Cherry Avenue and the surrounding areas will be a vibrant mixed-use community that supports a diverse, thriving, fire-filled community.

Development will respect and preserve the history and culture of the Fifeville neighborhood.

New development and investment on Cheri and throughout the neighborhood will build a sense of community between long time and newer residents and be accessible and welcoming to residents at the most vulnerable end of the socioeconomic scale.

This building does not do that.

It contributes to displacement in our community, something that our residents have been working really hard to fight for the last number of years.

We need your help in fighting that fight.

There are a lot of goals in the Cherry Avenue Small Area Plan.

I will just pick one to read to you, which is to ensure that low-income residents, people of color, and generational residents are able to remain in Fifeville and benefit from neighborhood investments.

Again, this building does not fit that vision from our residents.

Hi, my name is Sophia Marrero.

I'm a community organizer for the Public Housing Association of Residents and I live on Beachcrest Court by the Wegmans.

I'm here to speak in opposition to the Fife Field Building but most of all here to ask what we define as the right to a home.

It's something that has become

something of a human right, I believe, and it's something that's up for discussion.

But when we talk about a home, we don't just mean a building.

We don't just mean a house.

We don't just mean walls.

That doesn't make it enough for people to live and survive.

And so when we think about

The impact that this building is going to have on these homes, it's about the quality of life that people experience and the quality of life that will be interrupted if this building is built.

So I just want to echo that and echo what everyone else has said.

and to protect black neighborhoods.

We are gentrifying the city.

We must do something about it.

Hi, my name is Andrew Nighting.

I live in the Rio district of Albemarle County, but I work at UVA, so that's why I'm here.

I'm just bringing in some of the worker perspective from UVA.

On my end of town, we have a luxury apartment that looks very similar to some of the plans that were presented tonight.

And I can let you know that the people that are in my range of income cannot afford things like this.

If we want to have people that we want to work in our town and live here, we have to have buildings and housing access to them that they can actually afford.

There was recently some apartment buildings put up, and we're concerned about how this is going to be raising our rent in our area.

A studio apartment that's 550 square feet is going to be $1800 a month, which is very close to what we're paying for our three bedroom apartment right now.

I want you guys to consider that as you're coming to your decision about whether or not this is actually going to represent the community that it's going to be built in.

Hi, I'm Marlena Simon.

I also live at 5999 Dice Street and have the property of Delvin that backs up to this property.

And I guess for me, is that I see all of these renderings and living in Charlottesville since 1992, I don't have faith in it.

I've seen the standard go up.

I've seen all these buildings go with all the promises of what it's going to look like.

I remember when the amphitheater was going to be a movable park that could come in and out and it was going to be this thing and that was all crap.

And so I don't have faith in these drawings because I don't know that somebody who isn't from our town and our neighborhood and speaking from our voices is actually going to believe in it.

Hey guys, I'm Andy James.

I live at the corner of 5th and Dice, 223 5th Street, Southwest.

I'd be happy to give you my phone number and my email address if anyone wants to talk.

So last year, I think it was late December, maybe January, I got this notice in the mail from a traffic calming study with Woodard.

I know this, I'll be very short here.

I got super psyched because I'm like, cool, we might get a grocery store and Piedmont Housing Alliance is talking about this whole space on Cherry Street.

Cool.

I signed up right away.

I was like, hey, I could be a block captain, gave them my phone number, address, email address, everything, which I don't usually like to do.

Anyway, it wasn't until yesterday, and actually today is the first time I've even seen the traffic calming or like some additional, I saw an article in the paper in June about this building.

So I'm kind of like, oh wow, okay.

But unfortunately, I have to say that like,

I've been in this house ten years and it's a vacant house across the street from me owned by some folks that have a nice lovely farm in North Garden and it took me three years to call them public works to get the pigeons cleaned out of the house.

It's an IPP.

You know, but then we have people like the Simons who are awesome neighbors.

They're two doors down from me and the neighbors, our neighbors in between that haven't been here but like.

and all our folks in the association but like I get it like this is happening because I've seen Fightful like you guys again three years it took me to get pigeons out of a vacant house with history but forget the history because like we have the enslaved laborers Memorial now so we can all move on right Dave did his concert and the unite the right went away it's like this building is gonna happen so I just want to say like

You guys, you might want to be careful with this whole, like, we're building a community zone for a third way, and amenities, because I think the people in the neighborhood kind of see through some of that language.

And then also, I could fire-sail my house to any of you guys on this project that are looking for a place, or maybe you could have a parking lot or something, because I've got to get out of this neighborhood, because I can tell how the city is treating this neighborhood, and how the town's their house, made a big deal of it, and then you let it go.

not you guys, I don't mean that personally but anyway I know this is kind of jumbled and confusing but I mean it's like come on man like I signed up to get notice and I just got noticed yesterday only because there's a sign in front of their house a puny little sign that you can't see and a city person who's not really even in charge of any of this stuff named Deborah Willard was nice enough to return a call so I booked a thing on Friday with Caleb Smith who I think is our new traffic engineer and like

I mean, whatever.

This is all really pointless, right?

And I'm like, I'm stoked at these people in the room who, you know, I'd love to be that, but I just know what's going to happen.

So again, like, third way, wonderful.

Amenities, maybe a coffee shop and a lovely courtyard, assuming it's open to the public and not just the residents of the building.

Because, you know,

And again, my house is available.

Fire sale.

I got it.

Cash sale would be great.

If any of you guys are interested, I think you could turn it into a parking lot or somehow incorporate it in your building.

But anyway, thank you.

Yes, please.

I've never been here before.

My name is Cheri Lynn Colby-Botel, and I live on 7 and 1-1-2 Street.

325, Seven and a Half Street Southwest.

I have lived in this neighborhood now for 10 years and we bought the home from our family friends, our chosen kin, and he and his family had lived there for 35.

I have been really honored to learn about our neighborhood.

I want to just echo a few pieces of what's already been said.

In terms of scale and scope, what's being proposed will dwarf the things around it.

We're not going to protect those two IPPs.

I don't have the language right.

We're not going to protect those two little houses.

We're going to envelop them with this.

They're not going to become part of the fabric of the neighborhood.

They're going to be cleaved off.

They're not going to be rehabilitated for the community.

They're going to be, again, enveloped and cleaved off.

Another concern I have though is not just about

those two spaces and how they stand independently, but how those two spaces connect to the rest of the neighborhood.

The neighborhood isn't just a little block here and there.

And again, I'm an anthropologist, not an architect.

So forgive my ignorance with the language.

But those spaces are part of the way that people walk back and forth.

When I walk through my neighborhood, I walk through those spaces.

But they're spaces that are connected to other spaces.

And when I'm in my home in the morning on Sundays,

I hear First Baptist Church.

And when this building goes in, it's going to cleave off that historic church from our neighborhood.

And it's part of our neighborhood.

It's part of the sound of our neighborhood.

It's part of the way people walk and move through our neighborhood.

It's not just these chunks.

It's not about protecting this little chunk and wrapping it up with a big building.

It's about preserving the way that all these pieces work together.

And so I would just want to bring up to you that when we talk about scale and scope and fit,

and protecting, we're not protecting that for the community.

We're protecting that for the development.

And that development isn't there to promote community in Fifeville.

Tonsler Park and building on Cheri and bringing up the ideas about community and how we're supposed to serve each other and build each other up, that protects our community.

Putting in two little buildings that might be storage or a cafe for the residents isn't going to do that.

It's going to cleave off the church.

It's going to change the sound of the neighborhood.

It's going to change the way we walk through the neighborhood.

And that's what I'm concerned about.

So I just wanted to say, please help us to keep investing in our neighborhood.

Help us to keep pulling our neighborhood together with coherence and walkways and sounds and community and people and the way we can move through our neighborhood together without having this large chunk in the middle sort of justified by protecting these two buildings that won't be part of the neighborhood anymore sort of pull us apart.

and work against that goal of building us back together.

I'm here from another anthropologist neighbor.

I'm Lakshmi Fjord, L-A-K-S-H-M-I-F-J-O-R-D.

And I live at the corner of Nall and 7 and 1

Just around the corner from Cheri Lynn.

And I want to echo, I want Cheri Lynn's statements about the atmosphere, the sense of movement, the sense of belonging.

I've only lived there a year.

My family, my immediate family and my extended family,

Livon Nall and Seven and a Half and Dice.

And I was enticed to this neighborhood because the fact that it's so knit.

The people are so friendly.

I lived over on Altamont, north downtown.

The neighbors were not interactive with each other.

There's just such a sense of calling across from porch to porch or calling across the street.

My little granddaughters can run across the street.

I can run across the street.

We can be playing.

They can learn to ride their bikes.

I have a huge concern about the scale and what this will do.

This is a walking neighborhood.

We talk to each other.

We stop in front of each other's houses.

And when you put, again, I think people are using the term scale, and it has multi-facets.

But principally, it's so many stories up in a kind of symbolic way

those residents will be looking down on Fifeville.

And it's not necessarily that they're looking down in a classist or racist way.

They are literally going to be looking down.

They're not gonna be on the ground.

They're not gonna be picking up the litter like I do every single day that gets dropped by people walking through because they won't believe that's their street.

But they will have taken over those two streets.

So another thing I wanted to point to was this notion of precedent, which I'm a great believer in, because I do a lot of environmental justice work.

And we depend on precedents in the legal sense.

So now we have the Environmental Justice Act.

OK, precedent.

But the precedent of the Blue Moon Diner being engulfed by one of, excuse me, this is personal, ugliest buildings in the city.

That's like a zoo.

So I lived in California in the time when the redwoods were like they would have cut down all the redwoods, what they would have a visual of the last redwoods that you could kind of see through, of course.

This is a teeny blue moon diner engulfed.

It doesn't have any place there.

It seems ridiculous.

So please, I know you're architects and landscape architects.

You know this much better than I do.

But that's just faux history.

That's like zoo history.

That's not real in place, holding on to history, no matter what they do, whether the buildings are separate, which is good.

I'm glad they're not backing up on it and building onto them.

But that isn't the point.

These are zoo buildings.

This is not a preservation of history.

Hi, my name is Wendy Gao.

I'm an organizer at FAR.

I first just wanted to thank you all for listening to the residents of West Haven and 10th and Page at the August BAR meeting.

I urge you all to listen to the Fifeville residents today and take seriously how this monstrous building will further gentrify and tower over this historically black neighborhood and also those two tiny homes that you all are legally obligated to consider.

I understand the BAR's purview is supposed to be limited, but the reality that we're all living with is that you all have been tasked with a duty that you didn't anticipate because of blind spots and oversights in the zoning code.

And if that's hard for you to sit with or grapple with, the residents of Fifeville are facing a gigantic concrete wall and students in their neighborhood that none of them anticipated having to live with in their backyard.

You all are the last and only city body between historically black and low income communities like West Haven, 10th and Page, and Fifeville, and these ginormous profit-seeking buy-write buildings that will always be for students.

The city's economic analysis has said so itself at the heights of six, seven, eight stories and above.

Student housing leased by the bedroom is the only kind of housing with enough rent per square foot that will make a profit.

I realize that this is a zoning issue.

Community members and residents have been working and organizing day in and day out showing up to every possible city meeting to make noise about these massive mistakes in the ordinance because they have to be.

Their lives and their homes are at stake.

But until we get it changed, we need the BAR to help us by using all the power and tools you have to recommend maximum design improvements and when the time comes, deny COAs to developments that have real material negative architectural and design impacts on communities below them

and also the two tiny houses in this case.

So the decision we are asking you to make is also entirely in line with the BAR's purview.

I also just wanted to remind that several of you actually did vote for the current zoning ordinance that we're dealing with and you all have publicly admitted remorse for doing so.

So I would also argue that it is your moral responsibility to actually go above what your current authority on the BAR allows you to do because you are responsible partially for all of the threats to this neighborhood that these people are voicing to you.

Ms.

Joy Johnson, the Farboard Chair, could not be here tonight, but she has asked me to say a few words on her behalf.

She wanted to voice her absolute and unwavering solidarity with FIFIL.

She also wanted me to say that she has been looking and waiting for BAR member Cheri Lewis to join us at City Council to fix the zoning code.

Thank you.

I just want to be clear, everybody.

The BAR did not vote on the zoning ordinance.

I did.

As a member of the Planning Commission.

Yes.

Go ahead.

You've heard a lot from my neighbors tonight.

Could you just state your name?

My name is Paul Reader.

I live at 211 5th Street Southwest.

I've lived there for over 10 years.

My property backs on to the luxury student housing development that is being proposed on 7th Street.

My own home will be less than 15 feet away from the back wall of this man's designed building.

I've submitted comments in advance to the BAR on this development which staff distributed last week.

You've heard from my neighbours on this.

We are completely united in our opposition to this travesty of a building.

I'm suggesting that there is a way within your purview for you to hold this development up.

And I don't know whether it will hold it up permanently or temporarily, but as Wendy suggested, some of you have a moral and all of you have an obligation to try to protect the historic black neighborhoods of Charlottesville.

In short, this building is inappropriate in its scale, location, and usage.

You heard earlier from the architects for the developers who have expertly applied their lipstick to this building.

But the building is still a pig.

The architects suggested and discussed in their written presentation the importance of honoring and respecting the small Hawkins-built cottages.

But honor and respect are given freely, not in service to the almighty dollar.

In reality, the proposed development will dwarf, I think somebody used the word engulf, I think that's very appropriate as well, will dwarf and diminish these cottages.

The architects have tempted you to focus on the trees or the benches or the paving or the nice windows or whatever else it might be.

I urge you, instead of focusing on the trees, you need to focus on the forest.

Per the approval process guidelines, you are required to look at the height, scale and mass of the proposal and to judge whether it is visually and architecturally compatible with the Hawking's cottages.

Height, scale and mass.

Further, the Hawking's properties are typical of the historic neighbourhood in which they sit.

Small, modest homes in a walkable neighbourhood.

No building is an island and the cottages should be viewed in the context of their neighborhood.

Viewed from that perspective, the proposal is incompatible, and these again words from your guidelines, with the historic cultural and architectural character of what is a National Historic District of Fifeville.

So the core question is whether the development is appropriate for these historic properties and this historic neighborhood.

There are many reasons why this is a terrible development proposal, but I acknowledge that some of those reasons are beyond your purview.

However, within your purview, per the approval process guidelines, you have a specific reason to decline to issue a certificate of appropriateness.

Please do so.

Hi, my name is Frank Bector.

I'm a resident of Fifeville.

I live at 6 and 1 half and Dice, 304 6 and 1 half street southwest.

Certificate of appropriateness.

That's an interesting phrase.

As a citizen of Charlottesville, I would think, well, that's a good thing to need, a certificate of appropriateness.

I wonder what you all personally think, because it might not be in your actual purview, but what you all personally think, and what you think we all should personally think, that a certificate of appropriateness might, to a large degree, have absolutely nothing to do with whether some architectural proposal is at all appropriate to

the space in which it's going to be put, a neighborhood that's been described.

Appropriate has an interesting related word, appropriation.

It's almost as if you're discussing a certificate of appropriation.

That area is in Fifield.

It's not next to it.

It's in Fifield.

and it's not going to be given to Fifeville residents whatsoever.

Fifeville residents, very vocally, in many ways, in many meetings, have said, along with the rest of Charlottesville in many cases, we need affordable housing.

That's the mandate I believe that the city took on about seven or eight years ago.

It's a very difficult mandate to

accomplish.

How can we do it?

But so we're all evolving.

This board, in some sense, might be evolving along with the community of Charlottesville, as is the community of Fifeville, a smaller neighborhood that meets monthly.

We discuss things.

It's not Kumbaya there.

We have all kinds of different views.

But we are indeed very much united.

I haven't heard a single Fifeville person say anything in favor.

of this development.

I think a certificate of appropriateness, I'm not an expert, must have to do with appropriate to the code, to the zoning.

Is it appropriate to the zoning and appropriate to some narrow questions that were specified by the city staff person?

So I don't know exactly what it has to do with.

But it's odd that it does not have to do, perhaps, with the appropriateness of the proposal to a neighborhood.

Most people here have objected to the finished building.

A little bit was mentioned about actually building the thing.

Is it appropriate in the neighborhood of Fifeville

where at every single entrance to Fifeville, there is a no truck sign that was recently put there by the city traffic coordinator of the city.

Every single, why?

Because trucks cannot make certain turns.

Diesel fuel was spilled into the city's gutters because some truck tried to make this turn and its diesel cooling system was punctured and such.

And this was done just, say, four or five months ago.

We had those signs put up, maybe six or seven months.

Is it appropriate for this building, an absolutely gargantuan building?

It dwarfs anything.

It dwarfs the church there.

The church looks like a hut in comparison to a little cottage next to it.

Is it appropriate for thousands upon thousands of trucks

not just 10.

Do an AI, do a chat GBT about this project, seven stories, 600 beds, on an incline, one-way streets everywhere, narrow streets, railway next to it, train tracks right there.

Just do an AI on that.

It will tell you 5,000 truck trips.

I do think it's appropriate, personally, that each of you might be interviewed by media.

And I know that you can't necessarily speak and probably wouldn't want to speak in terms of your duty on the board.

But I think it would be appropriate that you could say, personally, I do think that the city should change the zoning there.

A mistake was made.

We need to put a halt on this, if only for a while, if only for a couple of years.

The big buildings are being built.

The students of UVA have housing.

It's being built for them.

They don't need it here.

And as was said at a city council meeting the other day, yesterday perhaps it was, students have made a survey saying that 89% of them could not even afford to live in one of these buildings.

Thank you very much for listening to me.

My name is Miles Hingely.

I live on Ridge Street.

I've lived in Fifeville for a long time.

I've lived in Charlottesville for almost 50 years.

It's not true that everyone in Fifeville opposes this building.

It's not true that the people that live in this building are going to look down over Fifeville and be sort of racist and dislike the residents, as was just stated.

It's not true that you guys should not issue the appropriate certificates for these guys to build this building.

As developers, they've spent a lot of money.

Those slides that we looked at were not cheap.

The idea that they want to come in with outside capital into our neighborhood and invest in our neighborhood is a good thing.

We are not going to be able to rely on private development if every time a developer tries to build something in this town, you guys put a huge roadblock in the way.

Does anybody know what they just did to the Violet Crown?

That was going to be a huge development.

Income, taxes, people living, activating the mall.

If I owned a business on the mall, I would want those people there.

What happened?

The developer pulled out of it.

What happened to the development on Tarleton Oak?

Is that happening?

They pulled out of it probably, right?

It was approved.

Well, is it approved?

However, are they developing it?

Those are city-wide issues.

However, part of the city-wide issues for outside development and outside capital as you guys want them.

No one is complaining about seven-story Salvation Army building in our neighborhood.

Not a word has been said about the height, the massing, the trees that are going to get cut down, the traffic.

Nobody cares.

Nobody is upset about that building.

That's seven stories.

Five stories, $3 million of city money.

That's all city taxpayer money.

What we need to do is encourage people with outside capital to come to our city, come to our neighborhood, invest hundreds of millions of dollars in building things where people can live.

And the last thing I'll say is affordable housing, when you build, how many units is this going to be?

How many?

I care.

How many?

A lot.

However many people move into this building are people they're going to move out of.

I live in Fifeville.

I rent places in Fifeville.

If you're a landlord in Fifeville, you don't want this building.

You know why you don't want this building?

Because first year med students, people working in the hospital, they're going to rent buildings in Fifeville for a lot of money.

I know people in Fifeville that rent basements for $1,500, $1,600 to med students.

And those people can afford this building.

But if we don't build it, guess what?

They're going to take up, in this historic neighborhood, it's going to be filled with doctors, first year med students, filled with all the people coming in.

Guess why they want to live there?

They can get on the train and go to New York.

They can walk to the hospital.

This is a place where we need more housing.

And for you guys,

I've been listening to this meeting.

I was listening on Zoom before I got here.

I was kind of at work.

But what you guys need to understand is setting a precedent where we get to tell who develops in our city based on who the people that are going to use the property is, is a slippery slope.

I think it's a bad idea.

I think it opens up to legal challenges.

I know you guys are saying, like, we're not purview for that.

And I know that.

But I know these guys are concerned.

I really feel for them.

If I lived next to this building, I would be crazy.

I would be upset.

That's the way it works.

I live in Fifeville, the zoning code, everybody here had a sign in their yard that said, we want more housing.

If you want more housing, you have to get people with outside capital to build it.

If you refuse, if you put up blocks, the NIMBYism, they don't like NIMBYism, I don't like NIMBYism either.

We need to build the buildings, we need to get outside capital to pay for it, so that we don't have to rely on the city taxpayer to build every single housing unit in this town.

And that's the easiest way to get out of, to get affordable housing, the easiest way to get it is to increase

supply and price goes down.

And if you don't increase supply because you don't like the people that are going to move there, you're not going to get affordable housing.

We can't afford to build affordable housing with taxpayer dollars.

So I think it's, I think you guys just need to think about it.

I think you need to say, this is the law, this is the zoning code that we all passed, that we had debates about, we can't change the rules on these developers.

If we want to change the rules on future developers before they get in the pipeline process, before they spend the money, before they lock up the land, before they spend capital and time, they're just going to go to Roanoke.

They're going to go to Lynchburg.

They're going to go to places where they don't meet resistance and the resistance isn't followed through.

And also, they weren't able to come here, but I know lots of people in Charlottesville and I know lots of people in

Fifeville that are not opposed to this building.

They want students.

They want foot traffic.

They want to go to a coffee shop that has critical mass.

They want to activate West Main Street.

You guys could plant some trees there at some point.

We could have a vibrant, economically active community that does not only involve subsidized housing.

My name is Jenny Ragsdale and I live at 307th Street Southwest, which is right on the corner of 7th and Delavan.

So I'm a little like this is my yard that it's happening in, but I don't mean for it to be just about me.

I could move.

And we've been there 24 years.

and raised our kids there and they're all gone off now.

I just feel like this destroys the neighborhood.

It destroys the feeling of, I've loved this neighborhood since we moved in 24 years ago.

It's been an amazing place and not just that it's my yard, because it is, but it's overwhelming

It's too much.

If it were three stories or four stories or anything less, it would be manageable.

I understand.

I get the reason for density in Charlottesville.

We need to increase density.

We need that.

But this is overwhelming, too much, too luxury.

It's more than this neighborhood can handle.

And it destroys the fabric of this neighborhood.

Anyone else?

Can I just go again?

I think we're limited one time.

My name's Earl Hicks.

I live in the West Haven community.

And all of that fall for Fightville,

And I walk through the Fayetteville neighborhood all the time.

And it's a wonderful neighborhood, a lot of history, historic houses, everything.

And for developers to come and build what they want to build in somebody's backyard, that's invading their privacy.

You know, you got to respect people's yard.